Jason Wood

Nick Broomfield is an English documentary maker with a distinctive style, which has clearly inspired other more recent film and TV documentary makers. I've greatly enjoyed some of his work, but found some of it more questionable. I looked forward to reading this to get a better insight into a complex character and his films. Whilst the book offered some insights, it was a disappointment overall.

The primary reason for this is that it's effectively a hagiography by a great fan - someone who curated a Broomfield retrospective and subsequently carried out a series of interviews with his subject, interviews which are apparently set out verbatim in the book. A clue is given in the book's copyright and title statements which differ from the information in the British Library catalogue record I fetched as the basis for this LT entry. The BL catalogue record shows Jason Wood as the sole author; but the book itself is described as a work BY Nick Broomfield WITH Jason Wood. Since most of the content is Broomfield's (?unedited) words, that seems reasonable. But it is a different thing from a book about its subject.

The book covers his whole film career, but his early life is glossed over in a frustrating lack of detail. It would almost have been better to exclude this section. There isn't a narrative flow to the questions at all, and one is left wondering whether Wood simply didn't ask the obvious questions, or whether the answers simply weren't interesting enough, or whether Broomfield didn't want to talk about these things. The latter would be understandable, but the book should have been explicit about it if that was the case. Instead, one is left with the possibly unfair impression that Wood is simply a bad interviewer.

And it's not easy to interview someone you clearly idolise. It's odd, for instance, that whilst Wood occasionally strays into the wider territory of contemporary documentary in general, it is only to make one or two comparisons with Michael Moore and a handful of other names. People who have been as successful in making cinema documentary, such as Errol Morris or Kevin McDonald, don't seem to get a mention.

There's lots of interesting material about his documentaries, his film-making process and techniques, and many worthwhile anecdotes. The early material, and the evolution of subject matter and style over Broomfield's career, is given lots of worthwhile attention.

The interviews took place when Broomfield was planning Ghosts, his first drama for many years. He alludes to the topic in the interviews, but clearly doesn't want to give too much away.

Some day, someone will write a great book about Broomfield, who is a great documentary maker. This book will no doubt provide source material, but it isn't that great book.… (mehr)