At this year’s Venice Film Festival, Nataliia Serebriakova spoke with Robert Greene, director of Too Much Sugar, about his intimate and unconventional portrait of Ryan “Holli-wood” Holliger, a charismatic Missouri father of six children with five different women. Ryan and his close friend AccRite initially set out to make a film about fatherhood and working-class life in their Missouri community. But as Greene’s camera follows them through a turbulent year, the project gradually transforms into something much more personal — a space for confronting family conflicts, past mistakes, masculinity, loss and the possibility of healing.

In the interview, Greene talks about building trust with his subjects, the ethical responsibilities of documentary filmmaking and the way his own life has been changed by the people he films. He also discusses his approach to blending documentary reality with fantasy and genre cinema, the meaning behind the title Too Much Sugar, and the challenges of making independent documentaries in today’s film industry.

NS: I adore your film because it reminded me of a rock song; I had the feeling that I was participating in a rock song. There is a certain rhythm, there is a story. It’s like a rock poem. Did you have something like that in mind?

RG: I think there’s just the energy of it. That all comes from our main protagonist Ryan, of course. His energy is just so aggressive and forward-moving. I think we were simply trying to capture what he brings to the table, and that energy is represented in the way we shot it, the way we edited it, and the way we brought everything to life. So it certainly has that quality. I hope so. I edited the film, so any musical comparisons are always good.

NS: Following up on the question about music, I want to ask you about the score. It’s very original, and very unusual. I don’t know how to describe it, ‘suspenseful’ maybe. Who composed the score?

RG: That’s such a special question because this film is about fatherhood. It’s about relationships between men and their families. And that score is by my son. He was 16 or 17 when he made it, and he’s incredibly talented. You know, we intentionally made the film with as few resources as possible. Not only is he talented, he’s cheap also. So I could ask him if he would like to do the score for the film for just a little bit, and he was immediately game.

And he was inspired, and did such a great job. His name is Wilkie Davis-Greene, and he is incredibly talented when it comes to music. That also contributes to the energy you were talking about: we knew exactly what we wanted to do with the score, and we worked on it together in my basement. It’s quite beautiful when you think about it.

NS: The film is centered on the perspectives of working-class people. What did your parents do?

RG: Well, my parents might as well have done nothing. My mother hasn’t worked in many, many years, and I’ve had multiple fathers that have all been sort of deadbeat dads in multiple ways.

NS: In a world where mostly middle-class people focus on the working-class perspective and tell us how they see the working class, what was important for you?

RG: I mean, it’s not to say anything about them. It’s to have them say it themselves, right? The collaborative aspect was the most important thing. That’s what Ryan and I originally connected over.

I am a professor. I am a filmmaker. So I am absolutely not working class now. In the U.S., I would say I’m part of an artist class or something like that. There is a separate sort of professorial class, whatever you want to call it. I mean, in Missouri professors are paid as little as possible, so it is still what it is.

But we definitely have different lives currently. We came from such similar spaces though, where our mothers were very strong but hardworking. Our mothers also made tons of mistakes. We both had either terrible fathers, or no fathers. So when we started talking, that was what it was about. He said, “I want to make a film called Too Much Sugar.” That was his idea. And I was like, “I want to make a film with you. Go watch my films.” I’ve made several films that are about collaboration, and I told him that this was what it had to be. It couldn’t be my film, it had to be our film. It has to be co-created with him. And ultimately it was co-created by all the families.

I think the truth is that, in terms of class, our backgrounds are similar. It became very apparent in the middle of the process that bringing in the camera simply gave us the chance to say things that we wouldn’t have said otherwise. There is specifically a moment where Ryan is talking to his second-oldest son, Gavin, and he’s talking about how much money it would cost him per month to have custody. I remember thinking that if my father, who left when I was a baby, had simply said to me, “This is what it would have cost me to take care of you.” I wouldn’t have forgiven him, but it would at least have been an explanation. He would at least have been a real person. And now Gavin, who is 23 years old in the film, understands that it’s a lot of money. He can imagine having to make that choice himself. He would say to me that it was his crazy family and all this stuff, but not every family gets a camera brought into their midst so that they can have conversations that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. As for my own family, which is just as messed up as Ryan’s family, and coming from just as much poverty: I’ve made films about my own family, so I know what he’s talking about. It really does introduce conversations that you can’t have otherwise.

