In the case of The Thin Blue Line, I was surprised actually by many things. I was shooting down in Texas where the actual killer David Harris lived and I interviewed the town cop. He described these guys as being David Harris' partners in crime and even though they had criminal records and had committed crimes, they sued me! More often than not, the insurance company that protects you against this type of lawsuit will settle it with cash and contest it in a court of law.

Part of the mystery of any given photograph is the fact that it was taken at a certain time and in a certain place and time keeps moving on. A photograph might be a moment in time preserved, but the world continues to change around it.

We imagine what this country is, but quite clearly, this country is a mystery. I mean, one of the reasons I did the election ads is, I thought I could learn something. Like, what the hell is going on? I think anybody - particularly a person of leftist persuasion such as myself - who stops and thinks even for a moment, realizes that something strange is going on and we don't quite get it.

I like to think that one of things I've done with non-fiction since the very beginning is to find new ways of telling true stories.

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.

There's this crazy thinking that style guarantees truth. You go out with a hand-held camera, use available light, and somehow the truth emerges.

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