Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I love submarine movies.
I suppose that I'm easily bored.
I don't read many young adult books.
You can relate to someone with a flaw.
If you can understand, you can feel compassion.
I think there's always been interest in Bob Marley.
I think my brother always wanted to be a film producer.
Everyone's got to make one submarine drama in their life.
I started as a documentary maker, and they're my first love.
In film, I believe things should either be documentary or drama.
I suppose making documentaries is like doing journalism on film.
What got me into making movies was that I wanted to be a journalist.
We should not confuse having a Flip camera with making a documentary.
I'm a cynical person who's normally attracted to the dark side of things.
If there's a principle really worth sticking up for, I'll go the whole way.
Every film that is made about the past is always a reflection of the present.
If you want to do 'Sword & Sandals' movies, people think that means it equals 'epic.'
I used the same designer and costume designer on 'The Eagle' and 'The Last King of Scotland.'
I recommend to any of you, that's always a good way to make a film: use the interesting bits.
I like to take a little of what I learned in fiction and apply it to documentary and vice versa.
The submarine genre is a category with all its own rules. But shooting on water is famously tough.
Documentary makers use other people's lives as their raw material, and that is morally indefensible.
Put someone on a horse looking cold and wet, and they don't have to act. They just are cold and wet.
Most people in Uganda have something good to say about Amin - 'He was funny; he gave us pride to be African.'
For me, the aim of making any film like this, any film about an artist, would be to send you back to the art.
It's obviously presumptuous in some ways to talk about somebody's sexuality who's not here to describe themselves.
I love Humphrey Jennings. People ask me who my favorite documentary maker is, and he's certainly in the top three.
It's always nice to have the same people that you are familiar with and shorthand with, obviously, to be around you.
I think we're all greedy. Who do you know who says, 'I have enough! I don't need any more!'? It's part of human nature.
I can't claim my grandfather's work has influenced mine directly, but his life certainly inspired me to follow this path.
'Uprising' was one of the first three or four albums I ever bought in 1980 when I was 13, and that had a strong impact on me.
I find it really difficult when you make a movie where it is set in Russia and everyone speaks in English. It drives me crazy.
The great thing about making a film on a submarine is that it's kind of like making a play. You've got this limited environment.
There were many times during the filming of 'Touching the Void' when I wondered why I had ever thought I wanted to make this film.
There's something about the lack of certainty with a documentary, which is exhausting if you do three in a row. It's nerve-wracking.
When you look at almost every submarine movie, to some degree or another, there's this 'Moby Dick' element, this Ahab element to them.
If you go to pretty much everywhere in the developing world, you will find Bob Marley murals, and you'll find people playing his music.
I think the parallels of a giant power with overwhelming military superiority and might, with America and Rome, it seems obvious to me.
For everybody in the world, the answers to the mysteries in your life usually lie in your childhood, your upbringing, and your parents.
The only obligation you have as a film-maker is to tell your version of the truth and to use your film to illuminate reality. Whatever that means.
It's interesting to me that the Arab Spring started in Tunisia, and in the marches, people were singing 'Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights.'
With 'Black Sea,' I long had an idea that I wanted to do a film about people stuck on the bottom of the ocean. I thought that was a terrifying scenario.
John Lennon made wonderful music, which people listen to as music. Nobody around the world is living their life according to the precepts of John Lennon.
When you're an outsider and going into a culture like America, it's easier to stay away from any cliches because you're not really aware of what they are.
I've done a few celebrity-related things, and I think on the first one - about Mick Jagger - I got stung and was not able to make the film I wanted to make.
We're all fascinated by the way other people live their lives, how they cope with hardship and triumph, what they put in their home movies and family albums.
The relationship between director and subject can become very intense. It's a bit like therapy, with lots of transferences going on. It's easy to feel guilty.
When I was growing up on Loch Lomondside, one of the first albums I ever bought was Marley's 'Uprising.' I guess that would have been 1980 - just before he died.
In some ways, making documentaries is like being a journalist. You interview people and then use the bits you want to use as opposed to the bits they want you to use.
You can get good performances in quite sizable roles from people who have never been in front of a camera, people who maybe have never been in front of a movie theater.