Madame X presents, in an intensified form, a common problem of movie interpretation. Children sometimes interpret movies in terms of what they see on the screen, and the adults with them often try to explain what they are supposed to see, so that the children will be able to follow the plot … In general, the wider the gap, the less the con - nection the movie has with art or talent or any forms of honesty …

Stage life is artificially simple and well understood by the masses; but it is very stale; its feeling is conventional; it is totally unsuggestive of thought because all its conclusions are foregone … Real life, on the other hand, is so ill understood, even by its clearest observers, that no sort of consistency is discoverable in it; there is no “natural justice” corresponding to that simple and pleasant concept, “poetic justice”; and, as a whole, it is unthinkable. But, on the other hand, it is credible, stimulating, suggestive, various, free from creeds and systems – in short, it is real.