This interview was originally published on the Documentary Channel Blog in 2012.
I was afraid I wasn’t going to get an interview with Ross McElwee, one of my favorite documentary filmmakers. And I was also afraid that I would get one. Whether it’s because I sometimes put my foot in my mouth or act too much like a fanboy with artists I admire, there can always be the chance that I’ll come across as annoying. Or, maybe I just imagine it that way.
Well, I did get to talk to McElwee last Friday, which is when his new film, Photographic Memory, opened in New York. It’s a wonderful personal first-person work that examines the director’s relationship with his son (whose birth we witnessed in Time Indefinite) and his own young adulthood, including a search for an old flame (an affair that’s interesting to think of in the context of McElwee’s most noteworthy film, the classic Sherman’s March). And I do think it went better than I could have hoped.
This is part one of our conversation, in which McElwee and I talked candidly with one another about the new film, how its inception and process were different than with previous projects, the way it sort of passes a torch, and also how fans of his are into visiting locations from his documentaries. After reading, check out part two here.