When I got Billy Corben on the phone this week, I asked how he was doing by way of opening pleasantry. “Exhausted, thanks for asking,” Corben told me, an understandable response from anyone doing a press tour, as Corben is, to promote his new documentary, Screwball (which I recently described as “an insane masterpiece of Floridiana.”)
Then I asked my first real question, and Corben proceeded to give one of the most expansive, caffeinated interviews I’ve ever conducted. This is exhausted? Billy Corben’s tired makes my wired look like Steven Seagal after a couple quaaludes.
I soon found that Corben is easy to wind up, loves to tell stories, and is a great salesman, which probably helps explain what makes him such great documentarian — whose mostly Florida-based ouvre includes Cocaine Cowboys (1 and 2), Dawg Fight, and The U (1 and 2). Where some documentarians seem to have a standard style guide that they merely apply to different subjects (Ken Burns’ photo zooms come to mind), Corben’s subjects seem to inspire his formalistic approach.