Making movies is an effort is an attempt to leave a trace of your existence.

This whole business of documentary being a second-class citizen is bullshit. A documentary can be as interesting, as dramatic, as sad, as funny, blah, blah, blah, as a fiction movie. Or it can be as awful as a fiction movie!

You have to edit the material. That assumes that some kind of a mind is operating in relation to the material. Not all minds are the same. Every aspect of filmmaking requires choice. The selection of the subject, the shooting, editing and length are all aspects of choice.

I'm too busy to be nostalgic, which is one of the reasons to keep busy. I'm not a very sentimental person.

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.

There's the internal rhythm within a sequence, and then there's the rhythm between the sequences, and that's extremely important in constructing the narrative. For example, you don't put two big dramatic scenes right next to each other. But you can use the rhythm of the transition shots; they can often serve a double purpose.

My job as a film editor is to construct a dramatic narrative because otherwise it's just a chaotic arrangement of sequences.