An International Film Circuit release of
a Corra Films Production
The Life and Death of Reggie Nicholson
Distribution Contact:
Wendy Lidell
International Film Circuit
wlidell@infc.us
Producer Contact:
Annmarie Pisano
Corra Films
Annmarie@corrafilms.com
fb.com/FarewellToHollywood
Publicity Contact:
Sasha Berman
(310) 450-5571
sashaberman@mac.com
https://twitter.com/FarewelltoHWood
Downloadable presskit & hi res images:
http://infc.us/farewell/press.html
Trailer: http://www.vimeo.com/69180956
US • 2015 • 102 minutes • 16:9 • 5.1 Stereo • NR • English
http://farewelltohollywood.com/
SHORT SYNOPSIS
A poetic fairytale about love, death, art, holding on and letting go. Reggie is a 17
year old tomboy struggling with a terminal illness, her parents and her dream of making
a film before she dies. Together with director Henry Corra, she has created a powerful
portrait of herself and her quest for personal and artistic freedom.
LONG SYNOPSIS
In a recurring poetic image, 17-year-old Regina Diane Nicholson swings between
heaven and earth on a breathtakingly high cliff by the sea. Reggie is a tomboy
struggling with a terminal illness, her parents, and her dream of making a film. She
impresses us with her loving, strong personality and wisdom beyond her years, as well
as her morbid sense of humor. When director Henry Corra met 17-year-old filmmaker
Regina Nicholson at a film festival, he agreed to help her make a feature film. What
developed over nearly two years is a powerful friendship and poignant relationship
between Reggie and Henry. He became her collaborator, friend and defender in her
fight to find artistic and personal freedom. When Reggie turns 18 and can make
decisions legally on her own, things become even more intense. This film is a poetic
fairytale about love and death, holding on and letting go, one that invites us to discuss
the relationship between filmmaker, subject and family. An eclectic mix of images with
the intimacy of a video diary or home movie, it is filmed both by Henry and by Reggie
and supplemented by their text message exchanges, images from her favorite movies,
and fairytale-like scenes with songs that together form a heartwarming, but also
heartbreaking and controversial ode to Reggie’s life.
FILMMAKER’S STATEMENT
When I met 17-year-old filmmaker Regina Nicholson at a film festival nearly three years
ago and heard her sad story, I vowed to help her make a film about her short life.
Reggie was an obsessive cinephile who was battling a terminal illness and whose
mission in life was to make one feature movie before she died. What developed over
nearly two years is a powerful friendship and poignant relationship between Reggie
and me. I became her collaborator, friend and defender in her fight to find artistic and
personal freedom. The film oscillates between the brutal realities of her daily life and
the magical films swirling inside her head, as it chronicles Reggie’s struggles to realize
her dream, while her choices—and days—become fewer and fewer. It’s a raw and
unexpected love story about the commitment of two people to art, poetry, care and
the potential beauty of every moment together, to the very end.
FESTIVALS
IDFA – International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (World Premiere)
WINNER - Planete Doc (Canon Cinematography Prize, Hon. Mention Lower Silesia
Grand Prix)
WINNER - Message to Man (President’s Award, Special Translator’s Prize)
WINNER - EDOX (Second Prize Audience Award)
WINNER - Anuu-Ru Aboro (Special Jury Prize, International)
WINNER - Kiev Kinolytopis (Golden Shot Award)
DocUtah (selected for “best of the fest” series)
Visions du Reel
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
Kosovo Dokufest
Doc Edge New Zealand
Cinema Verite Iran
Biografilm
Dokfilm Norway
Gdansk Docfest
Sidewalk Film Festival
DMZ Docs
Dallas Videofest
Hot Springs Doc Fest
Miradas Doc
Camerimage
Flyway Film Festival
Sante Fe Indie Festival
Sebastopol (Sneak preview)
Kino Satellite (Berlin)
CREDITS
directed and filmed by
HENRY CORRA AND REGINA NICHOLSON
editor
KIMBERLEY HASSETT
written by
HENRY CORRA
REGINA NICHOLSON
KIMBERLEY HASSETT
executive producers
DAVID ALCARO
LANCE ARMSTRONG
DOUG ULMAN
producer
JEREMY AMAR
consulting producer
DANIEL CHALFEN
associate producer
ANNMARIE PISANO
sound
HENRY CORRA
E BENJAMIN POSNACK
additional camera
KEVIN JONES
KARL SCHRODER
still photographer
AMANDA DANDENEAU
graphics & color correct
JEREMY MEDOFF
post-production supervisor JOE VIOLETTE
sound design
KIMBERLEY HASSETT
re-recording mixer
TOM PAUL
DIRECTOR BIOS
Henry Corra is an award-winning filmmaker and Sundance Institute Fellow, best known
for pioneering Living Cinema, his unique style of nonfiction. His films include Umbrellas
(1994), George (2000), Same Sex America (2005) the Emmy-nominated NY77: The
Coolest Year in Hell (2007) and The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan (2010). His films
have been exhibited worldwide in theatrical venues and broadcast by outlets such as
HBO, Showtime, LOGO, CBS, PBS, VH1, Arte and Channel 4. His work has also been
shown in museum and cultural venues internationally including MoMA, Louvre, and the
National Gallery of Art. He has also done episodic TV projects for broadcasters
including MTV, VH1, Bravo, and the Sundance Channel. In addition to his film work,
Corra has been singled out as one of the foremost directors of ‘real-people’
commercials in America.
