Kevin Macdonald Quotes
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There's something about the lack of certainty with a documentary, which is exhausting if you do three in a row. It's nerve-wracking.
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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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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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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.
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For everybody in the world, the answers to the mysteries in your life usually lie in your childhood, your upbringing, and your parents.
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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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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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'State of Play' is a romantic story at its heart.
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For me, the aim of making any film like this, any film about an artist, would be to send you back to the art.
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If you can understand, you can feel compassion.
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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 was born at Rotten Row in Glasgow and brought up in Loch Lomond near a small place called Gartocharn. And it's a bit like anyone: where you're brought up, you have an irresistible attraction to that place; it defines who you are.
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I can't claim my grandfather's work has influenced mine directly, but his life certainly inspired me to follow this path.
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I think there's always been interest in Bob Marley.
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When I was growing up on Loch Lomondside, one of the first albums I ever bought was Marley's 'Uprising.' I guess that would have been 1980 - just before he died.
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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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In my early career as a documentarian, I suppose I was trying to make films which - where it was all about making a big cinematic statement, and I think with 'Marley,' I slightly changed my direction and adopted a more mellow approach.
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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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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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If there's a principle really worth sticking up for, I'll go the whole way.
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I think the parallels of a giant power with overwhelming military superiority and might, with America and Rome, it seems obvious to me.
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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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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 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.