Top 15 Quotes & Sayings by Kevin Brownlow

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British historian Kevin Brownlow.

Last updated on November 7, 2024.

Kevin Brownlow is a British film historian, television documentary-maker, filmmaker, author, and film editor. He is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era, having become interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent documenting and restoring film. Brownlow has rescued many silent films and their history. His initiative in interviewing many largely forgotten, elderly film pioneers in the 1960s and 1970s preserved a legacy of early mass-entertainment cinema. He received an Academy Honorary Award at the 2nd Annual Governors Awards given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on 13 November 2010. This was the first occasion on which an Academy Honorary Award was given to a film preservationist.

British - Historian | Born: June 2, 1938

Source: Wikipedia

To me, film is a religion. I don't expect to get paid to make it, but I do expect total dedication.

Kevin Brownlow

Some directors were brilliant in the silent era but never felt at home in sound. It's like a sculptor being forced to take up painting.

Kevin Brownlow

The reason I put so much energy into it at the beginning was that while there were plenty of people looking after the talkies, almost nobody was doing the same for the silents. Now there are plenty of very good historians and restorers.

Kevin Brownlow

My first restoration was on 'Napoleon,' trying to put the French version in with the English version, and it was most unsatisfactory.

Kevin Brownlow

I decided to restore 'Napoleon' after a widescreen festival at the Odeon Leicester Square in 1968. It was run by Richard Arnell and George Dunning, who animated and directed 'Yellow Submarine,' and they'd got their hands on the last scene, the triptychs. They just showed that part, without music and with the projectors misaligned.

Kevin Brownlow

I realised that you could easily turn any room into a cinema with a projector, so I went on and on at my parents for one. They eventually got me a projector for Christmas when I was ten, and I realised I'd made a ridiculous mistake - I'd forgotten to say 'movie' projector; I got a still one.

Kevin Brownlow

'Napoleon' is pure cinema, and cinema was designed for sharing.

Kevin Brownlow

Silent pictures show us how we lived and what our attitudes were. And as an art form, they can be wonderfully entertaining and often inspirational.

Kevin Brownlow

Somebody said that part of my reaction to British cinema is actually, paradoxically, a patriotic one. I'm so disappointed that we're not better.

Kevin Brownlow

It was 1953, and I was still at school. I'd borrowed a silent French film from the library for my 9.5mm projector. It was by Jean Epstein, and it was awful. So I rang the library and asked if they had anything else. They said they had 'Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution.'

Kevin Brownlow

I was sent to boarding school - a grim place. The only good thing the headmaster did for us was every Sunday evening in the winter he would show us films in the chapel. He couldn't afford a sound projector, so we saw silent films, which you could then still rent from photographic shops.

Kevin Brownlow

Friends told me not to bother with the silents - they're jerky, poorly photographed and ludicrously badly acted. But I was immediately struck by the freshness and vitality of these films.

Kevin Brownlow

My first restoration was on Napoleon, trying to put the French version in with the English version, and it was most unsatisfactory.

Kevin Brownlow

I thought Michael Mortilla was an orchestra unto himself!

Kevin Brownlow

Napoleon is pure cinema, and cinema was designed for sharing.

Kevin Brownlow