Haunting Douglas

Documentarian Leanne Pooley savvily incorporates conflicting agendas: He was only interested in showcasing his art, she was intent on uncovering his bio. The documentary works on both levels..

– Ronnie Scheib, reviewing Haunting Douglas in Variety, 20 February 2004

[Douglas] Wright had a lot of input into the documentary. [Director Leanne] Pooley included their negotiations in the documentary because "why he doesn't want to speak about something is almost as interesting as an answer".

– Listener writer Amy Prebble in an article on Haunting Douglas, 26 July 2003

I'd really wanted to make, for a long time, a film about what it meant to be an artist. And Douglas was a bit of a gift, because he's all those things that come with art — you know, angst and pain.

– Writer/director Leanne Pooley in a Listener interview, 1 September 2006

What an extraordinary sentence! "In perpetuity..." I don't really care, do what you want with it...

– Choreographer and dancer Douglas Wright reacts to the legalese in a documentary release form

The wounds that he inflicted on me were probably the best things that ever happened to me.

– Choreographer Douglas Wright on his fraught relationship with his Dad

We haven't yet realised that the arts are an organ in that body that the body needs to stay alive.

– Douglas Wright on seeing anger as an elemental, transferable energy

It's like a seed gets planted in your head . . . and proceeds to grow very slowly.

– Douglas Wright on New Zealand's low level of support for the arts, Sunday Star Times, 27 February 2015

I see him as a kind of dark angel that can open portals to our enjoyment and our perception of what life is... but he's got this terrible anger and fury that seeps out of his work.

– Choreographer Shona McCullagh on the complex drives of Douglas Wright