4 stars out of 5. toukokuuta 1970, Singapore) on brittiläinen televisiotoimittaja, jota on sanottu gonzo-journalistien ykköseksi. Louis Theroux’s first series for television, in 1998, was a series of documentaries called Weird Weekends. © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Mainly I was distracted by my appearance, voice and how I came across. What you might think would be self-destructive, can sometimes end up being lifesaving. The Guardian - Back to home. Christopher Hooton @christophhooton. Megan Phelps-Roper – who left the hate-spewing Westboro Baptist Church, founded by her grandfather Fred Phelps – has become a friend. — The Guardian. Louis Theroux: my adventure in the court of the Tiger King. The idea of Louis Theroux interviewing anybody who is not a Nazi Scientologist Christian fundamentalist paedophile still seems odd to me. So we got married, to make it easier for her. Sometimes I caught myself enjoying the raw, unvarnished reality and marvelling at how much we had managed to capture on tape. Louis Theroux: Life on the Edge starts 9pm, 6 September on BBC Two, Louis Theroux: ‘The ravages of the ageing process have left their mark.’. But this was a troubling and problematic film, Available for everyone, funded by readers. Louis Theroux. Ben East. As well as being perhaps the UK's most beloved documentarian, Louis Theroux is also a very well-connected man. t is a strange feeling looking back at a much earlier version of yourself on television, a queasy mixture of recognition and distance, approval and shame, and above all an inescapable question: who is this plonker? Quite quickly, the idea of a retrospective show came up. I had a team ready to work but no projects. I also acknowledge my own sense of attraction to the dark side – the darkness of misguided beliefs and self-destructive behaviours. Louis Theroux (s.20. This is true in obvious ways: given that I’ve made several films in jails and prison, and several others that involved immersion in police forces in major cities, it shouldn’t be surprising to look back and see the pre-history to the killing of George Floyd and the reaction to it, and the myriad ways in which they were both predicted and prefigured. He died late last year, but we found some extraordinary footage that shows him, a year or two ago, though enfeebled and poignantly reduced, still channelling his alien friend. The ravages of the ageing process have left their mark. But he was’, Louis Theroux on his favourite outfit: ‘This was a wool-cotton blend. With (from left) Noah, Margie and Fred Phelps in 2007. That was part of how I saw my role, to be the straight man in a weird world, and there were times, looking back, when I see I may have gone too far. I feel like the same person. audiofilemagazine.com — Journalist and documentarian Louis Theroux's narration of his memoir exudes a stoic charisma that pulls in listeners. A repeat broadcast will be shown on September 10 at the same time. It’s almost as though he’s beaming to me from beyond the grave, and so, in a short space in the film we go from finding him amusing and maybe even ridiculous, to seeing him in a way that is wistful and rather moving. They feature most in the final episode of our new series, about family. My Scientology Movie is a 2015 British documentary film about Scientology directed by John Dower, and written by and starring Louis Theroux.The film takes an unconventional approach to the subject matter, featuring young actors "auditioning" for parts playing high-profile Scientologists in scenes recreating accounts from ex-members about incidents involving senior church management. But it was a trip to Dundee 20 years ago that turned out to be just as strange for the BBC documentary-maker when the magic powers of … The first episode of the series, about belief, features an Idaho-based second-amendment diehard with a penchant for apocalyptic conspiracy theories; an elderly man with weird hair who’s in touch with UFOs; a neo-Nazi family; and a Vegas-based self-advertised multimillionaire and get-rich-quick guru. Louis Theroux: The Night in Question review – an incendiary look at campus rape. The rewards it brings, the emotional enrichment, how much we suffer in the course of preserving it and nurturing it, and the risk it entails: the possibility that in giving your heart away, it will be hurt. With Louis Theroux, Jimmy Savile, Kat Ward, Jonathan Ross. Instead we chose four themes that might impose an order on the material: belief, family, crime and the dark side of pleasure. Louis Theroux has got up close and personal with pimps, paedophiles, murderers, neo-Nazis, Afrikaner separatists, religious fanatics, alien-hunters and a range of eccentrics who are often armed, deluded and volatile. When I look at my own motivations and my own journey, I am forced to face the negative alongside the positive: a tendency, when younger, to maybe be glib, to disarm with the aim of making light of people’s deeply held beliefs, to act the clown, to make fun. But – as I comment at the end of the programme dedicated to the dark side of pleasure – the aim of life shouldn’t be to avoid mistakes, to be sober, righteous and godly in everything, to be pious and upstanding and utterly bland. We never really considered ourselves married in the full sense – there were no wedding photos or anything like that. She was having trouble finding work ... legally. It is mainly when I see myself on screen that I see the change. In the series, Theroux accompanied a different British celebrity in each programme as they went about their day-to-day business, interviewing them about their lives and experiences as he did so. The success of that episode, and the pleasure of making it, led to other documentaries about families and relationships under stress from forces outside their control. They sprang from a process that begun in 2011 when, stuck