NS: Getting back to what you mentioned about the collaboration with these subjects, it’s very interesting to me that throughout many of your films, like Procession, there is always a process of the subjects psychologically or existentially processing something about themselves. Always. And I’m very interested in how you approach that, and what this does to you. Do you go through a similar journey with them?

RG: I think back to the working-class background. I think one of the things you learn is that you have to perform. I moved around a lot when I was a kid. By the time I got to seventh grade, when I was about 12 years old, I had lived in 15 different places. So when you move around that much as a kid, you learn that you are a different person in every single one of those places. Your persona and the person that you are and become can change so quickly.

That was something that, through the process of making these films, I realized I had done, and I realized that is why I was obsessed with it. Through making films that are about people’s realities, but then watching them perform what they want to be, what they hope to be, what they dream to be, and all these other things, you realize that that is what we all do. That is survival. That is how you survive: by taking on a different skin when you need to.

And I think that is what documentaries are, if they are anything. They are like watching people take on the skin that they need to take on in that situation. And so I’ve been changed by my films. I made a film called Actress, and Brandy, my chief collaborator on that film, changed the way I think about my marriage and how I think about being a father. Through Procession I went into therapy, thank God. Those guys are the reason why I finally went into therapy, because I saw them handling the craziest trauma you can imagine, and I thought if they can do it then I can deal with my bullshit, you know? So now I can be with Ryan and AccRite, two men who have made plenty of mistakes and have suffered because of things that have happened to them and because of problems they’ve caused. And I can say, “Guys, I’ve been through this already. I’ve been there.” I’m a little bit older than both of them. They are in their 40s, and I’m just turning 50 myself. So I can say that the goal is to be able to take responsibility for the mistakes you have made. A goal is to look at your family and give up power rather than collect power. These are things that the films become about: my relationships with the protagonists and their families. And this is certainly an extension of that, and maybe the most honest, realistic version of it in a way, too.

NS: You seem to understand the people around you very well. I discovered that through your filmmaking. Is it some kind of special skill, or is there some sort of psychologist inside you?

RG: No, I think I start from the premise — and it’s a little bit of a cliché — that I have to love the people that we are filming with. So I’m always very much in love. I lead by being in love with people, and that breaks down a lot of barriers because they see that I’m enthusiastic about them, and they can be enthusiastic back. Enthusiasm and love and all those things are very useful, and they get you through hard times. And, yeah, I do say that — I teach documentaries to students, and I tell them that the one thing I can’t teach them is how to get trust. Everybody has to have their own method.

My method is to talk a lot, to say, “This is all I’m thinking about. This is everything I’m dreaming about myself.” Lay it all on the table. I also tell people that it is going to be a weird process, because at some point you are going to say something and it is going to be in a film, and you’re going to be like, “I don’t remember saying that.” But it will always be a conversation, you know. So I just try to be open about how strange it all is.

NS: Were there also moments that were too tough, when they said something that could not be put in? Or did you ever have to break something down because it became too much, either on an emotional or physical level?

RG: Never, actually. Although you expect it to get there. But with this film, no. And when they saw the film, they saw a rough cut of the film, and I showed it to them in different groups. So AccRite and Ryan saw it together, then Gavin saw it by himself, and Ashley and Auveon saw it together. The kids and Amanda saw it together. We had multiple screenings so that they could have individual responses to the film in case someone said something that they didn’t want to say to the other person or whatever. That is certainly very useful to help mitigate that. Knowing that they can do that, that they will have a chance to give feedback, that they can always say, “No, I don’t think that’s good.” But there was never anything. The truth is, the kids are a little mortified sometimes by how they come off, but of course they are. And we just try to make them say, it’s fine. They are fine.

