Lynne Sachs: Performance in Documentary
Recently, after 25 years of making experimental documentaries, Sachs learned something that turned all her ideas about filmmaking upside down. While working on Your Day is My Night in New York City’s Chinatown, she came to see that every time she asked a person to talk in front of her camera, they were performing for her rather than revealing something completely honest about their lives. The very process of recording guaranteed that some aspect of the project would be artificial. She decided she had to think of a way to change that, so she invited her subjects to work with her to make the film, to become her collaborators.
For Sachs, this change in her process has moved her toward a new type of filmmaking, one that not only explores the experiences of her subjects, but also invites them to participate in the construction of a film about their lives.