Frederick Wiseman Quotes

But I'm the only one who can paint the moon, because I'm the only one who knows whether that's right or not.

Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That's the thing about painting, photography, cinema.

A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.

Perceptions are portraits, not photographs, and their form reveals the artist’s hand every bit as much as it reflects the things portrayed

Even if someone thinks there's a mistake I've made on the piano, to me it's not a mistake; it's how it's meant to be.

I never seek controversy or foresee it for my pictures. I take a personal stand, and perhaps because my films are on contemporary subjects, people do not share my point of view.

I am not concerned with truth, nor with conventional notions of what is beautiful.

All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.

There's no being wrong in seeing something in art, only being disagreed with.

A creation needs not only subjectivity, but also objectivity.

As soon as anybody puts anything on film, it automatically has a point of view, and it's somebody else's point of view, and it's impossible for it to be yours.

I think everything's fair in art and how you perceive a character.

A filmmaker doesn't have to suffer to show suffering. You just have to understand it. You don't have to die to shoot a death scene.

You're really looking for the truth of what the piece is about. And that's going to be different for different people.

Photographers tend to have the non-judgmental gene

Cinema is not truth. Even when you make documentary films, you can choose to show this shot and not the other shot - this side and not the other side. In cinema, there's one truth - not 'the truth.' It's only 'my point of view.' Cinema is powerful because of that.

People misinterpret my lyrics sometimes too, but I mean, it is what it is.

Seeing a play, listening to music - you'll always contextualize it in your own way. Whoever you are, wherever you are; I think that's really important.

What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.

I was free always. I could work without the money, to film this and that. But this is another point, because now I'm alone, and I can just use it when I want. I think the digital cameras have changed my view. Even though sometimes, including the installations that I show, I mix 35mm filming and video handmade.

I make no pretense to accuracy. I shall be quite content if the sensibilities of no one are wounded by anything I may reduce to type.

I don't think there's such a thing as the greatest of all time or the greatest in the world.

On the last album, I didn't want to disturb the melody with too many stories. This time, I wanted to know if I was able to create images with words, with the sound of words.(...) I think that’s a good thing when the one who is listening, is feeling it in a different way that the one who creates. We are all listening with different perspectives.(...) I don’t want to impose my subjectivity to the listener.

The individual point of view is the only point of view from which one is able to look at the world in its truth.

It's very difficult to know when you're crossing the boundary. I hate the word boundary because I never think about it when taking a picture. Very often it doesn't mean anything because it depends on who's looking at the picture more than the content of the picture itself.