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.

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!

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

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.

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

Of course there's conscious manipulation! Everything about a movie is manipulation ... If you like it, it's an interpretation. If you don't like it, it's a lie - but everything about these movies is a distortion."