The American Nurse Project aims to elevate the voice of nurses in this country by capturing their personal stories through photography and film. In early 2012, photographer Carolyn Jones and her team began a journey across the United States, recording the unique experiences of nurses at work. The photographs and narratives aim to inspire audiences to think about nurses in a way that they may never have before, with a newfound appreciation for this indispensable figure on the front lines of health and healthcare today: the American nurse.
The film follows 5 nurses from the book along with their patients: Tonia Faust with maximum-security prison inmates; Jason Short with home health patients in Appalachia; Brian McMillion with soldiers returning from war; Naomi Cross with mothers giving birth; and Sister Stephen with nursing home patients at the end of life.
Part One: Carolyn Jones (Director), Tonia Faust (Documentary Subject), Brian McMillion (Documentary Subject)
Brian McMillion, a military nurse with the V.A. San Diego Health System, was on an uncertain path when at age 19 his father gave him 2 choices: “Go to college or enlist in the military. Except you’re not ready for college.” He spent time oversees where he was the first person that wounded soldiers would see when they woke up, often missing limbs and suffering from PTSD, wanting only to go back to their brothers in combat. In his current role, Brian works with young injured soldiers fresh from the combat theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan.
With a mother who worked in security at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Tonia Faust grew up in the shadow of a maximum-security prison. She started working as a nurse and ended up following her mother’s path to Angola, where she now directs the hospice program. Tonia oversees a team of inmates who volunteer to care for their dying peers with a compassion and grace one would not expect to find behind bars.
Carolyn, tell me all about The American Nurse Project—it started with a book, right?
Carolyn Jones: Yes. I’m a photographer. I’ve published four books, and all of them focus on social issues. The first was called “Living Proof: Courage in the Face of AIDS.” It was about people living with AIDS, but living in a positive way and cherishing each moment of life. And that’s been the focus of my career: people who can inspire us and move us to be better human beings. So when I was first asked to do a book about nurses, I just thought it would be a wonderful world to dive into. I had a great nurse myself when I was fighting breast cancer. But I had no idea that this world would be as deep and as rich as was. So the book grew into a website, and that grew into a film.
As someone who went through breast cancer, what did it mean to you to explore nursing and health care?
Carolyn: My own experience was that I had great doctors who worked with me and did wonderful things, but at the end of the day it was really the nurse who gave me chemotherapy each time, who really got me through the experience of having cancer–dealing with losing all your hair, not knowing who you are, and all that stuff. I was particularly taken with this one remarkable nurse I had. She was the only one who could make me feel normal at a time when I really didn’t know what normal was anymore. My whole life I’ve been interested in people who have a gift of making others feel better, and of cherishing life. She really had an innate understanding of how I tick, and she knew how to make me feel better. So when I was asked to do a book I started with her. I went back and talked with her, and started to really find out what makes nurses tick. Where do they come from, and what’s their DNA structure, and how are they raised as kids? I wanted to know everything.
What was your nurse’s name, and what was her personality like?
Carolyn: Her name’s Joanne Staha. She was funny. I mean, I was losing all my hair, and she asked me who my hair colorist was. At first I thought it was in such bad taste. I actually said something to her, like, “I can’t believe you just asked me that.” But she said, “Your hair’s gonna grow back.” And I thought, “You know, of course it is. Someday it will, and someday I’ll need a hair colorist again.” So it was her irreverence, and her ability of look beyond what was going on at the moment, that made her really special.
There are over three million nurses in the United States. But is nursing nonetheless an overlooked and underappreciated profession?
Brian McMillion: With this film, I feel like we’re getting appreciated right now.
Tonia Faust: Yes.
Brian: If you had to have somebody wrap up some thankfulness and put it into a present, this is the best one you could possibly get.
Tonia: Absolutely. This is definitely getting nursing more noticed. Because you truly don’t hear a lot about the nursing field. You see the doctors, and the nurses are sort of in the hustle and bustle, and really doing a lot of everything, but sadly we aren’t noticed and appreciated as much as we should be. The nurses I know are so proud of their profession, and they’re really glad that the word is getting out there because of Carolyn.
Tonia, you work in a maximum-security prison in Louisiana, and as we see in the documentary, it’s not as if these inmates are always handcuffed to beds. Are you ever scared? Were you when you first started?
Tonia: I grew up around here, and my mother also worked in Angola [Prison]. But I still wasn’t prepared. Growing up, I would come in the gates of the prison, but I never went behind the razor wire. That’s all segregated off. I would go to the lakes and things like that, and it was a little weird and a little eerie. But then I started working here. You go in the doors, and the locks click shut behind you, and you have no way out. So it was very scary right at first. My first day here, I got the first true migraine of my life. But over time, it became like any other job that I’ve ever had. I know what these guys have done and have the potential to do, so I’ve always got my guard up, but I’m really not scared. And this may sound crazy, but I know that if anything were to happen, fights or anything like that, a lot of the guys would make sure that I got out of the way. That would be their top concern: to move me and do whatever had to be done to protect me. And there are also security officers at the end of every hallway. I’ve only rarely been frightened. Once was during Hurricane Katrina. We had a huge influx of thousands of outside inmates that I didn’t know, and they didn’t know me. That was a difference. I know the guys here, and they all know me, and watch out for me. But these guys, I didn’t know them. And they knew nothing about me. And there were a few fights here and there. I had to keep my guard up a lot more. But on a day-to-day basis, I don’t get worried.
Why is it, do you think, that the inmates came to be protective of you?
Tonia: I think with people in general—not just inmate offenders—as long as you treat them well and you respect them, they’ll respond to that. These people have done something bad, but they’re still people, and they still have feelings; they still get upset if you yell at them or fuss at them, just like I would. So I treat them like I would treat anybody else. And because of that, they respect me and they want to take care of me. I’m not saying they look at me as a sister or a mother. But a lot of them got here when they were just very young teenagers, so they do lack motherly compassion in their lives. And that’s the one thing that the majority of nurses have, and that’s something that these inmates have longed for. We’re the caregivers and we make them feel better.
You talk about respecting them and treating them normally—do you feel like that’s something they don’t get a lot of from other people in their lives?
Tonia: Yes. And I don’t think it’s necessarily that people try to treat them like that. But the security people here are authoritarians. And the inmates know they have to make sure the lights are out at a certain time and things like that. They’re living by very strict routines and schedules and rules and policies and procedures, and if they deviate, they may get in trouble.
In the film, you’re shown in the infirmary working alongside inmate volunteers. Is there a screening process?
Tonia: Yes, we do a weeding process. I may meet a guy who seems amazing, who does exactly what he’s supposed to and is very respectful. But then I speak with other security officers and other offenders to see how he acts when he walks away from me. Because people can act one way in front of you and totally different away from you.
As a nurse, what are some of the unique challenges of working at a prison?
Tonia: Number one, the mere look of it can be really intimidating. You’ve got razor wire around you. You’ve got security officers with guns posted at different positions, and dogs at different positions that are patrolling a certain areas. And the nursing aspect of it is different too. In a nursing home, you can hold your patient. I can’t do a lot of physical touch here, and that’s really hard. I’m a very touchy-feely kind of person. I’m always holding my kids, they’re always in my lap. At the prison, you have to learn boundaries, because there are rules. In the hospice, I’ll hold their hands and and I’ll stroke their heads and things like that. But when they’re taking their last breaths, you just want to grab ‘em and hold ‘em and tell them everything’s gonna be okay.
There’s a gorgeous shot in the film of the white gravestones in the prison graveyard. No family members came to get these people and bury them on the outside. Tonia, do you feel a responsibility to care for your hospice patients on an almost familial level, since a lot of them don’t have that elsewhere in their lives?
Tonia: Maybe sixty percent of the guys are buried here. They don’t have family. And you could say that in their eyes, I’m the last family member that they look at. I see my hospice patients every single day. I sit with them, we write letters to family if they have it, and if they don’t I listen to stories about their life. They confide in me a lot. They don’t have a lot of friends that come in to see them. Some of the other offenders may come and visit them, but it’s sporadic. But they see me every single day. And so I end up knowing how they grew up, what their parents were like, what their first marriages were like, their children, and pretty much everything. They tell me what they want their burial to be like, who they want there, if they want me to notify anyone, what they want in the casket with them. And a lot of them want to give me their belongings, but I can’t take anything like that. It’s really sad when they have no one from the outside to come in and be with them in those last days or weeks or months. But some of the guys do have family, and some of their families are very involved. For example, about two weeks ago, one of our patients passed away, and his family was very active in his life. They took him and buried him outside of the gates. They’re coming back soon, and we’re going to have a service here for all of his friends and his family.
Do you ever get emotional over patients’ deaths?
Tonia: With some of my patients, I just lose it. I cry and cry and cry. But I know they’re going to a better place, and at least they’re not in any discomfort anymore.
Brian, what are some of the unique challenges of being a nurse in the military in the military?
Brian: There are some similarities what Tonia talked about. For example, with persons who are struggling with posttraumatic stress, there are unspoken rules about when touch is okay and when it isn’t. They may be suffering with things like paranoia and lack of sleep. With a patient in a hospital bed you may be able to just come right up and put a hand on a shoulder, look into their eyes, rub their forehead, talk to them. But in this case you don’t always get that luxury. You have to pay attention to a lot of cues before you can decide when it’s a good time to touch someone. But the bigger challenges in the military are really dependent on environment. In a semi-combat environment, you’re trying to provide care while worrying about whether you and your patients’ safety is in jeopardy at any given moment. Then you get out of the combat theater, and a lot of things shift. At that point it becomes about how to deliver the right amount of care to stabilize a person enough to determine whether they can go back on duty, or whether they need to come to the United States for more definitive care. You want them to be stable enough to travel, but you also need to make sure that you’re not gonna put them in a position where they can get worse in the travel.
Do you feel a bond with your patients, given that you’re also a part of the military system?
Brian: When you’re sequestered, when you’re far away, when you have shared experiences of danger, the people who are to your right and your left are your family. And sometimes when you’re taking care of a patient or a person who just got injured, you’re also thinking about other members of his unit: the person that escorted him, and making sure that you’re putting the right face on for that person, who has to go back.
Given that so many of your patients are going through things like posttraumatic stress disorder, and survivor’s guilt, do you, do you need to understand what your patients are going through mentally?
Brian: I think the main thing we have to do as VA nurses is know when it’s something we can do, or if it’s a situation where we really need to plug the patient into a higher level of care. You have to be aware of the different types of things that may be going on with somebody. It’s impossible to know everything you need to know in some situations. As an RN [registered nurse] in that environment, you’re expected to know at least a little bit about a lot of things. And you’re really expected to know how to figure out when someone needs more definitive care—an expert or a specialist. It’s tough to get that patient to also realize that they need the help. Because you can tell somebody something like, “Oh, I think you really should go see the therapist about this,” and they’ll say, “I had a therapist once, and it doesn’t work.” We have to convince them that they’re changing and they’re a different person now than they were three, four, five months ago, when they tried before.
How do your challenges change once you’ve been in the system for a substantial period of time?
Brian: The military has a high turnover rate. So you not only have to watch your own lane, you have to learn how to watch all the lanes around you. You have to be able to say, “Okay, the doctors are here for three months at a time, and this month all the doctors rotated. These new doctors don’t know what those doctors who were here before knew.” And so you’re watching the doctor lane, you’re watching the nurse lane, and you’ve got new techs from the airport who just came in, because they have four month rotations, and if you have a navy person they may be on a seven month rotation. So you’re just keeping your eyes open all the time and trying to figure out how you can be most effective and how you can prevent anyone from falling through the cracks. And how you can swing back around and pick up anybody who did fall through a crack.
Have you ever found it emotionally or psychologically difficult to treat the kinds of traumatic injuries that are unique military patients?
Brian: If I said no, you’d probably know I was lying. [Laughs.] It’s hard. When I was doing an AirVac mission my son was starting to approach military age. And I can’t lie and say that when plane after plane after plane is coming in with kids’ bodies, I wasn’t seeing my own son’s face on several of those kids. It can wear on you to the point where you have to really dig into your toolbox of self-care resources. Some people do mantra-repetition, which is something I teach, or there’s meditation, or there’s exercise. There’s a lot of relying on the other people to your left and right. And then there’s always happy hour, and there’s karaoke. Sometimes you just need to belt out a song. And it’s the alternative to sitting in your room and weeping.
What are some of the plus sides of being a VA nurse, as opposed to any other kind of nurse?
