Paul Reubens in Pee-wee as Himself (Courtesy: HBO) Throughout his profession, documentary filmmaker Matt Wolf has excelled at portraits of sophisticated artists and people whose work is each extremely idiosyncratic in addition to, not less than seen on reflection, emergent from particular cultural, social and political milieus. Early work embody two movies — a brief, Smalltown Boys, and his characteristic debut, Wild Combination — about, respectively, two seminal downtown New York figures of the ’70s and ’80s, artist David Wojnarowicz and composer Arthur Russell. The 2017 brief Bayard and Me seemed on the relationship between civil rights chief Bayard Rustin via the lens of his relationship with boyfriend Walter Naegel. Less well-known however equally fascinating was proto-archivist Marion Stokes, a Philadelphia-based TV producer who singlehandedly tries to archive the whole lot of American televised media in Wolf’s Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project.
With his newest, the two-part HBO documentary Pee-wee as Himself, at the moment airing and nominated for 5 Emmy Awards, together with Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program, Wolf has made his highest-profile work and with, not less than so far as standard tradition goes, his highest-profile topic. The free-spirited and sweetly rebellious Pee-wee Herman, the character performed by comic and creator Paul Reubens, is one lodged in lots of our consciousnesses, both from the ’80s TV present Pee-wee’s Playhouse; Tim Burton’s debut, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure; or, sadly, later persecutory brushes with the legislation — tabloid fodder that reveled within the juxtaposition of kid entertainer and grownup misdemeanors.
As a personality, Pee-wee Herman projected a toddler’s emotional knowability coupled with an grownup’s mastery of persona and thriller, making him, and by extension, Reuben, somebody we really feel we each do and don’t know. Spending practically 1 / 4 of its three hour and 25 minute working time on Reuben’s life earlier than Pee-wee — his years doing performance-oriented work at Cal Arts after which nights at varied comedy golf equipment, the place he’d check out totally different acts and characters — Wolf deftly outlines each the paths not taken in addition to the confluence of private, social and enterprise elements that led to the creation of Pee-wee and the character’s large recognition. Reubens himself, seen in each archival materials but in addition in intensive interviews carried out by Wolf, is the guiding voice, talking with extra emotional transparency than we’ve heard from him earlier than whereas additionally, on digicam, provocatively wrestling along with his very resolution to undergo Wolf’s documentary course of.
Reubens handed away through the documentary’s remaining stretch, and Wolf was “blindsided,” as he wrote in New York Magazine. “My childhood hero, the person I had spent hundreds of hours getting to know, laughing and fighting with, had been dying, and I never had a clue.” Wolf makes the image’s remaining moments ones of, sure, disappointment, but in addition, with remaining interview materials left by Reubens, grace. Inquisitive, probing, empathetic and chic in its execution, Pee-wee as Himself is a tremendously transferring work that’s additionally engrossing cultural historical past, a mix that Wolf is a grasp of. About that Russell doc, Wolf mentioned to Filmmaker when we selected him for our 2008 25 New Faces checklist, “A good story can transcend any ‘scene,’” and that’s what he’s performed once more right here. Below, I talked to Wolf in regards to the lengthy means of acquiring Reubens’s belief, his strategy to the artists’ voluminous archive, the distinction in follow between journalism and documentary filmmaking, and far more.
Filmmaker: When and what had been your individual earliest recollections of Pee-wee Herman?
Wolf: I used to be born in 1982, and the present began in 1986 and went on for 5 seasons, so I in all probability watched it on stay TV. I’ve recollections of my mother leaving for work, and me crying and it being on TV. And I’ve recollections of taking part in with the [Pee-wee] toys, particularly a pull-string doll — a ubiquitous piece of merch that everybody had — that hung above my mattress. It was nonetheless there once I was in highschool, and for my intro to images class I took an image of it, a type of summary picture of Pee-wee’s hand, and it’s on nonetheless my fridge immediately.
So, as a child, I used to be simply completely transfixed by Pee Wee’s Playhouse. I wouldn’t be capable to even put phrases to it. Now, on reflection, clearly I felt accepted by its values and emotionally concerned in its aesthetic — the complete world-building of the present. I don’t assume I essentially had any type of preoccupation with Pee-wee as a personality, and it wasn’t in regards to the film [Pee-wee’s Big Adventure]. It actually was simply the area of the Playhouse, what occurred in there, and the values [it represented. [The Playhouse] was a weirdo area, the place it was okay to be freaky, inventive, bigger than life, expressive, affectionate, candy and bratty. It simply contained an infinite vary of emotions that had been accepted.