You plan for that though. You should plan for moments in the process that are going to be too much. My philosophy is that you can always leave. Every scene can end. The film can end at any time. If this suddenly becomes a bad thing, we have to stop, because there is no reason to continue. And I think as long as you really feel that way, that’s why Ryan at the end feels good about what has happened in his life: because he knew that this was his, and he could stop it at any moment. And if he didn’t know it was his, then maybe he wouldn’t feel so good at the end, you know? So you have to do that, you have to build that.

NS: What is your relationship with the mockumentary genre?

RG: Mockumentary? I don’t think it’s a mockumentary at all, but I produced and edited The Featherweight, which was Robert Kolodny’s film from a couple of years ago. It is a fake documentary, which is different from a mockumentary. I think they can be funny. I think documentary as a form is so elastic and so useful that, of course, some of the funniest films ever made are fake documentaries or mockumentaries. Because everybody can imagine real people. Like Best in Show, for example, or one of those films, one of those comedies. Or even The Office, the British version or the U.S. TV version. The fake documentary genre is funny because people are ridiculous, and I think that’s funny. But I don’t think our work has anything to do with it, honestly. I think that we’re using tools to get at the sort of mixture of reality and fantasy that is at the core of every person, you know, and that is not the same thing as pretending. That is a different thing, I think. So it was about the form that you were talking about.

NS: It’s interesting to me because all of your films have to do, as you mentioned earlier, with subjects and performance and their relationship to it. And when people talk about documentary, they often consider it a monolith telling a true story from afar. And I really enjoy how you approach it, how you expand the form and blend in fantasy as well.

RG: Yeah, I think that’s closer to the truth.

NS: There is fiction as well in the film.

RG: I don’t care about blurring the boundaries between fiction and documentary. I think that’s boring. It’s boring not because it’s boring in itself, but because every film blurs the boundaries between fiction and documentary. So the question is: what are you doing with it? What is useful?

To me, it’s also about being more honest about what a documentary really is. A documentary is a strange thing. It’s weird to bring a camera into people’s lives and say, “Tell me how you feel.” Because what does that mean? What do you mean, “How I feel“? What do you mean you want me to talk about the worst day of my life? You want me to just express the worst things that have happened to me, or maybe my darkest feelings? What do you want from me? And so if you’re not making that active and intentional, I think that you’re doing something wrong.

So that’s where it starts for me: this idea of intentionality. And then that’s where the fiction part comes in, because then you can see the intentionality, and then you, the viewer, can pick through what is fantasy and what is real and what you imagine it to be.

NS: And you have these bits of genre films in the documentary. Did you always know how much to put in, or was there a version where there was much more of that? And which kinds of genres did everybody want to take on?

RG: I mean, genre is collective fantasy in a way, right? When you speak of genre, you speak of that thing that everyone imagines. So when you say you want to make a horror film, it is because I imagine what that is, and I know that you can imagine what that is too. And so it’s a way of connecting fantasy to fantasy, in a way. There was no version with more of that in it. There certainly was a longer version of the film in general, but there wasn’t a version where the balance was any different. I think it always needed to be functional. You needed to just see how their dreams manifested. And for Ryan, you needed to see the mechanics of a comedy. For AccRite, you need to see him get that — not closure, because closure is not possible — but healing, you know, some healing. And for some of them, to see them playing a character, putting on the dress of a character, that’s enough. But all of it was about this idea that films are fantasies, films are dreams, you know? And when you’re a working-class person, you are told your dreams don’t matter.

NS: And that is what we are trying to counteract. How difficult is it to survive as a documentary filmmaker?

RG: Oh, I mean, it’s impossible, I would say.

NS: How do you survive?

