DOCUMENTARY; FILMMAKER RESEARCH

Louis Theroux is a documentary filmmaker and broadcaster. His fame comes from his documentary series such as Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends and When Louis Met.... His Career started in journalism and has influences with other members of his family who are also writers, his father Paul Theroux and his brother Marcel. Theroux has a huge list of documentaries, he has series of When Louis Met, in which he meets a range of different celebrities who have interesting lives outside of their careers, as well as many different BBC Two specials he also has done some work in the USA, with his LA Stories which were three episodes of Louis looking into american culture in LA.

The victim being interviewed in Saville (2016)

Theroux has a very specific style with all of his documentaries, he acts as the presenter/narrator/interviewer for all of his documentaries. The most interesting thing about his work is the interview technique that he takes. He acts extremely naive with his interviews, many question  whether he is actually that naive or if it was just a ploy but over the many documentaries he has done it has become apparent that he acts this way in order to get the most honest and raw of answers from everyone he interviews, thus creating great entertainment. Initially within his interviews, he asks general open questions, very conversational, but as the interviews moves on he starts to ask more direct questions. The biggest example of this that i could find was in the 2016 BBC Two Saville documentary, in which Theroux tries to uncover how Jimmy Saville duped everyone into thinking he was the person he pretended to be, when behind the camera he was a serial molester. Toward the end of the documentary he interviewed a victim and was asking some pretty general questions about when it was she met Saville, how she came to meet him etc, but then he started to ask more direct questions about what Saville did to her. Her answers were very graphic and she wasn't embarrassed, the way in which Theroux interviewed her made her feel comfortable.

The Saville docs raised many questions about Theroux's work and whether he really is as naive as he acts. In the original 'Louis Theroux met Jimmy Saville' documentary, we watch Louis become very very friendly with Jimmy and many agree this clouded his judgement. Looking back now there are many clips by which Jimmy makes some shocking comments about women, almost hinting at his secret. It was really interesting to watch the second documentary about Saville (as mentioned above) in which the victim Theroux was interviewing started to ask him questions, she asked if Theroux felt that he'd been deceived and lied to by Saville.

Theroux is very good with building rapport with his interviewees, again to make sure he gets the most honest answers. For example, in his doc 'Fresno' he is with Kevin, a user of crystal meth, when Kevin starts smoking in front of Theroux, rather than telling him how wrong it is and how it can negatively affect him and his health, he just asks him how he feels and how different smoking meth makes him feel. This made Kevin, a character who probably feels like an outsider of his community due to the negativity surrounding his activities, feel very accepted and probably quite happy, thus becoming very truthful with Theroux.

The camera style that takes place within Theroux's documentary is mainly handheld, apart from when in normal sit down interviews where the camera is still is certain specific shots. This is due to the fact that mainly his docs are 'Reflexive Documentaries' this means that Theroux, as the interview, is always present in the action on camera, but still remaining impartial. Theroux is right there in the action and like most docs, anything can happen at any time, therefore the cameras needs to be able to follow the action at any time, hence the handheld use of the camera.

I think that the main way in which i want Theroux's work to influence my own, is his ability to get the most honest answers. The rapport that he builds, as i have explained, allows for the interviewee to feel comfortable enough to answer honestly. Whilst in our own doc that we are creating, an interviewer presence isn't going to be felt as much in our work as is in  Theroux's, this rapport can still be built off camera so that when the interviewee is on camera, they still feel comfortable.