Top 100 Quotes About Documentaries
#1. I've been in entertainment, politics, business, business coaching, public affairs, documentaries, programming, news, theater. So, there aren't many things I see that I haven't seen something like that before.
Roger Ailes
#2. I've made many documentaries, but prostitution was the hardest in terms of gaining the trust of the people being filmed.
Michael Glawogger
#3. No, I worked a lot for European television, doing documentaries in Brazil.
Walter Salles
#4. This consists of a series of meetings that may last several days through which information is provided that may include reviewing documentaries, news programs, court records and certain reports about the group in question.
Rick Ross
#5. We struck an unusual deal. I'll get to leave CNN with my catalog and documentaries. We were able to create a brand at CNN - 'Black in America' - that I now own. I can take that brand and extend it in any way I want.
Soledad O'Brien
#6. I've always worked very efficiently on small budgets, both in documentaries and in features.
James Marsh
#7. Rome is a very loony city in every respect. One needs but spend an hour or two there to realize that Fellini makes documentaries.
Fran Lebowitz
#8. That's why I have always admired documentaries, because they open windows that can make you understand much better where you come from, much better than fiction, I think.
Walter Salles
#9. I had seen some films made about the underground music world in Tehran, and most of them were short documentaries about 30 or 40 minutes long. And I always wondered why they weren't publicized more. Really, their only flaw was they were short documentaries.
Bahman Ghobadi
#10. First of all, being a woman is an incredible asset in many ways in making documentaries. You can be less intimidating, you have a heightened emotional sensitivity and you have the ability to listen to multiple conversations at one time and multi-task.
Ondi Timoner
#11. I try to learn from both, from features and documentaries. In both cases you have to find a way to make the camera as discreet as possible, and flexible enough to be able to capture the moment when it happens. I know from documentary how to not have a preconceived idea of what the scene could be.
Michel Gondry
#12. With documentaries, you go in with an open-mind but knowing what you want.
Chris Metzler
#13. Unlike a lot of British directors, I hadn't done any theater. But, I had a great mentor who said, What you're looking for is exactly the same thing you've done in your documentaries, which is moments of emotional truth.
Susanna White
#14. At the beginning of my career, I shot a lot more documentaries because I liked the adventure, and probably also because it was easier, and still is easier, for women DPs to shoot documentary than it is to shoot fiction.
Maryse Alberti
#15. I love documentaries and the computer. I am a little addicted to the computer, and that relaxes me. I find information, I shop, and I look up people I worked with to find out if they're dead or alive.
Anne Meara
#16. I love to travel, which is sort of why I do documentaries and why I'm in this whole world of movies - you get to meet amazing people and see how other people live. It opens your eyes. That's what I love.
Fisher Stevens
#17. Mostly, what I watch are reality shows and documentaries.
Chris Lilley
#18. The documentaries were something that I could do for a small amount of money, and then I felt like as long as I found the truth in the stories I was telling as a doc, I could teach myself filmmaking through doc filmmaking.
Ava DuVernay
#19. I love those documentaries where everyone is fabulous and always perfect.
Katy Perry
#20. I started by studying Kiswahili to learn the dialect. Then, I studied tapes, documentaries, footage, and audio cassettes of Idi Amin's speeches. And I met with his brothers, his sisters, his ministers, his generals' all kinds of people, in order to try to understand him.
Forest Whitaker
#21. I think documentaries are the greatest way to educate an entire generation that doesn't often look back to learn anything about the history that provided a safe haven for so many of us today.
Steven Spielberg
#22. People love watching medical dramas - they also love watching documentaries about the workings of the brain.
James Nesbitt
#24. When I was 16, I made some little 35mm documentaries about the poor in London. I went round Notting Hill, which was a real slum in the 1950s, shooting film.
David Suchet
#25. The best documentaries are independent. They don't exist to serve interests, philanthropic or otherwise.
Nick Fraser
#26. You don't have to watch many wildlife documentaries to know that the herd doesn't accept the lone straggler.
