Capturing Reality (2008) Movie Script

- Thank you.

- Okay.

- On est prêt?

- D'accord.

- Merci.

- I loved to go to the movies,

but it never occurred to me

that I could ever make movies.

In fact,

I went to undergraduate school

in engineering,

which I hated from day one.

- I mean,

it just sort of happened.

- Before making films,

I worked

as a professional chef

for about 10 years.

- Even when I was 14,

I knew I would make films.

I started to develop stories

and screenplays

and was always chased

out of offices of producers.

- As a 16-year-old,

it seemed to me

that it would be a waste of time

to be a writer;

the majority of the population

wouldn't be able

to read what I wrote.

And I loved going to films

even then.

I thought films

was really my medium.

- So I became an editor

at first,

because it was that darkness

I liked.

- Starting out life

as a psychologist,

in science you learn

to be open-minded.

Very important

to making a documentary.

- My first job

on a documentary shoot

was, you know:

Here's the Nagra,

you're recording sound.

And I was, like, oh my God!

- Working

with that amazing dance

with people in the frame...

- You'd go to lunch

and talk about it.

There was just this great

kind of immersion

in the adventure of it,

which I found

incredibly appealing.

- It was... astounding,

and I just fell in love.

- And then I went

to film school,

then I dropped out

of film school,

but that's another story.

- Documentary filmmaking

and what we call

film d'auteur -

cinema d'auteur,

author's film -

is...

is the absolutely...

the freest way of cinema.

You have

such an enormous spectrum

of possibilities of expression.

- But I'm sorry,

I speak English,

but not very well. Huh?

- In the middle of the night,

with a tiny camera

in my right hand,

with a tiny candle

in my left hand,

lighting the person's face,

and that was, you know,

becomes cinema.

It goes on screens

around the world.

You cannot have less,

you know?

- Documentary filmmaking

is about being inspired

by the moment.

It's about the joy

of letting something affect you,

and respond.

Whether it's with your camera,

or yourself as a person

if you're the interviewer.

It's about relating in a space,

like dancing.

- Real life

is so much more interesting

and so much more bizarre

than anything you can make up.

And, you know, the imagination

is always limited,

but somehow reality

is infinitely bizarre

and weird and compelling.

It's the thing

that fiction films,

no matter how good they are,

just can't offer.

- It's a very...

sort of super-real thing

that you're doing.

It's highly charged.

It forces people

to examine themselves.

It's very intense.

- I think of it, as a filmmaker,

as a way to understand conflicts

and... and human contradictions

and power.

You have people who

are confronted with decisions

and what are they gonna do.

- The part that I like

about documentary

is that it can be anything.

The part I don't like about it,

is that you are constantly

being told

that documentary

has to be one thing

rather than a whole multiple

of possible things.

Gus Rose walked in.

- He had a confession

he wanted me to sign.

He, uh... said

that Iwould sign it.

He didn't give a damn

what I said.

- We all know

that you can create things

that are about the world.

They're not meant

as purely fiction.

They're meant as stories

about real events,

real people.

We piece together reality,

each one of us,

from bits and pieces of stuff.

Reality isn't handed to us

whole.

- It has the power to plant

questions in people's minds.

It has the power to make you

empathize with things

which you never really knew

you could empathize with.

- Rather than telling people

what to think,

or, you know,

they're learning a lesson,

we're taking them through

an emotional experience

which opens a little window

into something.

- It's an emotional medium.

It's not a medium of intellect

and intellectual discourse.

It's about engagement...

and emotion.

- The form itself

is no longer a kind of linear...

information-based form.

It's something which can take

from other art forms,

from the great river of cinema.

I see them all like

a painter would see them,

as kind of colours on a palette,

as you're making a painting.

And the painting is,

in our world now,

a documentary film.

- There's so many ideas

for documentaries out there.

You know, you'll go to a party

or be talking to a friend:

"Oh, you know,

it'd make a great film."

There's just ideas just floating

out there in the ether,

but the ones that stick

are, again,

these ones where you have

a lot of curiosity.

I think, for me,

that's the biggest thing:

is there enough

personal curiosity

about that subject,

about what happens

in that story,

to propel the very long,

enervating process

that is making a film?

- The eureka moment for me,

when I'm thinking about a film,

is when I really feel

there's something

I want to say and it...

I don't know, I feel arrogant.

It sounds, to me,

arrogant to say that.

Like, why would, you know,

I have anything to say

that people

haven't already thought of?

But, in fact,

that is the little egotism

of the artist.

- I feel very intrigued...

by the enigma of human beings,

you know.

How somebody really nice,

very sympathetic,

can just sit there and say:

"Yeah, my job is flying bombs

into the Congo," you know?

The origin of the idea

was that moment 10 years ago

when I met

some of these Russian pilots.

And I knew I had something

in my hands

that was very explosive.

It was very clear.

And I knew I had found

the right location

and the right environment

to make a point

on the state of our time,

economically and socially.

One strange product,

which is that fish,

tells us the whole story

of our times, in a way,

you know?

- I mean, I always tell people,

"If you can walk away,

walk away."

It's only when you can't walk

away from a subject

that you should make it,

because it's too hard

to make documentaries,

it requires

enormous commitment, time.

You will never

be rewarded financially enough.

So the need to make it

is actually, I think,

the first essential point.

- I stumble across things

that immediately

fascinate me deeply,

and then I know

there is no choice.

All the projects I have done

were uninvited guests.

