Philip French Quotes

• In "The Myth of Sisyphus", his most important non-fiction work, Albert Camus suggested that if we believed what most people claim to be the purpose of life, we would feel compelled to commit suicide. If, however, we accept that life has no purpose we would be inclined to soldier on in a cussed, stoical manner like Sisyphus, endlessly pushing his rock up a hill only to see it roll down again.

  Philip French

  Life, Death, Suicide

  "Feathered frenzy" by Philip French, www.theguardian.com. December 10, 2005.

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• There is a perversion, much practised in Hollywood movies, that might be called sado-paternalism, whereby a surrogate father treats a gifted but difficult pupil with derision and constant punishment. The aim is to bring out the best in the victim and to make him into a he-man or...a he-woman.

  Philip French

  Father, Men, Hollywood

  "The Guardian" by Philip French, www.theguardian.com. October 14, 2006.

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• Casablanca is back on the big screen in a new print and looks and sounds better as time goes by. It is the product of numerous accidents, all of them happy, and I laugh, cry and have my better instincts appealed to whenever I see it.

  Philip French

  Laughing, Sound, Looks

  "Casablanca" by Philip French, www.theguardian.com. February 17, 2007.

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• The Pink Panther wasn't shown to the press for reasons that soon became apparent when I saw it at a public performance. Two people (20 per cent of the audience) laughed; one was Chinese, the other, whom I couldn't see, might have been an escaped hyena. This laughless francophobic comedy stars its co-scriptwriter, Steve Martin, in what is, by my reckoning, his eighth lousy remake since 1989.

  Philip French

  Stars, Two, People

  "The Pink Panther" by Philip French, www.theguardian.com. March 18, 2006.

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• In the late 1930s, both the British and American movie industries made a succession of films celebrating the decency of the British Empire in order to challenge the threatening tide of Nazism and fascism and also to provide employment for actors from Los Angeles's British colony. The best two were Hollywood's Gunga Din and Britain's The Four Feathers...

  Philip French

  Order, Two, Challenges

  "The Four Feathers" by Philip French, www.theguardian.com. February 17, 2007.

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• The American independent cinema is as formulaic as Hollywood and one genre is what you might call the 'inaction movie'. The setting is invariably a decaying town in a regional backwater where a catalytic stranger or returning native meets up with a group of sad, eccentric outsiders.

  Philip French

  Independent, Genre Is, Cinema

  "Nothing happens, but..." by Philip French, www.theguardian.com. March 27, 2004.

  4 Copy quote

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