Quotes

[reviewing "Station Six - Sahara", 1963]: Quite a number of talented people have been engaged on this assignment and they are to be complimented on the monumental self-discipline that prevents them from playing the entire thing for laughs. Seth Holt, who is a most capable director, gives a fine impression of a man struggling doggedly against the tide.

[on Louis Malle, 1964]: With "Le Feu Follet", Louis Malle takes his place among the masters. Being young, he has time to make further mistakes, if need be, and to survive them; but just now, he has arrived at one superlative work which belongs among the great films of all time.

[on Orson Welles, 1967]: At the time of "Citizen Kane", I was sure, and then, over the years, I doubted slightly, but now I am certain again that no greater man of the cinema has ever lived. "Chimes At Midnight" is a masterpiece.

[reviewing Robert Bresson's "The Trial Of Joan Of Arc", 1963]: The cinema is too great a medium to be restricted by rules, of course. Even the good rule that movies must move can be broken to useful effect, but not at such length as this. As it happens, by the current yardstick, "Le Proces De Jeanne D'Arc" is quite a short film, yet to me it seemed interminable.