This week, I had the opportunity to sit down with acclaimed documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield to talk about his latest film, Whitney: Can I Be Me, which is being released by Dogwoof across the UK this week. Check out my Nick Broomfield interview below.
Nick Broomfield interview: The celebrated director on his Whitney Houston documentary
It’s an outstanding, deeply emotional and intimate portrait of a music icon who was take from us far too soon. In the interview, we speak about how the film was constructed and the people that Nick approached to interview for the film. Along the way, Nick spoke with many people that worked with Whitney at the height of her fame, but chose to stay away from the obvious, including ex-husband Bobby Brown. He explained his decision to do so.
“I didn’t think I needed to see Bobby. He’s a different person now. He’s had a couple of strokes. What I wanted to do was to get a sense of the chemistry between Whitney and Bobby then, when it was in full bloom – to get a sense of their chemistry together, on stage or off, and I think that’s what you get in the film.”
Related: Whitney: Can I Be Me review
The film is magnificent, but I asked Nick if there was huge pressure to get the tone of the film right. He responded:
“More than anything there’s a self-pressure. I work with people at the BBC and people in the States who all had their own opinions, and obviously you listen to them, but ultimately you want to make the film that you are happy with. It’s a long process and you have to be very patient. I would think we made fifty different cuts of the film you want to make, I would think. You have endless screenings with friends and other filmmakers, and sometimes you get very critical notes back, and you kind of have to take it on the chin and not get too freaked out by people. You have to have a think skin and get the essence of their comments, because when you’ve been working on something so long you get so close to it.”
Check out the Nick Broomfield interview in full below. Whitney: Can I Be Me is in UK cinemas from Friday 16th June 2017.
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