Kevin Macdonald Quotes
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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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What got me into making movies was that I wanted to be a journalist.
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I went to see 'Francis Ha,' which I could certainly relate to. She ends up wandering the streets of Paris all alone - something I've ended up doing a number of times in capital cities around Europe.
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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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The thing with newspapers is that they are a filter. We're relying on the editors of that paper to be a filter and to tell you that this is worth reading about, this is quality, and this is quite reliable.
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Every film that is made about the past is always a reflection of the present.
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I went through a period of not watching fiction.
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Like a lot of expatriate Scots, when you want to be called Scottish, it's useful. I see myself as being without nationality, as a European: my region is Scotland; my nationality is European - isn't that a very Alex Salmond thing to say?
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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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We should not confuse having a Flip camera with making a documentary.
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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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The only obligation you have as a film-maker is to tell your version of the truth and to use your film to illuminate reality. Whatever that means.
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Although 'The Anderson Platoon' was what we would now call an 'embedded film' - with all the ambiguities that term implies - somehow Schoendoerffer got away with showing things as they really were from a grunt's perspective.
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The submarine genre is a category with all its own rules. But shooting on water is famously tough.
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The things that are hardest to shoot are the things where you want people just to feel very natural, and you want to do love scenes, and you want to do just kids hanging out and trying to get them to relax.
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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'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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There were many times during the filming of 'Touching the Void' when I wondered why I had ever thought I wanted to make this film.
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Despite the limitations of the bulky 16mm camera and 10-minute film magazines, 'The Anderson Platoon' feels as spontaneous and fresh as any films that have come out of the Afghan or Iraq wars.
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When you're trying to make a film, you're trying to find a way to love your subject, and you want your audience to love your subject.
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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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People think that the Italians invented neorealism, but actually, Humphrey Jennings did. He was revolutionary in using non-professional actors in his films, and he got extraordinary performances out of them.
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I did not want to depict Al Gashey as evil. I wanted him to come across as someone who did what he did for reasons that were compelling. Whether or not we agree with him is a different matter.
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The great thing about making a film on a submarine is that it's kind of like making a play. You've got this limited environment.