What’s a Documentary, Anyway?

Real documentarians shine a light on the overlooked and the underprivileged. Real documentarians nudge the world forward. Real documentarians don’t get rich.

At least that is what purists will tell you.

Does that mean that R.J. Cutler isn’t a real documentarian?

As a vérité filmmaker for the past 31 years, Mr. Cutler has tackled a wide variety of subjects, from politics (“The World According to Dick Cheney”) to Vogue magazine (“The September Issue”) to e-cigarettes (“Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul”). He has been nominated for an Oscar. He has won three Emmys, including one for “American High,” a docuseries that tracked 14 high school students over a year.

But lately Mr. Cutler has been mostly working in the booming subcategory of celebrity docs, landing him at the center of a debate that has been roiling the nonfiction film world. Namely, should celebrity documentaries — Mr. Cutler has examined Billie Eilish, Martha Stewart, Elton John, Anna Wintour, Marlon Brando and John Belushi — even be called documentaries? Aren’t these films, which are frequently sought out by celebrities (and celebrity estates), closer to glamour shots?

“How honest can you really be?” said Sheila Nevins, the former president of HBO Documentary Films. “These famous people are all very involved in the making of their films. So is the result a biography or an autobiography? Is it a sellout or just a different form?”

Mr. Cutler, 63, said celebrity falls into the latter category — just a different form, one of many (agitprop, advocacy, expository) that make up the broader genre. He maintains that celebrity films can be every bit as serious, noting that subjects, at least in his movies, don’t call the shots.