Can we trust documentary filmmakers to tell us the "truth"?

You can only judge what is true or not true based on your own experience of life. Documentary filmmaking is not about telling the truth, it is about exploring reality. All that you can expect is that which you experience, and that the film corresponds with your sense of actuality.

Who is the most important person you collaborate with on your process?

Each and every member of the team is important. I depend on the intuition of the cameraman to capture the actuality. I depend on the structural sense of the editor to best reflect what is actually on screen. I depend on the emotional expressiveness of the composer to echo the feelings of the film. Filmmaking is an intensely collaborative process and without the contributions of all the team members, a strong film could never be made.

What inspires you to tackle the subjects that you do? Dying, Memory Loss, Rebellion, Adolescence, etc?

Each and every film I have ever made, I have made in order to explore an aspect of the human condition about which I am ignorant. For example, as I became older I was aware that eventually I would die and it would be useful to explore what that experience was all about, which is why I made Dying at Grace. I also understood little or nothing about the experience of losing one's memory, thus I made Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company. As a young man I also realized I had experienced many emotional difficulties in growing up, so I made a film called Warrendale about troubled youngsters. I've been very privileged over a lifetime to be paid to explore those emotional issues which most perplex people.

What was it like filming Who Has Seen the Wind in Arcola, Saskatchewan?

With Who Has Seen the Wind I was fortunate to work with colleagues who were especially skilled in explaining face-to-face to each and every member of the community what our objective was and they were then able to mobilize the entire community to make their stores and facilities available for filming.

We also thanked the province of Saskatchewan for making Who Has Seen the Wind possible by inviting the then-premiere of the province, Alan Blakeny, to join me in the front seat on an old Model A Ford to the Arcola cinema carrying a sheath of wheat as a bouquet to the world premiere of the film. The event made the national news, drawing cross-country attention to the opening of the film and it was the most successful Canadian feature film of its year.

Have you had subjects ask you to cut something that they have said? How do you handle a situation like that?

Yes, I have had participants who have asked me to cut a line, and I reminded them of our agreement, and refused to cut it. For example, in Warrendale when one of the children didn't like what he said and I refused to cut it. I do this because to breach an agreement is to breech trust, and trust is essential to veracity in filmmaking.

Have you ever felt that the camera has gone too far or that you shouldn't be there filming?

The camera people who work with me always give a nod to the people they're filming to assure that they are comfortable with proceeding. This is important in maintaining the trust of the people you are filming and ensuring that it feels trustworthy to an audience.

Do you stay in touch with the subjects of your films?

It may seem callous or self-centred, but I've rarely been able to keep in touch with the people I've filmed. I've moved on to another film. I have worked with an enormous number of people and I've been extraordinarily busy making films to do that. At the same time, now, towards the end of my life, I'd like to be able to see all of those people again, but it is simply not possible.

Did they expect you to keep in touch with them? Because you gain this trust and you're in their lives and then you're gone. How do you grapple with that?

The leaving and the leave-taking is a difficult one. I first experienced it with Warrendale, where they had a farewell party for me at the house. I still came back to visit and in fact it took three farewell parties before I finally left.

One of the children, Carol, used to call me Sweet Pea and gave me a baby bottle full of peas because baby bottles figured very largely in the film. And of my trophies, it's my favourite. I have it in a bell jar and in fact I use it in my advertising for the Allan King Collection, not the peas though, they'd gone bad a long time ago - but the bottle still sits on my desk. It was also very hard saying goodbye to Billy and Antoinette after A Married Couple. I never really did say goodbye. I did continue to see them. I am still in touch with Brian Henry from EMPz 4 Life. We have kept close contact and meet sometimes, as well as Joe Pierre from the film. So it depends. If it's possible I do like to keep in touch, but unfortunately far too seldom.

Have you found it depressing, dealing with the topics that you've dealt with from alcoholic derelicts to those at the bottom of the social heap? How do you keep your own spirits up when you're dealing with such difficulty?

Oddly enough, I don't think I've ever found my own films depressing at all because I find discovery and learning is enormously valuable and one feels one's made a gain. When you look at the whole of the span of time I've lived through - what does happen when you get as old as I am, is you realize how difficult it is for our society, people in it, to change. To become truly civilized is very, very difficult.

What do you mean by saying a truly civilized society?

For me, a truly civilized society, is a society in which the things that drive us and that we work with, all work. One has to be fully sensitive to feeling. One has to be able to manage feelings through reason and good sense and all of the things that we learn.

What is going to allow us to prosper. What is going to allow us to look after ourselves, look after our children, look after our old people, look after people who aren't getting money, and so on. If a society can't look after itself, what kind of a society is that?