We interview the director behind Five Came Back - one of the best documentaries currently on Netflix… We also touched, briefly, on Bouzereaus upcoming venture into fiction filmmaking.
Heres how our conversation went.
Why tell this story?
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Theres a little bit of history here, for me.
I read the book by Mark Harris and was absolutely blown away.
I wanted to find an interesting narrative entry, which we eventually found with the five contemporary directors.
It appealed to me for those reasons, and I think viewers will feel the same discovery.
Just that example alone is exciting.
Then there was the issue of scheduling, with the directors we were interested in all being busy.
I felt so lucky.
I felt it was important to get those perspectives.
I was super nervous, thinking What if theyre not prepared?
but they showed up with notes and ideas and they opened up the story.
Or when Guillermo relates to Frank Capra because he is himself an immigrant.
I found those parallels really powerful.
The interviews were a treat, really, and a journey of discovery.
They werent reading, you know.
They never saw anything else.
I feel thats something Ive perfected in the twenty-plus years Ive been doing this.
Along the way wed stop to speak about specific films and I was so blown away.
Of course Spielberg would talk aboutThe Treasure of Sierra MadreorMrs.
Minniverbut he also knewThe Battle of San Pietro.
It was super exciting as a filmmaker.
It was almost effortless, and I needed to do that in the film too.
It couldnt be Episode One: Wyler, Episode Two: Huston.
Struggled in the best sense of the word.
We made sure that we covered the essential and had maximum impact.
Whenever Ive cut together lots of mixed interviews, Ive done a paper edit first, using transcripts.
Thats the way I work, usually.
But… it was completely the opposite way we approached this.
That gave me the first hint of the rhythm.
When I actually sat down with the five contemporary directors I was able to guide them towards certain images.
It was a challenge because I had never worked this way before.
Why the three-part episodic structure and not a single three-hour movie?
Its Netflix, so people can already pause and drop in or out wherever they need to.
Because it just felt like some very specific benchmarks gave us logical points of stopping.
It just felt like the right way to do it.
At one point I asked Mark Should we take a stab at do this as a two-hour film?
and he said Absolutely not.
It either has to be three or four hours.
Three hours feels logical with before the war, the war and then after the war.
But this age seems to be, more and more, getting behind us.
I dont think those days are gone.
Ive never been so busy.
But the press and media give that stuff a bad name.
Its not really documentary filmmaking.
Im sorry, but it is.
I hope that the work I do gets a little more recognition and respect.
TheFive Came Backtrailer got an incredible response.
I hope you dont mind me saying that it took me by surprise.
What do you think people are responding to here?
Im shocked as well.
Thats why I love that Netflix did this.
The trailer put those things into a unqiue context that seemed like a real game changer.
Id love to know about the non-documentary work youve been developing.
Whats happening withBad Little Kid,Micro,Dragon Teeth?
Everything is still alive.
Dragon Teethis about to come out as a book but were developing it as a series.
Its very rewarding from a creative standpoint, and extremely emotional.
Im doing this with Sherri because of the work I did with Michael as a documentary filmmaker.
I hope my contribution makes a difference.
And I want to thank you for your interest.
Well, its quite unstoppable.
And I hope there are many more of you out there.
Laurent Bouzereau, thank you very much!
Five Came Backis available on Netflix now.
