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.With someone like McNamara, I can imagine a motive—he’s a historic figure, and his identity is built around his life’s work and the consequence of that work.But what about those people you interviewed in that First Person series for the Independent Film Channel? Those were nonfamous private citizens.Publicity got them nothing.There was a person you interviewed in an episode of First Person—Rick Rosner9—whose personal story was that he purposely repeated his senior year in high school several times and then lost on the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.For him, what is the value of being interviewed?EM: Well, Rick Rosner now tells other people that if they want to understand him, they should watch that one-hour program about his life that I made.Why do you think he feels that way?EM: I can’t speak for Rick Rosner, but I can kind of imagine why he would like it.I imagine that he is a pretty complicated character who doesn’t understand himself that well.He’s in the grip of all this stuff that he cannot control.So the interview allows him to scrutinize himself in a different way.There are two ways to look at this.There are two different models.The first model is that we all have this black box inside ourselves that is filled with our secrets, and we would never want to allow any interviewer to open that box.But the second model is that even we don’t know what’s inside that black box, and being interviewed allows us to open it and sort through the contents.Do you enjoy being interviewed?EM: I don’t mind talking.I think talking has been very important to me.For a long time I had writer’s block and all I could do was talk.Then I was able to make movies that involved other people talking.Recently I’ve started writing, and that’s changed things.For a long time, I thought my constant talking was an impediment to my writing, but now I don’t know if that was true or not.I’m envious of writers, because a writer leaves this trail of detritus.As a writer, you have this trail of writing that is an account of yourself and who you are.For years, I was deprived of that opportunity, because I couldn’t write.So the talking was essential.It was a way to do something instead of nothing.6 More than a year after meeting in Boston, Errol Morris was gracious enough to record his bits of dialogue from this essay for the book’s eventual audio version.Much to my surprise, he took issue with one of his own sentences from our interview.At the beginning of section 3A, there’s a line that now reads, “I am in the business of deciding what is or isn’t true.” This is not how the sentence read in the original transcript, nor is it what I vividly remember from our conversation.What Morris originally said was, “I’m not in the business of deciding what is or isn’t true.” However, this is not what he meant to say, nor is it a sentiment he wanted to imply.As such, I immediately changed it (I would be a bad interviewer if I consciously published a statement the subject did not agree with, regardless of whether or not that statement had been inadvertently expressed).But this dispute accidentally proves the point I’ve been making all along: It’s hard to fathom why people allow themselves to be interviewed.Even when you’re simply transcribing a person’s direct dialogue, you will rarely capture how they actually feel.Here’s what (I think) happened: When Morris originally said “I’m not in the business of deciding what is or isn’t true,” he was essentially saying, “I am not a cop.I’m not part of the executive branch of government.My job is to make a nonfiction movie, not to define anyone’s guilt or innocence.” Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that objective.But when Morris reread those literal words on the page, they felt totally alien to him; they seemed to suggest he didn’t even care what the truth was.“Why would I spend three years trying to right a miscarriage of justice and solve a murder case in Texas, if I was truly indifferent to the business of deciding what is or isn’t true,” Morris later wrote me in an e-mail.“And why would I ask the question about the reliability of the testimony of various witnesses if I didn’t care about truth?” I completely understand his perspective.I’ve had the same thing happen to me.It does not matter how diligent or well-intentioned the reporter is—the inherent distortion of the process inevitably overrides accuracy.So what does this tell us? Should we just journalistically surrender? Should we stop answering questions and stop asking them altogether? Of course not.There is no alternative.The defective practice of trying to understand the world by asking other people how they see it is still the best means we have for establishing a reality we can all agree to be real.We have to do it, because it’s better than nothing.It is, in fact, something.But that’s all it is: Something.Instead of nothing.1.Errol Morris is the most recognized American documentary filmmaker of the modern era and arguably the finest American nonfiction director of all time.His movies include Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, and Standard Operating Procedure.For two years, he had a TV series called First Person that was composed of intense one-on-one interviews with random, unfamous weirdos.What makes Morris such a brilliant artist is the simplicity of his technique: He simply asks people questions, films their response, and then finds (or creates) stock footage that accentuates the import and context of what his subject is saying.He does this through the use of the “interrotron,” a self-designed camera that allows the interview subject to see a live image of Morris’s face in the eye of the recording camera.2.McNamara was the controversial U.S.secretary of defense during the Vietnam War and president of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981.He was the subject of Morris’s Academy Award–winning 2003 film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S.McNamara.3.Wilson’s Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the Twenty-first Century.4.This interview was conducted on August 6, 2008.5.This is a documentary about the 1976 murder of a policeman.6.Frey is the disgraced author of A Million Little Pieces, a bestselling nonfiction book that purported to be about the author’s drug and alcohol addictions, his life of crime and depravity, and how he overcame these vices with his own sheer willpower [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.With someone like McNamara, I can imagine a motive—he’s a historic figure, and his identity is built around his life’s work and the consequence of that work.But what about those people you interviewed in that First Person series for the Independent Film Channel? Those were nonfamous private citizens.Publicity got them nothing.There was a person you interviewed in an episode of First Person—Rick Rosner9—whose personal story was that he purposely repeated his senior year in high school several times and then lost on the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.For him, what is the value of being interviewed?EM: Well, Rick Rosner now tells other people that if they want to understand him, they should watch that one-hour program about his life that I made.Why do you think he feels that way?EM: I can’t speak for Rick Rosner, but I can kind of imagine why he would like it.I imagine that he is a pretty complicated character who doesn’t understand himself that well.He’s in the grip of all this stuff that he cannot control.So the interview allows him to scrutinize himself in a different way.There are two ways to look at this.There are two different models.The first model is that we all have this black box inside ourselves that is filled with our secrets, and we would never want to allow any interviewer to open that box.But the second model is that even we don’t know what’s inside that black box, and being interviewed allows us to open it and sort through the contents.Do you enjoy being interviewed?EM: I don’t mind talking.I think talking has been very important to me.For a long time I had writer’s block and all I could do was talk.Then I was able to make movies that involved other people talking.Recently I’ve started writing, and that’s changed things.For a long time, I thought my constant talking was an impediment to my writing, but now I don’t know if that was true or not.I’m envious of writers, because a writer leaves this trail of detritus.As a writer, you have this trail of writing that is an account of yourself and who you are.For years, I was deprived of that opportunity, because I couldn’t write.So the talking was essential.It was a way to do something instead of nothing.6 More than a year after meeting in Boston, Errol Morris was gracious enough to record his bits of dialogue from this essay for the book’s eventual audio version.Much to my surprise, he took issue with one of his own sentences from our interview.At the beginning of section 3A, there’s a line that now reads, “I am in the business of deciding what is or isn’t true.” This is not how the sentence read in the original transcript, nor is it what I vividly remember from our conversation.What Morris originally said was, “I’m not in the business of deciding what is or isn’t true.” However, this is not what he meant to say, nor is it a sentiment he wanted to imply.As such, I immediately changed it (I would be a bad interviewer if I consciously published a statement the subject did not agree with, regardless of whether or not that statement had been inadvertently expressed).But this dispute accidentally proves the point I’ve been making all along: It’s hard to fathom why people allow themselves to be interviewed.Even when you’re simply transcribing a person’s direct dialogue, you will rarely capture how they actually feel.Here’s what (I think) happened: When Morris originally said “I’m not in the business of deciding what is or isn’t true,” he was essentially saying, “I am not a cop.I’m not part of the executive branch of government.My job is to make a nonfiction movie, not to define anyone’s guilt or innocence.” Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that objective.But when Morris reread those literal words on the page, they felt totally alien to him; they seemed to suggest he didn’t even care what the truth was.“Why would I spend three years trying to right a miscarriage of justice and solve a murder case in Texas, if I was truly indifferent to the business of deciding what is or isn’t true,” Morris later wrote me in an e-mail.“And why would I ask the question about the reliability of the testimony of various witnesses if I didn’t care about truth?” I completely understand his perspective.I’ve had the same thing happen to me.It does not matter how diligent or well-intentioned the reporter is—the inherent distortion of the process inevitably overrides accuracy.So what does this tell us? Should we just journalistically surrender? Should we stop answering questions and stop asking them altogether? Of course not.There is no alternative.The defective practice of trying to understand the world by asking other people how they see it is still the best means we have for establishing a reality we can all agree to be real.We have to do it, because it’s better than nothing.It is, in fact, something.But that’s all it is: Something.Instead of nothing.1.Errol Morris is the most recognized American documentary filmmaker of the modern era and arguably the finest American nonfiction director of all time.His movies include Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, and Standard Operating Procedure.For two years, he had a TV series called First Person that was composed of intense one-on-one interviews with random, unfamous weirdos.What makes Morris such a brilliant artist is the simplicity of his technique: He simply asks people questions, films their response, and then finds (or creates) stock footage that accentuates the import and context of what his subject is saying.He does this through the use of the “interrotron,” a self-designed camera that allows the interview subject to see a live image of Morris’s face in the eye of the recording camera.2.McNamara was the controversial U.S.secretary of defense during the Vietnam War and president of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981.He was the subject of Morris’s Academy Award–winning 2003 film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S.McNamara.3.Wilson’s Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the Twenty-first Century.4.This interview was conducted on August 6, 2008.5.This is a documentary about the 1976 murder of a policeman.6.Frey is the disgraced author of A Million Little Pieces, a bestselling nonfiction book that purported to be about the author’s drug and alcohol addictions, his life of crime and depravity, and how he overcame these vices with his own sheer willpower [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]