Joshua Oppenheimer Quotes

We are not documentarians, we are filmmakers.

When we made 'Primary,' it was just one camera. We were trying to make ourselves inconspicuous.

Well, I want to do everything in sort of a documentary style, ever since I started in the '80s.

For seven years, I made films in the cinema verite tradition - photographing what was happening without manipulating it. Then I realised I wanted to make things happen for myself, through feature films.

Realism is always subjective in film. There's no such thing as cinema verite.

My favorite way of making films - and what has allowed me to get key scenes in 'Cartel Land' and 'City of Ghosts' - has been when I've been able to operate alone.

When I grew up, a director was Cecil B DeMille, a guy sitting down with a megaphone speaking. He was the voice of God, the image of God. When I went to start making docs, I quickly turned the megaphone to my ear not to my mouth. It's more about funneling in the words and listening as doc filmmaker.

When I think about the new film, I think I can do whatever I want with fiction, but the more documentary it is, the better it will be because that's what I'm good at. I'm good at observing people's behavior and putting these unspoken things into movie contexts in ways that other people can sometimes miss.

If you're a great documentary filmmaker, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're a great narrative filmmaker. There are fantastic documentary filmmakers that can't direct actors. You don't have to do that in a documentary, if it's a real documentary.

Generally in my films like 'Hearts of Darkness' or 'Picture This,' I try not to make myself a presence in the film.

For me, every film is actually a form of documentary.

I know that some filmmakers strive for a kind of naturalistic approach, but you're never going to capture something that's really natural - just the simple fact that you choose to put a frame around something means that you've already chosen one particular thing to put more attention on.

Cinema is not about format, and it's not about venue. Cinema is an approach. Cinema is a state of mind on the part of the filmmaker. I've seen commercials that have cinema in them, and I've seen Oscar-winning movies that don't. I'm fine with this.

With the dramatic canvas, I found you could still operate with the documentarist's observational eye.

Almost anything can be justified as a style of filmmaking if it works.

I literally said it was my dream in life to direct a Charlie Kaufman movie.

Film is subjective, and we must be careful with that. The kinds of films I love are those that observe, and I give possibility for people to talk. No need for me to tell people what to think - even when I make a film like 'S-21.' It's only one point of view. It's still a film; it's not a tribunal.

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.

I'm a filmmaker. I'm not a politician.

When I'm filming a documentary, I feel like I should be the straight man, watching with a raised eyebrow.

The point is that a filmmaker is like a journalist in projecting reality in the true sense of the word. Only thing is he dramatically packages it to make more effect.

Well, I'm really interested in the idea of making genre films, but movies have a much more personal undercurrent to them and that look beautiful, and that's sort of the films I'm kind of interested in making.

My background is in filmmaking, and my mentor is Dusan Makavejev, who combined fiction and documentary.

I'm anti-verite. I think the verite style is a completely false thing. Most things are false to arrive at a truth; verite is falsity without acknowledging its falsity.

In terms of so-called fly-on-the-wall documentaries, there's a claim that the camera is a transparent window into a pre-existing reality. What really is happening is that the film crew and the subjects are collaborating to simulate a reality in which they pretend the camera is not present.