Like having...

inviting two guests for dinner

and you open the door

a little bit

and all of a sudden

you have the entire apartment,

the house

full of uninvited guests.

- I'm giving this talk

in Chicago

and this man mentions

Henry Darger

and that he knows

Darger's last landlady,

and then the next thing I know,

I'm standing in Darger's room.

The room that really

was the place

where he spent

the last 40 years.

And I wasn't thinking

I wanted to make a film.

I just wanted

to see more of the work,

but when I stood in that room,

I had one of those moments

where my heart

was just beating really fast

and I was just thinking

the presence of this person

was so strong.

And this room was so beautiful.

Like, everything in there

was sort of old and dusty,

but everything was something

he had collected there,

and there was just this sense

of the person in the place

that I felt that you could

make a film out of this.

And I wanted to know more.

And that was the beginning

of the ball rolling,

the curiosity building

and the sense that I needed

to try to follow this

and see where it went.

- There's a lot of serendipity

in this world.

I mean, certain projects,

you kind of... you stalk,

and you try to make them.

Others come

and land in your lap.

- I was driving my car

and I hear the news,

the shooting in Oka.

And when I arrived there,

there was a barricade

of police officers

and you couldn't go

into the village.

I just was amazed,

and I guess I felt it's my duty,

it has to be documented

by one of us.

I wanted to transmit

what I felt and saw there,

and what the story was

and what it was like...

... so that whoever's

looking at it

can understand

what that story is,

'cause it was so complicated.

It'll last two or three days,

or another weekend.

But it lasted 78 days.

- Sometimes you just end up

in these incredible situations

which you probably,

in the light of day,

would choose

maybe not to get into,

but by that time,

you're so intrigued

that you continue on.

- I trotted off quite innocently

to Cornwall,

innocently inasmuch

as I was looking round

in the area of hunting,

but not to actually do a hunt.

I wanted to get into something

quite remote,

but I wasn't quite sure what.

This old man

who worked for the hunt

went out and about in his van

picking up animals,

and the first place we went to,

he just shot it.

- This is a Jersey cross,

so there's no future in him...

- A, that shocked me,

but B,

then to discover the animal

was completely healthy,

and this was just

about market values,

that got me going.

Then you're on it.

Then you know

there is something happening

that you need to follow,

and it starts

to dictate your journey.

- So we only get rid

of that sort, you know...

- What's the dramatic premise?

Who is it about?

- What's the underlying story?

- There's something that's

really important

that's on the line.

- You have to have

some kind of framework,

what you're planning to do.

- You have to keep adjusting

to what is going on.

- And I was totally unprepared.

I had no shooting permit,

I had no crew,

I had nothing...

- Okay, get the camera out,

quick! You know, shoot...

- A lot of it is just luck.

- For me,

it's more about the ideas

and the structure

at an early stage,

because I always feel

if I have a shape, or a story,

or a movement through a film,

then other things will follow.

- About a year ago,

I found out that I might have

100 or even 200

half-brothers and sisters.

I don't know who they are.

Nor do I know the man

from whose body

we were all made.

- I was looking

for a dramatic setup,

a dramatic question

which would drive the quest.

The basic dramatic question is:

Will this guy find his bio-dad?

The underlying question is:

What is the meaning of family?

And I knew

I had a couple of leads

on who the sperm donor

might be.

So I knew I had that.

Eight possible sperm donors,

all negative.

So I knew that those leads

would take me somewhere.

So I figured

I had enough of a quest,

with some ups and downs,

and that's what

I structured beforehand.

And I was nervous,

'cause, I mean,

what if nothing happened?

Can you get the name

of the donor or identify--

- No, no, you can't.

- You can't?

- No. No, we do have it,

but we're not allowed to,

because it's confidential

and the donors only donate

under that basis,

that it'll remain confidential.

- All right,

well, thank you very much

for the information.

- Okay, then.

- In the Realms of the Unreal

was the most pre-scripted film

that I'd worked on

up to that point.

The paintings were one component

of a world

that Henry Darger was creating.

He had written, you know,

the 15,000-page novel,

he was writing, you know,

these battle songs

to be played in his head.

And he was really creating

as three-dimensional a world

as he could to, you know,

sort of populate

this sort of ultimate story.

The structure was the thing

that I worked hardest on.

How to tell

the parallel stories.

The stories

of Henry Darger's real life,

what happened factually,

in that time.

What was happening

in the world around him?

And then what was the story

that he was telling

in his fiction,

in the book

In the Realms of the Unreal?

So to find a way

to weave those things together

was a real challenge.

- I always think making a film

is a bit like

kind of building blocks.

You start off

with one thing and then you...

that gives you a certain amount

of information,

you move on to the next thing

and then...

So a film becomes

more and more...

you get

more and more information

as you make a film,

and you have

more and more questions.

And your questions

become more and more focused.

- Before you start a film,

you don't just go

and, like,

cast a net everywhere.

I mean, you have to say:

This is what I'm interested in.

My Country, My Country

looks at an Iraqi family

and what happens to them

during the occupation,

but it's really, I think,

a film about America

and what America is doing

in Iraq right now.

You're sort of on this journey,

but you don't know

necessarily where it's going.

There is a sort

of delicate balance

of having a plan,

and then also surrendering

to what you encounter.

And the next challenge

is identifying the people

who you'll follow,

who will take you

through this conflict.

- In a way, you're casting,

you know,

when you go out

and you meet people,

you're assessing

the level of interest

you think that they will have

for the audience.

