I say nothing new when I assert that realism has been central to the last hundred and fifty years or so in the history of art. Realism, of course, is not only an approach to representing people and things but also a view of the world. And I think it fair to say that in no medium has this view been so cheapened as in film. In film you can excuse anything, explain anything, fake anything – you can get away with anything, no matter how extreme, repulsive, or degrading – simply by calling it realistic.

A case in point is Die Hard II, a movie popular with many different audiences, or so I heard at the time of its release in 1990. It takes place within about five hours in and around an airport. The hero, played by Bruce Willis, goes through a whole series of beatings and fights: he is shot at, he jumps from great heights, he experiences things that would hospitalize the young Arnold Schwarzenegger within five minutes. Still, our hero persists, and all of the fantasy – it's the sheerest fantasy – is passed off as realism, simply because the setting seems to be a real airport and the actors are real human beings. Bolts and nuts, bodies and heads, are discernible. Yet the whole affair is more fantastic than The Arabian Nights; indeed, it's hard to take any film seriously when virtually all of its characters are involved in the violence, when all but the hero are shot and killed.