CHAPTER 31
CONDUCTING AND SHOOTING INTERVIEWS
The documentary interviewer wants to draw people’s stories from them, and the interviewee usually wants to comply, but interviewing takes skill. In life, every exchange with a new interlocutor unlocks different facets and potential, and sometimes takes both in unforeseeable directions. This is because we do not have a finite story and identity waiting to be uncovered, but instead, aspects within us that are fluid and unforeseen. Ray Carney, writing about John Cassavetes’ approach to characterization in his improvised fiction films, argues rightly that human identity is not fixed, but something constantly negotiated through interaction with others.1
Few other realizations will be more significant ...
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