How engaging are they?

How articulate are they?

What are their particular

interests and quirks?

You know,

what is it about them

that makes them fascinating

to you?

- When I think of Kathleen...

... what I remember,

unfortunately,

is her dying in my arms.

That's always

the overwhelming...

image.

- And yet, within,

hell, 30 minutes

of that sonofabitch

coming in here,

it was... it was a crime scene

and I was guilty

and that was it!

- Now I'm not ready

and I have no make-up on!

But things are getting better!

Did you find my sign,

"in bathtub"?

- There we are

outside of the house with Edie,

and this decaying old mansion

with her mother inside.

Hi.

- Hang on.

- Take your time.

It's important

that you choose someone

that you can connect with,

and hopefully things will happen

that were not predicted

specifically

before you got into it,

but things

would take a turn for...

toward a story.

- Very depressing, you know,

when winter sets in here.

Because I don't like

the country

and I don't want to be here.

Any little rat's nest

in New York,

any little mouse hole,

any little rat hole,

even on 10th Avenue,

I would like better.

- I primarily

make character films.

I hide my issues

in character and stories.

But I've gotta find

the characters,

I've got to cast it,

to know who to hang it on.

- Doomsday, they tell me.

They tell me doomsday...

We're all gonna die!

Hello.

- The reason

they wanted to be filmed

is that their station

was literally

being allowed

to be run into the ground.

When people feel they're being

flushed down the loo, basically,

I think if someone comes in

and says,

"Can I - I want to shine light

upon you," then people respond.

There's a reason.

- We close at midnight, love,

take your time.

- But I didn't know

the characters.

I certainly didn't know Derek

in the ticket shop,

and he wouldn't let me in

the ticket shop,

'cause I didn't have

the correct paperwork.

God, he was pedantic.

Which is why it was so magical

when I got in there

that he was as he was.

- ... and be prepared to accept

that you're not going

to go any further.

I think that's the difference

between being happy

and miserable.

Because I'm not going

to achieve anything in life.

So, as you say,

I must be depressed, mustn't I?

Hmm.

- What would you have actually

liked to have achieved?

- I don't really know.

Dreams you can have,

but that's not the same

as wanting to achieve something,

is it?

- People want

to talk to cameras mostly,

not because

they want to be famous,

it's because

there's such a seductivity

of just a neutral listener.

And usually we've been trained

to be listeners

when we have a camera.

And that is a rare thing

in our world:

somebody to just listen to you.

- People will say things

in front of a camera

that they wouldn't even say

to their loved ones.

That's what I find

is so strange.

The camera

has this effect on you,

where somehow,

because of the artificiality

of the situation,

you're more honest

and more truthful

rather than less honest

and truthful,

and I don't know

quite why that is.

Simon!!!

- He would've been up

at first light, I thought,

because I was desperately,

desperately thirsty

and he would've wanted

to get down and get water.

And he would've wanted

to find me.

- Now I did stop and pause

and I shouted across

into the crevasse.

I yelled and yelled

and yelled, "Joe, Joe..."

- As I was interviewing

Joe and Simon,

they would, first of all,

come out with this very pat,

very simplistic version

of things,

and for a couple of hours,

we just go that out of the way,

and then they kind of ran out

of things to say.

And then this extraordinary

thing happens

where, actually,

the camera starts to act

as a kind of catalyst

and starts to sort of almost

drag things out of people.

- And I suppose, again,

with the benefit of hindsight,

you know,

after I got off the rope,

I should have gone

and looked into the crevasse

to see where he was,

you know, but...

- You could literally

see them...

reliving elements of it.

You know, once I started

to see that on the monitor,

Well, that's the film.

- I think the interesting thing

is to know:

What is the relationship

between the person

behind the camera

and the person

in front of the camera?

Because that's something

an audience

have the right to know.

It's, like: Do these people

like each other?

Do they have

an intimate relationship?

Is it a relationship of trust?

What does the filmmaker

actually really think?

- Phew!

- There's this sort

of weird intensity

in the relationship

that develops.

Which developed with

Aileen Wuornos in particular.

- We have evil in us,

all of us do.

And my evil

would just happen to...

come out

because of the circumstances

of what I was doing.

Hitchhiking, hooking,

on the road...

I was a homeless person

all my life.

- The, uh, Aileen film was...

... probably the most difficult

thing I've ever done

and I imagine

Nick feels the same way.

Uh...

You know,

we had a relationship with her.

She actually requested

that we come

and be witnesses

to the execution,

which, uh...

we declined.

- I choose people

that I can relate to.

And I... I trust, also,

from my side.

And I...

before switching on a camera,

I usually...

... tell them,

as good as I can,

who I am and what I am doing,

what I'm made of, you know.

Elizabeth was a key character,

was a very close friend of ours.

Insider, in a way.

She knew

what we were looking for,

she knew our thoughts,

she knew, you know,

what we're...

what we're about to do,

what kind of film.

- And suddenly

she's not there anymore.

She's dead.

And, of course,

it had to be a part of the film.

Because it was so hard

on ourselves and...

and, of course,

it's a very, very painful part

of the film.

Because the pain

we had as filmmakers

is now on screen.

And that is what we call

art of cinema,

is to transform

a life experience into cinema

and then make it

into your life experience,

as a spectator.

- People think they're going

to be interviewed

sitting behind a desk

with a flag and a flower

behind them.

And, you know,

they become very presentational.

Uh, and I think what Nick does

is fantastic,

because he... he gets people

in their essence.

