And do you think there’s a reason this isn’t a bigger national media story?
Yeah, because I don’t think dead people make the news. You know, at the moment, we’ve gone to war because a couple of people have been beheaded, but there’s over 100 people in one small part of an American city and no one is doing anything about it at all. I mean, it doesn’t make any logical sense.
In the movie, you get some witnesses who apparently did not talk to the police. Do you think it will be used in trial?
I don’t think it will be used in trial because they have overwhelming ballistic and DNA evidence. But you would think that if the police cared about working out how many of these women of the photographs that Lonnie had taken are alive or dead, that they would have interviewed some of the women that we talked to, which we found relatively easily after a few weeks of work. You would have thought that they would have spoken to Gary, who is the first to admit that he was with Lonnie picking up half the women on those composite photographs, and find out what he knew about those particular women. I think it’s very significant that none of these people have been talked to, and that a film crew is able to get more information than the police department, in a very short period of time.
And you get it all the old-fashioned way—by hitting the streets, talking to people in person.
[Laughs] I don’t know what’s the modern way of doing it.
Well a lot of docs today are phoners or interviews that have been very predetermined.
It’s phoners, yeah, but you don’t get the essence of a person in a phoner. You know, people are basically animals, and you can’t get the empathy that you need doing it that way. You don’t get the bonding you need to get that extra bit. Maybe that’s why there aren’t many good documentaries.
Some people think documentaries are experiencing a renaissance. You disagree?
No, that’s not true. I mean, I think there are a few very good ones, and there’s an awful lot that aren’t very good, but that’s just me.
Your movies deal with ugly, sometimes monstrous topics that would repel a lot of other filmmakers. Do you ever want to make a movie about birdwatching or something?
I think it would be great to do that. I’d love to do that. In fact, my uncle was the original person with David Attenborough. He worked with him for about 15 years. The two of them used to literally almost hitchhike across the world. They both got malaria and dysentery endless numbers of times. So I kind of have it in the blood. He kind of started me off. He gave me a windup camera when I was just a kid. So I’m not that far from birdwatching really. I love those films. I think they’re fantastic. I guess I just ended up doing a different kind of film so far. But I have great respect.
Article Appeared @http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/interviews/a34660/nick-broomfield-interview/