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Stories, as we're taught in journalism school early on, are told through people. Those stories make our documentaries powerful. You can explore someone's culture, you can explore their experience, you can explore an issue through human beings who are going through it.

In documentaries, there's a truth that unfolds unnaturally, and you get to chronicle it. In narratives, you have to create the situations so that the truth will come out.

You can construct whatever story you want to. Documentaries are constructions, as is all journalism.

I always thought that life is full of stories and characters that feel like literary stories and characters. So when I started making documentaries, they weren't humble empirical things, just following people around. I was always trying to impose a story.

There's a problem with narratives. Most that spring to mind are fictional.

I think you can do a lot with fiction, and in some cases you can say even more in fiction than you can in straight-up documentary journalism.

Look, I'm just a storyteller. When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda.

We're telling a story. And the demands of that are different from the demands of a documentary. The audience must believe in order to keep faith in the story.

Stories and narratives are one of the most powerful things in humanity. They're devices for dealing with the chaotic danger of existence.