All the same, probably because of Douchet's influence, in the cinema we only liked the 'classics'. And the worst of it is that I've still got this notion that there's more true modernity in a Walsh western than in a Robbe-Grillet film conundrum. All it comes down to is that I finally gave up the word 'classic' because there has probably never been a classic cinema (in my view there have been pioneers, moderns and mannerists) and put up the idea that if the cinema is the art of this century, a century is too little not to remain and go on being 'the present'.

S.D., "The Smuggler" - Interview with Serge Daney by Philippe Roger