On the Movies

"Whether we realize it or not, movies often tell us what we think about ourselves. There's a contradiction in the way that we, as an audience, approach movies. They're made primarily for fantasy and yet we look to them to reflect our reality. They become a sort of wish fulfillment, a representation of a life that doesn't necessarily exist but one which we've been taught to want. On the one hand, you can always say 'It's only a movie.' On the other hand, it's a barometer of what we, as a people, think and believe about the ways in which we live."-- Film historian Vito Russo (1946-1990), from The Celluloid Closet (documentary, 1995).