“[T]he creation of the greatest works of art . . . are inevitably linked to a certain general tension of human thought, directed in a precise orientation. The birth of such a work is produced as if in an incandescent atmosphere which arrives at the critical temperature where, like a sudden deflagration, the chemical reaction produces a new quality. And like the blinding light and thunder which suddenly render visible and audible the electric tension accumulated in the clouds, the great work of art, in a powerful discharge, expresses what was in process of being born, growing, and accumulating force in thousands of human brains.”

—Vsevolod Pudovkin (1893-1953), The Force of Poetry; Cinema In Revolution, edited by Luda and Jean Schnitzer and Marcel Martin, translated by David Robinson, 1973.