Nicholas Broomfield, known as Nick, is an
English documentary film-maker. Broomfield films with a minimum of crew, just himself and one or two camera operators, which gives his documentaries a distinctive style. Broomfield is often in shot holding the
sound boom.
Broomfield was awarded the
BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Documentary, and was given honorary doctorates from Essex
[www.essex.ac.uk/honorary_graduates/or/2006/nick-broomfield-oration.aspx] and Surrey University.
[www.ucreative.ac.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5092] He was awarded the Californian State Bar Award
[uk.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/nick_broomfield/biography.php] for his contribution to Legal Reform and is a founder member of the Morecambe Bay Victims Fund.
Career
Education
He studied Law at
Cardiff University, and political science at the
University of Essex; subsequently, he studied film at the
National Film and Television School.
[www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/sep/11/1] Broomfield's early style was conventional
Cinéma vérité: the juxtaposition of observed scenes, with little use of voice-over or text.
Documentaries
It was not until
Driving Me Crazy (1988) that Broomfield appeared on-screen for the first time. After several arguments regarding the budget and nature of the film, he decided that he would only make the documentary if he was able to conduct a sort of experiment by filming the process of making the film—the arguments, the failed interviews and the dead-ends.
This shift in film-making style was also heavily influenced by Broomfield's experience in attempting to release his earlier film
Lily Tomlin, which chronicled Tomlin's one-woman show
The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Tomlin claimed that the film was a
spoiler for the actual show and filed suit for $7 million against Broomfield. The documentary was shown on public television but not widely released. Eventually the footage shot by Broomfield was used in the video release of the one-woman show.
It is for this reflexive film-making style—a film being about the making of itself as much as about its subject—that Broomfield is best known. His influence on documentary is clear:
Michael Moore,
Louis Theroux and
Morgan Spurlock have all adopted a similar style for their recent box-office hits.
Film-makers who use this style have been referred to as
Les Nouvelles Egotistes; others have likened his work to the
gonzo reporting of
Hunter S. Thompson.
Broomfield's best known work is probably
Kurt and Courtney about Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, one of the few films selected then banned at the
Sundance Film Festival.
[www.rollingstone.com/artists/hole/biography] A previous film,
Soldier Girls, that he co-directed with Joan Churchill won 1st prize at Sundance a few years previously.
[www.allmovie.com/work/soldier-girls-45508/awards]
Direct Cinema
In 2006, Broomfield changed his style again into what he calls "Direct Cinema", using non-actors to play themselves. He completed a drama called
Ghosts for
Channel 4 inspired by the
2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster when 23
Chinese immigrant
cockle pickers drowned after being cut off by the tides.
Ghosts won numerous awards and helped raise nearly half a million pounds to help the victims' families.
Battle for Haditha (2007) worked with ex-Marines and Iraqi refugees, as well as known actors. The film was shot sequentially, enabling the cast to build their characters as the story progressed. It also used real locations, and a very small documentary-style film crew. Although they worked from a detailed script,
[www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=44570][www.channel4.com/programmes/battle-for-haditha/articles/nick-broomfield-discusses-battle-for-haditha] the actors also improvised and added dialogue. The script was based on research with the Marines of Kilo Company who took part on that day, the survivors of the massacre, and the six thousand page
NCIS government report.
[www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90506549] Battle for Haditha won numerous international awards.
[www.imdb.com/title/tt0870211/awards]
Films
Other work
In 1999, Broomfield made a series of five commercials for
Volkswagen. Each of these featured Broomfield with his trademark sound boom "investigating" rumours about the soon-to-be released
Volkswagen Passat.
Awards
- British Academy Award (BAFTA)
- Prix Italia
- The Dupont Columbia Award for Outstanding Journalism
- The Peabody
- The Royal Television Society Award
- First Prize, Sundance Film Festival
- John Grierson Award
- Robert Flaherty Award
- The Hague Peace Prize
- The Chris Award
- The Blue Ribbon
- The California State Bar Award
- First Prize, Chicago Film Festival
- First Prize, US Film Festival
- First Prize, Festival of Mannheim
- First Prize, Festival di Popoli
- Special Jury Award, Melbourne Film Festival
Broomfield was also given a
BAFTA tribute evening on March 8, 2005.
See also