RG: Well, you make films for cheap, if you can. This film comes out of frustration with the documentary industry — not the community, but the industry. I sold a film to Netflix, Procession. The film was done, and they left it as is, which was great. And then I thought for my next film I would have a big budget or something. That could have happened. In fact, it started to happen, and then it fell apart. And so Too Much Sugar partly comes out of frustration with the inability to take risks, the inability to try new things, the inability to make films about real people. It’s all celebrity-driven. A lot of the stuff that gets funded in the U.S. is celebrity documentaries, which… I mean, I’ve seen many great celebrity documentaries. But part of the way we made this film, as low-budget and focused as possible, is to show that you can still do that, you know? But with regards to surviving: most documentary filmmakers have multiple jobs. And I have kids in college, so I teach and I make multiple films, and I edit, I’m shooting, I’m doing all these things.

NS: What do the words ‘Too Much Sugar’ mean to you personally?

RG: When Ryan said, “I want to make a film called Too Much Sugar,” I though it was the best title I had ever heard. And the reason is because it means so much, right? I’m literally drinking a Coca-Cola right now. This corporate entity that I’m addicted to, that I can’t have enough of. I could drink a thousand of these. And there are even chemicals in Coca-Cola to suppress the effects of sugar on your body, so you can drink as many of them as you want without getting sick from such a high sugar intake. But if you drink an organic soda, the sugar makes you sick because it’s too much. I think that is brilliant because it describes Ryan perfectly. But the metaphorical possibilities are endless. I think somewhere in the film he says, “Sugar is a life force.” But it could also be too much. To me, I think there’s too much of a lot of things. The thing we love the most can be too much.

NS: But can we say that Too Much Sugar is a metaphor for the modern Hollywood industry?

RG: Sure. Maybe the sugar for Ryan is the thing that he thinks he needs to be, the kind of guy he thinks he needs to be, the rockstar life that he thinks he needs to live. That’s what leads to a situation where he has six kids with five different women. So maybe that was the sugar that he needed to settle down a little bit on.

NS: Maybe a little bit of sugar-free would be better for him at some point.

RG: Yes. It’s a destructive family, actually, but there is so much love. The other side of sugar is that you bake a cake for each other on your birthday, you know? So to extend the metaphor probably way too far, when you tell yourself you need to stop drinking soda or you need to stop eating candy, you still wouldn’t stop having a birthday cake on your birthday, right?

Because it brings people together. The sweetness — Ryan’s sweetness — is his best quality. He’s such a sweet person. And he’s like a lot of men; you see that performance of masculinity in the film. A lot of men, especially when you’re working in the streets and you have big hands — I grew up in a similar milieu, but I did not have the instinct to fight. My instinct was to talk my way out of things. My instinct was to avoid conflict. My instinct was to go write poetry and be crying in the corner, you know? His instinct was to punch someone in the mouth. And when you’re that guy, you’re told your feelings are a problem. Literally, in prison he is told to not have feelings, because if you have feelings, you’re not going to make it through this. And so he’s a man who’s been dealing for 25 years of his life with trying to get back to feelings, trying to get back to emotion. And the sweetness that was there — that little boy whom his grandmother tells that he has too much sugar — that sweetness is so real. Now, in his 40s, he is able to get back to that boy, and that’s inspiring. The film luxuriates in his boy-ness. He’s a bouncing-off-the-walls boy, even in his 40s.

NS: Did you watch the film with the family, and how were their reactions?

RG: Like I was saying before, we showed it to different groups. They loved it. I mean, I think the kids had an emotional response to seeing what their mother and father are going through. But everybody loved it — I think it was validating. It’s an ongoing thing, right? Because they saw it in a room on a big screen, but the room itself was still small and a very safe place. Today we are going to premiere this in front of thousands of people, and the family is going to be here. So it’s going to be an intense experience, but so far they’ve loved the film. They’ve loved it. I think they just see it as a real film about their life, also about how fucked up it can be, and all of that. I think they see the truth in it, and that’s what’s important. That’s what you want.

NS: At the very end I expected that the issue with his wife would also be resolved, but it’s not.

RG: It’s not at all, no. But they’re here together and they’re fine. I mean, I think I would just say that what transpires between Ryan and Amanda has been a long time coming, and we were very proud of her. It was very meaningful for her to show that she has some power in the situation.