McBride's independent, cinéma-vérité-style fiction film works on a confusion of reality and illusion, and of screen identity and personal identity, and takes this confusion to its logical conclusion. Starting off from Godard's celebrated statement that cinema is truth 24 times per second, David Holzman's Diary proceeds to disabuse both protagonist and viewer of any such notion. L.M. Kit Carson (who wrote the screenplay) is cast as David Holzman, a New York cinephile whose desire to record his life on film begins as an artistic quest but turns into obsession and, finally, personal disaster. As the film progresses, it becomes apparent that the protagonist (once assumed to be David Holzman) is, first, the camera, and then the process of filmmaking itself. Upon viewing the film, documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker is reported to have commented to McBride, “You've killed cinéma vérité. No more truth movies.”