STILL Director Davis Guggenheim Reveals How Michael J. Fox Changed Him as a Filmmaker (Exclusive)

While it operates as a traditional documentary for the majority of its runtime, STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie possesses the unique ability to flow like a cinematic movie throughout major scenes. As the Back to the Future star is chronicling his life’s story, director Davis Guggenheim enhances archived footage with bookended reenactments, allowing multi-shot scenes to feel as though they were filmed in one take.

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Guggenheim gave all the pacing flowers to editor Michael Hart, crediting him with creating the effortless flow that drives STILL forward. 

“He’s a huge Michael J. Fox fan, and looked at every single movie. So I would just think, ‘Oh, we’re just going to do a recreation here,’ but he would start throwing in footage from one of his movies,” Guggenheim said. “What Michael Hart has done is seamlessly blend footage that I shot from recreations, but also film shots that were from Michael J. Fox’s movies, which is kind of amazing because in many ways his life, Michael J. Fox’s life is movies and his movies are kind of his life. The confusion of those two elements feels appropriate.”

Hart was responsible for splicing shots together, but Guggenheim was tasked with getting them filmed in the first place. Even though the majority of the new shots (excluding reenactments) were A-roll from Fox’s interviews, Guggenheim looks back on those on-camera sit-downs with a sense of pride and inspiration.

“There’s one moment for me, which is that the first day I interviewed him,” Guggenheim recalled. “I live in LA and I was filming him in New York. The hotel was two miles away. As I walked home, I thought, ‘How is it that I want what he has? Here’s a guy with a dreadful diagnosis. It’s chronic, it only gets worse, it’s relentless, and yet I’m drawn to him. I kind of envious of the spirit he has. Why can’t I have that?’ That revelation was kind of incredible, that I would envy someone with such a dire situation. It’s because he feels such gratitude. It sounds so cliche, but he has found a way to feel grateful in all this. That has changed me as a filmmaker. I think about how lucky I am every single day.”

STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie is now streaming on Apple TV+.