Quotes & Sayings About Documentaries

I want to do more documentaries and travel to places I haven't been. That is where I think I can be fulfilled. — Tatjana Patitz

People love watching medical dramas - they also love watching documentaries about the workings of the brain. — James Nesbitt

At the beginning of my career, I shot a lot more documentaries because I liked the adventure, and probably also because it was easier, and still is easier, for women DPs to shoot documentary than it is to shoot fiction. — Maryse Alberti

When I was a teenager, I thought maybe I'll be a filmmaker, making film documentaries. My dream when I was a girl was I would be hired by 'National Geographic' or work with David Attenborough, but it didn't happen. I became a model. — Isabella Rossellini

I had worked in fiction a lot before I started making documentaries, but when I was around 32 or 33-years-old I suddenly got so fed up with the world of fiction, which is so money-centered. — Pirjo Honkasalo

When you make a documentary film, after many years the only thing you remember is what you put into the film, not what you took out. — Pamela Yates

One day I decided to move towards documentaries or to move to more directing in documentaries at this point in my career. Why documentaries? I also love fiction. I would love to direct a fiction movie as well. But I think where I come from, reality is so interesting and has in it so many good stories to tell, this is why I'm doing that. I'm enjoying that. — Dror Moreh

When I was 16, I made some little 35mm documentaries about the poor in London. I went round Notting Hill, which was a real slum in the 1950s, shooting film. — David Suchet

Television has its own award. It's called the Emmy. It's a good award. I like it. I have one. But you don't see movies like 'The King's Speech' win Oscars and then go to TV and qualify for Emmys. In documentaries, some networks have been able to game the system. — Michael Moore

When I do documentaries, my best information ends up on the cutting-room floor. People have trouble dealing with sexual honesty. — Betty Dodson

I feel like my own background in improv and doing documentaries makes me really comfortable with a situation where you're letting things unfold and you don't have to be a jerk, stomping his feet, trying to get his way on everything. — Seth Gordon

For some reason at Sundance, more than other festivals that I'm aware of, you find filmmakers rushing to screen works that sometimes aren't completed. In my seven years of programming at Toronto, I'm not aware of any documentaries that went back for serious editing after their premiere - other than those presented as works-in-progress. But at Sundance every year there seems to be a few films that push the deadline so hard that they get taken back to the edit room afterwards. — Thom Powers

In documentary, which is the only thing I'm really very familiar with, women are very easily relegated into a producer role. — Liz W. Garcia

Virtual reality is the 'ultimate empathy machine.' These experiences are more than documentaries. They're opportunities to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. — Chris Milk

If there were a cultural issue around which, in 1945 itself, a large measure of agreement existed, it was that the new cinema in Europe should be democratic and the inema should never again be allowed to be used, as it had been in Nazi Germany and to a lesser extent Fascist Italy, as an instrument of totalitarian ideology. Over this question it was the Americans who took the lead. Following the Allied combat troops into Italy and France came the spiritual crusaders of the Psychological Warfare Branch (PWB), armed not with guns but with movies, mostly documentaries but also a handful of features, designed to re-educate the peoples of formerly Fascist and occupied Europe about the virtues of democracy. — Geoffrey Nowell-Smith

If I weren't making documentary films, I suppose I'd be teaching. — Brian Lindstrom

There's a tradition of reenactment in documentary which is about sort of illustrating what the past might have been like. — Joshua Oppenheimer

Think that the whole voyeuristic attitude of filmmakers or of me personally - of shooting documentaries and so forth - is an important issue. And it was an important issue to me, personally. And the whole question of when - when do you put the camera down or when do you keep shooting to get the shot. And a number of times in my life I've had that question hit me very hard. — Haskell Wexler

In documentaries, you're confronted with reality; you can not manipulate or move it. — Jean-Pierre Dardenne

I did documentaries for maybe 10 years before I turned to fiction films. — Walter Salles

By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul. — Theodore Bikel

I've always intended to eventually make films. I've always been very aware of tone and shots. But documentaries are a great proving ground for me. — George Ratliff

When I have had a long day at work, I want something to watch that is funny, lighthearted and easy to get into, and reality is that. I'm not really into serious programmes or documentaries. — Amy Childs

Even the best documentaries reach tens of thousands in their cinematic window. I believe that by launching online, we could potentially reach millions. — Sam Branson

In fiction film, there are so many trappings - money, glory, champagne and supermodels - that attract the wolves. But in documentary film, there's none of that, so the wolves stay away. The only people who make docs are people who are curious about other people and just like making documentaries. — Marshall Curry

