On the whole, audiences prefer that art be not a mirror held up to life, but a Disneyland of the soul, containing Romanceland, Spyland, Pornoland and all the other escapelands which are so much more agreeable than the complex truth

It's like a little potted history of Australian art.

My goal is to make as many films as possible about different aspects of American life.

Our audiences will feel like they are experiencing Sinatra's life first hand,

Writing has nothing to do with pretty manners, and less to do with sportsmanship or restraint [...]
Every writer begins as a subversive, if in nothing more than the antisocial means by which he earns his keep. Finally, every fantasist who cannibalizes himself knows that misfortune is his friend, that grief feeds and sharpens his fancy, that hatred is as sufficient a spur to creation as love (and a world more common) and that without an instinct for lunacy he will come to nothing.

Perfection is intensely annoying. Audiences were ready for a character who didn't obey the usual pieties of modern life.