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.
The greatest nations have all acted like gangsters and the smallest like prostitutes.
The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.
If you can talk brilliantly enough about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.