Errol Morris Quotes

“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've been encouraging documentary filmmakers to use more and more humor, and they're loath to do that because they think if it's a documentary it has to be deadly serious - it has to be like medicine that you're supposed to take. And I think it's what keeps the mass audience from going to documentaries.”

“In feature films the director is God in documentary films God is the director.”

“Documentary evidence says where there is smoke there is fire, be it holy smoke or otherwise.”

“I haven’t been disingenuous in what I’ve said describing my perception of “truth” and “reality.” Certainly, I understand what is generally meant to be the “truth,” I understand this notion, but it’s not something I trust in, OK?The only answer that feels true (I said feels, not is) is that yes, the character Minnie is me, but she is not me. She is a projection of some tumult which originates within me, but she is not me. I use elements of myself, including my likeness, for the character, perhaps as Cindy Sherman uses herself in her work, but like Sherman’s photographs, the work itself is not any more about the creator than it is about everyone. I won’t deny that Minnie does things I have done, and that things happen to her that have happened to me, but she, unlike me, having been created, is who she is and will remain so, unchanged now. I make no attempt to create “documentary.” There is a process of dissociation that takes place when I make a story, I make creative decisions in a fugue state that I could hardly describe to you, but the end result is, I hope, a story with some meaning or resonance, something created, with a beginning, a middle and an end, an encapsulation of feeling and impression, but in no way a documentary of anything other than an “emotional truth.”If I told most interviewers that my work is “true” and that it is based on real events that occurred in my life, they would more readily accept this than they do the explanation I try to give. Sadly, what they would believe feels to me like a lie and a simplification of a process that is for me as complex and vague as life itself…”

“I felt the need to distance myself from my problems, instead of dealing with them. My mother said It’s not uncommon for people to run away from their fears to start somewhere new with a better attitude.”

“Doing a documentary is about discovering, being open, learning, and following curiosity.”

“If everyone knows so much about it, why do they need to make a documentary?”

“I love devastating movies, documentaries and hummingbirds (yes, in that order).”

“I make short films, little documentaries, about the co-evolution of humans and technology.”