Filmmaker: As you bought older, had been you maintaining with Pee-wee, with Paul Reubens, and what was happening along with his life?
Wolf: No. I had a love for Pee-wee however [I wasn’t] a die-hard fan. He simply was somebody who was a reference — a part of the curriculum of my mind. And when individuals would brainstorm documentary topics, for years he was on the prime of my checklist. I knew he was a compelling topic, and I suppose I made an assumption that whoever made Pee-wee’s Playhouse is a compelling, advanced particular person. Of course, Paul is thought by lots of people for his arrest. I don’t have any recollection of his arrest or feeling any kind of disappointment about that. I simply knew that [event] to be kind of a salacious hook in his story, and I wasn’t drawn to it due to that. Paul Reubens was a captivating particular person, and there was very, little or no about him on the market, although his work had been so iconic.
Filmmaker: So, once you say Paul Reubens was a part of a kind of catalog of documentary concepts, through the years had you been pitching a doc about him earlier than this explicit challenge was in a position to come collectively?
Wolf: I wasn’t pitching, however I’m at all times attempting to realize entry, to achieve [subjects]. And he’s somebody I approached various instances unsuccessfully via in all probability not the strongest [connections]. There had been rumors — unfaithful — within the trades that the Safdie Brothers had been in talks to direct Paul’s darkly autobiographical Pee Wee movie, The Pee-wee Herman Story. I knew the Safdies so I reached out and mentioned, “Look, he’s my dream subject. If there’s any way you could connect me, I would be so grateful.” And then, utterly unrelated, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, who turned the producer of the movie, was an outdated buddy of Paul’s. They met on Ted Demme’s movie, Blow. Emma’s a really profitable producer — she made Joker and produced many Scorsese movies, and Paul had approached her for assistance on how to determine find out how to make a documentary. He was assembly with individuals, and I knew that he even began to make a challenge with any person however then pulled out. And then, Emma approached the Safdies as a result of she had been an govt producer on Uncut Gems, and she or he suggested Paul that these could possibly be good companions for a documentary. They then mentioned, “Oh, well, it turns out we know a director who would like to do this,” they usually inspired Paul to satisfy with me.
When I met with him, he was fairly direct in saying he needed to direct the documentary about himself however everybody was advising him in opposition to that, and he didn’t perceive why. I mentioned, “Well, I’m here to meet with you about me directing the documentary. You should get to know me, and then we can discuss if there’s a potential process that works.” This was through the peak of the pandemic, and my movie Spaceship Earth had simply come out. Apparently, he didn’t like that movie and mentioned I wasn’t the director for him, however Josh [Safdie] inspired him to observe my first movie, Wild Combination, and Paul actually related to that movie. So, we met once more and continued the dialog. We would meet then fairly often on Skype to simply kind of shoot the shit and get to know one another and have these tense interactions about how the documentary might work and what his function could be within the telling of the story, after which we might hang around once more. It was a type of extended courtship, and in some unspecified time in the future in that course of, he type of begrudgingly agreed to maneuver ahead, however on the situation that I’d be on a 30-day trial interval. And so I used to be. I made Paul speak to me thrice per week for a number of hours every session.
Filmmaker: Were you filming this?
Wolf: No, however we determined to document the audio for reference, and I wouldn’t use it with out asking him. Even that early, our relationship was attention-grabbing. Then, at some point, it was like a million kilos lifted. He mentioned, “I’m in, I want to do this.” And that started an extended and rocky course of that had stops and begins after which was accomplished after he died.
Filmmaker: What had been the sorts of issues that you just related with exterior of simply speaking about him and his personal life?
Wolf: We had related sensibilities. In a manner, we simply related as individuals. And on the similar time, there was plenty of friction and distance. I believe Paul, by his personal admission, was not trusting by nature, and clearly there have been the explanation why he had been actually burned and mistreated by the media. So, there was this oscillation between getting shut and in addition being held at arm’s size. I believe we had been attempting to determine find out how to get what we needed and wanted from one another, which is a part of the dance that we do with our documentary topics. This was simply far more concerned and intense, and his need for management was far more intense than I had skilled earlier than. But I used to be like, “I’m just going to keep pushing this forward, nothing can stop me. I desperately want to make this, and we’re going to figure it out.”
