To date, only one filmmaker, Nick Broomfield, has managed to rise aboveor, perhaps more accurately, burrow underneaththe pitfalls inherent in tabloid style. Fleeing the rigid confines of British verité, he has produced a set of cheerfully lurid exposés in which the hapless pursuit of a (female) headliner reveals a psychodramatic cache of submission and resistance, the unconscious law driving many a celebrity portrait. In Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1993) and Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam(1995), Broomfield simultaneously defined and transcended the protocols of nonfiction sleaze. Where other films are at pains to conceal the messy details of pre-interview negotiations, often accompanied by demands for payment, his work revels in the commodity-driven motives on both sides of the camera. The latter film's grand metaphor of prostitution, with filmmaker as eager john, poses a humorously blunt challenge to documentary's pretense of high-minded investigation.
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