Films and fetishes

It is perhaps a measure of Nick Broomfield's success that, just before speaking to Metro, he's been chatting with Mayfair. Yes, Mayfair: the top-shelf magazine.

'They took me deep down into my fetishes,' quips Broomfield in that just-awake-what-day-is-it voice that's as much a trademark of his documentaries as is his bemused face, sandwiched between headphones and following his trusty boom.

For if documentary film has a poster boy (aside from Michael Moore) it is Broomfield, who, since the early 1970s, has been one of Britain's most consistent filmmakers. Yet it's not the early films which sealed his popular image. That happened when he stepped in front of the camera and into the stories of Heidi Fleiss Hollywood Madam, Biggie and Tupac, Kurt and Courtney and serial killer Aileen Wuornos.

This is partly why he's about to release a DVD box set consisting of his portrait of the Nevada brothel Chicken Ranch; the US Army film Soldier Girls; his abortive attempts to meet Margaret Thatcher that formed Tracking Down Maggie; Heidi Fleiss Hollywood Madam; his darkly hilarious portrayal of Eugene Terre Blanche in The Leader, The Driver And The Driver's Wife; and the HBO film Fetishes (hence the Mayfair interview).

It seems an odd selection but Broomfield justifies every one. 'A lot of the later films are on DVD already and a number of these films

are very topical. I'm doing an update on The Leader... Heidi Fleiss has never been released on DVD and I'm very proud of it. In Soldier Girls they chant: "I want to go to Iran, I want to kill an Iranian," which is probably the next thing to happen.

'And Margaret Thatcher has had a direct influence on the way we lead our lives today. It's not only her son who is a living testament to the worst aspects of Thatcherism but privatisation of endowment hospitals and tuition fees - that's all Thatcher. She's basically become New Labour.' Aha, a good bit of venting.

Never one to mince his words, Broomfield's career has been punctuated by spats and lawsuits with the likes of Lily Tomlin and Courtney Love. Perhaps, I suggest, it's a vindication that he's on to something when a subject gets arsey. Broomfield laughs. 'Sometimes. The Lily Tomlin lawsuit was about greed and being a bully. The Kurt and Courtney lawsuit was similar but drug-fuelled, so a bit more illogical. Most of the lawsuits stem from America. Americans are bullies and you can see that around the world.'

And yet, perhaps because of this, it's been America that has provided the subjects for his most recent films, in marked contrast to the documentaries about slum clearance in Liverpool with which he began his career. But this is set to change. This summer he will shoot a more conventionally planned film, an unscripted real-life drama about the Chinese cockle pickers who died in Morecambe Bay.

'All films are about storytelling: what is the best way to tell a story that's going to be entertaining but at the same time get as deep as possible, with as much emotion as possible. With this particular story, this is the way to do it.'