primarily used to illustrate various social themes." Filmmakers including Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Andrew Noren, and the Maysles brothers. Regarding the extent to which his film mocks such filmmakers, McBride says he was not criticizing specific works or people; instead, he was jabbing at ideas—popular ideas about film and truth: There was this general feeling or idea that there was this kind of truth that could be revealed that had never been revealed before. This was very enticing to me, but at the same time it was also silly, the idea that there is some kind of objective truth that can be revealed. And so I got this idea to make a film about a guy who thought he could find out the truth about himself and about his life by filming it, and not succeed. More recent writings on David Holzman's Diary sometimes group the film with subsequent fiction films that likewise posed as documentaries, including The Blair Witch Project and films by Christopher Guest such as This is Spinal Tap. Dave Kehr describes David Holzman's Diary as, "much more convincing than Woody Allen's Zelig." Jaime N. Christley groups it with Catfish and Exit Through the Gift Shop. Other writings from recent years cite filmmaking techniques in David Holzman's Diary that were unusual at the time but have become more common, such as the direct address by characters to the camera, or the creative use of end credit sequences, usually in the form of entertaining behind-the-scenes outtakes captured while making fiction films. Relations Between Art and Life Many writers have noted ways that David Holzman's Diary depicts complicated relations between art and life; how David's life motivates and shapes his art, and vice versa. How his social life, his daily life at home, his background in film—all shape his artistic energy and choices, with various affects. And, vice versa, how David's art shapes his life, and the lives of others, unfortunately often negatively. Film critic Chuck Kraemer captures some of this complexity when he writes that David is, "every down-and-out filmmaker struggling for a vision, every sensitive New Yorker overwhelmed by the city's visual fecundity, every young man suffering lost love, every inchoate artist trying to sort out his life, to explain himself to himself, and to the world." For David, art and life are fused in New York film culture. He is deeply immersed in films, constantly thinking