Frederick Wiseman Quotes
My goal is to make as many films as possible about different aspects of American life.
I'm too busy to be nostalgic, which is one of the reasons to keep busy. I'm not a very sentimental person.
I don't like to read novels where the novelist tells me what to think about the situation and the characters. I prefer to discover for myself.
I'm in no way suggesting that I succeed, but it's inspiring to read somebody who does succeed and from whom, in a general way, you can draw examples and nourishment and sustenance.
I'm very careful of not being critical of other people's movies, which work in different styles. I think some of my movies can be interpreted as critical of their subjects.
Documentary filmmaking ruins you for real life, because you learn to be extremely attentive.
Anybody whose mind is functioning at all can't be content with the way the world works.
In moviemaking, you learn to pay attention to detail, because so much is in the detail. And when you're shooting, you try to be very alert to what's going on, even if you're tired.
Whether you're a newspaper journalist, a lawyer, a doctor. You have to organize your thoughts.
A lot of the issues of rhythm in film are found in the editing because it's very rare that any sequence is the sequence that is shot.
Even if I know I'm going to go to a church, I don't know what the minister's going to say.
I'm drawn to making movies about contemporary life. The reason I choose institutions is because they provide a limit, a boundary.
I don't really know what I want, other than good sequences, whatever that means. What I find is always a matter of chance, judgment, and luck.
My job as a film editor is to construct a dramatic narrative because otherwise it's just a chaotic arrangement of sequences.
I do not think that my films or films by any other filmmaker represent "THE TRUTH." I do not feel the need to categorize my films or anyone else's.