Kevin Macdonald Quotes
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'State of Play' is a romantic story at its heart.
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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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'Uprising' was one of the first three or four albums I ever bought in 1980 when I was 13, and that had a strong impact on me.
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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 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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If you can understand, you can feel compassion.
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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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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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I love submarine movies.
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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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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 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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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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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 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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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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For me, what works well about 'Life in a Day' is that it's emotionally affecting without being manipulative. It really does make you think about the connectivity of the world, the similarities and differences. It shows the experiences we all go through: birth, childhood, falling in love, having kids, getting ill, dying.
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Everyone's got to make one submarine drama in their life.
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I remember going to the university film club to see 'The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp' one night and being bowled over. It was one of the most beautiful films I'd ever seen. And it felt so personal.
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I don't read many young adult books.
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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 think there's always been interest in Bob Marley.
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If there's a principle really worth sticking up for, I'll go the whole way.
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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.