Art & Creativity Quote by Harold Ramis

Ramis punctures a very Hollywood fantasy: that the people making the thing are the primary audience. He’s talking about ego, sure, but also about a kind of professional humility that’s easy to romanticize and harder to practice when you’re surrounded by money, hype, and your own past wins. “We’d like to believe” is doing quiet work here; it admits the seduction of self-mythology, then refuses it. The line isn’t anti-art, it’s anti-delusion.

The pivot to “Hollywood movies are made for the audience” reads like a blunt mission statement, but the subtext is sharper: the industry is a service business masquerading as auteur culture. Ramis, who built a career on comedy that’s both accessible and smart, is defending craft over self-importance. Comedy especially can’t hide behind “challenging” when it doesn’t land. If the crowd isn’t with you, the film isn’t misunderstood; it’s unfinished.

Then comes the intentionally provocative contrast: “not small European art films.” He’s not sneering at European cinema so much as naming the excuse American filmmakers reach for when they miss the target. Calling something an “art film” can be a way to launder failure into sophistication, to reframe audience rejection as proof of purity. Ramis rejects that alibi. In a town that loves to market itself as dream-factory genius, he insists on a less flattering truth: the dream has customers, and the customers get a vote.