Nanette Burstein’s American Teen, which follows four high schoolers in red-state Indiana through an emotionally fraught senior year (see On Screen page 20), is likely to be one of the year’s most successful documentaries. The 38-year-old director (who received an Oscar nomination in 2000 for On the Ropes) spoke with EYE WEEKLY on a recent visit to Toronto.  

You’ve made documentaries about boxing (on the ropes) and robert evans (the kid stays in the picture). Where did the impetus for a film about adolescence come from?
My high school years were very difficult but very formative to who I became. I changed more overtly than most people do in high school. I went from the popular crowd to a pink mohawk to being a bohemian girl. That’s on the surface, I guess, but internally, I was struggling to discover who I really was. So I wanted to address that kind of pressure.

What led you to choose Warsaw, Indiana, as your location?
We were looking for a town that was economically mixed and that only had one high school — which was hard. I was hoping for a racial mix, too, but that was even harder to find.

You mention early in the film that Warsaw is a conservative, Christian town, but there’s nothing especially conservative about the way your subjects behave.
It didn’t surprise me at all. I’m so naïve, but until I started visiting all these places, I didn’t realize the religious aspects these towns have. I think it’s mostly prevalent in the adult lives [in this town]. There are students who are born again: there’s a small Christian private school in town, or they’re home-schooled.

How did your relationship with the kids evolve over the year that you were shooting?
I was different than the other adults in their lives. I wasn’t there to judge them or their behaviour. I was an adult, but they didn’t have to worry about being punished for anything they did. I think that Hannah and Jake were much more comfortable [with the camera] right away, because they’re flying under the radar in their lives and aren’t really worried about what their peers think of them — their peers aren’t paying attention. Whereas the more popular kids feel like their lives are a stage and they’re always performing to a degree. So it took a little longer for them to be comfortable.

What sort of relationship did you have with their parents?
They kind of just stood back and let me do my job; we’d have polite, friendly conversations. I think they were having their own conversations with their kids. But Midwesterners often don’t tell you what they’re thinking.

Did the kids ever come to you worried about anything that would be in the film? I’m thinking about the scene where Jake’s girlfriend cheats on him with another boy and then you show her denying it to his face even though she knows you have footage to the contrary.
She didn’t seem to mind at all. She’d made up her mind that Jake was on the low side of the social scale and she was maybe embarrassed that she’d been dating him. She didn’t mind hurting him on camera. I don’t think it didn’t occur to her — it just didn’t matter. 

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