Errol Morris Interview WP: Another thing I wanted to ask you about: do you still feel strongly that your films should be referred to as nonfiction, rather than documentary? EM: Well, I still feel that the term "documentary" for many, many, many reasons is a stigma. I mean, the Academy certainly helps to promote this idea of documentary as a kind of journalism. Documentary is defined by a set of acceptable topics and acceptable formulas and presentation. And if I chose the term "nonfiction feature," it's only to suggest that these constraints are artificial. There really is no reason for them at all, and the documentary can be completely innovative and experimental. . . . It can be something other than what we take to be traditional journalism. . . . Janet Maslin in an article points out how documentaries to be nominated have to be about the Holocaust, or they have to be about some disadvantaged group or some kind of disadvantaged person. I like the fact that in Fast, Cheap & Out of Control the four people in the movie are not obvious candidates for documentary material. They're unexpected characters. So, yes, I think the choice of "nonfiction film" is just a way of trying to say that this could be something different from what you expect. Yes, it's based on fact, yes, these are real people in the movie, but it's different from what you'd normally expect. WP: You're certainly right about the word "documentary" having a stigma. I read in the New York Times some time ago that video storeowners will tell you that if they have a section on documentaries, few people will go there and check out the films. I travel around the country and I always go to video stores and ask them lots of questions, and that's been my finding also. But if they take these films and put them elsewhere in the store, they find that they rent very well and people are quite satisfied with them. I've found in my classes that students respond extremely well to them when they actually see them. But, you're right: the very word "documentary"--I don't know--I guess it conjures up National Geographic and World War II footage, you know, that sort of thing. In an interview in 1989, you're quoted as saying that there's no reason documentaries can't be as personal as fiction filmmaking and bear the imprint of those who make them. If you agree with that assessment today, how would you characterize your imprint on the films you have directed? EM: Well, certainly I agree with it today. I agree with it as much as I ever have, if not more. I think that all of my films reflect my sensibilities and interests. I think that all good filmmaking--documentary and otherwise--incorporates something of the person making it and its relationship to the subject matter and to the film. I like to think that there's a lot of me in Fast, Cheap & Out of Control and a lot of me in this current project [tentatively entitled] Mr. Death. On the simplest level, the films reflect my concerns or my obsessions. But I like to think that what keeps me going in these films is that there is something that I don't know about these people and about the subject matter of the film itself, that there's some mystery left to be explored. I think one of the ways that Fast, Cheap works is that given these four people--the ways in which they describe what they do--unexpectedly connections emerge between these four people, connections that you could never anticipate ahead of time. You could think, well, maybe they'll talk about this or maybe they'll talk about that, but one of the nice things about this kind of filmmaking is this element of surprise, the element of the unexpected. WP: And a lot of that I would think is a tribute to your style of letting these people talk without directing them and without interrupting, and coming across as a good listener. In Gates in Heaven, Vernon, Florida, and The Thin Blue Line you did the interviews on location. Is that right? And since then, you've done interviews in studios? EM: Yes. In The Thin Blue Line of course they were all done on location because I was all over Texas. I mean, the friends of David Harris were shot in Vidor, Texas; Randall Adams was shot in a prison between Dallas and Houston; the police officers were shot in Dallas. So these interviews were all over the place. And I think it was in good measure because it was so difficult to get these interviews, and I spent so much time cajoling people--convincing people to be interviewed by me on camera--that when I did A Brief History of Time the idea was well, instead of bringing my crew to the subjects, I'll bring my subjects to the crew. I'll set up in a studio and bring everybody to one central location and shoot them there. And that started with Brief History and it continued through Fast, Cheap and continues actually today in the way that I'm making movies. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7    N E X T : Interview techniques

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