Brian: In the San Diego VA system, where I work, there are lots of roads for advanced practice. People at the expert nursing level can step out and do more, to do a little extra. I feel like we support each other well. For example, I’m able to have this job at the VA, and work with the veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan that are injured or ill. But I also work on a collateral duty of homeless veterans outreach. This gives me more breadth of experience, and makes me feel that I’m useful not just to the guys who came back and moved through a system that supported them, but to people who might not have made it through the system effectively. I think that’s something you don’t get to experience in every health care system: an ability to have a breadth of experiences that are supported by the leadership.
What are some of the ways that your job is changing now that U.S. conflicts in the Mideast are drawing down?
Brian: There’s been lot of attention on the veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and we’ve started some really good services and programs that are helping to support those veterans. But I fear that as we have less and less combat-wounded veterans, and less and less media attention, we won’t have as much support. I’d hope we can keep the attention on these guys in the years to come, because they’ll continue to need help. I mentioned in the movie that some of these guys are going to need care for the next thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years.
Carolyn, Tonia, Brian, what are some of the ways that nursing is a timeless profession, and what are some of the ways that it’s changing and is going to continue to change?
Carolyn: I’m continually amazed that we haven’t given nurses enough of a voice. You asked Tonia about the biggest challenges of working in a prison. And of all the things I could think of that she might have answered, not being able to touch people wasn’t even on my radar. Nurses touch and heal and care, and that’s what they’ve always done. It’s so simple, and it’s so profound and so beautiful. That’s why I went to the prison setting to begin with: to show how Tonia feels that way even when she’s dealing with guys in a maximum security prison. And nurses have such a great understanding of how human beings tick, because they see us in pain and they see us joyful with our family members, and they have this holistic understanding of how we work. Maybe that’s why it’s hard to shine a light on nurses: They’re good at so many things. If a doctor’s a brilliant knee surgeon, then that’s an easy thing to talk about. But nurses know how communities, hospitals, wars, people, and families function, and it’s kind of hard to zero in on the one thing that rises to the top. Caring and compassion and touching and healing are very general topics.
Brian: I think we’re getting more of a voice, because there’s no choice. We have an aging population, and we’re going to have a nursing shortage. We already do, actually, but it’s going to get worse as baby boomers start entering their elderly years. So it’s almost inevitable that you’re going to see more nurses, and you’re going to see nurses in more places than you saw them before. Hopefully the thing that stays constant for nursing is that we will continually be a popular profession, because we will continue to have the compassion that people need when they need it.
Tonia: ‘Yall said it beautifully. I’m trying to think of anything else to add, and ‘yall hit on the points that I was thinking of.
Carolyn: We have 3.2 million nurses right now. But we need another million by the year 2020. We are all going to need a nurse. And we have got to be able to let them perform to the full extent of their education. And we have got to be able to turn to them, and learn to listen. I’m a big believer that nurses should be a part of just about every conversation we have, because they have a perspective that is unique.
Part 2: Jason Short (Documentary Subject)
Born and bred in one of the poorest rural counties in the United States, Jason Short was a mechanic and truck driver who has now transitioned from fixing cars to fixing people. He spends his days forging into the remote hollows of Eastern Kentucky, helping his patients in their battles with cancer, diabetes, and black lung disease. Caring for a region plagued by poverty, drug addiction, industrial pollution and more, Jason is intimately acquainted with a part of America few ever see.
You used to be a mechanic. What made you decide to switch to nursing, and was it a difficult transition?
Jason Short: It was a very natural transition for me. There aren’t a whole lot of middle class jobs around here. You either work in the coalmines, or you own your own company that caters to the coalmines. And sadly, a high percentage of people draw government assistance from the time they’re children. And I definitely did not want to be a part of that. So had my own garage. But working on cars didn’t satisfy me the way that nursing does, because I’d always find myself wanting to do great things for people. And I started taking anatomy and physiology courses—something about them just really appealed to me. I just fell in love with the science part of it. And then I married that to the human part of it—to the helping. And it just kind of went from there.
Do a lot of the people you treat get injuries or illnesses related to the coalmines?
Jason: Yeah, there is a lot of black lung—as a matter of fact, there are some people trapped in a mine a couple of counties over as we speak. Right now I work in a level one trauma unit, and in the ICU we see a lot of [mining-related] traumatic injury.
What kind of nursing did you do before you were in the ICU?
Jason: I worked for hospice. That’s really what I think this area needs help with: the patients that have been sent home. Because a lot of the homes are hard to get to. So when they’re in the hospital–if they can make it to the hospital–that’s a different story. But in their homes it’s different. For instance, maybe they have dressings they have to change two or three times a day, and the family-members oftentimes don’t even have a grade-school education and are having to do these sterile dressing changes. So there’s a lot of teaching involved. You’ve gotta build trust.
A lot of your patients live in locations where it would be very difficult for them to make it to a hospital in an emergency. How important is it to educate their families in case something urgent comes up?
Jason: Oftentimes we would have to reeducate them and reeducate them, sometimes with things that you would think would be pretty simple. But you’d have to keep telling them. And oftentimes you’d have to get up at three in the morning and go through these dense, forested places to get to them, to do a simple little task that you could not talk them through over on the telephone. And the education, and the relationship, is the most important thing. Specifically, with the families, not the patient. A lot of times the patient is under the weather, or too ill to communicate.
In the movie we see you driving up a roaring creek to get to an out-of-the-way house. Just how hard can it be to access these places, and what kinds of challenges can that bring?
Jason: A lot of times you have to park and walk to the houses. My very first experience with home health care here in Appalachia was with a tree house. And I mean a full-fledged house built up in the trees. We had a death. And the ladder was vertical. Getting the body out was a challenge.
What are some of the unique challenges of being a home care nurse in Appalachia, as opposed to somewhere urban?
Jason: Well again, the homes themselves, and how they’re built, present challenges. Sometimes there are no roads to them, as you saw in the film. I don’t know how they got the supplies there to build them. I have no idea why they would build a house that you have to drive up a creek to get to, or scale a cliff to get to. Also, there are trust issues. There’s actually one specific issue related to slow response time from EMS or the police. If someone breaks into your home around here, it may be two or three hours before a policeman shows up. And the criminals know this. So the people have armed themselves with guns, just for home protection against these criminals. Well, that creates a very particular risk for the nurse that’s coming there at three AM. They may be expecting you at one house, but what about the person’s backyard you have to go through to get to their house?
Do you ever feel nervous?
Jason: Oh yes. I’ve never actually been shot at on the job. But it’s amazing that I have not. [Laughs.] I know someone that has been held at gunpoint. Because especially with death, people have all these emotions. I’ve seen major fistfights erupt between family members. It’s really, really wild. And it gets really dangerous for all involved.
For a home care nurse in Appalachia, how intimate is the nurse/patient relationship?
Jason: I’ll compare that with what I’m doing right now, which is the ICU. In the ICU setting, they’re on your turf. And we have a system where we lock the families out. They’re not welcome in there except for fifteen minutes, for an allotted time. And when they are, they’re on your grounds. But when you’re there in their home, you’re the guest. And you better respect them—and I always try to respect everybody anyways. Just about every visit, there’s a standoff at the front door, especially in hospice. You have to talk your way into the home. But once you’re accepted in the home here, it is just like you’re a family member. I mean, completely. You don’t have to pack a lunch. There’ll be a full meal for you. They’ll try to get you to stay. They’ll buy you presents for Christmas.
Are they completely unused to anyone coming over who’s not family member or close friend?
Jason: Some of them have large families. They do have people that come over, but yes, usually it’s a close friend or close relative. They’re very clannish. And that’s the thing about the hills of Appalachia. Some people come here who are used to the horizon, and they say that these hills are very, very suffocating. It feels like they’re closing you in. But the people that live here feel like the hills kind of nestle them. And the hills also separate people from each other. It’s a physical barrier, but it’s also a cultural barrier. These counties are in very close proximity, but the people in the five counties that I serve live in completely different cultures. Different dialects and everything. They stay clannish and they stay within those hills. So although they’re used to people from their area coming over, someone new, like me, is different.
I imagine you only introduced the camera crew to people you were already well established with, and knew you.
Jason: Absolutely, yes. I was concerned about coming in with a camera crew. But you know what? They accepted them. Just like they were family. Because they related them to me—who they already knew, loved, and trusted.
You say that at the beginning, people are usually reluctant to even let you through the door. But somebody called you there, right?
Jason: Yes. But a lot of times, it’s not the family. It’s the doctor that knows that there’s no cure for the disease. And here’s the real hard thing about the hospice: A lot of times, especially around here, families will wait till the very last week, or the very last day of life before they contact a doctor. So you’re going into a very volatile situation. And lots of times when I’ve pulled up on the scene, there will be twenty cars or more, parked all over the lawn, and a crowd on the porch. So all eyes are on me, and I’m the savior. Because a lot of them think I’m going to come save the patient. In an odd way, it feels like a rock star moment.
If people think that you’re going to be able to do something you can’t do, how difficult is it for you to come on that scene and tell them there isn’t much you can do other than keep the patient comfortable?
Jason: It’s very difficult, and I’ve learned how to handle it well. I usually come in as a friend, I’m a little bit sly about it. I don’t hit it head-on. A lot of nurses will do that, they’ll be too direct, and that’s just not the right thing to do. You have to kind of come in from the side, get their guard down. I always start talking about something else, and then come back to the subject. And it’s still very hard, and some family members are more dramatic than others. With some of them, surprisingly, you get no response. And then some of them will overreact. I mean things you wouldn’t think an adult would do. Screaming, yelling, rolling on the ground. I’ve had to pull people off of corpses, and I’ve seen people that are still trying feed those corpses.
Do your patients let their illnesses get way out of hand before they seek health care?
Jason: Oh yes. Every time. And that’s why education is so important. I treated a lady that had a tumor that grew on her head for twenty years. It looked like an exterior brain. It was very vascular, and it would bleed. And it had such a foul odor. She had to wear a turban over gauze. This is how this lady was walking around, with no medical intervention. I don’t know how or why you would let something like that go that long, and it did end up taking her life. And people let other things go, like congestive heart failure. I’ve seen people’s legs swollen to the point where they bust, and they haven’t been to the doctor. Sometimes, I would even go into the home and wind up giving care to the family members, because I’d see somebody sitting over in a chair who’s in worse shape than the patient. And they’re the onestrying to take care of the patient. And that’s another thing: There have been situations where these hospitals will release patients home, when there’s no real caregiver in the home.
What can be done to educate people, so that they’ll learn how to manage their conditions better?
Jason: We’ve got the health department, but I want there to be a real force, a clinic that reaches out, sends people to homes—that doesn’t just sit there and say, come to us. Because they’re not going to come to you. And they’re not going to listen the first time. You have to be very persistent. You have to show them, not just give them a pamphlet.
Working as a nurse in Appalachia clearly carries difficult challenges, yet I get the sense that you wouldn’t want to work anywhere else. Can you talk about that?
Jason: I grew up here. And I see the faults in myself, and I see the faults in the people of this region. But I also see the extreme good in them, and the love that they have. And I see the extreme need. Need for nurturing, need for education. These people need help. And there aren’t a lot of people willing to give the kind of help that they need. So it takes a lot of self-sacrifice. And one of the sacrifices is staying here.
Jason: I grew up here. And I see the faults in myself, and I see the faults in the people of this region. But I also see the extreme good in them, and the love that they have. And I see the extreme need. Need for nurturing, need for education. These people need help. And there aren’t a lot of people willing to give the kind of help that they need. So it takes a lot of self-sacrifice. And one of the sacrifices is staying here.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
David@indieNYC.com
Friday, June 6, 2014
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Review: 'The Double'
Directed by Richard Ayoade
Written by Richard Ayoade, Avi Korine, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (novella)
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska, Wallace Shawn
When we open on Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg) in Richard Ayoade’s magnificent new comedy/drama/fever dream, he’s sitting in a train, eyes closed, clutching a briefcase. His overlarge suit only accentuates his thin and vulnerable frame, which he carries as compactly as possible. Bolt-upright, arms held close to his sides, he looks like a man who expects to be fired out of a cannon at any moment. An unseen stranger tells Simon he’s sitting in his spot. And when Simon meekly stands up to forfeit his seat, we see that every other seat on the dingy, ancient-looking train is open. Then, at Simon’s stop, two men stand in the doorway loading boxes onto the train without taking notice of Simon trying to get off. They take so long that the train doors clench on Simon’s briefcase just as he disembarks. The train speeds away, along with the case.