That's why he likes

to be rolling

when we knock on a door

and somebody opens it.

- I heard he was at least 6'7.

- Our brains are saturated

with information

within the first second

of seeing somebody.

- A knock like that,

it gotta be somebody scared.

You was knockin'

like you were scared, man.

- Scared.

- Yeah.

- No, I'm not scared.

- All right.

- You see this sort of giant.

It's very funny.

I think it's quite revealing

of both me and him.

We take in information

so quickly.

And the audience is getting

all this information too.

- Black people don't do that.

You want it clear,

I want you to see!

Folks'll be running out the door

with your television!

- I think there's been

a tradition in the past

of going in

and interviewing people

and changing

their sitting room all around

and relighting it,

and all you're doing

is destroying the very things

that you should be filming.

- My dad used to tell me

when I was a young kid,

I'd look at a job

that had to be done

and he'd say to me,

"You know,

nothing's impossible."

And that always stuck

in my craw.

I couldn't believe it -

"nothing's impossible."

- There was no such office.

We created the office.

He had the insurance trophies

up in the attic in a box,

we brought 'em down,

we put 'em up on the wall.

We created this environment

for him.

- ... and I'd specifically

designed my office

so that I could display

the maximum trophies

on walls and stuff.

- And in that environment,

he came alive.

It was a return to these...

heroic-insurance-salesman

moments of the past.

He came alive for the camera.

We created something

which was part

of his fantasy world.

- I don't like this whole idea

of interview,

you know,

in a documentary,

because it's like

somebody's telling you

something that's happened,

or...

and you sort of set something,

you know.

Whereas, what I... what I love,

is when things happen naturally

in real life.

It's this whole thing

of seeing something unfold

in front of you.

Fouzia,

the little nine-year-old,

who was eight

when she was circumcised,

she came up to me

and said, "Come to my house."

Oh, she's going

to read me a poem

and then she expects

an interview.

I said, "We don't really

do interviews, Fouzia."

And she said,

"You've got to come.

I've depended on... I want...

I've got a reason

for you to come,

I want you to come."

So we went and,

"Stand there, Kim. Right."

And then she told me the poem

right into the camera.

- I want to tell you a poem

entitled

"The Day I Will Never Forget."

"It was on a Sunday night

when my mum called me

"and she said, 'My daughter,

come,' in a low voice.

"I went quietly.

"Suddenly, my mom said,

"'My daughter,

tomorrow is your D-Day.'

"I was shocked to hear that,

"but I was not expected

to say anything.

"In the morning I was dragged

and pinned on the ground

"when three women set

and crucified me on the floor.

"I cried till I had no voice.

"The only thing I said was,

'Mom, where are you?'

"And the only answer I got

was, 'Quiet. Quiet, girl.'

"The pain I had experienced

"was one I will never forget

for the rest of my life

"and I would not wish the same

to happen to my friend.

That night..."

- I suppose those are the things

that you sort of depend

on happening,

but I couldn't have planned it.

- The question

of how you frame an interview,

how you photograph an interview,

how you cut an interview,

is all really up for grabs

and very, very interesting.

What is at the heart of this?

This is the only job

you've ever had.

- It's a more complex phenomenon

than you might think.

- I'm learning about things

I'm really fascinated with.

- I was thinking

about the Interrotron

before I even became

a filmmaker.

I certainly was aware

of this whole issue

of eye contact.

- How could I get the person

I was interviewing

to look at me

and look right into the lens

at the same time?

And...

the answer is mirrors.

Prompters cross-connected,

two cameras.

My image

is floating on the lens,

but the camera is looking

straight through that image

at the person.

It makes The Fog of War

a different kind of film.

You're really scrutinizing

McNamara,

and McNamara is talking directly

to you and the audience.

- He and I'd say I...

were behaving as war criminals.

- I don't even think

it was clear to me,

at the time

that I was making it,

how powerful

that actually could be.

LeMay recognized

that what he was doing...

would be thought immoral

if his side had lost.

Well what makes it immoral

if you lose

and not immoral if you win?

- With a documentary,

there's an agreement

with the audience

that you are referencing,

or giving an account of,

evidence-based reality.

That you are actually saying,

"This is the way the world is

as I see it."

And that has very little to do

with whether you use actors

or recreations,

or anything really,

except that there's an agreement

that this is an account

of reality.

People have a sense

when that is violated.

- This is Dieter Dengler.

He came to America

40 years ago...

- I just discovered

that Werner Herzog,

when he did

Little Dieter Needs to Fly,

he had this scene

where Dieter comes home

to his house in California

and he opens and closes

the door several times.

Because he was a prisoner

in Laos, he can't feel shut in,

so he opens

and closes the door quickly

to make sure it's unlocked.

And it's a very powerful moment,

and I always remember it

in the film.

Total bullshit.

Herzog made that up

and made him do it.

And it is

a wonderful dramatization

of the guy's theme,

but I think that's a lie.

- Look at Michael Moore.

He makes pamphlets, basically.

He makes polemical films,

where he carefully constructs

a reality to serve his needs.

And he's blatant about it

and he makes...

he's careful

in checking his facts,

but when you see his films,

which are hugely popular

and have done a great deal

for us documentarians...

but he commits,

some people would say,

crimes towards the art form

of documentary.

- It is all manipulation.

I mean, let's not be

too sort of saintly about this.

