Why Fielder matters for Holmes

Nathan Fielder codirects You Can See Everything, a three-hour documentary about Elizabeth Holmes. Fielder's cult following has awaited this project since rumors surfaced of him visiting Holmes in prison.

Holmes and Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos, a biotech startup that reached a peak valuation of nine billion dollars in two thousand fourteen. Its supposedly groundbreaking blood test machine was revealed to be vaporware.

Fielder's business background

In his breakout TV series Nathan for You from two thousand thirteen to two thousand seventeen, Fielder contrived and implemented bizarre publicity stunts for struggling small businesses.He graduated from one of Canada's top business schools.

“graduated from one of Canada's top business schools with really good grades”

Fielder's persona remains ambiguous

Andrew Bricker, an associate professor of English at the University of Ghent, notes that Fielder has always played an altered version of himself. This leaves viewers unsure who he really is.

“has made the borderlands of persona and person so ambiguous, so indeterminable, so indefinable, that none of us is entirely in on the joke”

Fielder as problem-solver

In Nathan for You and his HBO series The Rehearsal, Fielder plays an outlandish problem-solver who sees the world through problems and solutions, even when solutions lead to new problems.

Fielder's elaborate schemes

To help an international exporter avoid high shipping costs on smoke alarms, Fielder marketed them as musical instruments. He created an instructional DVD, formed a band, and got the song featured on local news.

Fielder's media manipulation

Fielder's Nathan for You promotions involved careful readings of laws to skirt liability.He opened Dumb Starbucks, staged a viral video of a pig saving a goat, and founded Summit Ice, a nonprofit against Holocaust denial.

Why Fielder understands Holmes

Holmes played investors and the press for years with savvy PR, styling herself as the next Steve Jobs to hype a bogus medical advance.

Fielder's deadpan technique

Fielder relies on discomfiting affect to maximize awkwardness. He is polite and unassuming but lets heavy silences linger, maintains uncomfortable eye contact, and flatly echoes what others tell him to underscore absurdity.

Holmes as Fielder's ultimate test

Kate Rennebohm, a professor of film at Lawrence University, says Holmes represents an ultimate test of Fielder's methods. Holmes's infamy rests on her ability to totally disregard reality.

“a woman whose infamy rests solely on her apparent ability to totally disregard reality”

The ethics of Fielder's work

Critics question whether Fielder takes advantage of unwitting ordinary people drawn into his elaborate plots, allowing them to look foolish while he remains unflappable. His work has become a litmus test on conscience and empathy.

Speculation about neurodivergence

The Rehearsal has led viewers to theorize that Fielder is on the autism spectrum or otherwise neurodivergent.Fielder acknowledged this discourse in season two and underwent an fMRI brain scan but did not divulge the results.

Fielder's investigative approach

Fielder often follows up on peculiar discoveries, allowing people's eccentricities and unintended consequences of his meddling to dictate where he goes next. This investigative element suits dealing with an enigma like Holmes.

Living with Holmes before prison

In two thousand twenty-three, Fielder and codirector Lance Oppenheim moved into the Del Mar, California house shared by Holmes and her partner Billy Evans.

Deepening mystery drove the project

Fielder and Oppenheim were unsure if their footage could become a movie, but a sense of deepening mystery compelled them forward.Fielder said at the New York Film Festival they completely disagreed on what was happening.

“Lance and I would talk about what we thought happened there, and we'd completely disagree on … what we thought was happening. And we were like, 'Oh, this is really interesting, if we can't agree on what's happening, there's something here.'”

The Rehearsal explores truth itself

The Rehearsal is consumed with the authenticity of staged interactions and their failure to match reality. Fielder walks with a laptop harness, catches inaccuracies, and tweaks reproductions to close psychological gaps.

Reality versus fiction collision

Fielder and Oppenheim play with the mushy boundaries between reality and fiction through dramatic reconstruction, stylization, and careful editing. Holmes serves as an avatar of a tech industry with ambitions of exceeding human reality itself.