The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that powerful nations often behave aggressively and coercively, while weaker nations are forced to compromise their integrity for survival.
In this quote, Stanley Kubrick draws a parallel between the dynamics of power in international relations and the stark moral compromises often made by those with less power. The metaphorical comparison indicates that great nations, akin to gangsters, exert their influence ruthlessly to get what they want, while smaller nations, likened to prostitutes, may have to exchange their values or autonomy to secure their safety or benefit from the stronger ones. This commentary sheds light on the often harsh realities of geopolitical interactions and the moral dilemmas that arise from such imbalances.
In practice
In a speech discussing the ethics of international relations.
The reality of the final moment, just before shooting [the scene], is so powerful that all previous analysis must yield before the impressions you receive under these circumstances, and unless you use this feedback to your positive advantage, unless you adjust to it, adapt to it and accept the sometimes terrifying weaknesses it can expose, you can never realize the most out of your film.
Because I direct films, I have to live in a major English-speaking production center. That narrows it down to three places: Los Angeles, New York and London. I like New York, but it's inferior to London as a production center. Hollywood is best, but I don't like living there.
I've never achieved spectacular success with a film. My reputation has grown slowly. I suppose you could say that I'm a successful filmmaker-in that a number of people speak well of me. But none of my films have received unanimously positive reviews, and none have done blockbuster business.
A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.
Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.
The essence of dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it's simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.
We judge ourselves by our intentions. And others by their actions.
As long as we insist on relating to it strictly on our own terms-as strange to us or subject to us-the wilderness is alien, threatening, fearful. We have no choice then but to become its exploiters, and to lose, by consequence, our place in it. It is only when, by humility, openness, generosity, courage, we make ourselves able to relate to it on its terms that it ceases to be alien.
Looking at the world from other species' points of view is a cure for the disease of human self-importance. You suddenly realize that consciousness - which we value and we consider the crowning achievement of nature, human consciousness - is really just another set of tools for getting along in the world.
This is what I mean by becoming religious: no guilt, no ego, no trip of any kind...just being herenow...being with the trees and the birds and the rivers and the mountains and the stars.
Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?
Those who have a tolerable knowledge of human nature will not stand in need of such lights.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.