Quotes from Kevin Macdonald

In some ways, making documentaries is like being a journalist. You interview people and then use the bits you want to use as opposed to the bits they want you to use.

When you're an outsider and going into a culture like America, it's easier to stay away from any cliches because you're not really aware of what they are.

I've done a few celebrity-related things, and I think on the first one - about Mick Jagger - I got stung and was not able to make the film I wanted to make.

I'm not particularly ethnically Scottish; I have one grandfather who is Scottish, although he's called Macdonald, and you don't get a lot more Scottish than that. The Scottish part of my family are from Skye, and I've always been very aware of that - always been very attracted to Scottish subject matter, I guess.

I've fallen out very badly with some of the subjects I've interviewed, because they see their lives a certain way; to step into a cinema and see your life depicted in another way can come as a terrible shock.

Everyone's got to make one submarine drama in their life.

I love submarine movies.

The submarine genre is a category with all its own rules. But shooting on water is famously tough.

The great thing about making a film on a submarine is that it's kind of like making a play. You've got this limited environment.

When you look at almost every submarine movie, to some degree or another, there's this 'Moby Dick' element, this Ahab element to them.

For me, the aim of making any film like this, any film about an artist, would be to send you back to the art.

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

In film, I believe things should either be documentary or drama.

People listen to The Beatles, but while they were muscially influential, they weren't culturally influential in quite the same way. You can go into the back of beyond in a little Indian village, and they will listen to Bob Marley. But they're not going to be listening to The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.

I don't think life gets any better than sitting in the sun while a legend of French cinema tells you stories about making 'Belle de Jour' and other wonderful films, and eating great food.