Ruth Ozeki Quotes

In documentary films, you're a storyteller using found objects. You still have to have a story arc and all the elements that make a good story. It really helped me mature as a storyteller.

You should bear in mind that almost all my documentaries are feature films in disguise.

I'm a big fan of documentaries. I've always loved them, and I've just never had the opportunity or the time to make a feature.

I don't think the subject of a documentary film should be producers on it.

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.

I don't normally make documentaries. I'm a drama director. I've made a few short docs, but I don't like talking heads or 'voice of God' narrators.

I think the greatest thing about making a documentary is your ability to just follow the story and the subject.

It's hard not to want to become Ken Burns at times. I'm interested in being a Ken Burns who reaches that 17-year-old who goes to the multiplex just to see a good story well-told. And if there's history in it, all the better.

I always thought of documentaries as films through which you find your voice as a narrator.

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

I love documentaries. I love the format. I've been doing them for a long time.

Critics can say what they like about the films, but very often, there's a certain expectation of documentaries that they're supposed to be like PowerPoint presentations. I see documentaries as movies. So when I see some critics writing that we could have done without the recreations altogether - well, perhaps.

I'm a documentary filmmaker by training. You got to start with the real people and the real place.

English writing tends to fall into two categories - the big, baggy epic novel or the fairly controlled, tidy novel. For a long time, I was a fan of the big, baggy novel, but there's definitely an advantage to having a little bit more control.

I feel as if I became a documentary film-maker only because I had writer's block for four decades. There's no other good reason.

Truth is quite constricting, in a way. You endlessly see at the start of a film 'This is a true story'.

I don't think I'm a natural novelist. Plot is definitely one of my weaker points. I've been working on it a long time, and it's not getting much better.

I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go.

I love documentaries. My problem is when the filmmaker becomes the star.

As much as I really like the screenwriting thing, the novel is where the author has so much control.

My time in documentaries was very educating, in terms of life experience as well as the filmmaking side of it.

I think that documentaries are bound by journalistic ethics, and I think they have the pressure of trying to entertain someone for 90 minutes. It's hard, but it's the same question no matter what you're doing. Every film I've done, I've approached it the same way with the same level of respect.

It's weird writing for a documentary because I have all these ideas for what I want to happen, but what actually happens is obviously completely different.

I'm a documentary filmmaker, I know what it means to craft a story, especially when you've shot a lot of material.

I don't want to be on a soapbox, but I feel like a lot of documentary filmmakers are part of the ancient tradition of writing down notes, of saying, 'Hey people, hey people!'