Ayoade and co-writer Avi Korine loosely based ‘The Double’ on an 1846 Dostoyevsky novella of the same name, but audiences would be forgiven for thinking that they based it on a nightmare. Indeed, just minutes in, when a skeptical security guard almost refuses to let Simon into his workplace of seven years—Simon’s missing briefcase contained his secondary ID, and apparently one ID isn’t good enough when you’re as unremarkable as Simon—audience members might question whether they’re witnessing Simon’s dream. The company’s primitive computers, if they are computers, look like what NASA scientists might once have used, had NASA been around in the 1940s. Corridors are narrow. The employees are mostly geriatric, emphasizing how out of place Simon is. It seems to be dead midnight, even though Simon is just starting his workday. It’s not exactly clear what anyone does there, or even what city they’re in. Simon’s boss (Wallace Shawn) tasks Simon with educating his petulant daughter in the ways of the business—and calls Simon “Stanley” in the process. Indeed, nobody seems to notice or respect Simon, including Simon’s crush, Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), a solitary and willowy creature who, in addition to being Simon’s only similarly-aged colleague, also happens to live across from his apartment. Like in a bad dream, everything is a bit unclear, a bit unstuck in time and place—and good things seem just out of reach.
But if this is a nightmare, then it’s a waking one. And it only gets worse when a new coworker shows up: Where Simon James is timid and passive, James Simon is assertive and confident. People gravitate toward him. Along with his remarkably similar name, he happens to look alarmingly like Simon James—in large part because he’s also played by Jesse Eisenberg, without so much as a different wardrobe or hairstyle. But no one seems to notice the connection, except when Simon points it out. One coworker tells Simon that the resemblance never occurred to him because Simon is a “bit of a non-person.”
What makes “The Double” different than other body-double movies, from ‘Freaky Friday’ to ‘Face-Off,’ is that it doesn’t play up the fantasticalness of its premise; it plays up the indignity. James Simon doesn’t come out of nowhere to kickstart Simon James’s character arc. Rather, he seems like a logical next step, just another in a long line of humiliations, fitting in tonally and substantively with everything that preceded his entrance into the film. “The Double” is about more than the wacky shenanigans of two doppelgangers: It’s about a man who looks at his mirror image and becomes painfully aware of his own limitations. It’s about overcoming that one overarching obstacle in life: You.
Like everyone else, Simon James soon becomes taken with James Simon. It’s his confidence, his ease with women. James speaks in firm tones, acts on his desires, and gets what he wants. Case in point: When James suckers Simon into taking a work-related aptitude exam for him—they look the same, so who’s going to know?—James fills in for Simon in instructing the boss’s daughter. She had nothing but contempt for Simon, but after a few slick lines, she wants to jump James’s bones. James happily obliges.
Simon even tells James that he has feelings for Hannah, but that all he’s done so far is spy on her through his window with a telescope. He feels a special kinship with her, he explains, because he believes they share a unique sense of isolation, as if neither of them is quite real. James volunteers some Cyrano de Bergerac-style help, but that arrangement quickly disintegrates when James sweeps Hannah off her feet himself, largely by expressing Simon’s empathetic sentiments as his own.
James does the same thing at work, stealing Simon’s ideas and using them for his own advancement. The boss proceeds to grant James huge promotions, but loses respect for Simon by the day. Simon even continues to have difficulty convincing the security guard to let him in the building. And only then, at the the brink of utter irrelevance, does Simon begin to fight back, insisting that he is real after all.
Central to the film is the idea that just because a man possesses value, either professionally or as a potential romantic partner, that doesn’t mean he’ll have the wherewithal to make his presence felt. Like the dreamscape in which Simon lives, the real world prizes appearances, and a charismatic empty suit will often beat out those more deserving. Only by rising above his own limitations can Simon claw his way out of the bizarre traps he finds himself in.
Eisenberg’s performance(s) infuse the struggle with jarring urgency. He brings an infuriating, chilly smugness to James. Imagine how Eisenberg might have played Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The Social Network,’ had that character’s gargantuan ego not been tempered by crippling insecurities. James’s constant smirk will get under the audience’s skin as much as it does Simon’s. And Eisenberg portrays Simon with a simmering frustration boiling over into mania, his mannerisms and speech patterns becoming more and more agitated as Simon succumbs to the world’s most literal identity crisis.
Thanks to Ayoade and cinematographer Erik Wilson, the film’s eerie visuals forcefully communicate claustrophobia and isolation. Simon always seems to be hemmed in by walls on three sides, the camera effectively serving as the fourth. Yet Simon also tends to be alone, often separated from others by doors and windows. He is at once trapped in this world, and an outcast within it. And daylight never seems to touch the film; rooms and faces bathe in shadow. Meanwhile, Andrew Hewitt’s score—at times as plodding and inexorable as the thump of heavy machinery, at times as sharp, urgent and strings-driven as Bernard Hermann’s Psycho suite—hammers home the intermittent drudgery and horror of Simon’s curious existence.
Ultimately, James shows Simon what Simon lacks—but also what he doesn’t. Simon isn’t a worthless ghost; he’s just been living as one. And only by triumphing over his doppelganger can he ever hope to change things. Maybe that’s the most provocative thing that “The Double” has to say about the nature of personal struggle: Only by overcoming our worst selves can we become our best selves. We are our own worst nightmares.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Written by Richard Ayoade, Avi Korine, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (novella)
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska, Wallace Shawn
When we open on Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg) in Richard Ayoade’s magnificent new comedy/drama/fever dream, he’s sitting in a train, eyes closed, clutching a briefcase. His overlarge suit only accentuates his thin and vulnerable frame, which he carries as compactly as possible. Bolt-upright, arms held close to his sides, he looks like a man who expects to be fired out of a cannon at any moment. An unseen stranger tells Simon he’s sitting in his spot. And when Simon meekly stands up to forfeit his seat, we see that every other seat on the dingy, ancient-looking train is open. Then, at Simon’s stop, two men stand in the doorway loading boxes onto the train without taking notice of Simon trying to get off. They take so long that the train doors clench on Simon’s briefcase just as he disembarks. The train speeds away, along with the case.
Ayoade and co-writer Avi Korine loosely based ‘The Double’ on an 1846 Dostoyevsky novella of the same name, but audiences would be forgiven for thinking that they based it on a nightmare. Indeed, just minutes in, when a skeptical security guard almost refuses to let Simon into his workplace of seven years—Simon’s missing briefcase contained his secondary ID, and apparently one ID isn’t good enough when you’re as unremarkable as Simon—audience members might question whether they’re witnessing Simon’s dream. The company’s primitive computers, if they are computers, look like what NASA scientists might once have used, had NASA been around in the 1940s. Corridors are narrow. The employees are mostly geriatric, emphasizing how out of place Simon is. It seems to be dead midnight, even though Simon is just starting his workday. It’s not exactly clear what anyone does there, or even what city they’re in. Simon’s boss (Wallace Shawn) tasks Simon with educating his petulant daughter in the ways of the business—and calls Simon “Stanley” in the process. Indeed, nobody seems to notice or respect Simon, including Simon’s crush, Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), a solitary and willowy creature who, in addition to being Simon’s only similarly-aged colleague, also happens to live across from his apartment. Like in a bad dream, everything is a bit unclear, a bit unstuck in time and place—and good things seem just out of reach.
But if this is a nightmare, then it’s a waking one. And it only gets worse when a new coworker shows up: Where Simon James is timid and passive, James Simon is assertive and confident. People gravitate toward him. Along with his remarkably similar name, he happens to look alarmingly like Simon James—in large part because he’s also played by Jesse Eisenberg, without so much as a different wardrobe or hairstyle. But no one seems to notice the connection, except when Simon points it out. One coworker tells Simon that the resemblance never occurred to him because Simon is a “bit of a non-person.”
What makes “The Double” different than other body-double movies, from ‘Freaky Friday’ to ‘Face-Off,’ is that it doesn’t play up the fantasticalness of its premise; it plays up the indignity. James Simon doesn’t come out of nowhere to kickstart Simon James’s character arc. Rather, he seems like a logical next step, just another in a long line of humiliations, fitting in tonally and substantively with everything that preceded his entrance into the film. “The Double” is about more than the wacky shenanigans of two doppelgangers: It’s about a man who looks at his mirror image and becomes painfully aware of his own limitations. It’s about overcoming that one overarching obstacle in life: You.
Like everyone else, Simon James soon becomes taken with James Simon. It’s his confidence, his ease with women. James speaks in firm tones, acts on his desires, and gets what he wants. Case in point: When James suckers Simon into taking a work-related aptitude exam for him—they look the same, so who’s going to know?—James fills in for Simon in instructing the boss’s daughter. She had nothing but contempt for Simon, but after a few slick lines, she wants to jump James’s bones. James happily obliges.
Simon even tells James that he has feelings for Hannah, but that all he’s done so far is spy on her through his window with a telescope. He feels a special kinship with her, he explains, because he believes they share a unique sense of isolation, as if neither of them is quite real. James volunteers some Cyrano de Bergerac-style help, but that arrangement quickly disintegrates when James sweeps Hannah off her feet himself, largely by expressing Simon’s empathetic sentiments as his own.
James does the same thing at work, stealing Simon’s ideas and using them for his own advancement. The boss proceeds to grant James huge promotions, but loses respect for Simon by the day. Simon even continues to have difficulty convincing the security guard to let him in the building. And only then, at the the brink of utter irrelevance, does Simon begin to fight back, insisting that he is real after all.
Central to the film is the idea that just because a man possesses value, either professionally or as a potential romantic partner, that doesn’t mean he’ll have the wherewithal to make his presence felt. Like the dreamscape in which Simon lives, the real world prizes appearances, and a charismatic empty suit will often beat out those more deserving. Only by rising above his own limitations can Simon claw his way out of the bizarre traps he finds himself in.
Eisenberg’s performance(s) infuse the struggle with jarring urgency. He brings an infuriating, chilly smugness to James. Imagine how Eisenberg might have played Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The Social Network,’ had that character’s gargantuan ego not been tempered by crippling insecurities. James’s constant smirk will get under the audience’s skin as much as it does Simon’s. And Eisenberg portrays Simon with a simmering frustration boiling over into mania, his mannerisms and speech patterns becoming more and more agitated as Simon succumbs to the world’s most literal identity crisis.
Thanks to Ayoade and cinematographer Erik Wilson, the film’s eerie visuals forcefully communicate claustrophobia and isolation. Simon always seems to be hemmed in by walls on three sides, the camera effectively serving as the fourth. Yet Simon also tends to be alone, often separated from others by doors and windows. He is at once trapped in this world, and an outcast within it. And daylight never seems to touch the film; rooms and faces bathe in shadow. Meanwhile, Andrew Hewitt’s score—at times as plodding and inexorable as the thump of heavy machinery, at times as sharp, urgent and strings-driven as Bernard Hermann’s Psycho suite—hammers home the intermittent drudgery and horror of Simon’s curious existence.
Ultimately, James shows Simon what Simon lacks—but also what he doesn’t. Simon isn’t a worthless ghost; he’s just been living as one. And only by triumphing over his doppelganger can he ever hope to change things. Maybe that’s the most provocative thing that “The Double” has to say about the nature of personal struggle: Only by overcoming our worst selves can we become our best selves. We are our own worst nightmares.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
2014 Tribeca Film Festival Roundtable: 'Alex of Venice' with Chris Messina, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Katie Nehra & Derek Luke
In the directorial debut from Chris Messina, Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays an environmental attorney who finds her workaholic regimen thrown into flux when her husband, George (Messina), asks for a break. For Alex, George has always been the one to take the reins at home. When his unexpected departure dawns as something more permanent, Alex finds herself caught balancing her family’s demands, her aging father, played memorably by Don Johnson, and her ambitious career, which she now struggles to maintain. Soon, Alex is forced to reevaluate her life and discover what she was always too preoccupied to notice.
IndieNYC‘s David Teich was part of an ‘Alex of Venice‘ roundtable discussion with the film’s Director Chris Messina, as well its actors Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Katie Nehra and Derek Luke at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival where the film debuted. Currently you can check out ‘Alex of Venice‘ as the Closing Night Film at the 57th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival.
Part One: Chris Messina (Director, Actor)
(Note: * Indicates David Teich’s questions)
When did you decide to direct this story in particular?
