'Metallica: Some Kind of Monster' Turns 10: Director Joe Berlinger Revisits His 2004 Doc

Metallica guitarist James Hetfield in Some Kind of Monster

Two decades into a decorated career, Joe Berlinger is busier than ever. The 53-year-old documentarian is in the midst of so many projects between television and the big screen, in fact, that when he gets on the phone, he has to ask which of his many endeavors he’s supposed to be talking about.

Yahoo Movies called up Berlinger, best known for his Emmy-winning Paradise Lost trilogy about the West Memphis Three, his rock doc Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, and this year’s Mob documentary Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger to talk about The Street, his short film about Wall Street. The film is part of Paul Allen’s We the Economy series, which seeks to educate Americans about the economy through 20 different short films.

Berlinger also spoke about the 10-year anniversary of the Metallica film, as well as his foray into fiction features.

You’re known for hard-hitting films, but this new one is more informative than pugilistic.
I have never shied away from taking on tough social issues and the dark side of things, but I felt like in a seven or eight minute film about the role of Wall Street, getting into the problems and negatives was not consistent with the purpose of the overall assignment. Part of the problem is the public discourse has become politicized. I think people fear Wall Street, and fear is not the right response.

That does not mean that I condone the greed and excess that led to the crash. I think there are a lot of people who should have been carted off in handcuffs who have yet to be punished for the housing crisis, which is Wall Street at its worst. That’s the subject of another film. Charles Ferguson did an amazing job with Inside Job, other filmmakers have tackled when Wall Street goes awry. My goal here was to educate people.

Watch Berlinger’s episode below:

The people you interviewed who worked on Wall Street all had a very rosy view of its functions and unbridled capitalism.
Because Wall Street has such an image problem, I think the people who agreed to be in the film are very self-conscious, and that results in cheerleading, which wasn’t my goal. When we read about Bernie Madoff, we read about the housing crisis, we forget that Wall Street is the economic engine that funds businesses when they go public, etc.

I originally intended it to be a much bigger part of the film — I make long films, like Paradise Lost and my Metallica film, but we had to stick to eight minutes — but one of the first things I did was a bunch of man-on-the-street interviews, and I was surprised at the level of financial illiteracy.

Speaking of your Metallica documentary, next month marks its 10th anniversary.
It’s the 10th anniversary and they’re doing a Blu-ray re-release, I think Nov. 24, and it’s the first time it’s been available on Blu-ray, and it’s also the first time that it’s available online. I also made a short little 25 minute follow-up film, called Metallica: This Monster Lives, that’s going to be out digitally and on the Blu-ray.

How was it reuniting with them after so many years?
It was great! Lars [Ulrich] and I have remained friends — he came to my Whitey Bulger premiere at Sundance.

The movie was a great adventure, and it kind of, in many ways, changed my attitude about the role of the camera, because up until then I thought making a film was about observing. I never thought that the process of making a film could change the outcome of the event. Those guys talk about how the therapy never would have worked if there weren’t cameras around, because they felt like they were talking to each other through the cameras. As they say in this little short, they feel the therapy really saved the band, and they feel like the filmmaking, the process of filmmakers being there while they went through the therapy, helped.

It was very much a happy accident, when the band started falling apart and therapy started happening, we just pushed our way into those sessions. It took unusual courage for Metallica to keep filming. Under normal circumstances we would have packed up and left.

James Hetfield recently told an interviewer that, even now, it’s hard for him to watch parts of the movie.
I think it’s a mirror for him to a very painful time. As he says in This Monster Lives, he definitely associates it with their kind of pushing through and figuring out how to get along and how to make things work on both the professional and personal level.

In the years since, we’ve seen very polished concert films about the likes of Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, and it seems like with the number of publicists in the world today, we’ll never see another film with the sort of unfiltered access you had.
To this day I can’t believe we were allowed to make this film. The whole thing was just supposed to be a little 20 minute behind-the-scenes video of them going in the studio, for Elektra to slap into the back of a CD. Elektra was paying for it, and when [bassist] Jason Newsted quit and the therapist came in, we pushed our way into the therapy room and convinced everyone that there’s something special going on and to let us keep filming.

Ozzie Osbourne’s show had become a big hit, and I got a call from Elektra, saying ‘Let’s turn your footage into the next Osbournes show, let’s quickly cut episodes and put it on MTV.’ And I said that’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard, and I went to the band and said, ‘If people think me filming all this time was just a reality TV conceit, you’ll look like idiots.’ Elektra did not agree with us, but the band said, ‘We agree with you, we’ll let you make the film you want to make and give you final cut.’ They reimbursed Elektra for the money they had spent and financed it themselves.

And now you’re working on Facing the Wind, which is based on a murder story, but you’re turning it into your first real fiction feature.
Well, I did Blair Witch 2 [laughing], so you could say this is the first time I’ve taken a non-fiction story that I wanted to make a documentary about and I’m turning it into a narrative film. What’s been frustrating is that the financing has come and gone several times. We were about to shoot it this summer, then financing fell apart. I’m raising money now to hopefully shoot this spring.

Joe Berlinger speaking at the Apple Store in NYC