Rithy Panh Quotes

Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth.

As soon as anybody puts anything on film, it automatically has a point of view, and it's somebody else's point of view, and it's impossible for it to be yours.

There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth.

Truth is only a question of point of view.

I'm a moviemaker, not a documentarian. I try to hit the truth.

So you want another story?" Uhh... no. We would like to know what really happened." Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?" Uhh... perhaps in English. In Japanese a story would have an element of invention in it. We don't want any invention. We want the 'straight facts,' as you say in English." Isn't telling about something--using words, English or Japanese--already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?

When you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that. Reality simply consists of different points of view.

There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

There are always two or three or four sides to every story.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Life's all about perceptions.

It's a very complicated issue about when is a fact not a fact in the context of opinions.

All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.

We're always just telling stories, and stories are always just approximations of the truth. It's never the truth exactly.

Surely one of the most visible lessons taught by the twentieth century has been the existence, not so much of a number of different realities, but of a number of different lenses with which to see the same reality.

History is about who tells it.

A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.

Reality is a question of perspective.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.

Remember that all is opinion. For what was said by the Cynic Monimus is manifest: and manifest too is the use of what was said, if a man receives what may be got out of it as far as it is true.

Truth is a matter of the imagination.

But O the truth, the truth. The many eyes That look on it The diverse things they see.

You can make a thousand different movies about the same subject.

Jean-Luc Godard said that cinema is the truth 24 frames a second. I think cinema is lies 24 frames a second.

There are many levels of truth.