Ezra Edelman

But it's connected to who he always was.

He created a mystery, he obfuscated the truth of who he was to become famous as an artist.

And then we were complicit in how we absorbed said artist and we loved it.

But then you get trapped in that.

You keep having to change, you keep having to evolve, but your true self is always hidden.

And so when the true self is then laid bare, you know, having died of an overdose, it's like, what do you do with that?

That can't be hidden.

That's stark.

That's the truth.

By the way, I don't disagree with that.

Right now, we live in a culture.

And in a documentary universe, and in some ways in a journalistic universe, where the subject gets to dictate who they are to everybody.

And that is not the way that The Fourth Estate was set up.

So my issue is that in trading for access, you now have a lot of companies and filmmakers making deals with the subject, sanitizing their story and or their image, that to me, it's like, of course, it serves them.

You don't have to put in what you don't want put in, but it is truthful.

Well, I'm not saying it should be me.

I'm just saying because I take the responsibility seriously and I try very hard and I have integrity as a person, as a filmmaker.

I'm not here, by the way, to give you like to prove why I should be worthy of doing anything.

I think the exercise is very hard.

I think the danger and the problem I'm finding is that what's the compromise?