Best Documentaries Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 8

“There is a wonderful documentary called 'A Room to Breathe,' where a school brought in a TM instructor, to try and establish a better classroom environment, and the results and transformations were profound. It's impossible to ignore, and we make some passing references in my film, but 'A Room to Breathe' is a closer look at just how powerful meditation can be.”

Trying Looks School Film Rooms Results Powerful Environment Meditation Wonderful Impossible Transformation Profound Breathe Passing Passings Classroom Documentaries Instructors

Author:James Redford

“In documentary films, being able to be a storytelling and embrace film as an art form - while being very clearly connected in trying to help make the world a better place - is really important to me.”

World Trying Art Important Helping Able Film Form Embrace Connected Storytelling Documentaries Better Place Documentary Films

Author:James Redford

“I'll let the record [Who You Selling For] speak for itself. I don't want to get too in-depth with my personal opinions of it and where the songs came from because I think it messes with the listener to know the inside mindset of the writer. For example, I watched a Pink Floyd documentary the other day, and I learned that "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" was about [frontman] Syd Barrett. I didn't want to know that!”

Thinking Knows Want Song Speak Opinion Records Crazy Example Shining Depth Mindset Selling Mess Diamond Listeners Documentaries Shine On Personal Opinions

Author:Taylor Momsen

“I haven't been manipulated. I did a documentary in prison years ago because I was so f - ed off with those lazy bastards in their bed for 18 hours a day, five dishes a day on a menu to choose from, playing soccer every day, going to the gym, watching movies.”

Years Hours Five Havens Bed Years Ago Prison Soccer Lazy Gym Dishes Documentaries Menus Playing Soccer

Author:Chelsea Handler

“I think when I envisioned my documentaries, what I wanted to do when I left, I had no business doing those documentaries. I didn't know what I was doing. I was delving into an arena that I had no experience in, and Netflix paired me up with two documentarians that really executed my vision perfectly. That was great, to see that. All of a sudden I'm at Sundance, and those are premiering. I just thought, "Wow, they were four ideas I pitched one day, and now it's coming to fruition on this scale."”

Thinking Knows Two Ideas Wanted Left Vision Four One Day Scales Wow Documentaries Arena Fruition Netflix Sundance Delving

Author:Chelsea Handler

“I'm doing quite a few things now. In one day, I will go to Kassel, Germany, for a documentary project I've been preparing for half a year. I will bring 1,001 Chinese to participate as my artwork there - any Chinese who is a Chinese passport holder and over eighteen years old could apply through my blog. I'm just bringing them to Kassel to see the art show, and pay their room and board.”

Years Art Shows Rooms Pay Half One Day Projects Chinese Boards Germany Preparing Documentaries Blogs Eighteen Artwork Passports Half A Year Eighteen Years Old

Author:Ai Weiwei

“[Alex] Haley felt he could make a solid case in favor of racial integration by showing what was - to white America - what was the consequence of their support for racial separatism that would end up producing a kind of hate, the hate that hate produced, to use the phrase that Mike Wallace used in his 1959 documentary on the Nation of Islam.”

Kind Ends Use America Used Hate Nations Felt White Cases Support Consequence Islam Favors Phrases Integration Documentaries Mike Alex Haley Nation Of Islam

Author:Manning Marable

“The film [Dream of Life] came together when we started editing; it was organic, it became nonlinear and it was its own animal. And I didn't want to tame it, either. I wanted it to be different. It's not your typical documentary.”

Want Different Dream Wanted Together Film Animal Editing Typical Documentaries Nonlinear

Author:Steven Sebring

“Sometimes my fashion pictures can look a little bit like documentary style pictures. So having a camera in my hand was normal.”

Looks Littles Sometimes Hands Bits Fashion Style Normal Little Bit Cameras Documentaries

Author:Steven Sebring

“A lot of work was done with one of my best friends and editor, Spencer Averick, who's edited everything I've ever made from the very, very first documentaries; the very, very first films I made were docs, so we learned the form together.”

Firsts Made Done Together Film Form Editors Documentaries My Best Friend Edited

Author:Ava DuVernay

“It's always important to understand as filmmakers that we're not making a documentary and it has to look good. It has to entertain, because otherwise your audience will switch and watch another series. It has to look better and larger than life.”

Looks Important Watches Audience Series Filmmaker Documentaries Larger Than Life

Author:Michelle Yeoh

“I was watching a documentary that during the Bay of Pigs crisis JFK had about two weeks before anybody reported on it. Imagine that. I think it's fair to say that if something like that happens under a current president, they've got to figure out in about an hour what their response is.”

Ifs Thinking Two Happens President Hours Imagine Week Figures Fairs Crisis Response Currents Imagine That Pigs Documentaries Two Weeks Bay Of Pigs

Author:Barack Obama

“The Black Power Mixtape is a documentary, first of all. It brings us closer to the voices we heard at that particular point in time.”