By the time Paul had mentioned sure, I had pre-interviewed various different individuals whose names he had given me, and I used to be prepared to enter manufacturing. I started taking pictures all these secondary interviews, however he was procrastinating taking pictures his personal. And then, after a pair months of manufacturing, and, at this level, tons of of hours of personal conversations, I began to interview Paul, and that was designed to be a fairly epic, long-form interview. I needed to shoot in blocks of 5 days in order that we might get deeply immersed. And then we might take breaks, like chapter breaks in Paul’s story. I needed to do this over the course of three taking pictures durations, and I’d transfer chronologically via Paul’s life in granular element in order that he could be the first storyteller and assuming he would carry out effectively within the interviews. I knew that he, significantly on the subject of his childhood, was so obsessive about element as a result of it was clearly an engine of his creativity — like, he might communicate for over an hour about his childhood dwelling.
Filmmaker: You introduced up the phrase “trust” earlier, and I believed again to Janet Malcolm’s evaluation of journalist and topic in The Journalist and the Murderer wherein she refers to “the tension between the subject’s blind self-absorption and the journalist’s skepticism,” and discussing how journalists can betray their topics “without remorse.” As you say, he had been burned by the media, so wasn’t it comprehensible for him to distrust you?
Wolf: I say this to journalists on a regular basis about this “journalism vs. filmmaker” factor. We want a lot from our topics in comparison with the journalists. The alternative for a journalist to betray their topics is a lot simpler and less complicated. I have to invade my topic’s lives with cameras and tools. I want them to signal authorized releases, permitting me to make use of their life story and supplies because the uncooked materials for my work. I want them to work with me, to offer me their treasured private possessions. I’ve talked to journalists who will knock on somebody’s door and say, “Somebody said this awful thing about you, do you have a comment?” We can’t do this. People are involved about battle of curiosity, significantly in celeb movies, however there isn’t a denying that the connection between a documentary filmmaker and their topic is a collaboration, since you want a lot from one another. It’s a two-way relationship, and it’s a long-term type of relationship. It simply occurred to be a very advanced two-way relationship on this movie, and I, in a roundabout manner, selected to make that a part of the story.
Filmmaker: Let’s discuss that. There are two strands of the documentary. There’s the linear, autobiographical marching via Paul’s life, after which there’s his relationship with you, the strain of that relationship. And then there’s additionally the inner pressure you are feeling in Paul about telling his story. I’m excited by your resolution to incorporate each his self-questioning and his pushing again. You simply might have lower it, and also you additionally simply might have made it far more part of the documentary than it’s.
Wolf: The depth of my expertise after Paul died is tough to specific. It’s like nothing I’ve ever skilled earlier than, that feeling of accountability. I didn’t wish to communicate in poor health of Paul or do something meanspirited. We had plenty of battle, and I used to be indignant about issues that had gone down. I used to be additionally in shock that he died, as a result of I had no purpose to imagine that he was dying. He seemed so wholesome within the footage. And so, sure, at first I took a type of rose-tinted strategy [to the edit]. I believe it was fairly vanilla. I had a rough-cut screening with another filmmakers and shut confidants who had been like, “Wake up and get real.” There’s one thing I’ve mentioned earlier than that’s actually true and that I’d steadily inform Paul: “You can’t be ‘simple people.’ It’s kind of beneath you to be simple. You gotta embrace your complexity. Being complex is what makes you compelling.” I acknowledged that I needed to take my very own recommendation and to depict him with complexity.
I actually am adversarial to placing myself in movies. I believe that’s usually a crutch, a tool that’s utilized in documentaries for lack of higher storytelling methods. Then I had a dialog with any person who was like, “Well, isn’t it more narcissistic to uphold that rule that you don’t appear in films rather than to do it if it actually helps support the storytelling?” That day, I went again and began to string Paul and my exchanges all through the movie. Frankly, that was at all times an concept that we each had however that I used to be scared to do. On the primary day of interviewing Paul, when issues began to simply really feel irritating, I [asked], “How do you feel about your relationship with me?” He lit up. It was cathartic for him to play out that difficulty on digicam and with a crew current. As quickly as [I began to include this material], I acknowledged that it wasn’t about me. It was about displaying how Paul was wrestling over reconciling these two totally different variations of himself that had been competing for consideration but in addition hiding and never desirous to be seen.
