Norman Jewison, Filmmaker
1971 · 49m · Canada
Directed by Douglas Jackson
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative
On the set of Fiddler on the Roof, director Norman Jewison leads a large international production while reflecting on filmmaking and his career in television and Hollywood.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 49-minute oner about a mid-tier Hollywood director navel-gazing on a prestige musical set—it's exactly the kind of self-serious institutional document that usually bores me senseless, which is precisely why I'm suspicious I'm missing something.
Jackson's portrait sits perfectly in the lineage of NFB's artist-in-process work, and there's something formally elegant about letting Jewison's own uncertainty about the medium become the film's primary subject rather than a side note to his accomplishments.
The decision to keep the camera on Jewison's face during those quiet moments between takes—not looking for profundity, just capturing the texture of thinking—does more to illuminate a working director's actual practice than any interview could.