I acted in a movie called “28 Hotel Rooms,” directed by Matt Ross, who I love. And that was produced by Jamie Patricof and Lynette Howell of Electric City. They knew I wanted to direct, and they were kind enough to bring me this script. When they brought it to me, it was under a different title. It was a collage of all these characters in Venice, [Los Angeles], but at the core of the collage was a family. The family was very interesting to me, and I recognized myself in them, and my family and friends. So we cut the collage and really concentrated on the family. And at some point after months of working on it, I felt like this was something I wanted to do.
Was directing a feature harder than you expected it to be?
Chris Messina: [Before I started on this project], I would do that awful thing of telling all my friends and loved ones what a good director I would be. We’d watch movies and I’d say, “Why did they cut there? Why did they use that actor? The score doesn’t make any sense.” I really knew it all. But then you’re on a set, and it’s like a bullet train that takes off, and you can’t stop it. And you go, “Oh shit, now I’ve gotta do this. I told everyone I’d be so good. And I feel like I’m so bad." I didn’t realize how much of an undertaking directing was. I was stupidly naive about. I was shooting a television show…while I was editing. I had two full time jobs. I would never do that again. I also learned about all the different departments and how hard they work. A lot of times as an actor I really took that for granted. It’s nice to go back and act now, and really have the utmost respect for the sound department, and the camera department, and the set decorator, and the producers who get you spaces and locations.
*What were your best tendencies as a director?
But the best thing I did as a director was stay out of everybody’s way. They were such a great bunch of actors that you didn’t really have to say much. In fact, if you said too much, you were ruining things. I wanted to [direct] the film in ways that I enjoy [acting in films]. I don’t like to cut a lot when I’m acting. The starting and stopping is always hard for me. You reset, and someone touches your hair, and then they give you a bunch of notes–it takes you out of it, and then you have to ramp back up into it. So what we would do a lot of times is we’d have two cameras, and we’d run them [until the memory cards were full]. And if I had any notes or directions, I’d talk while the cameras were running. It was terrible for the editor. But great for the performances.
What was the most difficult scene in the movie for you to act in?
CM: The first one I did: The one where I’m yelling at Don Johnson. It was his first day, and I was nervous that he was there. Luckily I had my friend Matt del Negro. He directed me when I was onscreen. I’ve known him for a long time, and I couldn’t have made the movie without him. In the script, it originally said that my character, George, cries during that scene, and everybody notices. And so I did a couple takes that were emotional. And it worked, kind of. But then I kept doing a terrible thing that I often do: Keep trying to repeat or find an emotion that isn’t there anymore. And it was Matt del Negro who told me I should get mad at [Don Johnson’s character]. “Don’t cry, yell at him. You’re sick and tired of being this guy in this house and living this life, and you’re frustrated. Tell him.” And at the time it felt like the wrong direction. But I always did what Matt wanted. And it just shows that sometimes you think something’s got to be a certain way, and then you’re in the editing room and you’re so thankful that somebody said to do the opposite. That was a hard scene. But I’m glad we had the yelling version.
*Aside from relying on Matt, what were some of the differences between directing scenes that you weren’t in, and directing scenes that you were in?
When [I] acted in “Argo,” [Ben] Affleck had the luxury of playback: He could shoot the take, then he could go to the monitors and he could watch what he did and what everyone else had done, and he could adjust it. But I think that movie shot for eighty or so days. We shot for twenty-one days. So we didn’t have that time. If I looked at a playback after every take, we would never make the day. Directing the others was fun, because I love acting and I love actors. I think I’m a better fan of actors than I am an actor. I love just playing around with them and trying new things. A prerequisite of the film was, “I won’t say no to you, and you don’t say no to me. Let’s just try everything and see what works.”
Looking back on the workload, do you regret both acting and directing?
No. I’d like to direct again, and try to put myself in a bigger part. I almost backed out of acting in the film. I didn’t want people to think I was directing it because I wanted a part. And I just wanted to be a director and concentrate on directing. I knew that would be challenging. About two weeks out, I said to the producers, maybe I shouldn’t [act in it]. But they convinced me to do it, and I’m glad I did, because I got to dip my foot in. And if there is a script that has a bigger role at the center, maybe I would have the guts to [both direct and act]. Or the stupidity.
Was Alex always at the core of the film, or did you change that around during development?
She was, and then she wasn’t, and then she was. At times I thought maybe it was her son’s story. At times I thought maybe it was my character’s story. At times I thought it was about two sisters. It really took on a lot of different shapes. But it was clear at some point that it would be her. And I was very lucky to have Mary Elizabeth Winstead. She’s incredible.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead is known for roles that are very different from this one, from “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” to “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” Were you ever apprehensive about casting her?
No. I saw her in “Smashed,” and I was blown away. And then she came in to read, and her reading was incredible. And she also just had a lot of passion for the movie. It was clear that she connected to the material and wanted to do it. When you’re directing your first movie, or maybe any movie, you need a support team around you, and you need leaders. Nobody was making any money. A lot of these people have families, a lot of them had opportunities to go make money on other jobs. So they had to want to be there. That was something that I required. Mary wanted to be there, and she was an incredible captain of the ship. She set a tone and a precedent for the film that I think the crew, and myself, and the rest of the actors really followed.
When was Don Johnson’s name thrown in for consideration?
As soon as the character was created. One of the writers, Jessica Goldberg, invented that character and his story. And as soon as the character was created, I thought of Don Johnson. I’d seen him in “Eastbound & Down” and “Django [Unchained].” I loved him in “Miami Vice” when I was a kid. I always thought he was a great actor. I begged him to do it. I don’t know if he really wanted do. [Laughs.]
How long did it take to convince him?
It took a while. I was pretty persistent. I went to his house. I think he had no intention of doing it. He took me to his son’s basketball game. And I pretended that I was interested in the game, and kept telling him about the movie. It probably took months. And then finally he jumped onboard. He showed up, and he came extremely prepared. I was nervous the first couple days working with him. Because what do you say? He’s got so much experience. And I’m this young guy, a first time director. Small movie, no trailers. “Don, your room’s upstairs. Would you like a glass of water? We have nothing to offer you.” You had to want to be there, and he did. He showed up every day, and he taught us a lot.
*How long did it take for you to stop being nervous?
It was like day twenty-one. [Laughs.] Then I was relieved that the movie was done. And I went into the editing room and [the nervousness] came back again. Because now I’m sitting with some things that I’m super proud of–but I’m also sitting with all my mistakes. And I go, “How do I fix it? I was the guy who was telling everybody I’d be the greatest director in the world, and now I’ve got a lot of problems and mistakes because it’s my first film.”
*In what ways did the editing process enhance the film?
There was a lot of stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor that I really, really liked, but just didn’t fit the movie…You’re just kind of reshaping things. The story starts to tell itself, and starts to tell you what’s needed and not needed. Editing’s amazing. It’s like writing the movie again. And the score and the sound made a gigantic difference in the movie. In a scene, background noise creates a reality when you watch the picture. Like if we played a scene with just us here, without that noise [Chris indicates people speaking in the background], it might seem flat, and not as real. [At first] it doesn’t really seem like an office, but if you put that noise in, and a couple of ringing phones, then you have the reality of an office. It’s pretty simple, but I took for granted what a difference that would make to a movie.
*Having taken lessons from this experience, what might you do differently next time you direct a feature?
I would want more time. That would be essential. I’d clear my plate of everything else but the movie. I can’t overlap with acting jobs. I would want more prep time, more shooting time, and more editing time. I like to go slow. And in twenty-one days, it’s impossible to go slow. There are a million different things I would do differently. You can read all the books about directing, and watch all the movies, and listen to all the special commentaries of a DVD. Until you’re out there on the dance floor doing it, you don’t know. That’s why I would recommend to any aspiring filmmaker or actor, you gotta grab a camera and go do it, even if it’s it on your iPhone. Edit it yourself, look at it, and play around. Because it’s only by those trials and errors that you learn.
Part Two: Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Actress), Katie Nehra (Co-Writer, Actress), Derek Luke (Actor)
How did you all get involved in this project?
Katie Nehra: I started writing the script six-and-a-half years ago, so it’s been a long road. And I knew Chris from the Labyrinth Theater Company, which was started by John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman [among others]. And then Chris and I lived on the same street at some point. Then we kind of lost touch. But I always wanted him to play George.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: What initially got me really excited was the script, and how relatable the role was. And also Chris being as awesome as he is.
Katie: And then you met me.
Mary: That sealed the deal. [Mary and Katie laugh.]
Derek Luke: [First] it’s Chris: I believe the leader really sets the tone. What I loved about Chris Messina is that when we met and talked, I never felt like I was talking to a director. I felt like I was talking to a fellow actor…And I really love stories where the narratives have strong female leads. Because, being that I’ve been married for a while now, my story has a strong female lead.
Katie: Behind every great man is a greater woman.
Katie, you co-wrote the script–are you from Venice, Los Angeles?
Katie: No, but my writing partner, Justin [Shilton], that’s all him. He loves Venice, he lived there. I was never really a fan of Venice before I started writing this film. Maybe because it’s so far from Hollywood, where I live. But it definitely is a special place, and it’s so different from [Hollywood], and Beverly Hills. I sort of feel like it’s like the East Village of L.A.
Mary: I also live on the other side of town, and I had spent very little time there. But once I was actually forced to drive there every day for a month, I started to get why people lived over there. It’s so beautiful and laid back. It’s like a totally different lifestyle. It was really great to be there every day.
Mary, you’ve played roles very different from this one–for instance, in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Moving forward, how are you going to be choosing your roles?
Mary: I’m drawn to characters who get to be very human, in that they are a lot of different qualities, instead of just a few or even one. Earlier in my career, I felt like I would play a character, and the character would be [a specific] thing, and fit inside [a specific] box. And I would just try to be that. Now I’m trying to bring all my own qualities to characters, to make them as complex as possible. And if I can find roles that allow for that and don’t box me in too much, that’s the most fun for me. This was kind of perfect for that. And I’m not always going to get that, as much as I try.
*The film’s protagonist, Alex, is an environmental lawyer. A central plot point involves a case of hers (which she ultimately loses): Her firm sues to stop a local entrepreneur–Derek’s character, Frank–from building a spa on a local pond, because his construction is damaging the wildlife population. In one of the film’s best scenes, Frank argues to Alex that his spa will bring badly-needed jobs to an impoverished neighborhood–pitting Alex’s long-term concerns about the future of the environment against more immediate, human concerns. Who do you all thing gets the better side of that argument–Frank or Alex?
Mary: Well it’s funny, because I don’t think she’s expecting such a strong argument from him, so it’s a big turn for her. Like, “There’s something that I firmly believe in, and you actually made me see another side to it for a second.” And that’s kind of crazy for her, because she’s so adamant about the way that she views the world. I think that they’re both equally strong arguments. I’m probably more of Alex’s point of view. But I don’t know if I have a clear opinion on which is the better argument in this particular case, because I think they’re both important.
Derek: I think it’s a really interesting discussion: The consumption of wealth, distribution of wealth, how you use it, what’s good, what’s bad. A lot of times it’s about other people’s point of view about how they would use your money, vs. how you think you should use your money. I think Frank makes a very, very strong argument. I was even impressed when it came up. Because I probably sided with Alex a little bit, but he had a very strong defense. In his point of view, he’s doing good to the world.
Katie: There are two sides to every coin. You definitely want to hold onto a legacy–nature, something that’s always been there. But at the same time, communities are failing, people need jobs, especially in any kind of ghetto, where you want to give people opportunities to grow and make [the community] stronger. But where’s the balance? I don’t know what the answer is. I think we have these two characters that are showing two sides. Most people would side with one or the other. But I think it’s a gray area.
Mary: The whole issue is also a bigger metaphor her life and her inability to change and move forward. And so I think for her, [losing her court case] is actually kind of a good thing in disguise, because it forces her to realize that she can’t just keep things the way they are all the time, and she has to grow.
Katie: Alex has to modernize herself.
Mary: It kind of thrusts her into thinking about moving on from her current life.
Katie: I love spas and ponds. I just want to go on the record.
Read the roundtable at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
IndieNYC‘s David Teich was part of an ‘Alex of Venice‘ roundtable discussion with the film’s Director Chris Messina, as well its actors Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Katie Nehra and Derek Luke at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival where the film debuted. Currently you can check out ‘Alex of Venice‘ as the Closing Night Film at the 57th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival.
