Life & Wisdom Quote by Ann Macbeth

A small sentence with the sting of an indictment, Ann Macbeth frames absence as policy. “We are the only state” is doing the heavy lifting: it’s a comparative shaming tactic, less a statistic than a dare. The line treats cultural infrastructure the way other lobbyists talk about roads or ports. If everyone else has built the ramp, why are we pretending the market can haul the whole industry uphill on its own?

Macbeth’s specific intent is practical: argue for a State Film Corporation as a public instrument to stabilize an inherently risky, capital-hungry business. Film isn’t just art here; it’s jobs, exportable identity, and modern prestige. Calling it “commercial industry” is strategic, too. She’s pre-empting the easy dismissal of cinema as frivolous entertainment by placing it in the vocabulary of economic development and industrial competitiveness.

The subtext is sharper: cultural production doesn’t “naturally” flourish; it gets engineered. Without public backing, local creators become tenants in someone else’s system, feeding talent to better-funded centers. The word “support” signals a belief that the state’s role isn’t to censor or decorate but to underwrite risk, coordinate investment, and keep ownership closer to home.

Context matters. Macbeth is speaking from an era when national cinemas were being organized through institutions, quotas, and public money, while Hollywood’s scale was becoming impossible to ignore. Her complaint is less nostalgia than a warning: without a deliberate apparatus, the screen will fill anyway - just with other people’s stories, other people’s profits, and a public that gets used to thinking that’s normal.