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" When 'The Thin Blue Line' came out, I was criticized by many people for using reenactments, as if I wasn't dedicated to the truth because I filmed these scenes. That always and still seems to be nonsensical. "

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" Despite all of our efforts to control something, the world is much, much more powerful than us, and more deranged even than us. "

Errol Morris

World

Powerful

" Photographs can reveal something to us, and they can also conceal things. "

Errol Morris

Things

Conceal

" If everything was planned, it would be dreadful. If everything was unplanned, it would be equally dreadful. "

" A lot of stories that have fascinated me are tabloid stories that have come from other newspapers, like 'The New York Times.' "

" A lot of the themes of my movies, the actual stories, come from tabloid stories. "

" But I can say what interests me about documentary is the fact that you don't know how the story ends at the onset - that you are investigating, with a camera, and the story emerges as you go along. "

Errol Morris

Know

Camera

" I used to work as a private detective years and years ago. "

" If we're reading a first-person account, we know that each and every one of us, myself included, have a great desire to be seen in a certain way, or to be perceived in a certain way. It's unavoidable. "

Errol Morris

Desire

Myself

" Certain kinds of intimacy emerge on a phone call that might never occur if you were sitting right next to the other person. "

" Forty years ago this country went down a rabbit hole in Vietnam and millions died. I fear we're going down a rabbit hole once again - and if people can stop and think and reflect on some of the ideas and issues in this movie, perhaps I've done some damn good here! "

" My advice to all interviewers is: Shut up and listen. It's harder than it sounds. "

" If you think you're going to create an unposed photograph, think again. There is no such thing. "

" I've never had any problem with crazy people. I like crazy people; I probably am a crazy person myself. "

" My stuff always starts with interviews. I start interviewing people, and then slowly but surely, a movie insinuates itself. "

" Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it without a sense of ironic futility. "

" I think an interview, properly considered, should be an investigation. You shouldn't know what the interview will yield. Otherwise, why do it at all? "

" But there's a big difference between, say, reporting on a story and simply making up a story. "

Errol Morris

Difference

Big

" But one of the amazing things about documentary is that you can remake it every time you make one. There is no rule about how a documentary film has to be made. "

" First of all, tabloid stories are some of the richest and most important stories that we have. There's nothing wrong, per se, with tabloid stories. "

" If you're a journalist - and I think, on some level, I'm a journalist, and proud to be a journalist, or a documentarian, however you want to describe it - part of what I do has to be the pursuit of the truth. "

" Listening to what people were saying wasn't even important. But it was important to look as if you were listening to what people were saying. Actually, listening to what people are saying, to me, interferes with looking as if you were listening to what people are saying. "

Errol Morris

Listening

Saying

" I don't believe truth is conveyed by style and presentation. I don't think that if it was grainy and full of handheld material, it would be any more truthful. "

" What's great about documentary, it seems to me, is that it can be experimental filmmaking. You have a license to do a lot of diverse things under the umbrella of 'documentary.' "

Errol Morris

Great

Filmmaking

" Ecstatic absurdity: it's the confrontation with meaninglessness. "