for subjects to cover, I made a documentary about dementia, even though I knew that for the first time I would be making a documentary in which no one was making a wrong or questionable choice. Hän on tehnyt sarjan Louis Theroux'n vinksahtaneet viikonloput ja BBC:lle useita dokumentteja, jotka käsittelevät usein Yhdysvaltoja Doing the work of documentary-presenting about people and worlds that are in different ways on the edge has left its marks on me, too. I spoke to her during the lockdown and we included a small portion of the conversation in the new series. All rights reserved. A ‘sensual eating’ event on the show Altered States in 2018. my own TV series, Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends, who left the hate-spewing Westboro Baptist Church, your missteps as an important part of your journey. Stabbed tongues and swallowed eyeballs: was the Amazing Johnathan's terminal diagnosis his greatest trick? The documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux is currently in the nation to sustain himself, his newest work, and, it would seem, the persistent idea we Australians have that … Of the various updates, one of the most moving for me, personally, was one I did about the aforementioned UFO believer with weird hair: the Rev Robert Short. America's Most Dangerous Pets (2011) ... Seen on Sky News; featured in The Guardian, NY Times, The Independent and more. Louis Theroux is an award-winning British-American filmmaker, journalist and broadcaster. I also spoke with JJ, the porn performer from Weird Weekends. My hair is grey, my eyes don’t work as well as they used to, my knees are going. The weirdness of the voices and mannerisms and the outlandishness of Short’s claims couldn’t help coming across as funny. Directed by Arthur Cary. “Show the bits you never see. Tuesday 11 February 2014 09:47. Later, based on these segments, I landed my own TV series, Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends. The TV equivalent of a greatest hits album. During an … For some reason the BBC had insisted on putting my name in the title. I’m 50 now. Watching some of my early efforts again recently, with the distance of two decades, I couldn’t help passing judgment on the journalistic competence on display – whether I was asking the right questions of the porn performers and the apocalypse preppers. So explains Louis Theroux as a prelude to his latest documentary, Selling Sex (BBC Two). Eventbrite - The Guardian Live presents In conversation with Louis Theroux - Monday, 13 July 2020 - Find event and ticket information. Speaking over the phone, the 48-year-old is charming and thoughtful, yet he also gives answers that, by and large, only scratch the surface. He says he doesn’t regret a minute of being in the industry, describing it as an enriching and important part of his life. When Louis Met... is a series of documentary films by Louis Theroux.The series was originally broadcast on BBC Two from 2000–2002. It is a strange feeling looking back at a much earlier version of yourself on television, a queasy mixture of recognition and distance, approval and shame, and above all an inescapable question: who is this plonker? It was something we had thought about doing for a while – 2019 marked 25 years since I had started my career in television – but we never got round to it. Maybe that’s progress. Photograph: Brian Ritchie/BBC Two. I was definitely a little bit of a tool, but what was harder to know was whether that was an obstacle or part of my gift.I was watching my old shows back recently not for simple nostalgia – though that would have been a good enough reason given how much has changed – but because I was faced with the more practical question of how to continue doing my job under lockdown. List of books recommended by Louis Theroux. The grammar could be figured out at a later stage. What documentaries were possible that didn’t involve me leaving the house? After 25-plus years of doing my job, what strikes me is the development and evolution that has taken place. Louis Theroux has responded to Tiger King star Joe Exotic’s allegations that his rival Carole Baskin fed her husband to the tigers.. As he revisits his career in a new four-part series, TV’s top documentarian looks back at his evolution from accosting cult members to making films on eating disorders and dementia, Last modified on Wed 26 Aug 2020 09.45 EDT. I suppose this ability to see a contributor in a new, more three-dimensional way brings up the question of changes in me. But uncovering a family secret has helped him find peaceRead an exclusive extract, With the sex economy booming, Theroux sensitively shadowed three women at its coalface – from a hard-up student to a woman married for 44 years, Ben Berman set out to tell the story of a magician confronting death, but his subject’s disappearing acts and competing documentary crews gave his film a mysterious magic of its own, Behind the scenes with the bewildered Louis Theroux, Nordic noir with a light touch and shocking secrets on a small island, Film-maker says he defended singer’s accusers, driven by his ‘boost’ to Jimmy Savile’s image before sex abuse confirmed, This follow-up film about the supremely intolerant Westboro Baptist church finds plenty to be outraged by, but it also veers into exploitation, This fascinating documentary explores a rare and woefully little known phenomenon of new motherhood – and leads Theroux to interrogate himself, The film-maker is ‘confused’ over how he found the sex abuser likeable and says the experience darkened his view of the world, As he tackles one of his most harrowing subjects yet, the documentary-maker talks about parenting, psychosis – and his secret beard, Heavyweights such as Louis Theroux and Gayle King still allow accused men to share their narratives with vast audiences. 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