For these documentary directors, HBO is the anti-'Predictable Content Channel'

When Oscar victor Alex Gibney sent HBO Documentary Films executives an aboriginal chopped of his caller movie, “Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos,” helium was blindsided by the feedback helium received.

“God bless HBO, they said, ‘This is truthful bully — marque it longer.’ I seldom get that note.”

In the streaming world, documentaries person exploded, with newcomers similar Netflix and Hulu chasing the adjacent binge-worthy sensation. But HBO Documentary Films, which started successful a nascent signifier successful the precocious 1970s, remains a distinguished player, regarded arsenic an particularly prestigious and director-driven location for nonfiction fare. To recognize why, it helps to speech to filmmakers who person precocious worked with HBO — including Gibney, whose two-part documentary chronicles some Chase and his groundbreaking bid crossed a sweeping canvas.

David Chase successful “Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos.”

(HBO)

“I person a hard clip making abbreviated docs,” jokes Gibney, whose 2023 MGM+ documentary “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon” stretched 3½ hours. (“Wise Guy,” initially 2 hours, is present astir that length.) “But [HBO] said, ‘You’ve got each this large stuff. You should thin into this and that.’”

Many directors echo this appreciation for the state HBO affords them to bash what they privation successful a commercialized abstraction often dictated by algorithms and location styles.

For Matt Wolf, the antheral down “Pee-wee arsenic Himself,” astir Paul Reubens and his change ego Pee-wee Herman, it was important to trade a nuanced portrait. “We had a batch of autonomy and made the movie precise independently,” Wolf says, “until we were astatine the postproduction stage, erstwhile HBO became captious partners,” alluding to Reubens’ shocking 2023 death, which revealed that the performer had privately been battling cancer.

“Some partners might’ve said, ‘Paul’s passed away, this is newsworthy — we request a movie successful a fewer months,’” Wolf says. “But HBO was astonishing successful seeing that this is an evergreen communicative and that it wasn’t a rush. It was much astir doing thing with gravitas that could beryllium profound and emotional. That takes time, and they gave maine that time.”

Paul Reubens successful “Pee-wee arsenic Himself.”

(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)

Still, HBO offers its filmmakers plentifulness of notes — and has from the start. In 1979, Sheila Nevins was hired to tally the channel’s burgeoning documentary programming, yet becoming president of HBO Documentary Films. “Back then, HBO was a haven to marque these truly chill films,” recalls Oscar-nominated manager Nanette Burstein, who archetypal worked with Nevins arsenic a co-writer and exertion connected 1995’s “Before You Go: A Daughter’s Diary.” “Sheila was the queen, and she was large astatine it. She gave pointed notes: ‘This is what I deliberation should happen.’”

In 2019, Nevins near HBO for MTV Documentary Films, but Burstein, whose HBO documentary “Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes” recontextualizes the Hollywood fable done a never-before-heard interview, credits existent heads Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller, on with Senior Vice President Sara Rodriguez, with continuing Nevins’ championing of the director’s voice. That said, Burstein adds, the contiguous authorities is “very overmuch respectful of a filmmaker and little — what’s the diplomatic term?” She chuckles. “Sheila had a precise beardown opinion. [Now] it’s much of a discussion.”

Elizabeth Taylor successful “Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes.”

(HBO)

“Sheila Nevins deserves tremendous credit, not lone for documentaries astatine HBO but documentaries, period,” agrees Gibney. “She showed that they tin beryllium wildly entertaining, adjacent erstwhile they’re not astir celebrities. She had a consciousness that they person to beryllium viscerally almighty — they can’t beryllium similar spinach.” But similar Burstein, helium acknowledges Nevins’ steadfast constituent of view: “I had immoderate hard conversations with her [about my films]. I would reason with her. Sometimes I accepted [her notes], sometimes I didn’t.”

Lance Oppenheim, manager of “Ren Faire,” a juicy soap opera astir a conflict for power of the Texas Renaissance Festival, was grateful HBO doesn’t enforce a mandate for however its movies look and feel. “That’s truly admirable successful this time and property erstwhile different buyers and streamers algorithmically marque stuff,” helium says. “You tin spot it successful immoderate of the things that consciousness similar they’re being spoon-fed to us. They were ever truthful unfastened to the stylization [of “Ren Faire”] that possibly different places would beryllium a small spot intimidated by — oregon would’ve asked maine to archer the communicative a small straighter.”

A country from “Ren Faire.”

(HBO)

No 1 expects a straightforward documentary from Eric Goode, manager of Netflix’s 2020 deed “Tiger King.” His follow-up, “Chimp Crazy,” is likewise outlandish, pursuing a erstwhile nurse, Tonia Haddix, who’s obsessed with collecting chimpanzees — adjacent arsenic PETA wisely tries to halt her. Goode’s unconventional techniques, including hiring a proxy manager to get adjacent to Haddix truthful she was unaware of Goode’s involvement, provoked disapproval from documentary purists. But helium argues that it’s each successful the sanction of promoting carnal rights.

“If you privation to marque a difference, you can’t conscionable preach to the converted,” says Goode. “You person to marque a large bang. So galore [advocacy] films consciousness similar you’re successful school. You privation to preach to radical that don’t cognize the issues. And the lone mode to bash that is to bash things that are entertainment, that are going to marque radical scratch their caput and say, ‘Wait a minute, I conscionable watched this full happening and there’s thing disturbing astir this.’”

Tonia Haddix successful “Chimp Crazy.”

(HBO)

When asked if HBO had qualms astir his methods, Goode replies, “It whitethorn person travel up but not with maine directly.” Executives’ hands-off attack worked: “Chimp Crazy” was the astir fashionable HBO documentary successful years.

These 5 projects — a operation of personage portraits, true-crime thrillers and oddball sagas — suggest the breadth of HBO Documentary Films’ strategy for an creation signifier that has blossomed connected the tiny screen. Balancing compulsive watchability with a interaction of class, the institution is inactive trying to interruption the mold portion simultaneously catering to the masses.

“It feels precise fresh,” Gibney says of the company’s wide slate. “It feels similar a movie festival — arsenic opposed to ‘Here comes the Predictable Content Channel.’”