Corra’s films are characterized by a deep and intense relationship with his subjects, his
painterly eye, and his novelist sensibility. In this unscripted approach, Corra emotionally
embeds himself in his subject’s stories where no one knows the outcome. His subjects
are complicit in the not knowing and become collaborators with Corra in the creation
of the films based on their lives. Corra strives to achieve a lightness or magical
dimension as a counterbalance to the often blunt brutality of the real life situations
they depict. While it is an impossible task, it is the tension between this striving for
lightness and the weight of his subject’s experience that creates the emotional depth
and lyrical power of his work.
Reactions to Henry’s work:
"The more you know, the more you care. The more you care, the more your heart will
break."
-Ron Wertheimer on GEORGE, New York Times
"Instantly one of the most moving and utterly compelling documentaries of recent
years."
-Collin Parker on THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MCKINLEY NOLAN, Examiner
"Highly original and structurally flawless...an ambitious documentary about an
ambitious project."
-Howard Feinstein on UMBRELLAS, Variety
Regina Diane Nicholson (b. 2/25/93, d. 3/1/12) was a South Pasadena-based
filmmaker and student. Her short film Glimpse of Horizon, about her mortality, won AFI’s
TEENDOCS competition and has been featured at the Silverdocs Documentary Festival
and the Heartland Film Festival. Her final film, Farewell to Hollywood, was made in
collaboration with Henry Corra. She died March 1, 2012 at the age of 19.
FILMOGRAPHY – HENRY CORRA
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MCKINLEY NOLAN (2010, 77 minutes, Henry Corra) US Army Private McKinley Nolan
vanished forty years ago in Vietnam on the Cambodian frontier. Some say he was captured, some say he
was a traitor, others claim he was killed in the Khmer Rouge genocide, and some even say he was an
American operative. In 2005 a Vietnam Vet sighted him alive by near Tay Ninh, Vietnam. The
Disappearance of McKinley Nolan follows one family's journey into the heart of darkness to find the truth.
JACK (2009, 87 minutes, Henry Corra) This highly original documentary is an authentic portrait of an
advanced alcoholic on what could be his final run. Never judging or proclaiming, the film is a wild ride you
cant get off. Henry Corra, best known for his highly personal and affecting films – along with newcomer
Eben Bull – has made one of his most honest, poetic and “intoxicating” films yet.
NY77: THE COOLEST YEAR IN HELL (2007, 120 minutes, Henry Corra) Commercial director Henry Corra of
Corra Films has directed a two-hour VH1 Rock Doc that documents one of the most tumultuous years in
New York City’s history. The Emmy nominated documentary examines everything from the birth of hip-hop,
the burgeoning disco movement, the famed New York blackout, the Son of Sam murders, the sexual
revolution and the city’s ongoing financial and political problems. The list of people interviewed by Corra
includes Mayor Ed Koch, Screw magazine publisher Al Goldstein, porn actress Annie Sprinkle, hip-hop
pioneers KRS One, Afrika Bambaataa and D.J. Kool Herc, punk’s Richard Hell, Blondie’s Christ Stein, Studio
54 co-owner Ian Schrager and disco diva Gloria Gaynor.
SAME SEX AMERICA (2005, 90 minutes, Henry Corra, Charlene Rule) History was made when Massachusetts
became the first state in the nation to sanction gay marriage. Filmmaker Henry Corra weaves the stories of
seven gay and lesbian couples on their emotional journey to the altar with the dramatic showdown at
Massachusetts' constitutional convention, a vivid demonstration of democracy in action that may change
the course of history. The film captures all the nuance of what may be the defining chapter in the history
of the gay and lesbian struggle for equal rights.
