Nick Broomfield
For Choice Brits Nick Broomfield introduces In This World
No stranger to danger and one of the most prolific, ground-breaking - and polarising - documentary filmmakers of last twenty years, Nick Broomfield is a graduate of the National Film School. Leader of the ‘authored documentary’ pack, some credit Broomfield with creating the genre, by putting himself firmly in the frame of his films. That, coupled with his subject choices, has made him something of a celebrity in his own right. But though his more recent high profile output, including Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, Kurt and Courtney, Biggie and Tupac lends its hand to the meaty tales of real-life legend and celebrity relationships, Broomfield’s extensive experience in documentary-making stretches far beyond that into the realms of social realism, politics, polemic, and the popular.
Who Cares(1978), which documented urban redevelopment in Liverpool, was eventually used by the government in a reassessment of policy. Also that year, Broomfield exposed his more ribald side in Proud to Be British, a send-up of the peerage. Behind the Rent Strike (1979) was an examination of life in a lower-class housing project.
He first collaborated with producer-director Joan Churchill on Juvenile Liaisons (1975), a study of police work with youthful offenders that was once again used as the basis of a British government study. (In 1990, they revisited this subject, with Juvenile Liaisons II.) Working for Granada, Broomfield made Whittingham (1980) about life in a mental hospital and Fort Augustus (1981), focusing on a monastery. He explored relationships in Marriage Guidance (1981), and in Tattooed Tears (1982) examined the California Youth Authority Prison in Chino. Broomfield’s foray into sexual mores, Chicken Ranch (1984) was a humorous and thought-provoking study of legal prostitution in Nevada. Co-directed with Sandi Sissel, it won the Grand Jury Prize as Best Documentary at the 1984 Sundance Film Festival.
Lily Tomlin (1987) took the actress’ broadway show to task and ended up in court. Five years later, Broomfield won plaudits for what became termed ‘ambush journalism’ with Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992), which won the British Film Institute Award for Best Documentary. He was one of the first to tackle the saga of Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam (1995). Fetishes: Mistresses and Domination at Pandora's Box (HBO, 1996) profiled a New York S&M sex club and garnered controversy when it was screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
More controversial was Kurt & Courtney (1998), a look at the lives of grunge rockers Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.
This autumn Broomfield revisited the Aileen Wuornos story with an update version of his original film with new material added as Wuornos faced execution.
(Extracted with amendments from www.hollywood.com)
See Broomfield's own website at www.nickbroomfield.com