Filmmaker: I used to be shocked by the lightness with which he usually articulated these qualms within the film. There’s at all times a twinkle in his eye. He by no means felt indignant to me. Was there a degree of depth to his frustration and to his outbursts that you just determined to dial down for the movie?
Wolf: Paul is a extremely managed particular person. We had it out behind the scenes, for certain, in very intense methods, however when it got here to our battle on digicam, I believe he was fairly effectively calibrated by way of being slicing or snarky, and he was additionally humorous on the similar time. Yes, he might get indignant, and I handled him in what was in all probability essentially the most nerve-racking time in his life. It was additionally nerve-racking [because of] the premise of being documented by a youthful one who anticipated inventive management over the telling of his story. But I believe his manner of being barbed had a sweetness to it, and that half could be very Pee-wee, however it’s additionally very Paul. There’s the place the 2 overlapped, I believe.
Filmmaker: When I interviewed you about Recorder, your movie in regards to the Philadelphia archivist Marion Stokes, you described a captivating, advanced archiving system to deal with at that materials. Obviously, that movie is an order of magnitude greater than this one, however did you depend on related methods and methods of working, or did this challenge require a special strategy to the archive?
Wolf: It was a considerably greater quantity than my different movies, however I had extra help. Our coproducer, Brittan Dunham, she actually was on the helm of the archive stuff. She labored for Beyonce for a very long time as her archivist, and she or he had a really intimate, shut relationship with Paul as a result of she bought to assist him go down reminiscence lane, and she or he dealt with his most personal stuff with plenty of care. She sat in Paul’s home, the place he saved tons of and tons of and tons of of tapes, and she or he went via all of them with him, hand digitizing all the things. Paul was an obsessive archivist of his personal profession, however he additionally shot tons of dwelling movies with the primary fashions of dwelling camcorders. So much was pictures of deer and squirrels from his yard however a lot of it was extraordinary, significantly the Super 8mm. Our affiliate editor, Vanessa Martino, went very carefully via the fabric. We had archival researchers. It was a strong group working via that archive to help my editor, Damian Rodriguez, and I, however it was related course of to what I at all times do, which is to have a group of individuals watching all the things and pulling biggest hits for me earlier than I conduct a grasp interview. [That way] I can find out about my topic via the first materials, not simply via what’s being mentioned.
Filmmaker: I really like the two-part type of it. I really feel it was one of many uncommon docs I see today the place the format and the content material had been applicable for one another. You couldn’t have performed this in two hours, however, on the similar time, I’m sick of the six and eight-hour prolonged collection.
Wolf: I didn’t wish to do two components initially. I mentioned to HBO, “I think it’s a feature.” And they had been like, “We think it’s two parts, and we’d really like it to be two parts.” And I used to be like, “Okay.”
Filmmaker: And had been they saying that as a result of they acknowledged the density of the fabric…?
Wolf: I believe it’s a mannequin of biographical docs that has actually labored for them. HBO is exclusive by way of that two-part factor. I believe it’s type of good, as a result of it’s an even bigger canvas wherein you construction a pure break. But I believe individuals will in all probability watch it constantly, and I actually was placing it collectively like a really lengthy film. I knew I needed to go deep on the pre-history of Pee-wee, however once I was 45 minutes in and hadn’t gotten to Pee-wee, I used to be like, okay, this wants a a lot larger canvas. If [you include an] epic pre-history, you might have a deeper understanding of the logic behind, on this case, a personality who could seem easy or simple however who is definitely the product of a constellation of cultural references and life experiences.
Filmmaker: You shot the interviews with Paul and others. What else did you shoot? All these pictures of what he had in his dwelling when he was raided, I assume you shot these.
