Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My imagination has always been inspired by nature’s vision
The most powerful narcotic in the world is the promise of belonging.
I believe that one of the most powerful things of all is aesthetics.
The global economy is a doomsday machine that must be stopped and reprogrammed.
The whales do not sing because they have an answer, they sing because they have a song.
I want to live in a world where human beings, not corporate entities, create the future.
The magic of documentary is that I keep being surprised and amazed by the things I film.
Is it only humans that look up with wonder at the stars and the vastness of the universe?
I have invented nothing. I have simply documented a magical alchemy that I want to share.
Feather to fire,fire to blood Blood to bone,bone to marrow Marrow to ashes,ashes to snow...
I spent all my time at school in the library. Bad teachers can teach you to learn on your own.
The commercial media are to the mental environment what factories are to the physical environment
In the global marketplace of the future the price of every product will tell the ecological truth.
I don't make 'issue' films. I like making films about rebels or pioneers or people that are doing something.
It's a measure of the depth of our consumer trance that the death of the planet is not sufficient to break it.
When I started Ashes and Snow in 1992, I set out to explore the relationship between man and animals from the inside out.
This is what I love about the Kimberley... wild gorges, fresh water and there's always a chance of a barra taking your lure.
In the Soviet Union you weren't allowed to speak out against the government. In the US you cannot speak out against sponsors.
The stars you see at night are the unblinking eyes of sleeping elephants, who sleep with one eye open to best keep watch over us.
The change doesn't come from Washington ever. Change comes from below. It comes from the pressure building amongst the American people.
I remember very clearly when I found my first soulmate, it was actually in my late 20s, that wonderful feeling of being accepted by people.
Jamming a coin into a monopoly newspaper box or liberating a billboard in the middle of the night can be a rather honest and joyful thing to do.
Corporations are not legal "persons" with constitutional rights and freedoms of their own, but legal fictions that we created and must therefore control.
Overconsumption is the mother of all environmental problems. For the first time in the history of capitalism, consumption itself has become controversial.
Personally, I don't like watching films about victims - people where you're meant to think, 'Oh, this is terrible,' and you go home feeling really depressed.
I know that sounds contradictory - you're going on a journey, but once you know who your characters are, you become more disciplined and you film less and less.
If you look at Paleolithic cave paintings, you see how people were depicted inside nature, not outside it. It was a kind of dream time. That's what I'm exploring.
We need to renegotiate our contract with nature. Ecology is a unifying force that can diminish intolerance and expand our empathy towards others - both human and animal.
I don't have any advice at all. I think we all make the films that reflect the kind of people we are; we all make such different films. There's not just one way of doing it.
The places where we went, it was not safe to be any bigger than a two-person crew. In Afghanistan, the only way for us to operate was to try to fly under the radar of everyone.
In every country, it's different, and you have to be flexible and slow and careful, and in the end rely on the experience of others who have gone before you and have begun to figure these things out.
Those are the films I want to make. I don't want to make a film about, "Oh, those poor prostitutes!" Or "Oh, isn't it terrible in Chicago!" I want to make a film where people think, "Brenda's like me!"
People want black and white answers, but it's not one thing or another. I think the only way we're going to make good things is to inspire people and make them feel as though what they're watching is real.
Our mental environment is a common-property resource like the air or the water. We need to protect ourselves from unwanted incursions into it, much the same way we lobbied for non-smoking areas ten years ago.
The biggest misconception about me is perhaps that I film all the time and film everything randomly. The truth is I film very little and always when something excites me and seems to mean something for the film.
Clear, and compassionate, this collection illuminates the problems and opportunities that flowed from Christchurch after the quakes, and interrogates the manmade disaster that followed. Everyone should read this book.
I'm not generalizing anymore about men and women, because I think these old terms of "masculine" and "feminine" are going very fast with the rise of transgender rights that are questioning what all these categories are.
It's always scary making a film as I never set anything up or ask anyone to do anything, so I worry that we'll find a story. I have to trust that a film will come out of the journey we embark on. I have many, many sleepless nights.
On golfer Rory McIlroy's collapse in the final round of the 2011 Masters: We had hoped to compare the young Northern Irishman to the great Masters champions but instead had to reach for the compendium of great golfing train wrecks.
Anytime you step out of an embedded reporting situation, you're always making calculations about what's safe and what's not safe, feeling out the edges of your life, of what's possible, and what risks you're putting everyone else to.
I meet all these American filmmakers that film for months and months, and it's a mystery to me. I couldn't make a film like that. I have to be very clear in what I'm doing and where it's going, and be very disciplined about what I film.
America, the great liberator, is in desperate need of being liberated from itself - from its own excesses and arrogance. And the world needs to be liberated from American values and culture, spreading across the planet as if by divine providence.
England are very light up front. Eriksson's decision not to include Jermaine Defoe can be declared an error of judgment, regardless of Rooney's situation. The Swede should have forgone one of his nine midfield players; much will have to go wrong for Jermaine Jenas to get a game.
When I started Ashes and Snow in 1992, I set out to explore the relationship between man and animals from the inside out. In discovering the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals, I am working towards restoring the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony with animals.
There's no point in making something if you're not falling in love with the people you're filming and you want them to really enjoy you being around. It would be weird if, when you're making a film, you don't think it's going to be the best ever or the worst ever - I guess it goes from one feeling to another.
A film in which the speech and sound effects are perfectly synchronized and coincide with their visual image on the screen is absolutely contrary to the aims of cinema. It is a degenerate and misguided attempt to destroy the real use of the film and cannot be accepted as coming within the true boundaries of the cinema.
I try to make films where the audience forgets the filmmaking and gets engrossed in the story as it unfolds. I don't want them to ever feel bored, or that they're being told what to think, or to feel depressed. I don't like films about victims - I want to celebrate brave survivors like Brenda and the wonderful women in the film.
An increasing number of people are growing uncomfortable with the gulf between the world's rich and the poor. Ostentatiously splashing your money around simply draws attention to that disparity, and to your own position on the lucky higher ground. It suggests a callousness, an inhumanity, a let's-just-rub-their-noses-in-it arrogance.
I don't want the people I'm with on this journey to feel like I'm filming them all the time. I don't want them to constantly feel as though they're being watched. So I will have the camera ready at all times, but I will only film when something is really worth filming. Those are the moments when the person being filmed is usually not aware of it.
I want every scene to feel electric and I try to finish the filming period with a clear trajectory: a beginning, a middle, and hopefully an end.I hate "fly on the wall." It infers that I don't relate to the people we're with and that I don't get affected by events. I like it when people talk to me. I never say things like "Don't look at the camera" - how bossy!