The article by Bunuel is short and is worth reading in its entirety: Luis Buñuel "A
Statement" (1960).

Bunuel also says inter-alia:

Unfortunately, the great majority of today’s films… glory in an
intellectual and moral vacuum. In this vacuum, movies seem to prosper… 
If a man in the audience shares the joys and sorrows of a character on the
screen, it should be because that character reflects the joys and sorrows of
all society and so the personal feelings of that man in the audience.
Unemployment, insecurity, the fear of war, social injustice, etc., affect
all men of our time, and thus, they also affect the individual spectator.

Sadly nothing has changed in nearly 50 years - not only in Hollywood but elsewhere.

Ironically though, in Bunuel’s case, like many others film-makers, including Orson Welles, he never made a movie that appealed to a “man in the audience”. This is the tragedy of much of the film-making that aspires to a grander vision: they are too intellectual and distant from the lives of everyman. For a film to connect with the audience, there must be an emotive and shared experience, not intellectual musing and cold detachment where technique overwhelms deeper universal meaning.