Firsts Black Voice Heard Particular Documentaries Black Power Mixtapes

Author:Danny Glover

“There are things that make me excited about what I'm doing: Trouble the Water [the 2008 documentary Glover executive produced] on New Orleans, or something like Soundtrack for a Revolution, about the power of the music of the civil rights movement [which he executive produced in 2009]. Or Bamako, about the African debt crisis, a platform to discuss the experience of people who actually live it. All of these are important ways we can use film as a forum inviting people into a dialogue.”

“Everybody is doing you a favor when you're doing a documentary. You can't pressure them into it.”

Pressure Favors Documentaries Doing You

Author:Ice T

“Any documentary; any capturing of a non-fiction event, is a hyper-realistic condensation of reality that hopefully reveals an emotional truth. It's never the actual literal truth of an event.”

Reality Fiction Events Emotional Hopefully Realistic Documentaries Non Fiction Literal Hyper Condensation

Author:Joe Berlinger

“I think that one of the visions that is closest to reality is the cardboard city in the subway station in Tokyo, which is based very closely on a series of documentary photographs of people living like that and of the contents of the boxes. Those are quite haunting because Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in these cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes.”

“My documentaries have always been very much constructed in the spirit of dominant cinema. From the time I started making non-fiction, I was mainly interested in designing and creating documentaries like fiction, so it was a natural evolution to try and embark on doing a dramatic narrative.”

Trying Spirit Natural Fiction Design Evolution Creating Narrative Cinema Dramatic Dominant Documentaries Non Fiction

Author:Brett Morgen

“["Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas"] is a very hard book to translate to film because there's so much interior monologue. The what if factor. I tried to write it cinematically and let the dialogue carry it but I forgot about the interior monologue. It's kind of hard to show what's going on in the head. I think we should do it like a documentary.”

Ifs Thinking Should Writing Kind Book Hard Shows Film Dialogue Factors What If Translate Documentaries Interiors Vegas Las Vegas Loathing Monologues

Author:Hunter S. Thompson

“I watched a documentary about the immigrant crisis around the world. And it does make me blush at all the times I've stood up on the stage and given your speech about the healing power of fiction.”

World Doe Given Healing Fiction Stage Speech Crisis Around The World Immigrants Documentaries Stood Up

Author:George Saunders

“I never saw myself as a director. It's certainly a second language but making movies for 40 years, you pick stuff up. However, this style of making movies, this documentary style, is easier for me because I gather a lot of material and with an editor, write it on screen. You try to write based on what you shot.”

Writing Trying Years Language Stuff Saws Style Materials Easier Directors Picks Shots Screens Editors Documentaries

Author:Al Pacino

“Many people, including myself, thought of Jobs as an inventor, an Edison-like figure, but he wasn't. I did a documentary on James Brown recently; and, oddly, I found a lot in common between Jobs and Brown. Jobs was also a fantastic performer, put on an extraordinary live show at his product launches, but he could also be ruthless, cruel and totally self-aggrandizing. And just as Brown surrounded himself with the very best musicians, Jobs understood the importance of hiring the absolutely most talented people and knew how crucial they were to the success of what he was trying to do.”

People Trying Self Shows Jobs Found Common Figures Products Musician Understood Importance Extraordinary Including Fantastic Brown Performers Crucial Documentaries Inventor Ruthless Hiring

Author:Alex Gibney

“I think most albums deserve a documentary because [an album] is a visual book. You don't have to read up on it because you can listen and watch the whole story. I would love to see lots of albums [become films.]”

Thinking Book Whole Stories Film Watches Deserve Albums Visuals Documentaries

Author:Nas

“This whole business of documentary being a second-class citizen is bullshit. A documentary can be as interesting, as dramatic, as sad, as funny, blah, blah, blah, as a fiction movie. Or it can be as awful as a fiction movie!”

Whole Interesting Fiction Class Citizens Awful Dramatic Bullshit Documentaries Blah Second Class Citizens

Author:Frederick Wiseman

“It's rare in a documentary film that you have a repetitive act. So when you do, you can shoot it in different ways so that you have more choices when you're sitting down to edit that sequence six months later.”

Way Different Film Choices Months Six Sitting Different Ways Documentaries Six Months Sequence Edits Sitting Down Repetitive Documentary Films

Author:Frederick Wiseman

“Twenty to thirty years ago, who was making documentary films? Nobody. Well, relatively few people. It was an art form that had limited theatrical distribution, if any at all. Some television distribution, but relatively small audiences regardless. And in the intervening years it's become more and more popular with a lot of people.”

People Ifs Years Wells Art Film Form Audience Television Years Ago Twenties Thirty Documentaries Distribution Theatrical Thirty Years Intervening Documentary Films

Author:Errol Morris

“There's a line I love in Conan The Barbarian where someone says, "That used to be another snake cult, now I see it everywhere." That's certainly true of documentaries. I wouldn't say it's ubiquitous, but it's become close to ubiquitous. It's everywhere.”

Used Lines Used To Be Cult Documentaries Snakes Barbarians Conan

Author:Errol Morris

“Maybe today I would call Fred Leuchter and there would be two or three other documentary filmmakers interested in his story simply because of the exposure.”

