| For a long time, Sean Baker has made movies where slippage with reality is the point. Whenever he starts a project, he talks his way into a social world where he’s almost guaranteed to be the only guy from upper-middle-class New Jersey, convinces its inhabitants to play ball, and gleans details from their lives to inform the film. He’s used this approach to tell stories about delivery guys, counterfeit-bag hustlers, wannabe porn stars, and desperate single mothers. These are not documentaries, though Baker says he wants them to feel like they are; in some films, he’s tried to achieve that by shooting with shaky handheld camcorders or souped-up iPhones. Some scenes he’ll shoot Candid Camera style, sending actors to mingle with passerby who he then chases down with a release form. Many of his actors are first-timers. Baker made his name doing things this way, breaking out in 2015 with his fifth feature, Tangerine, about two young trans sex workers pounding the L.A. pavement. Since then, he’s become widely known and awarded for making movies about the American lives taking place — as critics love to put it — “on the margins.” |
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