Kevin Macdonald Quotes
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A publisher friend of mine suggested that I write a book about my grandfather, who had just died. I had nothing else to fill my empty days with, so I started work on this book. While researching it - watching lots of movies, talking to moviemakers - I became interested in movies and started making documentaries.
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With fiction, I've grown to really love the challenge of lying, the challenge of telling a good tale that isn't truthful, and working with performers is endlessly fascinating. You know, learning what a good performance is, how to get a good performance, how much or how little you need to create emotion or to create character.
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When you're an outsider and going into a culture like America, it's easier to stay away from any cliches because you're not really aware of what they are.
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Most people in Uganda have something good to say about Amin - 'He was funny; he gave us pride to be African.'
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It's always nice to have the same people that you are familiar with and shorthand with, obviously, to be around you.
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If you go to pretty much everywhere in the developing world, you will find Bob Marley murals, and you'll find people playing his music.
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I suppose making documentaries is like doing journalism on film.
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When we made 'Life in a Day,' we asked people around the globe to record their lives on a single ordinary day. When we were cutting that film, we talked about what it might be like if we chose a day that already had significance to people. The result is 'Christmas in a Day.'
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I was fascinated by making a submarine movie, inspired by the Kursk disaster. This idea of being trapped down at the bottom of the sea seemed so terrifying. I was very interested in making a sub film which wasn't a military film. You think, Well, why are they there, then, if they're not in the military? Oh, well, they must be looking for treasure.
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In war films, even more than in other kinds of documentary, we've come to think that shaky, poor-quality footage is somehow more authentic than something classically 'well shot.'
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I was a teenager in the '80s, and I was always a bit dismissive of Houston, as I think a lot of people who considered themselves 'cool music fans' were. She was poppy, bubble gum, making music not considered very cool. But you can't help but dance to some of those songs or feel emotionally affected by 'I Will Always Love You.'
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I find it really difficult when you make a movie where it is set in Russia and everyone speaks in English. It drives me crazy.
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I love submarine movies.
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If there's a principle really worth sticking up for, I'll go the whole way.
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Everyone's got to make one submarine drama in their life.
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I suppose that the Western has always been a kind of mold to which you could pour the concerns of the day, but have them seen in the simple terms of the Western, of one alley or whatever.
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If you can understand, you can feel compassion.
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I think there's always been interest in Bob Marley.
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If you want to do 'Sword & Sandals' movies, people think that means it equals 'epic.'
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I've done a few celebrity-related things, and I think on the first one - about Mick Jagger - I got stung and was not able to make the film I wanted to make.
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I've fallen out very badly with some of the subjects I've interviewed, because they see their lives a certain way; to step into a cinema and see your life depicted in another way can come as a terrible shock.
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People who die in an untimely way who are artists, somehow that validates their art, we feel. Why culturally we feel that, I don't know.
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I don't read many young adult books.
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My grandfather died before I started making films, but I definitely learnt this from him: believe in your own judgment and stick to your guns - 99% of the time, you'll be glad you did.