Kevin Macdonald Quotes
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I don't read many young adult books.
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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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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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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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Everyone's got to make one submarine drama in their life.
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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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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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If you want to do 'Sword & Sandals' movies, people think that means it equals 'epic.'
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We should not confuse having a Flip camera with making a documentary.
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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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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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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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Every film that is made about the past is always a reflection of the present.
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What got me into making movies was that I wanted to be a journalist.
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It's so nice to be totally artistically free.
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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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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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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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I went through a period of not watching fiction.
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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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I started as a documentary maker, and they're my first love.
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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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I think we're all greedy. Who do you know who says, 'I have enough! I don't need any more!'? It's part of human nature.
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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.