Errol Morris
Errol Morris
Errol Mark Morrisis an American film director. In 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth5 February 1948
CityHewlett, NY
CountryUnited States of America
film concerned
My films are as much concerned with truth as anything in vérité. Maybe more so.
language ends used
Language can be used to so many diverse ends. It can be used to clarify and, of course, it can be used to obfuscate, confuse, evade...
anxieties endless enormous putting
There are endless anxieties in putting a film together, and it's an enormous relief when you know it's working with an audience.
people ways
People lie, and they always are very very creative in finding new ways to lie.
diverse great license seems
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.'
emerges ends
But I can say what interests me about documentary is the fact that you don't know how the story ends at the onset - that you are investigating, with a camera, and the story emerges as you go along.
came criticized dedicated people seems thin truth using
When 'The Thin Blue Line' came out, I was criticized by many people for using reenactments, as if I wasn't dedicated to the truth because I filmed these scenes. That always and still seems to be nonsensical.
shut
My advice to all interviewers is: Shut up and listen. It's harder than it sounds.
properly
I think an interview, properly considered, should be an investigation. You shouldn't know what the interview will yield. Otherwise, why do it at all?
happen yellow
We all know that yellow journalism didn't just happen a week ago or a month ago, that yellow journalism has probably been with us as long as journalism has been with us.
claims films includes neither nor
Films are neither true nor false. That includes my films, as well as others. They may make claims that are true or false, but films are too complex. They have too many ingredients.
describe however journalist pursuit truth
If you're a journalist - and I think, on some level, I'm a journalist, and proud to be a journalist, or a documentarian, however you want to describe it - part of what I do has to be the pursuit of the truth.
per tabloid
First of all, tabloid stories are some of the richest and most important stories that we have. There's nothing wrong, per se, with tabloid stories.
written
I've been writing a lot more, I believe, because of the Internet. I've been posting stuff that I've written and I've just been writing.