I think filmmaking

and documentary-making

is a very subjective process,

and anybody

who tries to present themselves

as telling the truth

in some way

is perpetrating a fraud,

because it's just impossible.

- This idea

that there is no such thing

as absolute truth,

that truth is subjective -

"there's truth for you,

there's truth for me,"

"everybody

has their own truth" -

um...

... for me,

that's nonsense talk.

There's a real world.

We inhabit that real world.

Things happen.

Someone sits...

in the driver's seat of that car

and pulls the trigger.

That's not up for grabs.

There's not this guy's truth

and that guy's truth.

There's the truth of what

actually happened that night.

- When you see a film

and you have good reason

to think that it's the truth,

then your knowledge

of the real world

has been increased.

And it's so important for us

to really know what's going on.

- You do have to be respectful

of the facts.

Yeah, you should let the facts

get in the way of a good story.

You absolutely should.

And out of that

will emerge a true story.

- I tell the story in a way

where I'm searching for...

not for just the facts,

I am into something

which gives you deeper insight

into an essence,

into a concentration

of something

that is way beyond facts

and that is truth,

"an ecstasy of truth,"

as I sometimes call it.

Otherwise,

facts are not that interesting.

If you want to have facts,

go and buy yourself

the phone directory

of Manhattan.

You've got eight-million entries

and they're all correct,

they're all facts,

but they do not constitute

anything.

- All of it is artificial.

They're all different shades

of the same colour.

What I'm trying

to do in my films

is equally dishonest,

if you like.

I'm trying to say,

"This really is real.

"This is me, hand-holding,

they're talking to me,

there are no other gizmos,

this is life as it happens."

But obviously

that's also rubbish,

because I've chosen that person.

The person's changing their

behaviour because I'm there.

In the edit,

they'll be put in a context

that makes them

slightly different.

- I mean, we're all aware

that there is no such thing

as an objective voice.

So you must acknowledge

perspective,

but at the same time,

I really think that unless

you are constantly checking

and calibrating that perspective

as you're working,

you can stray off

into dangerous places,

ethically, morally.

- The sequence

in One Day In September

where we see

Joseph Romano's body,

him in a photograph dead,

covered in blood,

presents classic filmmaker's

moral dilemma.

- I can imagine him...

... calling my name.

- Joseph Romano's wife

and his daughter

saw the way that we put this

together and they were appalled.

They said, initially,

"We don't want that sequence

to be in the film."

As a storyteller,

you want to impact your audience

and show them

how terrible this event was.

I said if you want people

to feel

like somebody's really to blame,

you need to show them

what they're to blame for.

So, in the end,

they agreed

that the footage should stay in.

Ultimately, you've got

to look into yourself and say,

"Do I feel like I'm doing

something exploitative,

or don't I?"

And it has to be

a personal decision

and there is

no hard and fast rule.

- I always tell

the individual person,

because it always happens.

We get very intimate

and the person is in confidence

and will say things sometimes

that they never said before

to anyone else,

because of the relationship

you develop with your subject.

And I always say to them,

at first,

"Should it be

that you say something

"that you feel very sorry

that you said it,

"you tell me...

and I don't have to use that."

Now the difference is,

many people say,

"You're crazy to do this,

"because what if the person

tells you something

"and you're the only one

that knows it

and it's very important

to the film?"

For me,

it's never important enough

for me to damage someone's life.

- We think

it's a kind of noble enterprise.

We're revealing

and capturing people's stories

and transforming them

and sharing them with people,

but in fact we rely very much

on people's stories,

so we are sucking,

in a certain way,

the stories right out of people.

- You know,

it's a difficult job sometimes.

There's a conflict.

Sometimes you want something

in the film

and they don't want

to be in the film.

There's a bit of a feeling

of "grab it and run," you know,

there's a temptation

to want to do that.

- I really have a problem

with this sort

of documentary tradition

of, sort of, the First World

going to the Third World

and bringing

those pictures back.

I mean, I think it doesn't...

I think it's problematic,

because it really doesn't

address the fact:

Who's actually

looking at these films?

- This type of punishment,

they can't bear it,

because they are children.

- We have looked through

every one of these files.

These juveniles are dangerous.

- You know,

it'd be very easy for me

to have made a film

about my imperilled experience

in Iraq.

And so if I had

a bunch of Americans

watching a film

about me in Iraq,

it would basically be a story

about how dangerous Iraqis are.

And, ultimately,

the film is how much Iraqis

are suffering in this war,

how much like us they are,

and how little

we know about them.

- What people often say is,

you know,

people from a country should

film people in that country,

and that's...

there's a big truth in that,

particularly for countries

that have always been filmed

by people from outside

'cause of economics.

But within that country,

there's so many

different layers.

Often people with the equipment

are gonna be people

from the upper part of society.

And I remember

with the court case at the end

in The Day I Will Never Forget,

there was a local TV crew,

these two Kenyan guys there...

- We said to them,

"Are you going to come back

in two weeks, you know,

when we get the verdict?"

They said, "Oh no,

it's not a big story,

and it wasn't very interesting,

we're not gonna come back."

And that's what I say to people

when they say, you know,

"How dare you, Kim,

go to Kenya and make a film?"

- That court case

would never have been filmed,

because it wasn't thought of

as important.

It was never gonna be filmed

by local TV crews,

because they were interested

in filming the dignitaries,

the rich people,

what they thought of

as TV events.

And these little girls

from the mountains

taking their parents to court

wasn't seen as a news story.

- For me, one

of the most important aspects

of this ethical enterprise

called documentary

is to really protect

the subjects that we're filming.

