Well, Not Exactly

“A result of all this is that New York’s purveyors of high cinema art have chosen to import from France, Germany, Italy, or wherever, a hand-picked selection of those countries’ intimate, unconventional, or intellectually ambitious movies. There is certainly nothing wrong with a nothing-but-the-best policy for that American elite within the elite which enjoys foreign films. But this has given rise to the notion in a certain American class that Europe produces more subtle, sensitive, mature, intelligent, sophisticated, artistic, culturally elevated films in general (an idea which, if American viewers were exposed to the common run of French and other European movies, would evaporate in days).” [Richard Grenier, Capturing The Culture (Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1991), p. 81].