My goal is to make as many films as possible about different aspects of American life.

Documentary filmmaking ruins you for real life, because you learn to be extremely attentive.

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.

It is always a problem to know what an image means.

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!

My goal is to make as many films as possible about different aspects of American life.

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.