Screenplay:
David SeltzerCinematography:
Affonso BeatoComposer:
Rolfe KentCast:
Diane Lane, Tim Robbins, Thomas Dekker, James Gandolfini, Patrick Fugit, Kathleen Quinlan, Matt O'Leary, Lolita Davidovich, Shanna Collins, Emilio Rivera (more)Plots(1)
In 1973, the Loud family became a television sensation of a new kind. It was long before a metal rock star showed his eccentric family on the small screen and decades before housewives had screaming matches with each other on camera in public. Cinema Verite tells the behind-the-scenes story of the groundbreaking documentary "An American Family," which chronicled the lives of the Louds in the early 1970s and catapulted the Santa Barbara family to notoriety while creating a new television genre: the reality TV series.
"An American Family" was a total departure from the television shows of the time when it aired in 1973, and brought public scrutiny to a family unprepared for the consequences. It put the Louds in the spotlight as the parents (Diane Lane, Tim Robbins) struggled with their marriage while raising their children. In particular, Pat was criticized for her support of her openly gay son Lance (Thomas Dekker) at a time when homosexuality was rarely represented on television. (official distributor synopsis)
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Cinema Verite dives into one of the key moments in the history of reality TV in the U.S. It follows a family who agreed to let cameras capture their everyday life, only for the whole thing to unravel on screen. Honestly, it’s no surprise — share even a little about yourself, and gossip spreads like wildfire. Now imagine the world seeing everything you do, every single day. Criticism, judgment, and endless gossip — it's what people are best at, and probably why they love reality shows so much. This film gives an intriguing look at where it all began.
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