COOK: The genius of the system is its evasiveness.

GRAY: Totally genius, cause now there’s no draft so you have poor brown and black people fighting the war so college students don’t have to give a shit, they can be completely divorced from politics. How does this affect movies? Well, it makes you realize the movies no longer have to convey to us a reality we recognize. Why? Because college students no longer face an imminent life or death situation. They aren’t forced to confront mortality. So they don’t need Five Easy Pieces. They need Avatar: “Cool ride, man.” That’s really where American pictures have changed, because that audience is gone.

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/love-sincerity-a-conversation-with-james-gray