The emotional power of filmmaking in a post-truth world

In 2023, I made a documentary series called The Greatest Show Never Made, about a reality television experiment that went spectacularly wrong in 2002. 

A group of hopeful contestants had given up their jobs, their homes and, in some cases, their futures for the promise of appearing on a groundbreaking new television show. When the whole thing collapsed, several of them ended up living together in a one-bedroom flat in Dalston. 

Twenty years later, we rebuilt that flat in a film studio. Everything was painstakingly recreated, from the furniture and wallpaper to the smallest details of the kitchen. Then we invited the original contributors back into it. 

People often think of documentary contributors or non-actors as a shortcut to authenticity. But the truth is that the camera makes everyone perform. 

Something extraordinary happened. Walking into this completely artificial space, people found themselves reconnecting with memories and feelings that had been buried for decades. The reconstruction gave them a way of accessing their own experiences that simply sitting down for an interview might never have achieved. 

It was a completely constructed environment, but the emotions it generated were real. I’ve always been interested in this relationship between construction and truth. Working across documentaries, drama and commercials, I’ve come to think that one of the greatest misconceptions about filmmaking is that authenticity is something you can achieve simply by removing artifice. 

Above: Poster for the The Greatest Show Never Made.

In fact, I’d argue that filmmaking is fundamentally an act of construction. And sometimes constructing a situation is precisely what allows us to get closer to something truthful. The camera makes everyone perform. 

People often think of documentary contributors or non-actors as a shortcut to authenticity. But the truth is that the camera makes everyone perform. Whether you’re working with an experienced actor or somebody who’s never been filmed before, you’re looking for a performance that feels open, intimate, expressive and, above all, believable. And everything we do as filmmakers shapes that performance. Who we cast, where we put them, what we ask them to do, how we speak to them, how we frame them and ultimately how we edit them. 

I’ve always thought that directing is fundamentally about helping people express themselves. 

I’ve always thought that directing is fundamentally about helping people express themselves. That’s true whether you’re working with an actor inhabiting an imagined character or somebody telling the story of their own life. 

There are obviously important differences, not least the responsibility we have towards people who are sharing their real experiences. But in both cases you’re trying to create the circumstances in which somebody can connect with something and express it honestly. 

For me, believability is one of the most important qualities in filmmaking. Audiences instinctively disengage when something doesn’t feel believable. That doesn’t mean everything has to be naturalistic. A film can be surreal, farcical, fantastical or completely absurd. But once you’ve established the rules of your world, what happens within it needs to feel believable. 

That’s partly why I find the boundaries between documentary and drama so interesting. Imagining something truthful. 

Above: Still from The Greatest Show Never Made.

My recent Channel 4 film, Penelope and Jane: A Polar Love Story, explores the relationship between two men involved in Scott’s Antarctic expedition, Harry Pennell and Edward Atkinson.

Pennell’s diary contains extraordinary details about his feelings towards Atkinson. We wanted to bring that emotional world to life, but we were also interested in the limitations of historical evidence. What can we really know about people’s private lives? And what happens to the relationships and experiences that history has left largely unrecorded? 

I wrote and directed a series of dramatic scenes with two brilliant actors, Jack Barton and Anders Hayward. The scenes were closely rooted in Pennell’s own words, drawn from his diaries and other surviving writings. They gave us an extraordinary insight into his feelings for Atkinson and became the foundation for imagining how that relationship might have played out between them. We weren’t inventing these emotions, but finding a way to bring them to life, imagining the conversations, interactions and private moments that the historical record could never fully capture. 

A great performance doesn’t necessarily require real experience. It requires an actor to connect deeply with what their character is experiencing. 

That was part of the point. The drama wasn’t intended to present an authoritative reconstruction of exactly what happened. It was an imaginative interpretation, grounded in historical evidence, that allowed us to explore the emotional reality of their relationship while also questioning what we can and cannot know about the past. 

We spent a surprising amount of time thinking about the disclaimer that would accompany these scenes. We wanted audiences to understand that what they were watching was an imaginative interpretation, but one closely rooted in historical evidence. That distinction felt important. We wanted people to become immersed in the drama, but not to mistake our imagining of these private moments for an established historical record.