
His Big White Self
Dir Nick Broomfield, cert 15, 1 hr 32, UK 2006
For more than 20 years Nick Broomfield has been getting
into trouble with his documentary subjects - and making scintillating
films in the process. The scourge of Maggie Thatcher, Courtney Love and
Suge Knight (whom Broomfield alleged killed the rapper Tupac Shakur) has
become a hero to a generation of filmmakers, including Michael Moore,
Louis Theroux, Jon Ronson, Morgan Spurlock and Martin Bashir.
This tremendous success has had its drawbacks too. One of Broomfield's
most effective films The Leader, The Driver And The Driver's Wife made
during the final days of Apartheid in 1991 so outraged the South African
white supremacist Eugene Terreblanche and his followers that Broomfield
received death threats and was told that a bomb would be planted in his
flat.
"I never thought in my worst nightmares that 14 years later I'd feel
compelled to track down His Big White Self." But of course, he did,
and this new film about the old devil is yet another unmissable piece
of filmmaking.
venues and dates to be confirmed
