Documentaries Quotes · Page 9

Documentary filmmaking has all the challenges and hardships of narrative filmmaking without any of the infrastructure or support. That's both a blessing…

— Brian Lindstrom

In all my documentaries I did all the camera work, but in fiction I didn't want to do it myself. I think…

— Pirjo Honkasalo

2018 has been such a fantastic year for me: working on some hard-hitting documentaries, as well as 'Strictly,' has been a real…

— Stacey Dooley

Documentary is thought to be art when it transcends its reference to the world, when the work can be regarded, first and…

— Allan Sekula

The reason I call myself a documentary photographer is the idea of how photographs contain and participate in history.

— Catherine Opie

That’s my idea of what a portrait ought to be, anonymous and documentary and a straightforward picture of mankind.

— Walker Evans

There's nothing attractive about doing a documentary. Nothing. It's hard, hard work, and I find having all the attention of the day…

— Elaine Stritch

I love watching documentaries on people like 'clean freaks,' because it's just so interesting to me for some reason.

— John 5

The first time I thought about attempting a body suspension was after watching a documentary on rites-of-passage ceremonies from other cultures. I…

— Criss Angel

Along with the rest of the establishment, the BBC which, to be fair, can make superb documentaries - seems to have swallowed…

— Melanie Phillips

Someone said something really interesting the other day they said, "Even documentaries aren't what happened," you know there's a huge jump between…

— Bruce Cohen

The documentaries are one thing - I was highlighting someone else's work, someone else's genius. Once I had to find my own…

— Robert B. Weide

Unlike the book, with a documentary, you get a chance to show much more texture and color. Film gives you get a…

— Steve Stoute

"Plaza de la Soledad" is a documentary about Carmen, Lety, Raquel and Esther, four strong women - middle-aged and older - who…

— Maya Goded

The very act of representation has been so thoroughly challenged in recent years by postmodern theories that it is impossible not to…

— Richard Misrach

You know, a documentary is only interesting once in a while. If you look at a whole book of Dorothea [Lange]'s where…

— Imogen Cunningham

I use people's real voices because I want realism. So often I mention the actors' physicality because I want it to be…

— Ricky Gervais

By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to…

— Theodore Bikel

“The best documentaries are independent. They don’t exist to serve interests, philanthropic or otherwise.”

— Nick Fraser

I want a documentary to crest by being voted on by 6000 people who are in the business of telling stories.

— Sheila Nevins

I recently watched that Lucie Arnaz-produced documentary [Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie, 1992] about her parents [Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz],…

— Ben Stiller

I have tried to bring about better communication between people. I believe that humanitarian photography is like economics. Economy is a kind…

— Sebastiao Salgado

I'm a documentary filmmaker, so often I'm in the position of talking to people who are sharing stories that are critically important…

— Kristi Jacobson

I think all documentaries leave out areas of people's lives. Which is good. There are areas that need not be explored.

— Alice Walker

Documentary is, therefore, an approach, which makes use of the artistic faculties to give vivification to fact - to use Walt Whitman's…

— Beaumont Newhall

When I took a couple of years to do the documentaries after I left 'American Morning' - what was I gone for,…

— Soledad O'Brien

I live in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. and spend time in the West Village, where my wife Elizabeth Cotnoir, a writer-producer and documentary…

— Howard Shore

I'm a documentary photographer. That's what I've always wanted to be; that's where my heart and soul is.

— Mary Ellen Mark

I came from a very avant-garde documentary kind of film making world. I like cinema verité, documentaries. I liked non-story, non-character tone…

— George Lucas

Thhe essence of documentary filmmaking is how you manipulate the material to create an emotional impact, as opposed to just delivering information.

— Richard Ray Perez

I like independent movies, documentaries. There's not a lot of movies that are commercially made that I dig.

— Jeff Garlin

Everybody should have a documentary made about themselves. It's amazing what you see and what you learn.

— Bela Fleck

Documentaries were necessary for my growth as a person. I grew up very sheltered and it was a form of expressing myself.

— Kareem Mortimer

Everything I've made - it doesn't mean they've all been good - but everything I've made so far, big or little, fiction…

— Jonathan Demme

And in reality, I don't think it's a real documentary. It's more a story of her life. It's a story of survival.…

— Maximilian Schell

In documentary you sometimes see the tyranny of the linear, but what I've noticed in the last ten years in narrative film…

— Brian Lindstrom

Stay humble to the craft and never forget how much it actually takes to be the main character of a documentary.

— Nicole Nielsen Horanyi

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

— Sam Branson

That [Louisiana culture] was all very new to me. I read books and watched documentaries, just trying to immerse myself.

— Kofi Siriboe

There would be brilliant songs, but, as [Bob] Dylan admitted on the recent Martin Scorsese documentary about him (No Direction Home), the…

— Bob Dylan