Part One: Chris Messina (Director, Actor)
(Note: * Indicates David Teich’s questions)
When did you decide to direct this story in particular?
I acted in a movie called “28 Hotel Rooms,” directed by Matt Ross, who I love. And that was produced by Jamie Patricof and Lynette Howell of Electric City. They knew I wanted to direct, and they were kind enough to bring me this script. When they brought it to me, it was under a different title. It was a collage of all these characters in Venice, [Los Angeles], but at the core of the collage was a family. The family was very interesting to me, and I recognized myself in them, and my family and friends. So we cut the collage and really concentrated on the family. And at some point after months of working on it, I felt like this was something I wanted to do.
Was directing a feature harder than you expected it to be?
Chris Messina: [Before I started on this project], I would do that awful thing of telling all my friends and loved ones what a good director I would be. We’d watch movies and I’d say, “Why did they cut there? Why did they use that actor? The score doesn’t make any sense.” I really knew it all. But then you’re on a set, and it’s like a bullet train that takes off, and you can’t stop it. And you go, “Oh shit, now I’ve gotta do this. I told everyone I’d be so good. And I feel like I’m so bad." I didn’t realize how much of an undertaking directing was. I was stupidly naive about. I was shooting a television show…while I was editing. I had two full time jobs. I would never do that again. I also learned about all the different departments and how hard they work. A lot of times as an actor I really took that for granted. It’s nice to go back and act now, and really have the utmost respect for the sound department, and the camera department, and the set decorator, and the producers who get you spaces and locations.
*What were your best tendencies as a director?
But the best thing I did as a director was stay out of everybody’s way. They were such a great bunch of actors that you didn’t really have to say much. In fact, if you said too much, you were ruining things. I wanted to [direct] the film in ways that I enjoy [acting in films]. I don’t like to cut a lot when I’m acting. The starting and stopping is always hard for me. You reset, and someone touches your hair, and then they give you a bunch of notes–it takes you out of it, and then you have to ramp back up into it. So what we would do a lot of times is we’d have two cameras, and we’d run them [until the memory cards were full]. And if I had any notes or directions, I’d talk while the cameras were running. It was terrible for the editor. But great for the performances.
What was the most difficult scene in the movie for you to act in?
CM: The first one I did: The one where I’m yelling at Don Johnson. It was his first day, and I was nervous that he was there. Luckily I had my friend Matt del Negro. He directed me when I was onscreen. I’ve known him for a long time, and I couldn’t have made the movie without him. In the script, it originally said that my character, George, cries during that scene, and everybody notices. And so I did a couple takes that were emotional. And it worked, kind of. But then I kept doing a terrible thing that I often do: Keep trying to repeat or find an emotion that isn’t there anymore. And it was Matt del Negro who told me I should get mad at [Don Johnson’s character]. “Don’t cry, yell at him. You’re sick and tired of being this guy in this house and living this life, and you’re frustrated. Tell him.” And at the time it felt like the wrong direction. But I always did what Matt wanted. And it just shows that sometimes you think something’s got to be a certain way, and then you’re in the editing room and you’re so thankful that somebody said to do the opposite. That was a hard scene. But I’m glad we had the yelling version.
*Aside from relying on Matt, what were some of the differences between directing scenes that you weren’t in, and directing scenes that you were in?
When [I] acted in “Argo,” [Ben] Affleck had the luxury of playback: He could shoot the take, then he could go to the monitors and he could watch what he did and what everyone else had done, and he could adjust it. But I think that movie shot for eighty or so days. We shot for twenty-one days. So we didn’t have that time. If I looked at a playback after every take, we would never make the day. Directing the others was fun, because I love acting and I love actors. I think I’m a better fan of actors than I am an actor. I love just playing around with them and trying new things. A prerequisite of the film was, “I won’t say no to you, and you don’t say no to me. Let’s just try everything and see what works.”
Looking back on the workload, do you regret both acting and directing?
No. I’d like to direct again, and try to put myself in a bigger part. I almost backed out of acting in the film. I didn’t want people to think I was directing it because I wanted a part. And I just wanted to be a director and concentrate on directing. I knew that would be challenging. About two weeks out, I said to the producers, maybe I shouldn’t [act in it]. But they convinced me to do it, and I’m glad I did, because I got to dip my foot in. And if there is a script that has a bigger role at the center, maybe I would have the guts to [both direct and act]. Or the stupidity.
Was Alex always at the core of the film, or did you change that around during development?
She was, and then she wasn’t, and then she was. At times I thought maybe it was her son’s story. At times I thought maybe it was my character’s story. At times I thought it was about two sisters. It really took on a lot of different shapes. But it was clear at some point that it would be her. And I was very lucky to have Mary Elizabeth Winstead. She’s incredible.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead is known for roles that are very different from this one, from “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” to “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” Were you ever apprehensive about casting her?
No. I saw her in “Smashed,” and I was blown away. And then she came in to read, and her reading was incredible. And she also just had a lot of passion for the movie. It was clear that she connected to the material and wanted to do it. When you’re directing your first movie, or maybe any movie, you need a support team around you, and you need leaders. Nobody was making any money. A lot of these people have families, a lot of them had opportunities to go make money on other jobs. So they had to want to be there. That was something that I required. Mary wanted to be there, and she was an incredible captain of the ship. She set a tone and a precedent for the film that I think the crew, and myself, and the rest of the actors really followed.
When was Don Johnson’s name thrown in for consideration?
As soon as the character was created. One of the writers, Jessica Goldberg, invented that character and his story. And as soon as the character was created, I thought of Don Johnson. I’d seen him in “Eastbound & Down” and “Django [Unchained].” I loved him in “Miami Vice” when I was a kid. I always thought he was a great actor. I begged him to do it. I don’t know if he really wanted do. [Laughs.]
How long did it take to convince him?
It took a while. I was pretty persistent. I went to his house. I think he had no intention of doing it. He took me to his son’s basketball game. And I pretended that I was interested in the game, and kept telling him about the movie. It probably took months. And then finally he jumped onboard. He showed up, and he came extremely prepared. I was nervous the first couple days working with him. Because what do you say? He’s got so much experience. And I’m this young guy, a first time director. Small movie, no trailers. “Don, your room’s upstairs. Would you like a glass of water? We have nothing to offer you.” You had to want to be there, and he did. He showed up every day, and he taught us a lot.
*How long did it take for you to stop being nervous?
It was like day twenty-one. [Laughs.] Then I was relieved that the movie was done. And I went into the editing room and [the nervousness] came back again. Because now I’m sitting with some things that I’m super proud of–but I’m also sitting with all my mistakes. And I go, “How do I fix it? I was the guy who was telling everybody I’d be the greatest director in the world, and now I’ve got a lot of problems and mistakes because it’s my first film.”
*In what ways did the editing process enhance the film?
There was a lot of stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor that I really, really liked, but just didn’t fit the movie…You’re just kind of reshaping things. The story starts to tell itself, and starts to tell you what’s needed and not needed. Editing’s amazing. It’s like writing the movie again. And the score and the sound made a gigantic difference in the movie. In a scene, background noise creates a reality when you watch the picture. Like if we played a scene with just us here, without that noise [Chris indicates people speaking in the background], it might seem flat, and not as real. [At first] it doesn’t really seem like an office, but if you put that noise in, and a couple of ringing phones, then you have the reality of an office. It’s pretty simple, but I took for granted what a difference that would make to a movie.
*Having taken lessons from this experience, what might you do differently next time you direct a feature?
I would want more time. That would be essential. I’d clear my plate of everything else but the movie. I can’t overlap with acting jobs. I would want more prep time, more shooting time, and more editing time. I like to go slow. And in twenty-one days, it’s impossible to go slow. There are a million different things I would do differently. You can read all the books about directing, and watch all the movies, and listen to all the special commentaries of a DVD. Until you’re out there on the dance floor doing it, you don’t know. That’s why I would recommend to any aspiring filmmaker or actor, you gotta grab a camera and go do it, even if it’s it on your iPhone. Edit it yourself, look at it, and play around. Because it’s only by those trials and errors that you learn.
Part Two: Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Actress), Katie Nehra (Co-Writer, Actress), Derek Luke (Actor)
How did you all get involved in this project?
Katie Nehra: I started writing the script six-and-a-half years ago, so it’s been a long road. And I knew Chris from the Labyrinth Theater Company, which was started by John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman [among others]. And then Chris and I lived on the same street at some point. Then we kind of lost touch. But I always wanted him to play George.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: What initially got me really excited was the script, and how relatable the role was. And also Chris being as awesome as he is.
Katie: And then you met me.
Mary: That sealed the deal. [Mary and Katie laugh.]
Derek Luke: [First] it’s Chris: I believe the leader really sets the tone. What I loved about Chris Messina is that when we met and talked, I never felt like I was talking to a director. I felt like I was talking to a fellow actor…And I really love stories where the narratives have strong female leads. Because, being that I’ve been married for a while now, my story has a strong female lead.
Katie: Behind every great man is a greater woman.
Katie, you co-wrote the script–are you from Venice, Los Angeles?
Katie: No, but my writing partner, Justin [Shilton], that’s all him. He loves Venice, he lived there. I was never really a fan of Venice before I started writing this film. Maybe because it’s so far from Hollywood, where I live. But it definitely is a special place, and it’s so different from [Hollywood], and Beverly Hills. I sort of feel like it’s like the East Village of L.A.
Mary: I also live on the other side of town, and I had spent very little time there. But once I was actually forced to drive there every day for a month, I started to get why people lived over there. It’s so beautiful and laid back. It’s like a totally different lifestyle. It was really great to be there every day.
Mary, you’ve played roles very different from this one–for instance, in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Moving forward, how are you going to be choosing your roles?
Mary: I’m drawn to characters who get to be very human, in that they are a lot of different qualities, instead of just a few or even one. Earlier in my career, I felt like I would play a character, and the character would be [a specific] thing, and fit inside [a specific] box. And I would just try to be that. Now I’m trying to bring all my own qualities to characters, to make them as complex as possible. And if I can find roles that allow for that and don’t box me in too much, that’s the most fun for me. This was kind of perfect for that. And I’m not always going to get that, as much as I try.
*The film’s protagonist, Alex, is an environmental lawyer. A central plot point involves a case of hers (which she ultimately loses): Her firm sues to stop a local entrepreneur–Derek’s character, Frank–from building a spa on a local pond, because his construction is damaging the wildlife population. In one of the film’s best scenes, Frank argues to Alex that his spa will bring badly-needed jobs to an impoverished neighborhood–pitting Alex’s long-term concerns about the future of the environment against more immediate, human concerns. Who do you all thing gets the better side of that argument–Frank or Alex?
Mary: Well it’s funny, because I don’t think she’s expecting such a strong argument from him, so it’s a big turn for her. Like, “There’s something that I firmly believe in, and you actually made me see another side to it for a second.” And that’s kind of crazy for her, because she’s so adamant about the way that she views the world. I think that they’re both equally strong arguments. I’m probably more of Alex’s point of view. But I don’t know if I have a clear opinion on which is the better argument in this particular case, because I think they’re both important.
Derek: I think it’s a really interesting discussion: The consumption of wealth, distribution of wealth, how you use it, what’s good, what’s bad. A lot of times it’s about other people’s point of view about how they would use your money, vs. how you think you should use your money. I think Frank makes a very, very strong argument. I was even impressed when it came up. Because I probably sided with Alex a little bit, but he had a very strong defense. In his point of view, he’s doing good to the world.
Katie: There are two sides to every coin. You definitely want to hold onto a legacy–nature, something that’s always been there. But at the same time, communities are failing, people need jobs, especially in any kind of ghetto, where you want to give people opportunities to grow and make [the community] stronger. But where’s the balance? I don’t know what the answer is. I think we have these two characters that are showing two sides. Most people would side with one or the other. But I think it’s a gray area.
Mary: The whole issue is also a bigger metaphor her life and her inability to change and move forward. And so I think for her, [losing her court case] is actually kind of a good thing in disguise, because it forces her to realize that she can’t just keep things the way they are all the time, and she has to grow.
Katie: Alex has to modernize herself.
Mary: It kind of thrusts her into thinking about moving on from her current life.
Katie: I love spas and ponds. I just want to go on the record.