FRAMES (2004, 53 minutes, Henry Corra, Charlene Rule) In this film about legendary media artist Grahame
Weinbren, Corra effectively captures the complexity, mystery and excitement of the creative process. The
film takes its lead from Weinbren’s work where spectators become characters and subjects, living
participants as they interact with sound and story, image and screen. Frames had it's world premier at the
2004 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.
GEORGE (2000, 88 minutes, Henry Corra, Grahame Weinbren) Described by Amy Taubin in The Village
Voice, as “an exceptionally intelligent and moving documentary that explores Corra’s twelve year old
autistic son George, who uses his own video camera to make a movie within the movie. In fact, the film is
about how we define normalcy.” George had its American theatrical premiere at The Screening Room,
New York and was shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C., The Gaga Film Festival, Berlin Germany. It aired on HBO in July 2000.
UMBRELLAS (1994, 93 minutes, Henry Corra, Grahame Weinbren) The controversial story of the artist
Christo’s grand-scale environmental art project in Japan and California that ended in the tragic death of
two of its spectators. At its world premiere in 1994 at the Berlin International Film Festival, Howard Feinstein
of Variety praised the film as, “highly original and structurally flawless . . . an ambitious documentary about
an ambitious project.” Umbrellas won The Grand Prize at the Montreal International Film Festival. It was
shown at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and The
Louvre Museum, Paris and on the European network ARTE.
Henry Corra Discusses the Controversy and
Artistry Behind 'Farewell To Hollywood'
By Zack Sharf | IndiewireOctober 20, 2014 at 10:18AM
http://www.indiewire.com/article/henry-corra-discusses-the-controversy-and-artistry-behind-farewell-tohollywood-20141020
The documentarian sat down with Indiewire at the Santa Fe
Independent Film Festival to discuss controversy, style,
distribution and more.
Henry Corra and Regina Nicholson, "Farewell To Hollywood"
Since world premiering at the 2013 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Henry Corra
and Regina Nicholson's challenging documentary "Farewell To Hollywood" has been touring the global
festival circuit to both critical acclaim and contention. Shot over 19 months and condensed into a nearly
two hour narrative from over 400 hours of footage, "Hollywood" is the gripping story of co-director
Nicholson, who died of cancer at age 19 a year before the film's premiere. While the documentary acts as
an unflinching look into Nicholson's battle with cancer, it's the way in which the filmmaking process is
revealed to have provoked family hardships that has caused some pundits to find controversy in the
directing duo's ode to life, loss and moviemaking.
Regardless of the film's provocations, "Hollywood" is bound to yield a powerful response among
viewers, which was made clear by all of the tears that filled the Jean Cocteau Cinema during the movie's
Santa Fe Independent Film Festival debut. Following the screening, a humble and emotional Henry
Corra sat down with Indiewire for an exclusive interview to debunk the controversies and to discuss the
film’s structural roots and future distribution plans. Whether you have seen "Farewell To Hollywood" or
not, the following interview provides great artistic insight into a bold kind of documentary filmmaking.
Check out the full conversation below:
The narrative approach in "Farewell To Hollywood" is built on the foundations you've created for
yourself as an artist over the years. You started out at a young age as a protégé of the Maysles
Brothers, particularly David Maysles, and they led the Direct Cinema charge with films such as
"Grey Gardens." How have you built off of them to create your own career as a filmmaker?
I actually came to the Maysles Brothers after seeing "Grey Gardens." I was the head of the film society
at my little experimental film school in New Hampshire. I showed "Grey Gardens" and really saw
something in it, so I came to New York and walked into the Maysles Brothers' office and asked for a job.
They hired me right on the spot! I was 22. So for the next six or seven years, I think David Maysles
really saw in me the ability to understand the preformative aspects of capturing reality and having it be
very gentle and real. I learned about filmmaking under his mentorship. He got sick when I was about 28
or 29, and they were doing their third film on the artist Christo called "Umbrellas," and he said, "Listen, I
think you're the one who should take the charge." His brother Albert was more the cameraman and not
the director or filmmaker. He was a great shooter and had great instincts, and he was philosopher of
vérité too. But David was the real boots-on-the-ground, multi-hatted guy who would make things
happen, and I think he saw that in me. So I did this amazing film, "Umbrellas," but I realized after
making that movie that the whole vérité thing was coming up short for me.
