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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'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. "

Kevin Macdonald

Cinema

Life

See

" Documentary makers use other people's lives as their raw material, and that is morally indefensible. "

" 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. "

" I don't read many young adult books. "

" The relationship between director and subject can become very intense. It's a bit like therapy, with lots of transferences going on. It's easy to feel guilty. "

" Put someone on a horse looking cold and wet, and they don't have to act. They just are cold and wet. "

" I always loved digging away at the story, trying to find out things that people don't want you to find out and piecing it all together. I love the treasure hunt aspect of it, the thrill of the chase. "

" The tradition has always been that in Roman films, the Romans are always British, and it's usually posh British: Laurence Olivier and his ilk. My take on all this was that it's a metaphor for empire and the end of empire. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Everyone's got to make one submarine drama in their life. "

" For me, the aim of making any film like this, any film about an artist, would be to send you back to the art. "

Kevin Macdonald

Art

You

" I think everything that I've done, I've been involved with for longer. Either you develop it from scratch, or you take something, and you develop it, and you work on the script, but I'm not sure how good I'd be at just sort of taking a piece of material and being a director for hire like that. "

" It's obviously presumptuous in some ways to talk about somebody's sexuality who's not here to describe themselves. "

" You can go to places in Africa and Asia and find Marley graffiti. In the slums of Nairobi, you see his lyrics painted on walls, and you realise he has this almost religious significance to the underclass of the world. He's a guy born in a hut with no bed, and now he's probably the most listened-to artist in the world. It's fascinating. "

" Young people read their news online; they expect to get their news for free. "

" I went through a period of not watching fiction. "

" Every film that is made about the past is always a reflection of the present. "

" As a filmmaker, I'm interminably curious and nosy, but certain times you meet people and think, 'I don't want to push you too hard because I can see this is painful for you.' "

" 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. "

" For everybody in the world, the answers to the mysteries in your life usually lie in your childhood, your upbringing, and your parents. "

" 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. "

" I love Humphrey Jennings. People ask me who my favorite documentary maker is, and he's certainly in the top three. "

" 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. "

Kevin Macdonald

Born

Small

" 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. "

" No man, no woman is without their flaws. "

" With 'Black Sea,' I long had an idea that I wanted to do a film about people stuck on the bottom of the ocean. I thought that was a terrifying scenario. "

" In film, I believe things should either be documentary or drama. "

" 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. "

" 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. "