Verite Quotes & Sayings

Air is no less heavy because we do not detect its weight. — Union Pour La Verite

There were a lot of unique challenges in producing the film, such as the logistical issues inherent in producing a long-term verite film in Pakistan, dealing with Urdu and Punjabi dialogue with an English-speaking editor and all the difficulties in recording, editing and clearing so many music tracks. — Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life. — John Muir

I do not believe in the Cinema verite. Sometimes a really good lie is better than any truth. — Werner Herzog

There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization. — Werner Herzog

Someone has said that all the great jugglers are dead. — Ronald Graham

A Warrior never accepts what is unacceptable. — Paulo Coelho

I think it's a great pity in the Anglophone world that we conflate cinema verite and Direct Cinema; they're, in fact, ontological opposites. In Direct Cinema, we create a fictional reality with characters and pretend we're not that. — Joshua Oppenheimer

Ben Scott couldn't be afraid of the supernatural. He didn't believe in the supernatural. Ben Scott was firmly convinced that he didn't believe in anything, — Jan-Andrew Henderson

The Marines have been the first to land-on embattled beaches throughout the world-we share the unfaltering confidence of all Americans that they will land again-and land hard. — Herbert F. Leary

But steady-cams are very different than hand-helds, because hand-held gives you that verite feel. — Darren Aronofsky

I don't think there's any border between science and art. All the fiction films I have made were always on the same subject, - a discovery of the "Other," an exploration of difference. — Jean Rouch

For seven years, I made films in the cinema verite tradition - photographing what was happening without manipulating it. Then I realised I wanted to make things happen for myself, through feature films. — Mira Nair

G.O.O.D. Music is just real tastemakers, man. Kanye's a real tastemaker. One thing that I feel is tight about G.O.O.D. is that a lot of people have their own style, and you can see that. My style is different than Pusha's, it's different than Cudi's. But it's also slightly similar 'cause we have some similar tastes. — Big Sean

Video looks like reality, it's more immediate, it has a verite surface to it. Film has this liquid kind of surface, feels like something made up. — Michael Mann

The opposite of what is noised about concerning men and things is often the truth.
[Fr., Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires ou des personnes est souvent la verite.] — Jean De La Bruyere

Realism is always subjective in film. There's no such thing as cinema verite. — Crispin Glover

I think that narrative, fiction filmmaking is the culmination of several art forms: theater, art history, architecture. Whereas doc filmmaking is more pure cinema, like cinema verite is film in its purest form. — George Hickenlooper

Campaign may invite a certain skepticism about democracy, but it will surely restore your faith in cinema verite. — A.O. Scott

Piter: Ah-ah, Baron! Is it not regrettable you were unable to devise this delicious scheme by yourself?
Baron: Someday I will have you strangled, Piter.
Piter: Of a certainty, Baron. Enfin! But a kind act is never lost, eh?
Baron: Have you been chewing verite or semuta, Piter? — Frank Herbert

She whispered, 'C'etait la Verite?' Was that Verity? Or perhaps she just meant, Was that the truth? Was it true? Did any of it really happen? Were the last three hours real? 'Yes,' I whispered back. 'Oui. C'etait la verite. — Elizabeth Wein

I think Direct Cinema's trying to be insightful by looking at reality in a very close way while, in fact, much more is staged than we like to think. In cinema verite, it's about trying to make something invisible visible - the role of fantasy and imagination in everyday life. — Joshua Oppenheimer

I'm very private in person. I'm very sensitive and shy with men individually. But when I'm talking, maybe there's this other channel or this other side and other way of working in my mind, and I convert and become carefree. — Bai Ling

I came from the school of cinema verite documentaries, which was: Do not manipulate reality as it was happening but create a narrative in the editing room. — Mira Nair

One of the things you never really see in a romance book is a woman who has self-esteem issues. I mean, I'm sure they're out there, but they're few and far between. Like they can have eating disorders, post-traumatic stress from sexual assault or mental abuse. They can be sold into sex trafficking and they can carry epic amounts of grief. We have female characters who have suffered every loss imaginable and ones who are scarred physically and mentality, but where in the hell are the average women? Ones who look in the mirror and cringe a little? Like, why are all those others acceptable to women, but reading or knowing another woman who has a low self-esteem is, like, worse than all that drama llama? — J. Lynn

I was inspired by Maya Deren because she was the first woman filmmaker whose films I saw. I also loved Fellini and Goddard because they were so different from Hollywood films. But when I saw the cinema verite films that were made by Drew Associates with Leacock and Pennebaker I found my passion. — Chris Hegedus

I look at the human sciences as poetic sciences in which there is no objectivity, and I see film as not being objective, and cinema verite as a cinema of lies that depends on the art of telling yourself lies. If you're a good storyteller then the lie is more true than reality, and if you're a bad one, the truth is worse than a half lie. — Jean Rouch