Read the roundtable at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Monday, April 28, 2014
Interview: Jerome Sable (Director, Writer, Composer) and Eli Batalion (Writer, Composer) - 'Stage Fright'
Starry-eyed teenager Camilla Swanson (Allie MacDonald) wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a Broadway diva, but she’s stuck working in the kitchen of a snobby performing arts camp. Determined to change her destiny, she sneaks in to audition for the summer showcase and lands a lead role in the play, but just as rehearsals begin, blood starts to spill, and Camilla soon finds herself terrorized by a bloodthirsty masked killer who despises musical theater.
Starring musical theater veterans Meat Loaf ('The Rocky Horror Picture Show') and Minnie Driver (The Phantom of the Opera) STAGE FRIGHT mixes Scream with Glee in this genre-bending R-rated horror-musical.
What are your backgrounds as composers?
Jerome Sable: We’re both from Montreal, and we’ve been friends and collaborators for a long time. We’ve done theater, a lot of the time in small black box theaters, creating weird plays that always involve composing. We both play different musical instruments, and have always tried to incorporate musical comedy elements into our work. Then when I was in film school, I started getting into horror, and that’s when Eli and I said, let’s try to do a movie. We knew it was going to involve a lot of musical comedy. And we decided to mix in horror.
Eli Batalion: At that point we did a short film to kick things off, called “The Legend of Beaver Dam,” which was our initial foray into the whole concept of the rock horror musical. That gave us the confidence to push forward with a feature film that blended those genres, and we were able to find partners to be able to put “Stage Fright” together.
What made you decide that the horror and musical genres would fit well together?
Jerome: People talk as if horror and musicals are such opposites, but they aren’t really. In a musical number, the emotions are boiling over to a tipping point, where the characters can do nothing else but break into song. And in many ways horror movies are like that as well. Someone just reaches an emotional tipping point, and they explode into violence. In both cases, you have this cinematic expression of some internal fantasy.
Is there something inherently horrific about a theater camp?
Eli: With camp in general, there’s a heightened emotional environment, which is why I think a lot of the classic slasher films take place there. It represents the adolescent experience: Everything is the worst thing ever, or everything is the best thing ever. And it’s just like that at theater camp too.
What were some of your musical influences in this film?
Jerome: Musically, this was a lot of fun, because got to do many different styles. We did the more orchestral, old-school Gilbert and Sullivan and Rogers and Hammerstein-inspired stuff. We were also hugely inspired by Kander and Ebb. But then we also got to do rock stuff, where we basically did our own version of our high school experience: Mixing in AC/DC inspired chord progressions with Axl Rose-inspired vocals, with a pinch of Ozzie [Osbourne].
Did you come up with story and character first and then write the songs, or did you write everything simultaneously?
Jerome: We always start with the story and the characters and then the script. From there we do the lyrics, and then the music. But then what usually what happens is, once we’re doing the music, we’ll decide to change some of the lyrics. And then sometimes that’ll create a domino effect where we’ll realize we want to change something about the story, because of something we realized when we were changing the music.
Are there any examples in this movie of something that you changed?
Jerome: The song [that takes place during a climactic scene] in the kitchen at the end of the film was not the same song when we shot it. It was an entirely different rock song that we had composed, recorded, produced, and then shot. And we did not do any reshoots. We actually just reverse-engineered and retrofitted a completely new song onto existing footage during the post-production process. Completely new tempo, completely new lyrics, completeley new music.
Why did you feel that change was necessary?
Jerome: The song that existed before just didn’t feel brutal enough for that part of the movie once we had put it together. And we felt like, the way the film was shaping up, the song needed to be fun, but still more oppressive. The previous song we had was too celebratory. We wanted something with a little more edge.
Eli: In our process, we have something which we like to call killing our babies. We naturally grow partial to certain things that we’ve done, but regardless of how much work we’ve put into something, we sometimes have to come to that honest moment where we say, “This doesn’t work.” We had to slash many babies in the process of making this film.
What are the challenges of casting a movie like this?
Eli: The actors do all their own singing, so from the get-go there were some great actors we couldn’t even consider, because they don’t sing. In fact, just getting the very best in Broadway talent in some cases was not necessarily sufficient. For Ally MacDonald’s [lead] role, we did look at the crème de la crème of Broadway, and we saw excellent actresses. But it’s not just about being an amazing triple threat Broadway talent. The role needed subtlety–someone who was specifically good onscreen.
What did Meat Loaf bring to the movie? Are you fans of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show?'
Eli: It was very significant for us to have him in the film. And certainly “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” has inspired us, though he plays a very different role in our film than he did in “Rocky Horror.” This is actually different than most roles he’s played. He’s fantastic to work with. He’s intense, and he really brings it to each and every scene. Meat isn’t necessarily a young, sprightly fellow, but there’s some deeply physical stuff in the film, and he was involved in a lot of that. He went balls to the wall.
How did you break down which types of songs would fit into which sections of the movie?
Jerome: We tried our best to musically tailor the songs to the characters and the specific moments. In “Peter and the Wolf,” there’s a different musical instrument used to represent each character. We used the “Peter and the Wolf” school of scoring. We tried to do different musical palettes and themes for different characters. And we tried to weave them in together as well. For us, the big one was the killer vs. the musical theater community, and musically that resulted in thrash metal or heavy rock vs. old school Gilbert and Sullivan orchestral.
You could have kept the film in lighter comic territory. Why did you decide to make it genuinely grisly, scary and suspenseful?
Jerome: Why not? We were taking a page from the playbooks of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Scream.” In other words, we decided to make a character comedy with satirical elements, but not to make the horror a sketch or a cheap parody. It’s just better to go all out. We decided right from the early stages to be fully committed to everything.
Read the Interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Starring musical theater veterans Meat Loaf ('The Rocky Horror Picture Show') and Minnie Driver (The Phantom of the Opera) STAGE FRIGHT mixes Scream with Glee in this genre-bending R-rated horror-musical.
What are your backgrounds as composers?
Jerome Sable: We’re both from Montreal, and we’ve been friends and collaborators for a long time. We’ve done theater, a lot of the time in small black box theaters, creating weird plays that always involve composing. We both play different musical instruments, and have always tried to incorporate musical comedy elements into our work. Then when I was in film school, I started getting into horror, and that’s when Eli and I said, let’s try to do a movie. We knew it was going to involve a lot of musical comedy. And we decided to mix in horror.
Eli Batalion: At that point we did a short film to kick things off, called “The Legend of Beaver Dam,” which was our initial foray into the whole concept of the rock horror musical. That gave us the confidence to push forward with a feature film that blended those genres, and we were able to find partners to be able to put “Stage Fright” together.
What made you decide that the horror and musical genres would fit well together?
Jerome: People talk as if horror and musicals are such opposites, but they aren’t really. In a musical number, the emotions are boiling over to a tipping point, where the characters can do nothing else but break into song. And in many ways horror movies are like that as well. Someone just reaches an emotional tipping point, and they explode into violence. In both cases, you have this cinematic expression of some internal fantasy.
Is there something inherently horrific about a theater camp?
Eli: With camp in general, there’s a heightened emotional environment, which is why I think a lot of the classic slasher films take place there. It represents the adolescent experience: Everything is the worst thing ever, or everything is the best thing ever. And it’s just like that at theater camp too.
What were some of your musical influences in this film?
Jerome: Musically, this was a lot of fun, because got to do many different styles. We did the more orchestral, old-school Gilbert and Sullivan and Rogers and Hammerstein-inspired stuff. We were also hugely inspired by Kander and Ebb. But then we also got to do rock stuff, where we basically did our own version of our high school experience: Mixing in AC/DC inspired chord progressions with Axl Rose-inspired vocals, with a pinch of Ozzie [Osbourne].
Did you come up with story and character first and then write the songs, or did you write everything simultaneously?
Jerome: We always start with the story and the characters and then the script. From there we do the lyrics, and then the music. But then what usually what happens is, once we’re doing the music, we’ll decide to change some of the lyrics. And then sometimes that’ll create a domino effect where we’ll realize we want to change something about the story, because of something we realized when we were changing the music.
Are there any examples in this movie of something that you changed?
Jerome: The song [that takes place during a climactic scene] in the kitchen at the end of the film was not the same song when we shot it. It was an entirely different rock song that we had composed, recorded, produced, and then shot. And we did not do any reshoots. We actually just reverse-engineered and retrofitted a completely new song onto existing footage during the post-production process. Completely new tempo, completely new lyrics, completeley new music.
Why did you feel that change was necessary?
Jerome: The song that existed before just didn’t feel brutal enough for that part of the movie once we had put it together. And we felt like, the way the film was shaping up, the song needed to be fun, but still more oppressive. The previous song we had was too celebratory. We wanted something with a little more edge.
Eli: In our process, we have something which we like to call killing our babies. We naturally grow partial to certain things that we’ve done, but regardless of how much work we’ve put into something, we sometimes have to come to that honest moment where we say, “This doesn’t work.” We had to slash many babies in the process of making this film.
What are the challenges of casting a movie like this?
Eli: The actors do all their own singing, so from the get-go there were some great actors we couldn’t even consider, because they don’t sing. In fact, just getting the very best in Broadway talent in some cases was not necessarily sufficient. For Ally MacDonald’s [lead] role, we did look at the crème de la crème of Broadway, and we saw excellent actresses. But it’s not just about being an amazing triple threat Broadway talent. The role needed subtlety–someone who was specifically good onscreen.
What did Meat Loaf bring to the movie? Are you fans of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show?'
Eli: It was very significant for us to have him in the film. And certainly “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” has inspired us, though he plays a very different role in our film than he did in “Rocky Horror.” This is actually different than most roles he’s played. He’s fantastic to work with. He’s intense, and he really brings it to each and every scene. Meat isn’t necessarily a young, sprightly fellow, but there’s some deeply physical stuff in the film, and he was involved in a lot of that. He went balls to the wall.
How did you break down which types of songs would fit into which sections of the movie?
Jerome: We tried our best to musically tailor the songs to the characters and the specific moments. In “Peter and the Wolf,” there’s a different musical instrument used to represent each character. We used the “Peter and the Wolf” school of scoring. We tried to do different musical palettes and themes for different characters. And we tried to weave them in together as well. For us, the big one was the killer vs. the musical theater community, and musically that resulted in thrash metal or heavy rock vs. old school Gilbert and Sullivan orchestral.
You could have kept the film in lighter comic territory. Why did you decide to make it genuinely grisly, scary and suspenseful?
Jerome: Why not? We were taking a page from the playbooks of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Scream.” In other words, we decided to make a character comedy with satirical elements, but not to make the horror a sketch or a cheap parody. It’s just better to go all out. We decided right from the early stages to be fully committed to everything.
Read the Interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Saturday, April 26, 2014
2014 Tribeca Film Festival Interviews: Tristan Patterson (Director), Isabel Lucas (Actress) & Jim Sturgess (Actor) - 'Electric Slide'
1983 Los Angeles is full of beautiful girls, luxurious mansions, and glamorous parties. Eddie Dodson, a hip and charismatic dealer of antique furniture for the rich and famous, is living the high life. When Eddie meets the cool and aloof Pauline, the attraction is instant and the two live out each other’s fast-paced fantasies until Eddie’s high-rolling life catches up with him and loan sharks start knocking on his door. To pay off his debts, Eddie and Pauline begin a spree of bank robberies across LA, charming tellers at over 60 banks to hand over the cash. Now the two are not only on the run from loan sharks but also have the police hot on their trail.
Part One: Director, Tristan Patterson, Actress, Isabel Lucas
Tristan, what drew you to the real-life story of Eddie Dodson?
Tristan Patterson: When I first heard the story, there were details that jumped out at me, like the fact that Eddie made mixtapes to play on his getaways, and the fact that he sold art deco furniture. Here’s a guy who’s trying to turn his life into a movie. He’s providing his own soundtrack, he’s providing his own set decoration, he’s putting on wardrobe to get into character. He was all about performance. And I’m also really interested in Los Angeles, and that kind of character really embodies a certain mythology about the city.
Isabel, how would you describe your character, Pauline?
Isabel Lucas: She’s very enigmatic in many ways. She’s searching for something. I feel like she wants to grow up, to fall in love, to live a fantasy, to be a bit rebellious and defiant.
Does Pauline, like Eddie, have a real-life analog?
