“A terrifying number of Americans, most of them in all innocence of the fact, are much more ripe for benevolent dictatorship—and every dictatorship is seen as benevolent by those who support it—than for the most elementary realization of the meanings, hopes, and liabilities of democracy.” — James Agee, 1947
James Agee, review of The Roosevelt Story, (originally collected in Agee on Film: Reviews and Comments) in James Agee, edited by Michael Sragow (New York: Library of America, 2005), 318.
Agee was a regular contributor to The Nation, Fortune, Time, and Life, and wrote the screenplays for The African Queen (1951, directed by John Huston) and The Night of the Hunter (1955, directed by Charles Laughton). He wrote the text for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), with photographs by Walker Evans, who took the photograph below.
See: newyorker.com/a-famous-man
