{"id":15541,"date":"2025-05-30T13:12:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T13:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?p=15541"},"modified":"2025-05-30T13:37:56","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T13:37:56","slug":"pee-wee-herman-love-letter-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2025\/05\/30\/pee-wee-herman-love-letter-documentary\/","title":{"rendered":"How a love letter becomes a documentary (and vice versa)"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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Sign up for the Nieman Storyboard newsletter,<\/em><\/a> delivered every Friday in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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***<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Dear Storyboard community, <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Like any good Gen X-er whose childhood was filled with quotes like “I’m a loner, Dottie, a rebel,”<\/a> I spent the past weekend deeply absorbed in the new HBO documentary, “Pee-wee as Himself,”<\/a> a moving, heartbreaking, and funny portrait of an artist (Paul Reubens) who wholly inhabited a character (bow-tied ’80s film and TV icon Pee-wee Herman) and then had his real life exposed to public scrutiny, starting with a 1991 arrest at an adult theater in Florida. (He pleaded no contest to an indecent exposure charge.) <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Notably for journalists and storytellers, the film offers a revealing meta-narrative, in the form of Reubens (playfully?) sparring with director Matt Wolf<\/a>, evading questions, and arguing over control of the story \u2014 and at one point halting the project entirely. All the while, Reubens hadn’t told Wolf or the producers that he was battling cancer. He died in July 2023, shortly before the filmmaker’s last interview with Reubens was to take place. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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On camera, the push-and-pull between the filmmaker and his subject makes it clear that each needs the other to bring the project to fruition. For New York magazine, Wolf wrote about how the film came together<\/a> (and then didn’t, and then did). Here’s how it starts:  <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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When I approach someone to make a documentary about them, I write a love letter. In the 20 years I\u2019ve been making films, I\u2019ve written countless ones \u2014 to Siegfried & Roy, to Marianne Williamson, to soap-opera stars and reclusive musicians. Sometimes I\u2019m appealing to their vanity, sometimes their sense that they\u2019ve been wronged. Always, I end my letters with the same sentence: \u201cTrust shouldn\u2019t be expected. It needs to be earned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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And documentaries, Wolf writes, require a level of collaboration that can go much deeper than what’s required from a regular interview subject: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The dynamic between a documentarian and a subject is tricky. The relationships are more collaborative than people might expect because we documentary filmmakers don\u2019t just need access. We invade the lives of private people with equipment and a crew, and we take their personal photos to scan and digitize. We ask subjects to sign release forms that grant us permission to use their life as the raw material for our work. Paul and I were bonding, but we were also working out how to get what we needed from each other.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Trust is hard-earned in any relationship, let alone in the practice of journalism. It also takes time: Reubens sat for 40 hours of interviews and the film took four years to complete. Even then, Wolf writes, “I remember confiding to [Reubens’s longtime assistant Allison Berry] about my struggles with Paul. ‘I think he trusts me,’ I said tentatively. ‘Or maybe he doesn\u2019t, and that\u2019s okay,’ she said.” The result is a beautiful love letter to an artist who deserved, and got to have, the last word.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Behind the Scenes: Bloomberg examines a private detention center and a town ‘Addicted to ICE’<\/a><\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\"The<\/a>
The Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, N.M. (AP Photo\/Andres Leighton)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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Bloomberg reporters Rachel Adams-Heard, Polly Mosendz, and Fola Akinnibi looked at local government agreements with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain immigrants in New Mexico.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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[Read the story<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Links of note <\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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