Documentary filmmaking ruins you for real life, because you learn to be extremely attentive. Frederick Wiseman More Quotes by Frederick Wiseman More Quotes From Frederick Wiseman I am bad at cultural generalizations but I would venture to say that by a wide margin there is less hypocrisy about sex in France than in America. Frederick Wiseman hypocrisysexamerica Unfortunately, I never played an instrument. I can't blame my parents, but I wish I had had music lessons. It's odd because I think I have a good sense of rhythm, as they say in some fields. But I don't know anything about music. Frederick Wiseman parentwishthinking If I worked in my apartment, I'd never leave my apartment. Frederick Wiseman apartmentifs Paris is a beautiful city to walk around in. And, you know, all the obvious things: I like the museums, I like the theater, I like the dance. And it's manageable. The food's good. I know a lot of interesting people here. I lived in Boston for 50 years or more. Wherever I am, I'm usually holed up most of the time in the editing room, and so, when I leave the editing room, even if I just take a walk, it's gorgeous. And I walk everywhere. I'm a victim of the seduction of Paris. Frederick Wiseman editingbeautifulmuseums A lot of the issues of rhythm in film are found in the editing because it's very rare that any sequence is the sequence that is shot. Frederick Wiseman issuesfilmediting It's rare in a documentary film that you have a repetitive act. So when you do, you can shoot it in different ways so that you have more choices when you're sitting down to edit that sequence six months later. Frederick Wiseman sitting-downdifferentchoices 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! Frederick Wiseman bullshitclassinteresting One's relationship to time is complicated, and sometimes a day will drag on forever and sometimes it'll be over in a flash. When you look back, "I'm old," after 40 or 60 years, I can't believe I'm as old as I am. Frederick Wiseman foreverbelieveyears I'm too busy to be nostalgic, which is one of the reasons to keep busy. I'm not a very sentimental person. Frederick Wiseman sentimentalbusyreason I think my movies aren't sentimental. I think my movies are funny and sad and realistic. Not realistic in the sense that they're documentaries, but realistic in the sense that they're not idealistic, they're not optimistic, not pessimistic, and not propagandistic. They're an analysis of a situation. I call it as I see it, so to speak. Frederick Wiseman optimisticanalysisthinking Whether you're a newspaper journalist, a lawyer, a doctor. You have to organize your thoughts. Frederick Wiseman doctorslawyernewspapers Everything about a movie is manipulation. Frederick Wiseman manipulation I hope that not only my documentaries, but everybody's documentaries, last. It will really confuse historians in the next century, because they'll have, in addition to all the print material, they'll have all these pictures to look at. Frederick Wiseman pictureswilllookhope
