Debra Granik Quotes
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I think, in some ways, that is the balm of stories, of fables, of tales: it's the way we're wired. We have always needed to distill what we're going through and try to understand it by looking either backwards or forwards. And the hardest is to look in the now.
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I swing with a lot of torque from non-fiction to fiction, and I really like that place in between.
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Festivals are where I see other peoples' films, where we talk, where I get to learn what was working about the film, I get to have a discussion with viewers... and people who enjoy reading films - I enjoy reading other peoples' films, and what discussions can come of that.
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I'm looking for a living wage and to continue my work. The frustration comes from when I can't do the things that matter most to me. It's when someone comes and says, 'I will finance your movie if you cast so and so.'
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There are documentaries that will just save your life and be the conduit to the art form you started out loving.
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Some of the subject matters that I like to make stories about are definitely not inherently commercial. So I have to look for a very special kind of financing and go down a very gentle path in order to make my films, as do basically all social-realist filmmakers. It's a long process.
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I always think that my assignment is to seek out stories that are experienced by people who don't get the ticket for Easy Street.
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It's funny: your happiness is contingent on a bigger picture besides just yourself.
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I don't want to be on a soapbox, but I feel like a lot of documentary filmmakers are part of the ancient tradition of writing down notes, of saying, 'Hey people, hey people!'
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I think one thing that's always a concern to me is you see a role, and you're not seeing the character; you're seeing so-and-so do it. Then I'm taken out of the story considerably, personally.
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In documentary, mostly, people are going to say untoward things; people are going to have gnarly beliefs. People aren't perfect.
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When I'm interested in an aspect of someone's life, I want to ask about their experiences, their survival strategies, and what they do to keep their lives interesting.
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A role is never just a ready-made thing.
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History has shown that there needs to be some agora, or public spaces, and I think that we already live a lot of our life on a laptop, or even smaller devices that we hold in our hands.
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You will never go wrong with actually photographing process. It's primitive. Humans love to see the bipedal animal in us finish things. We just like it!
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My first narrative films developed out of a documentary process - finding someone who was willing to be filmed, watching, listening, taking copious notes and many hours of video footage.
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In the U.K., working-class lives are depicted with the characters' humour, but in the U.S., people with difficulties are often depicted with pious or simply dreary lives.
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I need and want to see capable women. I don't like to see them weep all the time.
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I'm reaching for emotion and drama, the drama of the everyday: what happens when you don't have shelter, food, and clothing. There are some stakes. If you're displaced or evicted, there's a suspense: How will you solve that?
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Every filmmaker has this short book of films that don't get made - for a whole host of reasons.
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When men's lives become extremely hard, women learn how to deal with them and assist them but also develop quiet systems of coping and managing.
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Film is a team thing. There is no auteur.
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A big part of the equation for 'Winter's Bone' was making it for so little that we owe nobody. We had a guaranteed loan and were able to pay it back.
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Our necks are getting injured from looking down, and the movie screen gives you opportunity to look up, you know? It gives you an opportunity to possibly have a discussion with someone afterwards.