Tristan: Yeah, that’s one of the things that excited me about the story. There was a girl who came to L.A. and dated him over the nine months when he robbed sixty-three banks. And she just left afterwards. So I really wanted to make a movie that framed the story with that relationship. It starts the first time she sees him, and ends the last time she sees him. It’s a way of looking at L.A. through the dreamy eyes of the sort of girl who still sees everything as being fresh.
Why do you think these two characters are so drawn to each other?
Isabel: I think in many ways, Eddie needs someone to fit the casting for a partner in crime. He was always performing, and that was part of his performance.
Tristan: He wanted to have eyes on him.
Isabel: She’s seeking this kind of rebellious feeling that she’s seen in all these films she’s been watching. And then she meets Eddie in this spontaneous way. And they develop this sense that there are no repercussions for what they’re doing. They meet and fall in love in that mode. But that’s not sustainable.
What are some of the challenges in adapting a real-life story like this, and what are some of the changes you have to make to make it work as a film?
Tristan: You have to have a framing device, a point of view. I’m not telling the whole story of someone’s life. I’m telling a story about a moment in a someone’s life. And that “moment” is this girl meeting him and then leaving him. Everything happens, present tense, inside of that experience. It’s not a rise-and-fall kind of story, where he moves to L.A., then starts a shop, and then gets addicted to drugs, or those sort of traditional bio-pic things.
What do you think sets Eddie apart from other movie bank robbers?
Tristan: For him, robbing banks is about this idea of performance, or becoming the star of your own movie. [The real] Eddie, after robbing his first bank, described the experience in a journal, saying, “I felt like I was part Warren Beatty, part Woody Allen.”
How would you describe the film’s genre?
Tristan: I think it’s an L.A. movie. And it’s a movie about movies. It’s also a lovers-on-the-run movie, but not like “Wild at Heart” or “Badlands,” where the characters hit the road. This is about lovers on the run in the contained world of Los Angeles–the city of their dreams.
Are you from Los Angeles?
Tristan: Yeah
How do the events of the film reflect the personality of the city?
Tristan: L.A. is a city people come to invent or reinvent themselves. In a way, everybody’s giving a performance there. I think this is the ultimate version of that.
What choices did you make to evoke a sense of time and place?
Tristan: I had all of the Polaroids that the real Eddie Dodson’s polaroids took during that ear. We really tried to capture what those Polaroids looked like with as much specificity as possible. Every charcter in the film outside of the cops had Polaroid references. And it was really important to shoot a movie about L.A. in the city of L.A., and to find pockets of the city that still looked the same as they did [in Eddie Dodson’s heyday].
The movie is structured like a countdown: Each section begins with a title card featuring a number, starting with 10 at the beginning of the film and concluding with 0. What is the significance of that countdown?
I like things that have a formalism to them. It makes it so the movie is an accumulation of moments, instead of just a traditional narrative. And also, the idea was to have the film be like a mixtape about a bank robber. So each chapter is like a track, and layers are being peeled back until you get to an essential moment at the end–the “0” moment.
What does the title of the movie mean to you?
It was just descriptive of someone going down. Honestly, I wanted to change the title really badly.
What did Jim and Isabel bring to the characters that wasn’t on the page?
They brought everything. What’s on the page is just ideas and a basic concept. And then actors make it real. Isabel has this amazing combination of watchfulness and calm, but also toughness. And Jim is just willing to go to far-out places, and is fearless about taking the risks to actually sound and talk like this guy sounded and talked. It’s a total performance, a total commitment to this character.
Part Two: Actor, Jim Sturgess
How would you describe your character? What’s he like, and what does he want out of life?
Jim Sturgess: He’s pretty outrageous. He’s somebody to respect and somebody to pity at the same time. There’s something fabulous and flamboyant about him, and also a little off and creepy. He wants everything out of life, including to be the world’s greatest bank robber. Eddie Dodson lived his life like it was a movie. He was addicted to drugs, and that was all part part of the romance of the time he was living in. He wanted to be a personality amongst some of the biggest personalities hanging around Los Angeles at that time. He was larger than life. And you kind of take your hat off to anyone who could push life that little bit further. We’d all like to think about how cool it would be to rob a bank and get away with it. But most of us would would never go through with it.
Why do you think Eddie does the things he does?
Jim: He’s fueling a fantasy. The romance of it all is an addiction. He says himself, it becomes a drug. I think he’s constantly searching for a feeling, for something bigger than what life had been offering him.
Why do you think the character instinctively targets the the most attractive female bank tellers? How does he know they’ll be the most cooperative?
Jim: He knows his strengths. He knows he’s charming. He’s very at ease around people, specifically women. Eddie Dodson was brought up by women. He knew that he had the gift.
Why do you think Eddie and Pauline are drawn to each other?
Jim: They intrigue each other. I don’t know if Eddie even quite knows who this girl really is, or what she wants from him. And she just arrives into the film out of nowhere. You see her get off a Greyhound bus, but you don’t really know where she’s come from. You know she’s sort of lost and on her own in the city. But as you watch their relationship, it seems like they’re both slightly on their back foot, working each other out. It doesn’t feel like they’re madly, passionately in love with each other. There are scenes where it seems like they’re using each other, really. I mean once he’s caught, she’s fuckin’ outta there. She’s already with the next guy.
Do you think Eddie lived in a bit of a fantasy world?
Jim: Yeah, I think he lived too much in the world of fantasy and romance. He had a very warped perception of the reality he was living in, especially with drugs kicking around his veins. And I think the film tries to give you that feeling: It’s sort of hazy and lucid. And I think that’s Eddie’s head space. I love the idea that he made mixtapes to go and rob banks to. He’d put on his favorite fuckin’ Iggy Pop tune, or some Clash, to get himself in the mood. Which means he wasn’t thinking rationally. He wasn’t meticulously planning a bank robbery. He was just playing out like he was a rock star, like he was the lead part in the movie of his life.
How did the mannerisms you brought to the performance, from Eddie’s accent to the way he carried himself, complement the character?
Jim: I didn’t know anything about Eddie Dodson when I first read the script. I didn’t know how he looked, I didn’t know how he sounded. And none of his mannerisms were written on the page, really. It just said he was very charming. I I knew there was an opportunity to experinment a little bit. And after meeting Tristan, I knew that he was the kind of director that would embrace experimenting and trying different things. He wanted something different as much as I did. We both said, let’s fuck with this, let’s push it. I sent him some recordings of me putting on an accent and doing some voice stuff. And Tristan sent me these recordings of Eddie on the phone in prison, and they were really scratchy and kind of hard to hear, but they changed everything for me. I was like, okay, he’s not this cool badass. He’s sort of camp, and a bit weird.
Being English, have you have done a southern California accent before?
No, never.
How did you practice that?
Jim: I actually told a bunch of stories [into a recorder] as Eddie, and sent those recordings to Tristan. One of the recordings Tristan had sent me was of Timothy Ford, who wrote the article [the screenplay was based on], interviewing Eddie over the telephone. And there was one interview where you can’t hear Eddie’s responses–just [Ford's] questions. So I recorded what I thought Eddie’s responses would be. And that was the first thing I sent Tristan, just to see what he thought. I also once talked as Eddie about the first time I fell in love, just making up this random ten minute story. I’d go, Tristan, is this working? And he would get excited about the recordings, or he would go, No, it’s sounding too southern, let’s try and push it more into that sort of L.A. drawl.
What decisions does Tristan make to help bring out the best performances in his actors?
Jim: He gets very excited about things. He comes from documentary, and he likes new things being thrown at him, or things that he didn’t expect. A lot of first time [narrative feature] directors are overprepared, and if you do anything outside of their comfort zone, you can throw them. But Tristan is a punk rocker with a rebellious spirit. He lets you feel like you can mess around and try things. At the same time, we shot the film in twenty days, so there wasn’t time to experiment too much. But when you’re making a film, and an actor starts fucking around and trying things, you’ve gotta have balls of steel to still embrace that when the clock is ticking.
What do you think the film ultimately has to say about Eddie Dodson and his exploits?
Jim: Eddie was a romantic, and the film makes bank robbing look fuckin’ cool. It has a cool fuckin’ badass soundtrack. Eddie dresses immaculately. And that’s how he perceived himself. He was Eddie Dodson, this awesome bank robber that just walked in, charmed the tellers, got the money, and walked out as cool as he came in. The idea was to make a film that Eddie would probably enjoy watching about his own life.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Part One: Director, Tristan Patterson, Actress, Isabel Lucas
Tristan, what drew you to the real-life story of Eddie Dodson?
Tristan Patterson: When I first heard the story, there were details that jumped out at me, like the fact that Eddie made mixtapes to play on his getaways, and the fact that he sold art deco furniture. Here’s a guy who’s trying to turn his life into a movie. He’s providing his own soundtrack, he’s providing his own set decoration, he’s putting on wardrobe to get into character. He was all about performance. And I’m also really interested in Los Angeles, and that kind of character really embodies a certain mythology about the city.
Isabel, how would you describe your character, Pauline?
Isabel Lucas: She’s very enigmatic in many ways. She’s searching for something. I feel like she wants to grow up, to fall in love, to live a fantasy, to be a bit rebellious and defiant.
Does Pauline, like Eddie, have a real-life analog?
Tristan: Yeah, that’s one of the things that excited me about the story. There was a girl who came to L.A. and dated him over the nine months when he robbed sixty-three banks. And she just left afterwards. So I really wanted to make a movie that framed the story with that relationship. It starts the first time she sees him, and ends the last time she sees him. It’s a way of looking at L.A. through the dreamy eyes of the sort of girl who still sees everything as being fresh.
Why do you think these two characters are so drawn to each other?
Isabel: I think in many ways, Eddie needs someone to fit the casting for a partner in crime. He was always performing, and that was part of his performance.
Tristan: He wanted to have eyes on him.
Isabel: She’s seeking this kind of rebellious feeling that she’s seen in all these films she’s been watching. And then she meets Eddie in this spontaneous way. And they develop this sense that there are no repercussions for what they’re doing. They meet and fall in love in that mode. But that’s not sustainable.
What are some of the challenges in adapting a real-life story like this, and what are some of the changes you have to make to make it work as a film?
Tristan: You have to have a framing device, a point of view. I’m not telling the whole story of someone’s life. I’m telling a story about a moment in a someone’s life. And that “moment” is this girl meeting him and then leaving him. Everything happens, present tense, inside of that experience. It’s not a rise-and-fall kind of story, where he moves to L.A., then starts a shop, and then gets addicted to drugs, or those sort of traditional bio-pic things.
What do you think sets Eddie apart from other movie bank robbers?
Tristan: For him, robbing banks is about this idea of performance, or becoming the star of your own movie. [The real] Eddie, after robbing his first bank, described the experience in a journal, saying, “I felt like I was part Warren Beatty, part Woody Allen.”
How would you describe the film’s genre?
Tristan: I think it’s an L.A. movie. And it’s a movie about movies. It’s also a lovers-on-the-run movie, but not like “Wild at Heart” or “Badlands,” where the characters hit the road. This is about lovers on the run in the contained world of Los Angeles–the city of their dreams.
Are you from Los Angeles?
Tristan: Yeah
How do the events of the film reflect the personality of the city?
Tristan: L.A. is a city people come to invent or reinvent themselves. In a way, everybody’s giving a performance there. I think this is the ultimate version of that.
What choices did you make to evoke a sense of time and place?
Tristan: I had all of the Polaroids that the real Eddie Dodson’s polaroids took during that ear. We really tried to capture what those Polaroids looked like with as much specificity as possible. Every charcter in the film outside of the cops had Polaroid references. And it was really important to shoot a movie about L.A. in the city of L.A., and to find pockets of the city that still looked the same as they did [in Eddie Dodson’s heyday].
The movie is structured like a countdown: Each section begins with a title card featuring a number, starting with 10 at the beginning of the film and concluding with 0. What is the significance of that countdown?
I like things that have a formalism to them. It makes it so the movie is an accumulation of moments, instead of just a traditional narrative. And also, the idea was to have the film be like a mixtape about a bank robber. So each chapter is like a track, and layers are being peeled back until you get to an essential moment at the end–the “0” moment.
What does the title of the movie mean to you?
It was just descriptive of someone going down. Honestly, I wanted to change the title really badly.
What did Jim and Isabel bring to the characters that wasn’t on the page?
They brought everything. What’s on the page is just ideas and a basic concept. And then actors make it real. Isabel has this amazing combination of watchfulness and calm, but also toughness. And Jim is just willing to go to far-out places, and is fearless about taking the risks to actually sound and talk like this guy sounded and talked. It’s a total performance, a total commitment to this character.
