Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language. ↗
I believed in realism, as summarized by John McCarthy's comment to the effect that if we worked really hard, we'd have an intelligent system in from four to four hundred years. ↗
But I also wanted to give them an intelligent emotional journey, without having to suspend reality - to be able to look at those characters and see reasons for the relationships and why what happens happens. ↗
What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy? ↗