One of Rob Reiner’s greatest filmmaking credits is the classic mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. But he became the maker of an actual documentary – not a faux one – with Albert Brooks: Defending My Life.
This morning (while working on the sequel to Spinal Tap in New Orleans) he learned he’s become an Emmy nominee for the HBO film about his lifelong buddy, Brooks. “It’s a total surprise,” he said of the Emmy recognition for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and for his direction of the film. “Especially because I’ve never made a real documentary.
The only one I made was a fake one – Spinal Tap. It’s so funny to get recognized in this way.” In the film, Reiner and Brooks discuss the latter’s life, work and comedic sensibility as expressed through stand up and the movies Lost in America, Defending Your Life and more. “We saw [Albert Brooks: Defending My Life] with an audience at the Academy and I was surprised at how well it played,” Reiner told Deadline. “It played like a movie.
There were a lot of laughs and people were really having a great time. So to me, it’s a surprise that I’d ever be thought of a documentary filmmaker.
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