They're living

in parts of the world

that are less privileged

than ours,

and, literally,

their lives are on the line.

- In the first week of filming,

I was arrested twice,

I was chased by mobs

once or twice.

And I knew that this

was being done on orders

from, you know,

ministers in the government

at that point and so on.

So, if anything,

it got my back up

and I said, you know,

"I'm actually more determined

to finish the film."

- Adversity is a natural element

in which a movie

is getting created.

In a way,

filmmaking is not welcome

to the regular world,

and you have to anticipate

there will be controversies,

there will be adversities...

- Almost every single film,

you think you're going this way,

you hit a wall,

you have to go this way,

and, lo and behold,

it takes you into an area

that is unexpected

and actually is your movie.

With A Place Called Chiapas,

I ran into a real wall

with Subcomandante Marcos,

who was one

of the major figures,

the iconic figure

of the Zapatista uprising,

and the two of us

ended up arguing.

You know, we didn't get along,

which was like a nightmare.

And besides all of that,

he was busy!

He was running a revolution,

right?

- Subcomandante Marcos!

- It cranked up the stakes

of the film on all sides.

It made it

a more sophisticated film,

a more complex film.

- From all sorts of sides,

there are forces

intruding on you,

and you have to keep them

at a distance,

and you have to...

to move on anyway.

- You have to be able

to be alive to the moment.

You have to be so aware

of everything

that is happening around you.

- When I get something

that reads on screen

the way it was unfolding

in reality,

it's still magic to me.

- You're always

gonna miss something,

but it's okay.

What you need to get,

you'll get.

- I think the access

you go in with

is often not the same access

you come out with.

In a way,

just by your presence,

your friendships,

your behaviour,

you hope that the trust

and the access deepens.

You have superficial access,

but it's your job

to then make it deeper

and deeper and deeper

to people

and what they're feeling,

but also often higher and higher

and higher in the hierarchy,

because people in power

are always so reluctant

to be filmed.

- Even once Kofi Annan said yes,

all the worker bees

didn't want to know anything

about me,

but there was one person

who was key to me -

and she was a woman

who was gonna lead

a peacekeeping operation

over to the Congo -

and even she said to me,

"I know why you're here,

"and I don't want to have

anything to do with you,

"I don't want to be filmed,

"I don't think

what we do is public,

"it doesn't help me

that you're here,

"and I'm gonna make it

as hard as I can

to make it impossible

for you to film."

And I said, "Okay."

Her name was Meg Carey,

and I said, "Okay, Meg,

well, there we go.

I mean, I'm not gonna leave..."

And we headed off to the Congo

the next week

and it took about a year

for Meg to come onside,

but eventually she did,

and eventually

Meg became the film.

And she became my conduit

inside this extremely complex

organization.

- ... It is once again

a unilateral action

taken by the government...

- I actually do not like

meeting people

before... if I'm going

to film with them.

I do not even

go through any organizations

or any contacts at ground level.

I just go to the area.

- Ninety percent of the people

I've interviewed in the film

are people I've never met

in my life before.

- I decided

not to use microphones

and lights and, you know,

any kind of intrusive equipment.

I shoot with a tiny handycam.

In that, sort of making

the person who I'm with

completely comfortable.

- I'm following something,

I'm like on a river,

I'm following it,

I don't know where it's going.

And that's the scary side of it,

because I think, you know:

Maybe I won't get a story,

maybe things won't happen,

but the sort of wonderful side

of it

is that you could be somewhere

and it all starts happening,

and you're filming it.

- Do you want

to go off to bed, darling?

- In Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go,

there's a scene

where there's this little boy,

Ben,

and you can see

that he's very, very quiet,

because he's in love

with his mom

and he doesn't want to move.

And you can see

that she's already disengaged,

she's already going on

and wanting to leave

and go back to her own life.

And you can see that the social

worker's rather cross with her,

'cause she's late and she knows

she doesn't really want

to be there,

she's already moved on.

So you can see

these three things.

- Ben, it's time to go.

- I'm hoping the audience,

in that one scene,

will see it from

all different points of view.

And I think the only way

that can happen

is if the scene

isn't controlled.

- Good boy, Ben.

I'll see you again soon.

Keep up the good work, Ben.

- There's a kind

of looseness to it,

so you can put yourself into it,

so they're long shots

that hopefully the audience

can put themselves into.

- You're constantly

having to be aware

that you shouldn't interfere

with the action,

so your body cannot

get in the way of the door,

or the relationship

with someone else in the room,

or you have to be careful

that your presence

isn't going to block

somewhere they might go.

And I like

the lack of communication,

I like the fact that

that's just me working that out,

so I know what I want

from that person,

and I know how, maybe,

I'm going to sit with them

and shoot with them.

The nightmare is obviously:

being a cameraman

is a whole job in itself

and quite a complicated job,

and there's a lot

that can go wrong.

- Allez. Allez...

- The feeling

of holding a camera

and being a part of a scene,

and reacting

and responding to a scene,

it's just thrilling.

And that is the secret

that camera people never tell,

that the joy is in the shooting.

- I don't think the way

most cinematographers do,

getting a wide shot

and a close-up

and a reaction shot

and so forth.

I see things

the way I would as a person,

and I think

that helps the process,

for the person who watches it,

to feel a greater closeness

to what's going on.

- You can see

how complete it is.

The bible runs

as little as $49.95...

- The opening scene of Salesmen

is such a perfect kind

of forecast

of what's to come.

