Smith’s acclaimed documentaries often focus on the hearts, goals, schemes,
and dreams of people whose lives can be hard to categorize. A merican Job (1996)
showed a Midwestern minimum-wage existence as the complicated balancing act
that it is; A merican Movie (1999) used one Wisconsin movie fan’s desire to make his
own homegrown horror flick as a parable for gritty aspiration; T he Yes Men (2003)
followed a prankster duo who took aim at global corporations from inside the system;
and J im & Andy: The Great Beyond revisited how actor Jim Carrey inhabited the late
Andy Kaufman’s persona while making the 1999 biopic M an on the Moon and the
real-life drives and demons coiled inside Carrey’s own comedy.