Holly Goldberg Sloan
#27. When I do documentaries, my best information ends up on the cutting-room floor. People have trouble dealing with sexual honesty.
Betty Dodson
#28. My wife likes history and documentaries, but I'm not so keen on them. I generally go and do some work if there's one of those on.
Andrew Davies
#29. I love researching, whether it's old Western documentaries or old Western country singers or John Ford Westerns, which are heavily influenced by family values, which so many of these country songs are related to.
Clifton Collins Jr.
#30. Some of the History Channel's documentaries involve docudrama segments and are highly speculative - but there seems, on the part of the producers, to be a real determination to get at the history behind our past - not the sex, which is left to drama shows and entertainment channels.
Nigel Hamilton
#31. As far as documentaries go, I believe unreservedly that they serve an important function in our culture. I'd love to be able to make both documentaries and feature films simultaneously, but so far that hasn't happened.
Hirokazu Koreeda
#32. I live in New York City, and I'm making huge action movies. The people that make huge action movies live in L.A., and they're surrounded by other people who make huge action movies. I'm surrounded by people making documentaries!
Doug Liman
#33. People are beginning to realize that it's important that we see animals in a natural state - but through film, through video, through documentaries, at wildlife preserves, and through other humanely protected ways, which don't involve ... performing for us.
Montel Williams
#34. Documentaries are my favorite thing, and the more depressing, the better.
Maria Thayer
#35. We didn't really have television when I was a kid. Around 30, I discovered films and started systematically catching up. I collect interesting documentaries and films, and watch a few nights a week.
Bjork
#36. It's hard to make a living doing documentaries. Frankly, if it takes you five years to do a film, and that's the only film you're doing, you're in trouble.
Alex Gibney
#37. I could sit and watch nature documentaries with Jenks and the kids the rest of the night if I wanted. And trust me, watching a dozen pixies scream as a crocodile chomped on a zebra was something not to be missed. They invariably cheered for the crocodile, not the zebra.
Kim Harrison
#38. When I watch my early documentaries, they're very eclectic. They don't follow any particular [pattern]. I would have gotten thrown out of film school because I didn't. I was just putting them together somehow as the spirit moved me, following my nose, thinking I was brilliant.
Pawel Pawlikowski
#39. I wanted to be a police detective. In my work, particularly in documentaries, I am obsessed with finding things out, seeking ever-new facts and perspectives - each project can involve years of research.
James Marsh
#40. One of the reasons to do documentaries is that. There's more sense of creating something, more sense of my own soul in the documentaries than in movies, because I don't write the movies I do.
Michael Apted
#41. I want to do more documentaries and travel to places I haven't been. That is where I think I can be fulfilled.
Tatjana Patitz
#42. I made the transition to directing documentaries with the great help of my Co-Director on The World According to Sesame Street, Linda Hawkins Costigan. She was a gracious teacher, and a wonderful collaborator.
Linda Goldstein Knowlton
#43. There's been a vacuum with movies that people can relate to. There's been a paucity of dramas that people can relate to. I think audiences are clamoring to connect - particularly after 9/11 - with things that are genuine and real and I think documentaries are filling that need.
George Hickenlooper
#45. I never uttered a word about things, but with my age now, I've completely lost all reservations. In more ways than one. I was never in front of the camera, for example, but now I've been in films and documentaries.
Giovanna Cau
#46. Voicing acting is usually fun. I'm very curious about that world. I'm a fan of documentaries, as well, and the voice kind of makes it right. Mostly for me, though, it's all about the acting -you don't have to get hair and makeup and the whole bit. You just can have fun with the acting.
Marg Helgenberger
#47. My tastes in all things lean towards the arty and boring. I like sports documentaries about Scrabble players, bands that play quiet, unassuming music, and TV shows that win awards. In that way, I am an elitist snob.
Michael Ian Black
#48. People say to me, "You make fantastic films" and I say, "No, I make documentaries.