"Grey Gardens"
There were a couple of things about it that weren't true to me. One was that I really didn't want to
pretend that I was being objective. I didn't want to pretend that I was invisible. That led me to this whole
idea of what David hinted at in "Grey Gardens," where the camera would pan around and you would see
the sisters in the mirror and you'd hear David’s voice talking to Little Edie. It's the idea that you're being
very honest with trying to connect to this person via filmmaking. And that was the birth of "living
cinema." When I made the film for HBO about my autistic son, "George," I realized that I was off to the
races and running with this whole idea of being really honest about both the performative aspects of
improvisational filmmaking – that it is performance, but you're not actually writing it or scripting it or
directing it – and, at the same time, that you're also being really honest about the way you're
collaborating with your subject. My son, George, was 12-years-old during filming, and when I handed
him the camera he developed what I call the autistic style of filmmaking. He would film someone, but
when they would say something important he would move off their face. That was one of the conceits of
that movie and it was born out of the collaboration between director and subject.
Could you elaborate more on what "living cinema" is? It's this kind of approach to filmmaking
that is embodied by "Farewell To Hollywood."
I only gave it a name because some PR guy told me to give the kind of work I was a doing a name once
during an interview, and I jokingly said, "Living cinema," but it kind of fit and people ran with it. And it
fits perfectly because it's modeled after "living theater," which was what Antonin Artaud wrote about in
"The Theater and its Double" in 1938. Then there was this guy in New York in 1939 who opened the
Living Theater, and that was all about actors trying to break down the boundaries between the actor and
the audience. I just thought that was exactly what we were doing, searching for connection and trying to
break down barriers. With Reggie in this film, right off the bat we knew she would be a co-filmmaker
and a co-writer; even though she didn't write a single word, she helped write the film visually. Because
she is a subject who breaks down the wall between the film and the audience is what makes
"Hollywood" absolutely rooted in the "living cinema" I’ve been building my entire career on.
IDFARegina Nicholson in "Farewell to Hollywood."
You mentioned before the screening that it was Reggie and her mother who first approached you
to collaborate on this project at a film festival all of you were attending. What as a filmmaker
made you say yes?
A bell went off in my head the minute I saw Reggie. I work more like real novelists, like Cormac
McCarthy, Flannery O’Connor, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, all the authors I used to read. People say I'm a
documentary filmmaker, but what I really am is a novelist stuck in a documentary filmmaker's body. As
a writer, the only way to truly bring a character to life is to put yourself inside the consciousness of that
character and to become them. That's what novels do. I try to apply that same technique to "living
cinema." It's the idea of total identification, and it's very subjective.
All these movies that I’ve made, be it the features or the shorts, have all been character based. I make my
decision to create a film not on some big issue statement or narrative arc that I can foresee but on the
character, which is exactly what great literature does. The character is story. Ultimately, then, it's about
finding that great character, and of course when you find a character that has the potential to go through
a great transformative experience it's all the better. In the living theater mode, I also place myself into the
novel if you will. Is it going to be a transformative experience for me as a filmmaker as well? That's
something I always ask. But as soon as I laid eyes on Reggie, that invisible bell in my head went off. It
certainly did when I heard her story, but when I first saw her from across the lobby I turned to my
producer and said, "Who is that?" It was this odd girl with a shaved head and I didn't quite understand it.
Then when her mom approached us and we talked and Reggie told me her story, it was instant. Reggie
was that great human character who happened to find me.
What was it like to assimilate yourself into the family in order to film? Even as tension builds and
fights erupt, the camera always remains on the inside. Was that a hard world to make your way
into?
I mean, in a very general sense every family is fucked up in their own way. The Nicholson's were
dealing with an unimaginable tragedy, but they were also a family, so I knew going in that it would be a
challenge to some degree because every family has their own tense baggage. And that goes for my
family as well, and I would guess yours too. But listen, I'm a very "glass half full" kind of a guy. I really
am. I go into these projects holding my camera and my head high, and I really believe in the people and
the story and the potential of the film. When I'm in the editing process, I tend to be more self-critical and
more self-doubting, but when I’m shooting I’m more how I am when I’m with my family or my
daughter. Also, something about filming glamorizes the world for me. When I went into the Nicholson's
house, I couldn’t believe there was this working class family who was besieged by this unspeakable
tragedy, and you can hear me saying just that to the mother. That's not fake. That's totally real. I didn't
even see the tensions that developed later coming. I was so naïve. You expect there to be tension because
it's a family, but when I was actually filming I was so punch-drunk on my embrace for the family. I fell
in love with the subject and that made it a world or a household that I could easily be in and one that I
wanted to be in.
