Episode Details

When does documenting reality become creating it?

Journalism asks us to seek the truth. Art invites us to shape what we see and feel. But what happens when those two intentions collide?

In this episode of The PAUSE, Ari welcomes filmmaker, screenwriter, and film educator David J. Greenberg for a spirited conversation about You Can See Everything, the provocative new documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim about Elizabeth Holmes, the convicted founder of Theranos.

What begins as a film review wanders into more unsettled territory: the difference between what we can do and what we're capable of doing; the seductions of certainty; the personas we construct; and the peculiar trust we place in filmmakers who promise to show us reality.

Along the way, Ari and David explore Fielder's uncomfortable humor, the blurring of documentary and fiction, and the ways editing, performance, and even the placement of a camera can change the truth we believe we're witnessing.

Are filmmakers witnesses, storytellers, magicians—or something of all three?

And when we surrender ourselves to a story, how much of what we experience belongs to the artist, and how much do we bring ourselves?

Perhaps seeing everything isn't the same as knowing what we've seen.

Explore further

• You Can See Everything — Official film page and trailer
• You Can See Everything — New York Film Festival
• David Greenberg's Screenwriting for Micro-Budget Films — Routledge
• Radio KCM — Knoxville Community Radio
• The PAUSE Podcast

Listener advisory: This conversation discusses sexual assault, trauma, and themes from the film. Some plot details are revealed.

Financial support in part comes from the Clibanoff-Gotsdiner Family Fund, devoted to celebrating our mutual creativities.