Derek Jarman
#49. I never wanted to be a film director but after this experience I really loved it. I would love to do more documentaries but it's difficult to find backing for them.
Marc Singer
#50. I came from a background of directing behind-the-scenes documentaries.
Peyton Reed
#51. I'm fascinated by documentaries, to begin with. Because of the nature of television, as opposed to theatrical, documentaries can be in this long form and take you on a journey.
Barry Levinson
#52. When I first started, I saw myself shooting documentaries or making documentaries, which is what I did, mostly, for a number of years. So it was quite a surprise how I found myself shooting features. It was like my wildest dreams as a kid collided.
Roger Deakins
#53. There have been so many stories about alcoholism and drugs. Eating disorders are also a form of abuse, but rarely a theme in feature films that aren't documentaries.
Sanna Lenken
#54. Everyone is looking for the answer. They do not want to find the answer, trust me. Unfortunately, the answer will find them. Life - it's like one of those unpleasant nature documentaries. To be the cameraman instead of the subjects, eh?
Laird Barron
#55. In fiction film, there are so many trappings - money, glory, champagne and supermodels - that attract the wolves. But in documentary film, there's none of that, so the wolves stay away. The only people who make docs are people who are curious about other people and just like making documentaries.
Marshall Curry
#56. So I do tend to do documentaries where I can move in and out of them.
Michael Apted
#57. I've done several commercials and I've done voiceovers for documentaries.
Jeff Bridges
#58. I have been portrayed by actors in three television documentaries, two plays, one musical and a film. It's no fun watching yourself being traduced and imitated by an actor.
Felix Dennis
#59. The thing about making a documentary in Las Vegas is there isn't much to film apart from other people making documentaries about Las Vegas.
Clive James
#60. I'm not your expert on Africa or animals or whatever. I'm not a travel writer or maker of documentaries. I was someone who doesn't know very much, trying to communicate.
Michael Palin
#61. They kept asking me over and over again whether I was
having a romance with Hitler. Are you Hitler's girlfriend?
I laughed and answered the same way each time: No, those
are false rumours. I only made documentaries for him ...
Leni Riefenstahl
#62. I was painting sets, working in editorial as an assistant, driving their trucks, lying that I knew how to drive a truck, and doing commercials and documentaries.
Richard Donner
#63. We lived a lovely, middle-class, suburban life in Philadelphia. And I really thought that the TV programs of the '50s, like 'Father Knows Best' and 'The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet' Nelson were documentaries filmed with hidden cameras in our neighborhood.
Richard Corliss
#64. I've been producing documentaries on global warming for 20 years and have seen the early warnings of extreme weather events come true.
Bill Kurtis
#65. I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25. I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and internet since that time.
Julian Assange
#66. I'm addicted to documentaries. That's all I watch on television.
Robert Zemeckis
#67. All I've ever wanted to do is take stills of people, or take documentaries about people, and try to express to an audience how somebody lives next door. You know what I mean? Just how similar we all are as individuals.
Roger Deakins
#68. There's a wide range today of documentaries on politics. The central mass of it is made by networks, and nothing's changed.
Robert Drew
#69. I did documentaries for maybe 10 years before I turned to fiction films.
Walter Salles
#70. I love going on BBC6 and BBC7 and listening to documentaries.
Burn Gorman
#71. I don't like docudramas. Documentaries should not go together with fiction, or half-fiction or quarter-fiction. The two should not go together. They cannot mix.
Elie Wiesel
#72. I make short films, little documentaries, about the co-evolution of humans and technology.
Jason Silva
#73. I watch documentaries for information. I watch films to be entertained.
Meshell Ndegeocello
#74. After I read all the medical journals and watched all the documentaries, I still didn't understand the physical sensation of ticking and where it comes from and what it feels like.
Robin Tunney
#75. When I was a teenager, I thought maybe I'll be a filmmaker, making film documentaries. My dream when I was a girl was I would be hired by 'National Geographic' or work with David Attenborough, but it didn't happen. I became a model.
