Journalism, for me, has always been a calling. There are things that must be exposed to the light, truths that must be uncovered, stories worth risking your life for.
In documentary films, the most difficult thing to achieve is to make something complex appear simple.
When you do a piece of journalism, you may have to cut away 95 percent of what you are experiencing.
When you are on assignment, you stick to the facts, limit your vision, and often cut out the most revealing material. There is no texture, no shades of gray. In fiction, you can bring the reader on the perilous journey with your characters as they discover that war is more like a wilderness of mirrors, full of danger and uncertainty.
I covered the first Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and Israel for ABC News.
After reading Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad when I was a student at Yale, I wanted to live in the world they captured in their books. I had had some experience living in Africa. I was drawn to that kind of adventure.
I started making little films with a 16 mm camera as an undergraduate at Yale. My first job out of college was 'assistant editor' on a forgettable low budget feature.
When I was at graduate school in London, I began working at NBC News, which had a thriving documentary unit.
When you have a situation that's destructive, when there's tremendous inhumanity everywhere, you see how humanity survives in all of its different permutations.
When I was in London at NBC, I was the lowest man on the totem pole. I would go to diplomatic receptions to meet people.
I have a great spouse, Andrew Cockburn, who's also a journalist.
I think the greatest thing about making a documentary is your ability to just follow the story and the subject.
It's a very enclosed world on Wall Street.
