Art & Creativity Quote by Paul Hirsch

There is something almost suspiciously disciplined in Hirsch's preference for silence: it treats art the way a seasoned politician treats a speech draft - strip the applause lines and see if the argument still stands. His point is technical on the surface (music can "mask" pace), but the subtext is moral: he distrusts emotional scaffolding. If the rhythm isn't legible without a score telling you when to feel tension or release, then the work is borrowing authority it hasn't earned.

That instinct maps neatly onto politics in Hirsch's era, when mass persuasion was learning to use new tools - rallies, newspapers, spectacle - to move crowds faster than careful deliberation ever could. Music becomes a metaphor for messaging: a beautiful wash that can make weak structure feel inevitable. By removing it, he insists on confronting the film's actual engine: timing, breath, the length of a look, the cut that lands or doesn't. Silence is his lie detector.

The intent, then, isn't anti-music so much as pro-accountability. Hirsch is arguing for a kind of democratic editing ethic: let the audience's attention be guided by what happens, not by what is added to steer them. It's a reminder that persuasion is often most effective when it's least noticeable, and that the most honest rhythm - in cinema or governance - can survive without a soundtrack telling you it's working.