One of HBO's top entries in the newly combined Outstanding Miniseries or Movie category, "Cinema Verite" looks at the making of the controversial 1973 PBS series "An American Family." That series put a documentary crew into the home of a prosperous Southern California family, the Louds -- a family that turned out to include a philandering father, a mother who kicked him out on camera, and an openly gay son. The result was a disturbing display of narcissism, or a shocking invasion of privacy, or the birth of reality television, or some combination thereof.
Appearing alongside Tim Robbins and James Gandolfini in the film directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, Diane Lane plays Pat Loud, the housewife who drew nationwide scorn when her private life was broadcast into homes around the country.
Also read: HBO's 'Cinema Verite': and the Birth of Reality TV
In the film, Lane is the wounded but defiant heart of the story – and it's a performance that she happily uses as a springboard for a passionate examination of our reality-TV culture.
At the time, it was shocking to let cameras in your home. Now it's an accepted career path.
Now there's agents involved with so-called reality performers. I don’t understand the genre, the medium or the appetite for it, frankly. It's like putting gasoline on the flames of people's neuroses. (laughs) It's the id running amuck. Call me crazy, and maybe I'm the only one, but I'm not a fan of the medium.
Since you didn't meet Pat Loud until after the movie was completed, what did your research consist of?
Basically, we had the 12 hours of the show itself on DVD, which we just watched incessantly. I enjoy non-fiction so much more than fiction anyway, and it was fascinating to watch the people and their mannerisms, especially prior to the stage of the game that we're now at.
The self-awareness and self-editing and posturing that goes on in front of cameras these days is frightening. People are so afraid of being boring that they'll light themselves on fire. It was quite the opposite in this footage. You cannot find people who are that much not performing. People forget that it even existed, in this age of peopl
e filming every moment of their lives, and tweeting it out to the universe.
(Laughs) But I digress. We had all the DVS and and no less than three books all about the telecast and the response to the telecast. I had DVDs of all these wannabe sociologists postulating on the ramifications of this in our culture, like it was the seventh sign, basically. People were so up in arms about this family. Really, it was hard for me to process that this was not hyperbolized, because the reaction was so strong.