Isabella Rossellini
#76. 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
#77. I love documentaries. It's actually my favorite medium of film.
Jamie Bell
#78. I have spent many years working in education and media, from hosting documentaries to being a spokesperson for Discovery Education to revolutionizing youth environmental service through my non-profit, EarthEcho International.
Philippe Cousteau Jr.
#79. There's a plethora of wonderful documentaries. I made a point of not looking at anyone else's portrayal of Henry because I think it would have been too confusing - so I've got a lot of films to look forward to.
Eric Bana
#80. Documentaries are a powerful and effective way of bridging the gap between worlds, breaking through to new audiences that wouldn't otherwise be engaged - in essence, not preaching to the choir.
Olivia Wilde
#81. Documentaries have always inspired me in narrative filmmaking.
Griffin Dunne
#82. It's about good copy and ensuring that cases can be made into top-notch documentaries on the telly. Public approval is the all-important currency these days, and police budgets ebb and flow on the back of circulation and viewing figures.
Jasper Fforde
#83. I like the rock documentaries that make it seem real. Some rock documentaries are meant to make the bands look larger than life.
Dave Grohl
#84. Even though I was making documentaries, my films had fictional elements to them. I think I like blurring those distinctions because so much of what we see on television purports to be the truth, but it's often largely imaginary - or wishful thinking, or any number of less honorable things.
Ruth Ozeki
#85. People still come to Baltimore and say, "I didn't realize you made documentaries."
John Waters
#86. I hate those earnest TV documentaries that are the world according to people with glasses who know better than you.
Billy Connolly
#87. The main reason why I'm a documentary filmmaker is the power of the medium. The most powerful films I've seen have been documentaries. Of course, there are some narrative films that I could never forget, but there are more documentaries that have had that impact on me.
Richard Ray Perez
#88. I've always wanted to make Australian art interesting. To get a different audience watching art documentaries would be great.
Hannah Gadsby
#89. Great," Shane said. "Look i'd rather not be on janitorial duty. I have allergies to cleaners."
"And to cleaning," Michael said.
"Look who's talking, Didn't the do one of those Animal Planet documentaries about the roaches in your room?
Rachel Caine
#90. One of the things I've been talking about with my critical writing and my own work is that these movies are seen differently in a theatrical space. It's very important to me. I edit films to be seen theatrically, like fiction material I've worked on like Listen Up Phillip or other documentaries.
Robert Greene
#91. The power of the documentary film, when done well, I think is usually more impacting than a narrative, at least for me. Documentaries are also cheaper, they are more accessible to make.
Richard Ray Perez
#92. I'm not one of those people who sees documentaries as a stepping stone to doing fiction. I love documentaries and watch tons of documentaries. But, I like fiction films a lot, too.
Marshall Curry
#94. I'm a huge fan of the Ken Burns documentary style, big time. I love documentaries full stop. I'm a big documentary fan. That's my reality. I don't like reality TV. I like it like that.
Phil Morris
#95. I don't think of Storefront Hitchcock or Stop Making Sense as documentaries, I think of them more as performance films.
Jonathan Demme
#96. In all my documentaries I did all the camera work, but in fiction I didn't want to do it myself. I think the machinery is so heavy and demanding that you would leave the actors alone for a long time.
Pirjo Honkasalo
#97. Here comes his hand, planing slowly across the white tablecloth like a manta ray in one of those deep-sea documentaries. It's descending onto her own hand, which she shouldn't have left so carelessly lying around on the table.
Margaret Atwood
#98. I'm a big fan of documentaries. I've always loved them, and I've just never had the opportunity or the time to make a feature.
Frank Marshall
#99. I love devastating movies, documentaries and hummingbirds (yes, in that order).
Tig Notaro
#100. Every documentary is subjective. It's a total lie to say there are objective documentaries.
Pirjo Honkasalo
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