Nick Broomfield: Adventures in the Documentary Trade

Description

Fetishes, his sustained peep inside an upscale Manhattan S&M parlour, was commissioned - and then banned - by Channel Four. Biggie and Tupac, his investigation into the gaudy and short-lived lives of rap stars Biggy Smalls and Tupac Shakur, pointed the finger of guilt at the police. His diptych of films about female serial killer Aileen Wuornos inspired the feature film Monster. And even before these explosive works hit the screen, Broomfield was already known as the sacred monster of British television, the on-camera documentarian in headphones, toting his own boom-stick as he pursued the likes of Margaret Thatcher (Tracking Down Maggie) and South African white supremacist Eugene Terreblanche (The Leader, His Driver, and The Driver's Wife.) As more and more feature-length documentaries are crossing over and capturing mainstream cinema audiences, the time is right to survey the career of Britain's most important exponent of the documentary art, and look back across the extraordinary gallery of individuals whom he has doggedly chased down and shot. This is Broomfield in his own words, as frank and revealing as his inimitable films.

Jason Wood is Artistic Director: Film at HOME and Visiting Professor at Manchester School of Art. He is the author of The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema and is also the editor of Nick Broomfield: Adventures in the Documentary Trade., Jason Wood is the Creative Director for Film and Culture at HOME, Manchester. A visiting Professor at Manchester School of Art, he is the author of various books on cinema and recently collaborated with Bob Stanley on Cafe Exil, which was voted Rough Trade's compilation of the year for 2020.