IFH 478: Billie Eilish and Truth to Filmmaking with RJ Cutler

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Our guest today, RJ Cutler opened up 2021 with his raw, emotional and remarkable new documentary Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry. He’s a phenomenal documentary and TV director and producer with nearly thirty years of experience in the business. The $2 million dollars documentary film which was directed, written, and produced by Cutler centered around singer-songwriter teen sensation and Grammy Award artist, Billie Eilish --- Revealing the creation process of Eilish's debut studio album ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’ The very intimate telling of Eillish’s solid support system and family, navigating the ropes of the music fame as a young artist depicted unconventionally and astoundingly. From college, Cutler started off as a theater director in New York for nine years until he transitioned to filmmaking in 1993 with his debut film, The War Room. The film follows James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, at first during the New Hampshire primary, and then mostly in Little Rock, Arkansas, at the Clinton campaign headquarters. Producing the film, he was able to combine his journalism and theater directing backgrounds. It turned out to be a great success and earned an Oscar award. He’s taken on great subject matters and big presences in his documentaries; the likes of legendary John Belushi, Anna Wintour, or Dick Cheney. Belushi, released in 2020, examines the too-short life of comedian, actor and musician, John Belushi, original SNL cast member, using previously unheard audiotapes recorded shortly after John Belushi's death. Cutler credits his storytelling to the ability to connect the subject to the processes. People’s desire to have their story told, especially in documentaries, transcends the technicalities of making a documentary. Other well-known films or shows from Cutler are, The September Issue (2009), Thin (2006), and Dear… (2020) Dear... profiles game-changing icons and the people whose lives they’ve inspired. Inspired by Apple’s groundbreaking “Dear Apple” ad for the Apple Watch, Dear... is an inventive approach to biographies of the influential people who are shaping culture and society today using letters that fans have written to them. Dear... focuses on key moments from subjects’ lives and their work that has profoundly impacted not only the individuals who have written letters, but the world at large. All episodes are available to watch now on the Apple TV app with an Apple TV+ subscription. We talked a lot about Cutler's journey in the industry and how he landed the project to direct the first TELL ALL of the coolest 19-year-old in the US right now. Enjoy my enlightening conversation with RJ Cutler.