A Quote by Camille Paglia

Hollywood movies of the Fifties, like The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, with their epic clash of pagan and Judeo-Christian cultures, tell more about art and society than the French-infatuated ideologues who have made a travesty of the "best" American higher criticism.
I was reared on American TV and films. There was a huge sense of occasion about going to the cinema in Moy in the late 1950s and early '60s, and I absolutely loved those Hollywood sword-and-sandal movies like Ben-Hur and the dime-a-dozen cowboy-and-Indian films, as we then referred to them.
You cannot have another 'Ten Commandments' or 'Ben Hur' or 'Sholay' or 'Mother India.' Likewise you cannot have another 'Mahabharat.'
I sometimes call my new system 'Italian pagan Catholicism,' but it could more accurately be called 'pragmatic liberalism,' with roots in Enlightenment political philosophy. It is a synthesis of the enduring dual elements in our culture, pagan and Judeo-Christian, Romantic and Classic.
Sure, I watched a lot of Hollywood movies. Maybe I've seen more Hollywood movies than French movies
Sure, I watched a lot of Hollywood movies. Maybe I've seen more Hollywood movies than French movies.
When people think of biblical movies, they imagine sweeping epics like 'The Ten Commandments.' But 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew' is essentially a documentary about Jesus. It made me aware of how real life and personal experience can create more breathtaking, sensitive cinema than more sophisticated techniques.
ELANTRIS is a new BEN HUR for the fantasy genre, with a sweeping, epic storyline and closely personal characters.
When we talk about the Judeo-Christian or the Judeo-Muslim tradition, it's important to remember that we are speaking of a Jewish component of civilization, but not in itself a civilization. What is happening now in Israel is that you have a coming together of Jews from the Christian world and Jews from the Muslim world with different cultures.
I didn't want to be an actor. I wanted to design historical movies like 'Ben-Hur'. I saw this as my life.
The corporate system dictates what gets made, and the movies are so bad because of the economic structure of Hollywood. The big business takeover of Hollywood is at fault rather than American storytellers - it's what keeps textured movies from getting made.
Although I'm not Christian, I was raised Christian. I'm an atheist, with a slight Buddhist leaning. I've got a very strong sense of morality - it's just a different morality than the loud voices of the Christian morality.... I can't tell you how many films I've turned down because there was an absence of morality. And I don't mean that from any sort of Judeo-Christian-Muslim point of view. I'm not saying they're wrong and can't be made. But, fundamentally, I'm such a humanist that I can't bear to make films that make us feel humanity is more dark than it is light.
Far be it for the public schools to teach this, but the U.S.A. was founded on basic Judeo-Christian principles. Don't believe me - take a trip to Washington D.C. and tour the Supreme Court building. There you will see a sculpted copy of the Ten Commandments on the wall.
Ben Hur, who said to his sister Ben Him, We'd better swap names before they start calling me Ben Gay! Never got a dinner!
The first movie I saw - and I don't know if it influenced me - was Ben Hur. We watched it outside in a corn field, and it ran backwards, so the first movie I ever saw was Ben Hur backwards.
The first movie I saw - and I don't know if it influenced me - was Ben Hur. We watched it outside in a corn field, and it ran backwards. So the first movie I ever saw was Ben Hur, backwards.
Maybe I've seen more Hollywood movies than French movies.
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