Politics & Power Quote by Arthur Cohn

The line lands like a cold shower on the romance of “getting a movie made.” Arthur Cohn, a producer who lived through the prestige era of international cinema colliding with Hollywood’s machine, isn’t talking about art at all. He’s talking about power: the difference between a film as an object and a film as an event. In America, he implies, a movie doesn’t truly exist until someone with leverage agrees to turn it into a product the culture can’t ignore.

The bluntness is the point. “Means precisely nothing” is a deliberately absolutist phrase, less argument than warning. Cohn is puncturing the feel-good mythology of festival applause and critical validation. A film can win prizes, generate buzz, even be “in America” physically or legally, and still be invisible. Distribution isn’t an administrative step; it’s the gatekeeping mechanism that decides what gets screens, marketing spend, press access, and awards campaigns. In other words: what becomes legible as cinema to the public.

The subtext is also about risk and responsibility. “Stands behind it” isn’t just logistics; it’s advocacy. A distributor who truly backs a film commits political capital, money, and messaging, shaping how audiences are instructed to see it. Cohn’s producer pragmatism peeks through: filmmaking is only half the job, and sometimes the smaller half.

Contextually, it reads like an immigrant-savvy diagnosis of the U.S. market: huge, noisy, and indifferent unless someone buys you a megaphone. The quote is less cynical than it is operational truth, spoken by someone who has watched great films disappear simply because nobody powerful wanted to fight for them.