Two Stories Would Be Today Three Filmmaker Documentaries Exposure

Author:Errol Morris

“If you told me thirty years ago that people would be parodying documentary films, I never would have believed it. It wasn't clear that the films themselves even had an audience, let alone an audience for parodies of them.”

People Ifs Years Would Be Film Audience Clear Years Ago Thirty Documentaries Thirty Years Parody Documentary Films

Author:Errol Morris

“For me, as a documentary filmmaker, I'm interested in telling stories of real people whose experiences tell us something about ourselves or our history, or who we are and our potential.”

People Real Stories Filmmaker Who We Are Documentaries Telling Stories

Author:Kristi Jacobson

“I'm a documentary filmmaker, so often I'm in the position of talking to people who are sharing stories that are critically important to share, but often difficult to share at the same time.”

People Important Stories Difficult Talking Share Position Filmmaker Documentaries Sharing Stories

Author:Kristi Jacobson

“The film [Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth] opens with an Albanian blood feud and goes on to delve into, for instance, prison systems, underpaid tomato pickers, the gulf oil spill. It's all woven together in a sensuous, oblique way that's not the same as the single-message kind of documentary we're used to, with an "answer" at the end. It's more like an exploration. Sort of like what you do with Birth of a Nation.”

“We have two boys. After George Zimmerman was found not guilty of killing Trayvon Martin, we had to explain to our older son, who was 12 at the time, how that could happen. Instead of hugging and consoling him, my husband pulled out a documentary about Emmett Till and showed it to him and started to talk about how the justice system works in this country - and how it often doesn't. From that conversation, our son wrote a short story about Trayvon Martin going to heaven to meet Emmett Till.”

“I don't like things about serial killers. There's so much serial killer information out there in documentaries constantly. A lot of it's just sort of gratuitous or it's almost like pornographic, really. There's no reason for it being shown.”

Reason Information No Reason Killers Documentaries Serials Serial Killer

Author:Stanley Tucci

“I think I can do whatever I want with fiction, but the more documentary it is, the better it will be because that's what I'm good at. I'm good at observing people's behavior and putting these unspoken things into movie contexts in ways that other people can sometimes miss.”

People Thinking Way Want I Can Sometimes Can Do Fiction Missing Behavior Documentaries Observing Unspoken

Author:Robert Greene

“A lot of people just go to movies that feed into their preexisting and not so noble needs and desires: They just go to action pictures, and things like that. But if you go to foreign films, if you go to documentaries, if you go to independent films, if you go to good films, you will become a better person because you will understand human nature better. Movies record human nature in a better way than any other art form, that's for sure.”

People Ifs Way Needs Humans Persons Art Action Film Form Desire Records Human Nature Independent Noble Documentaries Better Ways Better Person Independent Film Good Films

Author:Roger Ebert

“You know so many documentaries now are very carefully scripted before you start, and then people are sort of put in chairs which are beautifully lit, and they tell their stories and you do that with another 10 people and you then construct a story from what they say. You do a sort of paper thing, and then you put some images in-between, and that's your film. And that's so not what I think is a good documentary. It can be so much more than that, it should be much more of an adventure and much more uncertain... like real things are.”

People Thinking Knows Should Real Stories Film Adventure Paper Chairs Uncertain Documentaries Constructs Lit Real Things

Author:Nick Broomfield

“I don't really believe that documentary is objective reality and fiction is all illusion.”

Believe Reality Fiction Illusion Objectives Documentaries Objective Reality

Author:Mike Mills

“We'll be back to our nature documentary, 'Baggy the Anorexic Elephant' in just a second.”

Elephants Documentaries Anorexics

Author:Colin Mochrie

“In a way then, the Divine Principle, this new revelation, is the documentary of my life. It is my own life experience. The Divine Principle is in me, and I am in the Divine Principle.”

Way My Own Principles Divine Revelations Life Experience Documentaries My Own Life

Author:Sun Myung Moon

“Documentaries are a form of journalism.”

Form Journalism Documentaries

Author:Michael Moore

“For a documentary filmmaker, I do very well.”

Wells Filmmaker Documentaries

Author:Michael Moore

“Three of the top six documentaries of all time, grossing, are made by me.”

Made Three Six All Time Documentaries

Author:Michael Moore

“We all need to be huge supporters of the theatrical documentary.”

Needs Huge Supporter Documentaries Theatrical

Author:Michael Moore

“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.”

Ifs Thinking Use Audience Serious Mass Medicine Filmmaker Documentaries

Author:Michael Moore

“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.”

Has Beens Able Games Winning Television Tvs Kings Speech Awards Oscars Documentaries Emmys

Author:Michael Moore

“The best films of any kind, narrative or documentary, provoke questions.”

Kind Film Narrative Provoking Documentaries Best Film

Author:Edward Norton

“I hate making TV documentaries.”

Hate Tvs I Hate Documentaries

Author:Jamie Oliver

“I love documentaries. It's actually my favorite medium of film.”

Film My Favorite Mediums Documentaries

Author:Jamie Bell

“I love those documentaries where everyone is fabulous and always perfect.”

Perfect Documentaries Fabulous

Author:Katy Perry

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