We Always Lie to Strangers: Capturing the Las Vegas of the Bible Belt

This post was written by DOC NYC blogger Minnie Li

Branson is a small town in Missouri known for its family-oriented musical and variety shows; it’s a city that lives off of show business. These shows used to attract almost 7.5 million visitors per year, and the visitors used to bring in $3 billion in revenues. But after the economic crisis that struck in 2008, lives in Branson were no longer the same. In their film WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS, directors AJ Schnack and David Wilson capture a town in transition by following performers who struggle to make ends meet and keep their shows afloat.

At Saturday’s DOC NYC screening of the film, Wilson said that he and Schnack spent from 2007 to 2012 shooting in Branson, conducting 30 to 40 on camera interviews and ending up with around 400 hours of raw footage. The performers they captured are really dedicated people; they work hard to be able to get on stage. Most have multiple jobs. Some even take to the streets to pass out coupons as part of efforts to fill seats. A performer takes on the added responsibilities of running shows and overseeing the business end of them—but she also cleans the bathrooms.

Wilson said he and Schnack made a deliberate decision to leave the ending of WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS with some ambiguity. “Life is always going to go on so you have to find these moments that feel semi-complete. We made a conscious decision to not put in an end title to say where they are now. We wanted the film to function some ways like a fiction film would function. You pick a start and you pick an end, and if you’ve done it right, hopefully it feels complete even if their lives aren’t over,” he said. These are moments-in-time of life in Branson, and in America, since 2008. Life goes on, and no one knows where the crisis ends.