- Which plan

would be the best for you?

The A, B, or C?

- I'm really not interested.

I want to think it over

with my husband.

- Yeah. Yeah...

- Also such a perfect revelation

of my camera work at its best.

In the middle

of that little scene,

you see the child

on the mother's lap yawning,

and then it seems it at...

at exactly the right moment,

but a moment

totally chosen by the child,

not by me.

She goes over to the piano

and knocks out a tune

that Beethoven

couldn't have created

more appropriately for the mood.

- I just couldn't afford it now.

We're swamped

with medical bills.

- In the kind of shooting

that I do,

the smaller the team,

the better able you will be

to, you know,

not interfere with the process

that you're trying to shoot.

So I think, you know,

it's best if the person

who is the director

is either doing sound

or shooting,

and not just standing around

and conducting.

Which, you know,

I just would want that person

to be out of the room.

- I think when you work

with a cameraperson,

the difficulty,

I'm sure for every director,

is that the cameraperson

has to be your eyes, you know,

and you have to have

a certain trust in them.

I work with Claire Pijman,

who's a Dutch camerawoman,

and we've worked together now

for about 14 years.

While I create and imagine

a lot of scenes,

finally it's up to Claire

to see it the way I see it.

In Don't Ask Why,

I wanted a very particular way

of filming the scene

when Anusha is walking

through the bazaar

and there are all these men,

you know, staring at her.

I'd explained it to Claire,

she shot it for me,

she showed it to me

and she said,

"Is this what you want?"

And I said no.

I told her

that I really wanted it

to be more threatening.

More like people

are really looking at her

and watching her.

And I wanted to get

a lot of faces in and so on.

And then she was able

to create that for me.

- The cameraperson is confined

to what they see and hear,

I'm looking

at the broader horizon,

I'm seeing what's happening

outside the frame,

and I'm directing them

to the things I want to see.

And with a really good

cameraperson -

and I've had

very good relationships

with very, very good people -

it becomes a tango,

it becomes a dance.

You know, you're whispering

in their ear that, really,

if they'll just go

a little longer

and pan a little to the right,

you know,

that's really

where I want to be,

and they'll find

two faces there.

And, you know...

So it's... it's a process

of literally directing the shot.

And so that's a very important

component for me as well,

the visual sense.

- For Bones of the Forest,

Heather and I were trying

to give you

an experiential sense

of the beauty and grandeur

and subtlety

of the old-growth forest.

So you could actually

feel for yourself

how important they were to save.

And in order

to express that fully,

it seemed that we needed

to go outside the usual palette

of just solid,

standard nature shots.

You know, we wanted

to actually show you

the time of the forest,

which has its own pace.

So time-lapse photography

was part of that.

It's not eye candy.

It's not just special effects.

It's really about trying

to break through

patterned thinking

and allow us a fresh perspective

on something.

- I do think

that not nearly enough emphasis

is put on the visual side

of filmmaking,

of documentary filmmaking.

Because the story

is so important,

and the people who tend

to make documentaries

are... are... are, I mean,

they're the high priests

of that issue,

and they're just so swept up

by the rightness of the issue

that they forget

that they gotta tell a story.

And they gotta tell a story

to people

who don't care nearly as much

about this subject as they do.

- On the one hand,

many of my colleagues

were working to...

- I was really, really careful

about where I filmed

those people

and when I filmed them.

And I had spent so much time

at the UN building in New York,

that I knew

at 4:00 in the afternoon

on a certain kind

of weather day,

if I put Meg in this room there,

the light would be good on her.

And I would only film her

at that time,

because I knew

she was gonna give me

the same kind of material,

whether we filmed her

at 8:00 in the morning

or 4:00 at night

in this better light,

so why not make the effort

to film it

when the light is just right?

- ... because you felt,

what am I doing wrong,

that I'm not being able

to convince these member states

that they need

to provide the troops necessary

to save these lives?

- You're presenting a palette

of colours for the editor,

so that he or she

can really edit with pacing

and with the abstract

rather than the literal.

And then you're really...

then you're really storytelling.

There's one shot

in A Place Called Chiapas -

and it's done by a wonderful

Mexican cinematographer

by the name of Eduardo Herrera.

Marcos says

the Zapatista movement

is, in fact,

more about ideas than bullets...

The entire press core is parked

on the edge of the river bank,

and where does Eduardo

put himself and his camera?

Right in the middle

of the river.

He swings

to reveal 50 photographers.

And so there's a huge payoff!

There's a beginning,

a middle and an end

and a sense of humour

to the shot.

There's a place for great art

in all of this.

- I read this book -

about two men on a mountain -

and I said, "This is

such a wonderful subject

for a documentary,

but how the hell do you do it?"

You couldn't make that story

as a fiction film either.

People have been trying

for many years.

Tom Cruise, for instance,

had the rights.

Lots of different people

had the rights.

And nobody had managed to make

a fiction film out of it,

because, again,

it's all internal.

And documentary

is wonderful for the internal,

because people love to talk

in a documentary, so I thought:

The only way to do this

is to combine

some elements of drama

with elements of documentary.

But I was so nervous

about doing that.

That was the real challenge.

How do you get reconstruction

that matches up to reality,

especially matches up

to this extraordinary story?

- This pain just came flooding

down my thigh and my knee.

It was very, very, very painful.

- The re-enactment...

is not re-enacting anything.

It's there to make you think

about reality,

about what we take

to be reality,

what we think is reality,

what claims to be reality.

