Jonathan Demme Quotes

The thing about documentary is that you don't really choose your subjects: they come and grab you out of your bed.

I love documentary because it's alive.

I like documentaries because there's nothing to nitpick or criticize about scenes if they aren't just right. It's about honesty and real-life circumstances coming out. Granted it can be swayed by how people tell that story, but overall, I like it because it is true.

I love documentaries, I like observing real people.

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

You just write about things that happen.

I think you can do a lot with fiction, and in some cases you can say even more in fiction than you can in straight-up documentary journalism.

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.

Over the years, I have come to realize that no matter how satisfying fiction is, it becomes that much better when it actually happened.

I love making documentaries. But I do like other factual entertainment as well, and I like doing the lighter stuff.

Even the two novels I've written were based on true stories. It's how I'm wired - real life is fascinating and fantastical enough. The kind of journalism I did unpeeled lids from cans otherwise sealed.

I like to take a little of what I learned in fiction and apply it to documentary and vice versa.

You don't necessarily need a script or actors to tell a compelling tale. Finding a person at a key moment in his life and rendering the truth as you see it - that's the truest form of drama.

As a filmmaker, my approach is to come in not with preconceived notions, but with curiosity, and in that way, whether my subjects are James Carville or Anna Wintour or Dick Cheney, I am always surprised.

Rule one of reading other people's stories is that whenever you say 'well that's not convincing' the author tells you that's the bit that wasn't made up. This is because real life is under no obligation to be convincing.

In documentaries, you're confronted with reality; you can not manipulate or move it.

When you make a film that is based in reality, reality will come up all around it.

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

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

Writers do draw inspiration from their own lives, which, quite frankly, might be more interesting than fiction.

You write about what you know.

I think documentary filmmaking is a braver way to make films because it's real, and you're really there.

You have to want to be in the company of those you're making films about.

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.'

I'm not one of those people who sees documentaries as a stepping stone to doing fiction. I love documentaries and watch tons of documentaries. But, I like fiction films a lot, too.