Wolf: Yeah. We at all times supposed to create a kind of museum of Paul’s collections, together with set items and props from his work, and to movie him going via all the things as a result of he was an infinite collector. We outfitted an enormous warehouse. You see timelapse footage of that warehouse within the movie as effectively. For me, it felt like a managed state of affairs to lean into this metaphor of “unpacking the past,” and it was visually attention-grabbing. We by no means bought to movie Paul going via it. But after Paul handed away, we made use of that area. Our manufacturing designer, Alexander Lindy, created a type of mini museum of Paul’s stuff, like tableaus of his collections. And we did look at the fabric in query from his second arrest — that precise materials we checked out within the warehouse as effectively.
Filmmaker: So, you’re making the film – and that is in your doc — and it’s important to cease, and there’s a break. And then months later you get a name from Paul you can shoot once more. Tell me about that second, as a result of presumably your crew is dispersed.
Wolf: Everyone who labored on this film desperately needed it to return again. Everybody knew how sturdy the fabric was, however it was in some kind of limbo that went on and on. It was actually devastating. It virtually got here again so many instances, and I’d at all times hesitate to inform the crew as a result of I didn’t wish to jerk individuals round. Basically, I heard from his reps that he was able to proceed. I spoke to Paul, and he sounded weak. I used to be bowled over by the dialog however had no context to know it. But. It was a significant dialog wherein he informed me the issues I wanted to know to really feel assured continuing with the movie, and I used to be scheduled to movie him per week later. Then I flew to Birmingham, Alabama to do a contract job, and I bought a textual content from my govt with a screenshot of his Instagram web page saying that he was lifeless, after which my telephone exploded. I used to be in whole shock. I bought a name from Paul’s publicist and shut buddy Kelly Bucha Novak, who informed me that Paul had recorded some one thing for me for the documentary the evening earlier than he died. That day and day-after-day after, I learn the 1,500 web page transcript of our interview, and was simply wracking my mind, attempting to know: Were there indicators or indicators that he was sick or that he was dying?
I used to be so grateful that I had made different movies earlier than this. When Paul died it was so overwhelming, and there was a lot stress to not drop the ball. It was additionally sophisticated, [how to] dramatize our relationship with out making it schlocky or sensational. And find out how to grapple with that quantity of fabric — it took expertise to determine how to do this. It pushed me to the boundaries of my potential and expertise as a filmmaker, and, on a regular basis, I felt so fortunate that I didn’t attempt to do that at a special level in my profession. I actually felt like that is the synthesis of all the things I’ve performed, and that all the things I’ve performed ready me to do that. And when he died, it turned extra much like the sorts of movies I’ve made. I’ve made plenty of portraits of people who find themselves deceased.
Filmmaker: But by no means anybody who died through the making.
Wolf: No, and it’s actually onerous to search out anyone who has. The movie Goodbye Horses is one, however there aren’t many different examples I might discover.
Filmmaker: Why you say the movie turned extra much like your others after Paul died?
Wolf: Just that it’s coping with a discovered archive to deliver any person to life. But I created the archive, a 44-hour interview.
Filmmaker: How a lot did Paul’s passing reshape what you had already assembled?
Wolf: It clearly shifted the top of the movie, however it didn’t radically shift how I needed to inform the story. Paul didn’t inform me [he was sick] as a result of he didn’t need his story to be informed via the lens of mortality or legacy. And I didn’t wish to make it about his demise — I needed to make it about his life. So, it didn’t change what I used to be doing, however the facet of our relationship — the ethics and the accountability round that — felt totally different as a result of he was lifeless, and I couldn’t get his direct suggestions how he felt about it. He did see 45 minutes of a tough lower, which I had proven him [earlier] to attempt to get the challenge again on observe.
Filmmaker: Did he have enter on the lower at the moment, or on the fabric you included?
Wolf: No, however I used to be relieved he had seen the scene depicting him and his boyfriend and that he knew I used to be doing that as a result of it’s essentially the most intimate and, I believe, revealing a part of who Paul is. He was anxious that I, as a homosexual filmmaker, would overly deal with sexuality because the lens to know his life. But I understood that relationship which precipitated him going again into the closet to be a basic a part of who he was, and of a few of the extra poignant life selections he made to pursue his profession. I can’t communicate for him, however I believe he was good with what he noticed, and we ended on a extremely optimistic observe. But then issues type of went off the rails once more, and it was plenty of backwards and forwards for a very long time.
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