- Because the whole time

we're screwing around

and not doing the damn job,

Americans are dying.

- Standard Operating Procedure

is a movie

with three ingredients.

One of them is interviews

with real people.

The second ingredient

is the photographs.

The photographs

that were taken at Abu Ghraib

in the fall of 2003.

And the third element...

is re-enacted material.

Bits and pieces, detail.

I like going after odd details.

- ... with wires on his fingers

and he was told

he would be electrocuted

if he fell off.

- And those are constructed.

But underneath all of it

is this pursuit of some truth.

- ... I mean, that would

keep anybody awake,

so it was part

of the sleep plan.

- When you open your newspaper

or you hear a news report,

you just get the facts.

And the way in which things

actually happen

is very complicated

and circumstantial.

And it comes out

of so many different influences.

And I think in a film

like Battle for Haditha,

you try and re-create all that

using ex-marines,

using Iraqi refugees.

It's very much based on research

that one would've done

for documentary...

... with a pretty defined

structure.

Very little dialogue

actually written out,

and allowing the real people

to bring themselves

to those roles.

So you create many layers,

hopefully, of understanding

that you don't get

from the news reports

and other media.

- In the wrong hands,

that's quite dangerous,

which is when you re-create

with real people

who come with all that sort

of extraordinary behaviour

when people

have been in a situation.

They know how to behave.

And, I mean,

I think Battle for Haditha

is absolutely brilliant,

and I think: Thank God

it's Nick doing it.

Because as a technique,

it's quite dangerous

to re-create reality,

because it's so seductive.

You really, truly believe

that is what happened.

If reality programs

are borrowing

the sexy packaging of fiction

and fiction is borrowing

the immediacy and excitement

of documentary

and news as we know it -

I don't know

where that's going -

then it's so confusing

for people to know

what is or isn't truthful

in the end,

and what is whose view,

and what actually happened

or didn't.

And I just think it's something

we should be careful of,

and just sort of speak more

about the fact

that there is

this real crossover.

- For me, the distinction

between feature films -

I mean narrative feature films -

and documentaries

doesn't exist that much.

For me, it's all movies.

And the borderline

is quite often blurred...

In documentaries,

I keep inventing,

I keep using my fantasy.

I invent dreams.

- I think that sound

is like the heartbeat of a film.

If the sound isn't good,

then the film's thin.

You know, the sound is where

you get the emotion of a film.

With Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go,

the classrooms are sonoisy

and you look at it

and you don't maybe appreciate

what Mary's done.

- Are you disappointed?

Well done.

- Because her sound's so good,

people just accept it.

- Don't hurt other people

because you're cross or sad.

- You can hear everything

everybody's saying.

They're all in different sides

of the room,

there's all these kids

screaming in the room

at the same time,

but you can hear everything

really, truly.

The film would be unwatchable

if it hadn't been for Mary.

- It's okay to feel like that.

But you need to let us help you.

That's why we're here.

- I'll twist your arm off.

- You don't need to do that...

- And they have to be so strong.

I mean, she's kind of, you know,

like a ballet dancer,

getting close to everybody,

following everything,

watching me,

we're working together...

It's a whole skill, you know,

which...

which people don't often notice.

- Alex, in a mainstream school,

you can't be under the table

all the time. Can you?

- I wouldn't do that.

I never used to do that

in the last two schools

I went to.

- One of the things

that's really an error,

in the way

things are going these days,

is that people actually think

that a sound recordist

is disposable.

And that you can do it yourself,

or your poor cameraperson,

who is supposed to be framing

and making sure that the world

is in focus and lit properly,

is supposed to take this on,

or - God forbid! -

the director do it.

- This is an unlawful assembly.

All persons...

... whether on the streets,

the sidewalks,

or in the doorways,

you must disperse,

or you will be arrested!

- When we start off

with an awareness of sound

as an important aspect

of the overall film

and leave space for it

and anticipate it

and work it in

while we're picture editing,

the marriage of the two

can become quite profound

and can move us

to much deeper places.

You can tell

another level of the story,

and sound takes us

to deep places

in a way that scent does,

for example.

Sound triggers emotions,

sound triggers memory.

So we can really hit people

at a deep level with sound.

- One of my favourite pieces

of sound in Touching the Void

is the sound of the crevasses.

It should be something

that's scary,

but something that also has

a human tone to it.

We played around

with all these different sounds.

Eventually, one day,

the sound editor said, "Yeah,

"I've got this great sound

for you, listen to this.

This is the underlying sound

for the crevasses."

He played it to me

and I thought:

Wow, that's very spooky.

"What is it?"

He said, "That's the sound

of a leopard roaring

slowed down 50 times."

So it was this wonderful

animal sound,

but it felt so deep and profound

and kind of frightening,

but mournful at the same time.

- I knew before we went to China

that I wanted the design

to emerge

out of the industrial soundscape

that we were going

to be immersed in.

So we gathered an enormous

amount of wild sound.

And I wanted the density

of that industrial soundscape

to be apparent in the film,

but also that sometimes

melody or rhythm

would emerge

from that soundscape

and you couldn't tell -

Am I hearing?

Is this music,

or is it just, you know,

the rhythm of some hammer

or machine?

And then it would go back down

into that soundscape

and come out

and go down without ever -

only a few times emerging

as a clear, distinct element

before subsuming itself

back down into the sound.

- I really, uh... love music,

and I think

Capturing Reality (2008) - full transcript