D. A. Pennebaker Quotes

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D. A. Pennebaker

Profession : Director

Birth : July 15, 1925

When you're editing, you're putting it together in a way that makes sense metaphysically. You're not inventing it, but you're finding the story that's there. You're making a play that's eventually going to go on stage and present itself to an audience. You want to show what happened, not exactly what you have evidence of happening.

D. A. Pennebaker

One of the things we found out as we filmed with people who dealt with chimps, and with all animals, and it's really incredible, is their levels of intelligence that we don't recognize right away.

D. A. Pennebaker

I heard the new film, 'Tangerine,' was filmed entirely on iPhones. No cameras were involved!

D. A. Pennebaker

It was interesting to shoot history as it happens, without anyone demanding a huge story.

D. A. Pennebaker

Well, it is curious what lasts and what doesn't. Publishing empires and whatnot would pay anything to figure it out. But they can't figure it out.

D. A. Pennebaker

I had maybe heard 'The Times Are A-Changing' on the radio, but I had no idea who Dylan was. No idea.

D. A. Pennebaker

I kind of liked the idea of filming musicians. I could like a musician and know, at the same time, maybe nobody else maybe liked them much or appreciated them.

D. A. Pennebaker

The very first thing I ever did, I was doing some work for the French Cultural Center. They wanted a little recording set up. And I got wire. A wire recorder. The wire came off spools, and to cut and edit, you tied it together in little square knots. Can you imagine?

D. A. Pennebaker

When the fearsome foursome of rock music, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis, decided to show up in Toronto for a rock and roll festival, I knew we had to go there to try to get them all on film.

D. A. Pennebaker

You don't necessarily need a script or actors to tell a compelling tale. Finding a person at a key moment in his life and rendering the truth as you see it - that's the truest form of drama.

D. A. Pennebaker