I've always worked very efficiently on small budgets, both in documentaries and in features. — James Marsh

I don't think of Storefront Hitchcock or Stop Making Sense as documentaries, I think of them more as performance films. — Jonathan Demme

I like giving music-themed gifts. I've given a couple of music documentaries to boys. Especially if they don't have the same taste as me, I try to infiltrate their mind with my favourite bands. — Bella Heathcote

And to be fair, most documentaries are half an hour too long, anyway. Let's not kid ourselves. Most movies are an hour too long. I will say that the internet has changed everything in terms of distribution and because of iTunes and other outlets like that, length is no longer something you really think about, in my opinion. It's irrelevant. — Nicolas Winding Refn

Documentaries - my God, there is so much going on in our country and in the world today that every time you open the newspaper or turn on the radio or watch the news on TV there is another documentary subject. We're getting the headlines for a second, shaped by corporate delivery most of the time, but what's really the story there? — Jonathan Demme

You can always go back and reconstruct stuff in a documentary, but it's so much cooler when you're there as it happens. — Ed Cunningham

I suppose the primary intention of a documentary photographer is to document facts. My work often does this but it is not the primary intention. My intention is to make the best pictorial image I can. — Richard Billingham

My wife likes history and documentaries, but I'm not so keen on them. I generally go and do some work if there's one of those on. — Andrew Davies

My interest in painting is recording things. I think of myself as almost a documentary filmmaker ... I've gotten into some curious situations ... — Jamie Wyeth

I was a TV producer at a noncommercial station, and we were producing some good documentaries - on Head Start, on poverty. But I was struck by the children, and the damage that poverty was doing to them. I didn't think filming them was helping much, so I wondered how we could use TV for them, to teach them. — Joan Ganz Cooney

I've been encouraging documentary filmmakers to use more and more humor, and they're loath to do that because they think if it's a documentary it has to be deadly serious - it has to be like medicine that you're supposed to take. And I think it's what keeps the mass audience from going to documentaries. — Michael Moore

I'm not a fan of the Eagles, but I've watched their documentary numerous times and everyone who's watched it with me has sung along to the songs, much to my dismay. — Bill Hader

I've been producing documentaries on global warming for 20 years and have seen the early warnings of extreme weather events come true. — Bill Kurtis

I'm a huge 'Game of Thrones' fan. I'm really into the 'Colbert Report' and 'Last Week Tonight.' And I really like to get on Netflix and watch, like, TV documentaries about: What happened to the mastodon? Or who was Jack the Ripper? — Scott Michael Foster

When the American documentary filmmaker Donn Alan Pennebaker wanted to do a film on Dylan, Dylan asked him what he'd already done, and Pennebaker answered, Nothing except shots in the street. Dylan asked to see them, and he agreed to let him do the film. — Raymond Depardon

We're bombarded with liberal propaganda 24/7, from the early morning shows, Hollywood movies, documentaries and sitcoms, all major newspapers, fashion magazines, the sports pages, public schools, college professors and administrators, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Unless liberals specifically seek out Ann Coulter books and columns, which I highly recommend, or tune into Fox News or conservative talk radio, they have no idea what conservatives are thinking. — Ann Coulter

I try to learn from both, from features and documentaries. In both cases you have to find a way to make the camera as discreet as possible, and flexible enough to be able to capture the moment when it happens. I know from documentary how to not have a preconceived idea of what the scene could be. — Michel Gondry

You can construct whatever story you want to. Documentaries are constructions, as is all journalism. — Tim Hetherington

A remarkable documentary that's also one of the most beautiful nature films I've seen. — Roger Ebert

A good documentary or educational film is not raw experience. The material has passed the mill of reason, it has been sifted and interpreted. — Rudolf Arnheim

Documentaries can embrace contradictions in a way that journalism can't. — Alex Gibney

When I left 'American Morning' in 2007, I'd focused on doing documentaries. But I thought 'Starting Point' was a great opportunity to be involved in the zeitgeist. — Soledad O'Brien

I've made many documentaries, but prostitution was the hardest in terms of gaining the trust of the people being filmed. — Michael Glawogger

You can't tell by looking at a film-clip whether it is a drama or a documentary without knowing how it was produced. — Errol Morris

In all my documentaries I did all the camera work, but in fiction I didn't want to do it myself. I think the machinery is so heavy and demanding that you would leave the actors alone for a long time. — Pirjo Honkasalo

