Steve James interview, Part 2

Says James, “I’ve never been a pure verite filmmaker. Even in Hoop Dreams http://www.criterion.com/films/906-hoop-dreams we did a lot of interviews with our main subjects or secondary folks. It may be hard to remember it that way because what people remember most are the scenes. It’s what I remember most and it’s what I get most fully engaged by.

"I’ve always felt that the strict verite form never completely answers all the questions I have. As much as I admire the work of Frederick Wiseman, or some of the great filmmakers of the past – or a filmmaker like Kim Longinotto who is a very talented filmmaker who does very little interviewing, sometimes none – I feel that I have so many questions that I want answered. I want to get inside the heads of people, to understand what they are thinking, what’s going on with them. What they are wrestling with. I think that scenes can bring that to the fore but I often feel that to fully understand a subject, a person, you need to hear from them.

"I really feel that the interview combined with verite is the best and most complicated way to present them to the world. Having said that, it’s the verite moments, being there when something authentic and real, and at times hopefully unforgettable, is happening, that gives a film its power. There’s no replacing those moments. They are the key”.

On story structure in The Interrupters:

“We knew fairly early on that we were going to follow the work that these three interrupters did in the street. We knew we’d be telling personal stories that more or less happened in the past. They had come to a place in their life where they had changed, already.

"I love the challenge of a trying to tell a story that doesn’t have a strong, central, clear narrative to lean on. I love it when I have it, there’s nothing like it, but not having it doesn’t mean you can’t make a strong and compelling film. I loved the challenge of how to tell this story – that is true and organic to what we captured being on the street for a year with these folks. Seeing the work they do and at the same time, coming to understand who they are and why they do the work they do. That essentially what The Interrupters is.

"We were fortunate on two counts. They didn’t just mediate situations and always move on. They had continuing contact with certain people – we loved that aspect of the work they did. That’s a certain narrative thread that runs through the film.

"The other piece of it we really liked -- and this was serendipitous -- we started filming in earnest in summer and by following it for a year it meant we would end the following spring. There was something that just happened organically. In some of the stories there was a sense of change and rebirth. They just seemed to coincide with the spring. Even though we don’t hammer it home overtly, there is something about the spring part of the film, even though there are some tough things that happen. It’s mostly about people changing and about positive change. There was something nice about that happening since we tend to associate spring with those qualities.”

The Interrupters screens in Australia as part of an exclusive ACMI season.