Collapse Director Chris Smith on the Decade's First Great Feel-Bad Film

Collapse director Chris Smith

How much of it do you believe?

I go back and forth. I think like anyone who sees the film, it really challenges my version if reality. It's mentally a difficult place to go. I guess it depends on my day and what sort of information I'm taking in. One day I read that wind power will provide five times the energy we need for our planet. And then I read something the next day that contradicts that. Right now we have a glut of natural gas. I'll read something like that, which seems really optimistic about energy. Then I'll read something saying that the natural gas companies are very much in over their head with debt, and they have to inflate projected earnings to maintain solvency. So you just don't know. One thing I took away from the film was to not take anything at face value but get a better understanding of the way things might or might not be working.

As a filmmaker, did you consider the possibility the viewer would not only be skeptical, but that it's just too much to comprehend?

Well, the research for this film was overwhelming. If you look at a lot of the films that have come out recently, whether it's on food or oil or the financial system, you can focus on this one idea and try to educate yourself on that so you can create a good film. But with this, what I found most interesting about Michael was that he connected the dots, as he says, about everything. And if you try to educate yourself for a debate with Michael? I mean, he's had 30 years to prepare for this moment. We had a couple weeks. That was the most interesting thing about the film: educating yourself to the point where you could even have the discussion. Michael didn't come in with any notes, any questions beforehand. But he wasn't the kind of guy who was going to help us structure the documentary, saying, "You didn't cover this or this." He said, "Look, I'll sit here in this chair and you can ask me anything you want, but that's it." So really the burden was on us to cover everything that creates the world view he puts forward.

It's been 10 years since American Movie. From then to now, what's your take on how that film has influenced filmmakers -- and also influenced you?

Its interesting. Working on it, I don't think we had any inclination that it would have the lasting quality that it had. Of course you hope that for all of your films. But whenever I'm introduced, people will say, "This is Chris Smith; he made American Movie." But since then I've made... let's see. [Counts under his breath.] Four other films? But that's still the one that people remember. I think that's just the one that connected with audiences the most. But I feel very fortunate to have any films that have lasted. I had a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art [in 2008], and it was interesting to see them all put together. You see these connections in your work that you may not be aware of as you're picking and choosing your projects.

But at the time, I had a narrative film that was at Sundance right before I started working on that. I was working on another narrative film at the same time I started filming Mark [Borchardt] and his family, and I just remember the characters and the human stories we were filming in the documentary were so much more full of life than the characters I was working on in this fictional story. I think that's why I switched and started working on that full-time. It felt like it had that element that you work so hard to try to create in a fictional film. I think ultimately that's all any of us can hope for when you're making films: that you have something that resonates and connects with an audience. Just based on Mark's unique world view and compassion and charisma, that film had that.

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