Quotes by Errol Morris

About Errol Morris:

Errol Mark Morris is 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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.

Errol Morris

The proper route to an understanding of the world is an examination of our errors about it.

Errol Morris

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it without a sense of ironic futility.

Errol Morris

Ecstatic absurdity: it's the confrontation with meaninglessness.

Errol Morris

If everything was planned, it would be dreadful. If everything was unplanned, it would be equally dreadful.

Errol Morris

Despite all of our efforts to control something, the world is much, much more powerful than us, and more deranged even than us.

Errol Morris

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.

Errol Morris

My advice to all interviewers is: Shut up and listen. It's harder than it sounds.

Errol Morris

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?

Errol Morris

Certain kinds of intimacy emerge on a phone call that might never occur if you were sitting right next to the other person.

Errol Morris

If you think you're going to create an unposed photograph, think again. There is no such thing.

Errol Morris

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.

Errol Morris

Photographs can reveal something to us, and they can also conceal things.

Errol Morris

I've never had any problem with crazy people. I like crazy people; I probably am a crazy person myself.

Errol Morris

People lie, and they always are very very creative in finding new ways to lie.

Errol Morris

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.

Errol Morris

A movie is like a tip of an iceberg, in a way, because so little of what you do in connection with making a movie actually gets into the movie. Almost everything gets left behind.

Errol Morris

But there's a big difference between, say, reporting on a story and simply making up a story.

Errol Morris

Interviews, when they are just simply an exercise in hearing what you want to hear, are of no interest.

Errol Morris

I think calling someone a character is a compliment.

Errol Morris

Author Bio

  • NameErrol Morris
  • Descriptionfilmmaker, primarily documentaries
  • BornFebruary 5, 1948
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionFilm Director
  • AwardsMacArthur Fellows Program