I began to feel that the drama of the truth that is in the moment and in the past is richer and more interesting than the drama of Hollywood movies. So I began looking at documentary films.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Documentaries have always inspired me in narrative filmmaking.
For me, every film is actually a form of documentary.
There's been a vacuum with movies that people can relate to. There's been a paucity of dramas that people can relate to. I think audiences are clamoring to connect - particularly after 9/11 - with things that are genuine and real and I think documentaries are filling that need.
Even though I was making documentaries, my films had fictional elements to them. I think I like blurring those distinctions because so much of what we see on television purports to be the truth, but it's often largely imaginary - or wishful thinking, or any number of less honorable things.
I'm not one of those people who sees documentaries as a stepping stone to doing fiction. I love documentaries and watch tons of documentaries. But, I like fiction films a lot, too.
In documentaries, there's a truth that unfolds unnaturally, and you get to chronicle it. In narratives, you have to create the situations so that the truth will come out.
That's why I have always admired documentaries, because they open windows that can make you understand much better where you come from, much better than fiction, I think.
But I can say what interests me about documentary is the fact that you don't know how the story ends at the onset - that you are investigating, with a camera, and the story emerges as you go along.
I did documentaries for maybe 10 years before I turned to fiction films.
One of the reasons to do documentaries is that. There's more sense of creating something, more sense of my own soul in the documentaries than in movies, because I don't write the movies I do.
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