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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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" 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.' "

Kevin Macdonald

Documentary

Think

" 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. "

" It's always nice to have the same people that you are familiar with and shorthand with, obviously, to be around you. "

" I've done a few celebrity-related things, and I think on the first one - about Mick Jagger - I got stung and was not able to make the film I wanted to make. "

" John Lennon made wonderful music, which people listen to as music. Nobody around the world is living their life according to the precepts of John Lennon. "

" What got me into making movies was that I wanted to be a journalist. "

Kevin Macdonald

Journalist

Movies

" 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. "

" The Internet has meant that advertising has migrated; there are hardly any classifieds in newspapers any more because they're all online. If people have a car to sell, for example, they sell it online; they don't go to the newspaper. "

Kevin Macdonald

Car

People

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

" I'm not doing any more music films! "

Kevin Macdonald

Films

Doing

" You can get good performances in quite sizable roles from people who have never been in front of a camera, people who maybe have never been in front of a movie theater. "

" It is hard to find the soul of Mick Jagger. It is very hidden. I think his true personality has receded so far behind the facade that he can no longer find the real person himself. "

" The amazing thing about Bob Marley is that there is no moving footage of him at all for the first ten or eleven years of his career. From 1962 to 1973, there's nothing, not a single frame. "

" I love submarine movies. "

" 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.' "

" It's so nice to be totally artistically free. "

" I don't think of myself particularly as a Scottish director, but you are what you are because the first ten years of your life, and where you spend them, brand you. In that sense, I'll always be a Scottish director. "

" I'm not particularly ethnically Scottish; I have one grandfather who is Scottish, although he's called Macdonald, and you don't get a lot more Scottish than that. The Scottish part of my family are from Skye, and I've always been very aware of that - always been very attracted to Scottish subject matter, I guess. "

" 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. "

" If there is a tendency in modern television I hate, it is the unstoppable march of the dramatic reconstruction to tell the stories of anything from an ancient Egyptian battle to the early life of Paul Gascoigne. "

" People listen to The Beatles, but while they were muscially influential, they weren't culturally influential in quite the same way. You can go into the back of beyond in a little Indian village, and they will listen to Bob Marley. But they're not going to be listening to The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" In some ways, making documentaries is like being a journalist. You interview people and then use the bits you want to use as opposed to the bits they want you to use. "

" 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. "

" I can't claim my grandfather's work has influenced mine directly, but his life certainly inspired me to follow this path. "

" 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. "

" Sometimes people give away more by not saying something. "

Kevin Macdonald

Away

Sometimes

" I used the same designer and costume designer on 'The Eagle' and 'The Last King of Scotland.' "