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" The first documentary I saw that tried to show the actual experience of being a soldier in combat was 'The Anderson Platoon,' by French director Pierre Schoendoerffer, which won the Oscar for best documentary in 1967. "

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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? "

Kevin Macdonald

Without

You

Myself

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" You can relate to someone with a flaw. "

" 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. "

" It's nice to stretch in different directions and use different muscles. You can get swallowed into Hollywood, where it's all about bums on seats and how commercial a film is. "

" It feels like we're all so familiar now with the traditional three-act structure that, actually, stories that are more complex, more naughty, that allow for disagreement and discussion, are more interesting to us. "

" 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

" When you look at almost every submarine movie, to some degree or another, there's this 'Moby Dick' element, this Ahab element to them. "

" I was a teenager in the '80s, and I was always a bit dismissive of Houston, as I think a lot of people who considered themselves 'cool music fans' were. She was poppy, bubble gum, making music not considered very cool. But you can't help but dance to some of those songs or feel emotionally affected by 'I Will Always Love You.' "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" If you can understand, you can feel compassion. "

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

Kevin Macdonald

Doing

Film

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" I love submarine movies. "

" I think there's always been interest in Bob Marley. "

" 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. "