I became an actor at a very young age, but I also had a deep respect for nature and I think I was sort of a little biologist when I was younger. I watched documentaries on rainforest pollution and the loss of species and habitats for animals around the world. It affected me in a very hardcore, emotional way when I was younger. So, later in life I wanted to continue that path more and investigate and learn more about ecological issues. — Leonardo DiCaprio

I studied directing prior to acting and I've done music videos and documentaries and things that were sort of well-received. — Matthew Gray Gubler

If you haven't guessed yet, my family is made up of ultra-nerds. This is not necessarily a bad thing. We play games like Scrabble and watch documentaries together. I have always known that I am going to college. Yet, there are times when it can get a little embarrassing. As Mom admits, "Re-enacting is the final step before Star Trek conventions." In a couple of years, my family will probably be doing that, too. — Maya Van Wagenen

One of the common themes you will read in interview after interview is the call to keep fighting for your vision. This is a message to women directors, producers, writers - anyone who wants to work in the business. Your voice counts. Your vision matters. — Melissa Silverstein

If we have anything to offer, as filmmakers and as TV makers now, it's this ability to feel as close to a documentary as you can get in a narrative form. — Mark Duplass

When I'm actually making a film and trying to find solutions, I like to watch making-of documentaries about huge films, like 'Gladiator.' That couldn't be more apart from what I'm doing, but you see Ridley Scott facing huge problems and fixing them. — Philippe Falardeau

Research states that we have a two-week window to act after being inspired by an experience, before the brain is compelled to move on. I have always thought [that while some] documentaries I have seen have educated me, [they] have failed to engage and drive me to act in support of the message. — Sam Branson

The great documentary subjects find you, you don't really search for them. — Jeremy Coon

Critics can say what they like about the films, but very often, there's a certain expectation of documentaries that they're supposed to be like PowerPoint presentations. I see documentaries as movies. So when I see some critics writing that we could have done without the recreations altogether - well, perhaps. — Alex Gibney

We didn't really have television when I was a kid. Around 30, I discovered films and started systematically catching up. I collect interesting documentaries and films, and watch a few nights a week. — Bjork

If you acknowledge that filming is an occasion where people express things they might not otherwise express, that offers a much more insightful analysis of why documentaries - even of the fly-on-the-wall variety - are powerful. — Joshua Oppenheimer

When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda. If I wanted to do that, I'd make documentaries. — Norman Jewison

Some of the History Channel's documentaries involve docudrama segments and are highly speculative - but there seems, on the part of the producers, to be a real determination to get at the history behind our past - not the sex, which is left to drama shows and entertainment channels. — Nigel Hamilton

[Documentary photography] is unwittingly literary, because it is nothing other than an observation of contemporary life apprehended at the right moment by an artist capable of seizing it. (1928) — Pierre Mac Orlan

Every year, I'm depressed that so few of the documentaries I've loved break through. — David Edelstein

Post-war filmmakers gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary and Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary. — Michael Moore

In documentaries, there's a truth that unfolds unnaturally, and you get to chronicle it. In narratives, you have to create the situations so that the truth will come out. — Ava DuVernay

I need there to be documentary photographers, because my work is meta-documentary; it is a commentary about the documentary use of photography. — Joan Fontcuberta

People still come to Baltimore and say, "I didn't realize you made documentaries." — John Waters

I love the unexpected and I think that's why documentary is an attractive genre to me because you don't know where it's going to go, so I tend to involve that as much as possible in the production process. — Seth Gordon

I love documentaries and I watch documentaries to no end. — Michael Pena

There's so many documentaries out there right now and everything's exposing wrestling. — Owen Hart

The main reason why I'm a documentary filmmaker is the power of the medium. The most powerful films I've seen have been documentaries. Of course, there are some narrative films that I could never forget, but there are more documentaries that have had that impact on me. — Richard Ray Perez

I had the most incredible English and literature teachers in school, and it really influenced my love of storytelling. It's what made me excited to study journalism in college. I love editorials and documentaries. All of that came from being given the opportunity to lose myself in good writing when I was a kid. — Sophia Bush

A film is not a documentary. And what's wonderful about film is that it's a real provocation for people. I never, ever see film as being an absolute version of the truth. — Cate Blanchett

I have always felt that documentaries are an opportunity for me to witness a world that I know nothing about. — Chris Hegedus

I think I did fifteen long features and fifteen documentaries, or something like this, which is very little when you think of people making a film every year. Some people have done fifty or sixty films. — Agnes Varda