"Farewell to Hollywood"
But then what would you say about a scene like when Reggie's mother gives her the "family or
film" ultimatum? Clearly the filmmaking was something that caused a huge dissonance within the
family. It even led the parents to infer certain unorthodox things about your relationship, which is
why I think it has drawn controversy among some viewers.
That's something I deeply struggled with just like any member of the family, and just like anyone who
was deeply invested in this tragic situation. I struggled with it. I was asked to back off twice from
filming and I did, but it killed me. It hurt me. As you see in the film, Reggie ended up being the one
giving me lectures about how to not to worry and how to cope. I cared about her so much and I knew she
was going to die that in many ways I was no different than the mother. That's the thing most people don't
pick up on, that me and the mother are very similar in this movie. And I don't want to tell people how to
receive the movie, because the movie is it. The movie is the thing that talks about the situation the best.
But everyone that sort of brings up these ethical or moral questions, I just say, "What are you talking
about?" I had Reggie's best interest at heart at every step of the game. I had her family's best interest too.
There's not one thing that I would change. Was it painful? Extremely. Was it difficult? Extremely.
Sometimes it was unbearable. But the one thing that makes me realize I wouldn't change a thing is how
happy Reggie was and how free she was when she died. These were tough decisions, but I had the
church people, my people, social workers at the hospital, her shrink and my shrink at Livestrong all as
mental support. I was constantly talking to these people about whether I should stay or whether should I
go because it was so morally conflicting. I didn't always stay. As you see, there were times when I stood
aside and I put the camera down and waited. But I always came back because Reggie made it clear that
this was what she needed to do before she left us. It was always for her.
So how would you respond to the critics claiming you took it to an unethical level?
Listen, I don't care if you find things challenging or if you absolutely disagree with certain decisions that
I made. But I don't really understand all the people who ask about boundaries being crossed or lines
being broken because the point of this kind of filmmaking at its very core is to collapse boundaries and
lines. Eric Kohn reviewed the movie after seeing it at the Amsterdam premiere, and I remember reading
that one because it came out so quickly. Whether or not he liked it, he was clearly devastated. Eric's
review was the best kind of good bad review. You know why? Because he was reeling from it, he was
exploring his emotional connection to it. I actually liked that review very much. Even though it didn't
service us very well at all, at least he was struggling to open a dialogue with it. I love all the words he
used – "offensive," "moving," "paradoxical." I like people who engage with the material even when it is
challenging, as opposed to those who blatantly point a finger and can’t really explore either side of the
ethical argument.
I just think that we're not doing entertainment, we're making art. Art is supposed to cross lines. Art is
supposed to challenge. That's how engaging with art makes us better people. That's how I was raised
under the Maysles. I'm not saying entertainment and art don't mix or collide ever, just look at David
Lunch or Robert Altman for proof that it can. But I think the Maysles realized that their films weren’t
going to be the blockbusters they thought they were. They thought they were going to sell out the
multiplex. By the 1980s, they realized they were among artists and that the dialogue around their films
weren't entertainment based or even cinema based. These were pieces of art, which means they are
inherently allowed more ambiguities and a smaller audience. That's how all my films function.
You talk about evolution of character, and it struck me that you start the movie as a filmmaker
and eventually evolve into a caretaker and even into a paternal figure. How did you first and
foremost approach the film? How did you see yourself evolving throughout the shoot?
In a sense I was everything, but at first it was filmmaker. Filmmaker and not mentor or teacher, and this
is very important because it was important to her and it was important to me that she be equal. Here's a
filmmaker like Reggie at the beginning of her career and here am I as a mature artist at the later stages of
my career, and the filmmaking process was about coming together and finding an equal voice. Yes there
were "caretaker" elements and all of that, but when it came time to shooting I was a filmmaker and she
was a filmmaker. And that's what a lot of reviews and a lot of people during Q&As seem to forget.
Reggie is my co-director. This is her movie as much as it is mine, I'm just the only one who can speak
about it today unfortunately. A lot of people don't even realize that she had seen a three-hour cut of the
film four days before she died, and that she was the one dishing out guidelines on what needed to be
included. She was adamant about filming her dead body, for instance, because she felt it wouldn't be real
or feel real for the audience unless it was shown. But then I read all these reviews where they just
mention my name and it's completely not right. I don't know why some people gloss over Reggie’s
directing credit, maybe it's something along the lines of identity politics, but she was in every way a cofilmmaker, so I could never be a teacher or mentor while shooting. I was her equal.
