The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

122 Steve James
28 Up and The Times of Harvey Milk were two films I saw in that time period
that also affected me.
And The Times of Harvey Milk is still amazing. It holds up incredibly well.
James: It was such a moving film. It’s funny; it’s like you pick and choose
certain things that really powerfully affect you. From Barbara’s film, it was
this kind of courageous commitment that she made as a filmmaker to tell
that story whatever it took. To get inside that story whatever it took and win
the trust of those people. They were very different from her. Those are all
things that I feel like I try to apply in my own work. And then Milk was a
film in which I realized just how powerfully moving a documentary can be.
That really affected me. Apted’s 28 Up I’m sure planted the seed of, “What if
you could tell a story literally over a large span of time and see how someone
changes?” He’s doing it in a very different way than we did it in Hoop
Dreams or a film like Stevie, but that notion of actually seeing people change
in the course of a film really is a powerful thing. I would say those three
films are . . .
The Holy Trinity?
James: Those are probably the Holy Trinity in terms of my life at that time.
They really impacted me and got me thinking, “God, this is what I want
to do.”