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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. "

Kevin Macdonald

You

Think

" 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. "

" 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. "

Kevin Macdonald

First

Growing Up

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

" 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. "

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

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

Kevin Macdonald

Away

Sometimes

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

" I don't think life gets any better than sitting in the sun while a legend of French cinema tells you stories about making 'Belle de Jour' and other wonderful films, and eating great food. "

" I think my brother always wanted to be a film producer. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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 the parallels of a giant power with overwhelming military superiority and might, with America and Rome, it seems obvious to me. "

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

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

" 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. "

" We should not confuse having a Flip camera with making a documentary. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" We're all fascinated by the way other people live their lives, how they cope with hardship and triumph, what they put in their home movies and family albums. "

" I suppose making documentaries is like doing journalism on film. "

Kevin Macdonald

Doing

Film

" 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. "

" I'm a cynical person who's normally attracted to the dark side of things. "

" 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. "

" I started as a documentary maker, and they're my first love. "

" '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. "

Kevin Macdonald

Four

Impact

" I recommend to any of you, that's always a good way to make a film: use the interesting bits. "