I think most documentaries are too long. — Marshall Curry

To the documentary director the appearance of things and people is only superficial. It is the meaning behind the thing and the significance underlying the person that occupy his attention ... Documentary approach to cinema differs from that of story-film not in its disregard for craftsman-ship, but in the purpose to which that craftsmanship is put. Documentary is a trade just as carpentry or pot-making. The pot-maker makes pots, and the documentarian documentaries. — Paul Rotha

Everyone is looking for the answer. They do not want to find the answer, trust me. Unfortunately, the answer will find them. Life - it's like one of those unpleasant nature documentaries. To be the cameraman instead of the subjects, eh? — Laird Barron

There's a plethora of wonderful documentaries. I made a point of not looking at anyone else's portrayal of Henry because I think it would have been too confusing - so I've got a lot of films to look forward to. — Eric Bana

We lived a lovely, middle-class, suburban life in Philadelphia. And I really thought that the TV programs of the '50s, like 'Father Knows Best' and 'The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet' Nelson were documentaries filmed with hidden cameras in our neighborhood. — Richard Corliss

I love documentaries, I like observing real people. — Tracey Ullman

As I get older it gets harder and harder to hold on to the ephemeral excitement. When a documentary, or a screenplay, or even just a brainstorming session is going well I get to experience sense of hope, and expansiveness, even if it's just for a moment. — Andrew Neel

A lot of the commercials that I was doing were very slice-of-life, emotional, documentary-style, not big and cinematic and ultimately like the kind of movie I wanted to make. — Dan Trachtenberg

I love these sort of documentaries, which you might turn on late on a Saturday night - like, say, 'The Alma Cogan Story.' But they are ripe for spoofing, because the presenters are always so serious and anxious to make themselves look like rather attractive and interesting people. — Peter Capaldi

It's said that if two documentary filmmakers meet they talk about the world, if two fiction filmmakers meet they talk about the million that they don't have to make their film. — Pirjo Honkasalo

My background is sociology. Combined with my graphic approach, if I could do some film projects, I think I'd be very good at making documentaries eventually, but people don't think of me for that, of course. But dialogue is something I know I can be good at. — David Carson

Reportage is interesting only when placed in a fictional context, but fiction is interesting only if it is validated by a documentary context. — Jean-Luc Godard

I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go. — Jonathan Demme

I would like to clarify one thing about the 1970 USC game. Talk about urban legend. There have been numerous stories and documentaries about Coach going to the USC dressing room after that game and bringing Sam Cunningham back into our locker room and saying, "This is what a real football player looks like." I was there and it didn't happen. It wasn't unusual for Coach Bryant to go to a visiting locker area after a game and congratulate the other team if they beat us and he did do that after the game. But he never brought anyone back to our dressing room. — Mal Moore With Steve Townsend

I could sit and watch nature documentaries with Jenks and the kids the rest of the night if I wanted. And trust me, watching a dozen pixies scream as a crocodile chomped on a zebra was something not to be missed. They invariably cheered for the crocodile, not the zebra. — Kim Harrison

Documentaries deal with people who live real, everyday lives. But if these people trusted us and told us the truth about their lives, it could be used against them - which sometimes happened. — Krzysztof Kieslowski

My father was an amateur filmmaker who shot 8mm color documentaries. — Lasse Hallstrom

From time to time you'll see documentaries about low-ranked wolves who somehow rise to the top of the pack - an omega that earns a position as an alpha. Frankly, I don't buy it. I think that, in actuality, those documentary makers have misidentified the wolf in the first place. For example, an alpha personality, to the man on the street, is usually considered bold and take-charge and forceful. In the wolf world, though that describes the beta rank. Likewise, an omega wolf - a bottom-ranking, timid, nervous animal - can often be confused with a wolf who hangs behind the others, wary, protecting himself, trying to figure out the Big Picture.
Or in other words: There are no fairy tales in the wild, no Cinderella stories. The lowly wolf that seems to rise to the top of the pack was really an alpha all along. — Jodi Picoult

Documentaries have always inspired me in narrative filmmaking. — Griffin Dunne

Every documentary is subjective. It's a total lie to say there are objective documentaries. — Pirjo Honkasalo

I dont see why people are so snooty about Channel Five. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War. It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap-dancing, and other related and vital subjects — Boris Johnson

That's why I have always admired documentaries, because they open windows that can make you understand much better where you come from, much better than fiction, I think. — Walter Salles

I've long been a fan of IMAX nature documentaries, but Humpback Whales, directed by Greg MacGillivray, is something special. — Joe Morgenstern