What was the greatest thing she taught you as a director? What are you going to take with you
into your next project from working with a first time filmmaker like Reggie?
That's a really good question. I learned so much. I've spent so much time since the film premiered 11
months ago in this whirlwind of taking it around the world, and it's been pretty traumatic because I
haven't had much time to properly grieve myself. Even in the film I made about my son I was able to
compartmentalize a lot more. I was able to go into the editing room afterwards and sort of start to refer to
me as him and to my son as the boy. Not that you do that all the time, but all that stuff you do in the
editing room – where you sort of take a step back and understand what you're dealing with within the
frame with characters and structure and shape and film language – I was doing that with Reggie while I
was subjectively involved in the project. I never got to be objective, and then I got thrown into critics'
hands. I was shocked in Amsterdam. I was coming up from under water emotionally and artistically and
when I stepped in front of that audience for the Q&A. I was in a state of shock. Now I have some
perspective. I really believe Reggie and me deserve the accolades for sort of creating a new kind of
movie. That's one of things Reggie taught me: how to create something really special. I had no idea what
we had done until I saw it. Now I feel more confident in what we've done and I've seen how it works on
people.
How has it been taking such a personal film all over the world? What's the festival experience like
with this kind of movie?
It's really just been so powerful on a personal level to see the film with audiences and to get feedback
and to get all kinds of reviews, both good and bad. What's most interesting is how in Europe the film is
received so differently than it is in the United States. What people care about and focus on over there is
so different than it is here. It’s kind of crazy. The American press only wants to focus on boundaries, but
everyone else focuses on the whole big, round scope of this film. It's so multifaceted. The European
press is so much more focused on that scope.
"Pulp Fiction"
You talked briefly about the editing of the movie. One of the most effective editing tricks is the
incorporation of Hollywood films. When Reggie takes her inhaler, for instance, you match cut to
Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction." There are also the sounds of the helicopters from "Apocalypse
Now" interwoven through the entire film. Where did those choices originate?
All of my films open themselves up in a way where they know they are pieces of filmmaking. So those
edits were one of the ways to achieve that in this film. But it also just grew organically from who Reggie
was. It felt very natural to who she was. The opening scene of the film is just her room with all the
movie posters. When the suffering and the extreme pain started, I would talk to Reggie about how she
thought we should progress the sadness throughout the movie. She actually wanted to show that graphic
needle part very early on, but that's something that would've been so powerfully sad so early that it
would've thrown the pacing off. All of the movie clips we used were a great way to pace that sadness
and the other moods of the film. And, as I said, they just felt rooted in who Reggie was. Instead of
shooting 400 hours of material over two years and then going into the editing room, we basically edited
and did style samples and experiments and scenes and fragments that started to bring in the Hollywood
movie scenes from the first month of shooting. That idea was there from the beginning.
You’ve had a long career as a filmmaker, and from this interview it's clear you never compromise
your directorial instincts. What would your advice be to up-and-coming documentarians?
Don't call them documentaries! Make films that happen to be unscripted, that happen to be improvised,
that happen to be conversational, that happen to feature real people. When I talk to my friend Harmony
Korine, I have more in common with what he does than I do with many of my documentarian
contemporaries. Korine is a master of throwing a ton of balls in the air and just figuring out what lands
as he goes. It's a balance between the preconceived and getting balls in the air. I have more in common
with him because my films aren't issue films or journalistic. They're just these odd, deeply personal
portraits.
'The Act of Killing'
We're seeing so many documentaries take these narrative risks in the way they tell their stories, be
it Sarah Polley’s "Stories We Tell" or Joshua Oppenheimer’s "The Act of Killing." "Farewell To
Hollywood" is obviously different, but how do you see it fitting into these documentaries that
break storytelling boundaries?
Right, we're seeing all of these hybrid films. But that's something that's inherent with documentary
filmmaking that I love so much. Just look at Errol Morris and "The Thing Blue Line," which came out
more than twenty years ago or so.
So then what is it about documentaries that speaks to you so profoundly?
I love the improvisational feel to them. I like not knowing the end as you begin. I like crafting very
cinematic movies that have a language that is unique to the story and the characters. I am hopeless as
soon as you hand me a script. Scripts bore me, and I don’t know why. But you put a camera in my hand
and a character like Reggie that I can connect with and my brain comes alive as a storyteller and as a
filmmaker.