American Cinematographer - October 2014 - 30

Williams shoots
Burre putting on
makeup for
another
re-enactment. "It
was always in
the original
conception that
we would play
with Brandy's
own role-playing
by having scenes
that felt more
like a possible
fiction," he says.

ing reality in some way, and the cinematic
part of it is it's a movie. It has those things
that movies have: mystery, shock, beauty,
drama and provocation. It's emotional in a
way that movies are. It's not just a vessel for
moving facts from the screen to the viewer.
It's a useful term because it separates what
people think is a documentary versus what
a lot of filmmakers are trying to do and
have been trying to do forever. There is just
as much opportunity for narrative and
storytelling in nonfiction as there is in
fiction.
30

October 2014

Because the subject is an actor, is
there a risk that audiences will have a
preconceived notion of fictionalization?
Greene: I would not say there are
'fictional' elements. I would say there are
'filmmaking' elements, which is a big difference. I reject the assertion that documentaries are true and fictional films are not
true. I would call what we've done an especially honest documentary because the
audience is made aware of how we are
presenting reality. [The film] is very open
American Cinematographer

about the processes between subject and
director. The way I think of documentaries,
there is a built-in tension between conceiving and making choices - where to shoot,
where to stand, what to have [the subjects]
do, how to interview - and the messy
serendipities of reality that make a documentary special, and that you can't predict
or write. I think the best nonfiction films
play in that realm between structure and
chaos. It's more about making a movie than
observing reality.
But making a 'movie' would
have documentary purists up in arms.
Greene: That tension has been
there from the beginning. In Nanook of the
North [1922] by Robert Flaherty, there were
staged elements, and he had Nanook play a
role. I think it is more about trying to find
images and moments that affect the viewer,
sometimes going down the path of expressionism rather than clarity. Actress is totally
true, although it is subjectively true. Everything that happens in the film happened,
but it is still my version of events.
So it seems like there cannot be
pure, observational truth in a documentary.
Greene: It would be immoral or
unethical to, for instance, put something in
this film that Brandy did not say or do and
imply that she did say or do those things. It's
my job as a filmmaker to put things in the
piece that signal to the viewer that you're
not lying or manipulating in the wrong way
but rather the right way. It's all about
context.
In the film, Burre embarks on an
affair, meeting her paramour on a
bridge in the city. You show this
moment with a sublime re-creation.
Would you consider this 'staged' or 'reenacted'?
Greene: Staged versus re-enacted is
a very relevant question. I wasn't going to
follow her to this rendezvous. She later told
me the whole romantic story, and slowly we
realized that the film is about this sort of
transformation she was going through, and
that we needed scenes to help explain it -
a straight-up re-enactment.
This was an emotional feeling that
we tried to create; therefore, we re-enacted
it in a specific way. There is reality and there
is film, and they are not the same thing; if

American Cinematographer - October 2014

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