Part Two: Actor, Jim Sturgess
How would you describe your character? What’s he like, and what does he want out of life?
Jim Sturgess: He’s pretty outrageous. He’s somebody to respect and somebody to pity at the same time. There’s something fabulous and flamboyant about him, and also a little off and creepy. He wants everything out of life, including to be the world’s greatest bank robber. Eddie Dodson lived his life like it was a movie. He was addicted to drugs, and that was all part part of the romance of the time he was living in. He wanted to be a personality amongst some of the biggest personalities hanging around Los Angeles at that time. He was larger than life. And you kind of take your hat off to anyone who could push life that little bit further. We’d all like to think about how cool it would be to rob a bank and get away with it. But most of us would would never go through with it.
Why do you think Eddie does the things he does?
Jim: He’s fueling a fantasy. The romance of it all is an addiction. He says himself, it becomes a drug. I think he’s constantly searching for a feeling, for something bigger than what life had been offering him.
Why do you think the character instinctively targets the the most attractive female bank tellers? How does he know they’ll be the most cooperative?
Jim: He knows his strengths. He knows he’s charming. He’s very at ease around people, specifically women. Eddie Dodson was brought up by women. He knew that he had the gift.
Why do you think Eddie and Pauline are drawn to each other?
Jim: They intrigue each other. I don’t know if Eddie even quite knows who this girl really is, or what she wants from him. And she just arrives into the film out of nowhere. You see her get off a Greyhound bus, but you don’t really know where she’s come from. You know she’s sort of lost and on her own in the city. But as you watch their relationship, it seems like they’re both slightly on their back foot, working each other out. It doesn’t feel like they’re madly, passionately in love with each other. There are scenes where it seems like they’re using each other, really. I mean once he’s caught, she’s fuckin’ outta there. She’s already with the next guy.
Do you think Eddie lived in a bit of a fantasy world?
Jim: Yeah, I think he lived too much in the world of fantasy and romance. He had a very warped perception of the reality he was living in, especially with drugs kicking around his veins. And I think the film tries to give you that feeling: It’s sort of hazy and lucid. And I think that’s Eddie’s head space. I love the idea that he made mixtapes to go and rob banks to. He’d put on his favorite fuckin’ Iggy Pop tune, or some Clash, to get himself in the mood. Which means he wasn’t thinking rationally. He wasn’t meticulously planning a bank robbery. He was just playing out like he was a rock star, like he was the lead part in the movie of his life.
How did the mannerisms you brought to the performance, from Eddie’s accent to the way he carried himself, complement the character?
Jim: I didn’t know anything about Eddie Dodson when I first read the script. I didn’t know how he looked, I didn’t know how he sounded. And none of his mannerisms were written on the page, really. It just said he was very charming. I I knew there was an opportunity to experinment a little bit. And after meeting Tristan, I knew that he was the kind of director that would embrace experimenting and trying different things. He wanted something different as much as I did. We both said, let’s fuck with this, let’s push it. I sent him some recordings of me putting on an accent and doing some voice stuff. And Tristan sent me these recordings of Eddie on the phone in prison, and they were really scratchy and kind of hard to hear, but they changed everything for me. I was like, okay, he’s not this cool badass. He’s sort of camp, and a bit weird.
Being English, have you have done a southern California accent before?
No, never.
How did you practice that?
Jim: I actually told a bunch of stories [into a recorder] as Eddie, and sent those recordings to Tristan. One of the recordings Tristan had sent me was of Timothy Ford, who wrote the article [the screenplay was based on], interviewing Eddie over the telephone. And there was one interview where you can’t hear Eddie’s responses–just [Ford's] questions. So I recorded what I thought Eddie’s responses would be. And that was the first thing I sent Tristan, just to see what he thought. I also once talked as Eddie about the first time I fell in love, just making up this random ten minute story. I’d go, Tristan, is this working? And he would get excited about the recordings, or he would go, No, it’s sounding too southern, let’s try and push it more into that sort of L.A. drawl.
What decisions does Tristan make to help bring out the best performances in his actors?
Jim: He gets very excited about things. He comes from documentary, and he likes new things being thrown at him, or things that he didn’t expect. A lot of first time [narrative feature] directors are overprepared, and if you do anything outside of their comfort zone, you can throw them. But Tristan is a punk rocker with a rebellious spirit. He lets you feel like you can mess around and try things. At the same time, we shot the film in twenty days, so there wasn’t time to experiment too much. But when you’re making a film, and an actor starts fucking around and trying things, you’ve gotta have balls of steel to still embrace that when the clock is ticking.
What do you think the film ultimately has to say about Eddie Dodson and his exploits?
Jim: Eddie was a romantic, and the film makes bank robbing look fuckin’ cool. It has a cool fuckin’ badass soundtrack. Eddie dresses immaculately. And that’s how he perceived himself. He was Eddie Dodson, this awesome bank robber that just walked in, charmed the tellers, got the money, and walked out as cool as he came in. The idea was to make a film that Eddie would probably enjoy watching about his own life.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
2014 Tribeca Film Festival Interview: Brent Hodge (Director - 'A Brony Tale')
Born of internet mecca 4chan, the “Brony” phenomenon is a flourishing community of adult, mostly straight, male fans of the children’s cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Brent Hodge’s documentary surveys the members of this surprising subculture, framed by the journey of Ashleigh Ball, one of the show’s voice actors, embracing her unexpected fan base.
How did you become interested in the Bronies, and how did you find your interview subjects?
I was friends with [voice actor] Ashleigh Ball before the project. She’d booked the characters Applejack and Rainbow Dash on “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.” We were out for dinner, and she said that guys had been emailing her who really liked the show, really liked her characters, and called themselves “bronies.” I was completely shocked. And I just said, we have to start filming this. You have to send me these emails as they come in. And the emails started coming in a lot. At one point she told me she’d gotten a really funny email, and said I should come over and film her reading it out loud. It was her getting an invite to BronyCon. And I wanted to go and explore the brony pheonomenon. I started getting ahold of the guys from those emails. One thing let to another, and it just snowballed. I was in with the brony crew as the movement was growing. That first BronyCon was around a thousand people, and I think the latest one was eight thousand. This year they already they have ten thousand confirmed. It’s insane.
What was your reaction when you first started seeing these emails?
I was interested. I wanted to know more. I wanted to look this stuff up online. I just didn’t get it. I didn’t understand what these guys were about, and why they liked a little girl’s show. I found it really fascinating. I actually got surprised along the way by how much access I got. I got to go to the brony dj rave, I got to hang out with [Dusty Rhoades, also known as] the “world’s manliest brony.” I couldn’t stop. I interviewed one, and he would tell me about another guy, and that guy would tell me about another guy who does fan fiction. And I wanted to meet all of them. I was definitely weirded out at the start. It’s a weird concept to get your head around. But as we went through, it started to feel normal. And I could understand what these guys were doing.
Did they ever worry that you were out to get them?
That started to come up, because as I was filming this, the media started to poke fun at them. Fox News did a piece, and Jerry Springer, and Howard Stern. And the bronies became a little more wary about me coming in with cameras. But I always had Ashleigh on my side. When you’re doing a documentary with the biggest voice actor from the show, the bronies want to be a part of that. I think if I didn’t have Ashleigh, I really wouldn’t have had much access. She was like my bodyguard. I could say “Oh, I’m with Rainbow Dash. I’m with Applejack. I’m with the voice, don’t worry. I’m allowed to be here.” Then I became friends with some of them. And they introduced me to their friends, and then we were all friends.
Why do you think the bronies like the show so much?
That was always the first question I would ask. And I would always get, “Oh, the animation’s really good,” or, “The character development’s really good,” or, “I relate to this type of character,” and I would just think, okay, we got through that bullshit answer, let’s get to the real stuff. Really, why are you into the show? You told me the same thing that everyone else did. A lot of the time I would ask some of their history, and some guys had had some rough goes, and some tragedies. So they were resorting back to a show that’s simple and kind and fun and about friendship, and is easy to watch. But the thing I heard the most was, it was never really about the show. They all said the same thing: I came for the show, and I stayed for the community. There was a sense of belonging. These people were finding something that might not be normal, but that was okay, because there were a lot of people there, and they were into it.
Do you think the film dispels any stereotypes?
There are a lot of stereotypes about what it means to be a man in our current culture. What I found with the bronies was, just because they’re into something that men supposedly shouldn’t be into, that didn’t make them less of a man.
The film features two psychologists who discuss various statistics about the bronies. Were there any that surprised you?
Going into this, you’d think a lot of them would be gay. And that wasn’t the case at all. Almost none of them were.
Do you think that being a brony requires a high level of security and self-confidence?
When you’re a brony, you’re associated with the idea that you’re so confident you don’t care what anyone thinks. I mean you feel for a couple of these guys in high school, because they get picked on pretty hard. There was one student with a “My Little Pony” lunch bag, and the school actually told him to stop bringing it in. But then there are guys who are in their mid-twenties and older, and they’ve started to really find confidence. They know who they are. They don’t care that it’s a little girl’s show. And that’s pretty cool.
You’ve mentioned that a lot of the media coverage of the bronies has been contemptuous. Do you hope your film will play some part in changing that?
I never really set out to make a doc that expressed an opinion about bronies. I wasn’t trying to make them feel good, and I wasn’t trying to make them look ridiculous either. I think the film is positive, and it shows them in a good light. But it only shows them in a good light because that’s what I saw. It’s definitely way better than half the media coverage that’s coming out about them. But I hope people take away what they want. If they still think the bronies are odd, then that’s fine. I just hope the film entertains people.
Do you hope to stay involved in the brony community?
Absolutely. As Ashleigh says in the film, as long as “My Little Pony” exists, there will still be bronies. And that’s how I feel too: As long as bronies exist, I’ll probably have some kind of involvement in the community. I’ve made some friends there. I’m not a brony. I don’t love the show. I watched it critically to see what I liked about it, and it didn’t really click with me. So I don’t think I’ll get too in depth in terms of going to conventions and coming up with fan fiction and remixing videos or anything. But I’ll definitely stay connected with all the friends I’ve made.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
How did you become interested in the Bronies, and how did you find your interview subjects?
I was friends with [voice actor] Ashleigh Ball before the project. She’d booked the characters Applejack and Rainbow Dash on “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.” We were out for dinner, and she said that guys had been emailing her who really liked the show, really liked her characters, and called themselves “bronies.” I was completely shocked. And I just said, we have to start filming this. You have to send me these emails as they come in. And the emails started coming in a lot. At one point she told me she’d gotten a really funny email, and said I should come over and film her reading it out loud. It was her getting an invite to BronyCon. And I wanted to go and explore the brony pheonomenon. I started getting ahold of the guys from those emails. One thing let to another, and it just snowballed. I was in with the brony crew as the movement was growing. That first BronyCon was around a thousand people, and I think the latest one was eight thousand. This year they already they have ten thousand confirmed. It’s insane.
What was your reaction when you first started seeing these emails?
I was interested. I wanted to know more. I wanted to look this stuff up online. I just didn’t get it. I didn’t understand what these guys were about, and why they liked a little girl’s show. I found it really fascinating. I actually got surprised along the way by how much access I got. I got to go to the brony dj rave, I got to hang out with [Dusty Rhoades, also known as] the “world’s manliest brony.” I couldn’t stop. I interviewed one, and he would tell me about another guy, and that guy would tell me about another guy who does fan fiction. And I wanted to meet all of them. I was definitely weirded out at the start. It’s a weird concept to get your head around. But as we went through, it started to feel normal. And I could understand what these guys were doing.
Did they ever worry that you were out to get them?
That started to come up, because as I was filming this, the media started to poke fun at them. Fox News did a piece, and Jerry Springer, and Howard Stern. And the bronies became a little more wary about me coming in with cameras. But I always had Ashleigh on my side. When you’re doing a documentary with the biggest voice actor from the show, the bronies want to be a part of that. I think if I didn’t have Ashleigh, I really wouldn’t have had much access. She was like my bodyguard. I could say “Oh, I’m with Rainbow Dash. I’m with Applejack. I’m with the voice, don’t worry. I’m allowed to be here.” Then I became friends with some of them. And they introduced me to their friends, and then we were all friends.
Why do you think the bronies like the show so much?
That was always the first question I would ask. And I would always get, “Oh, the animation’s really good,” or, “The character development’s really good,” or, “I relate to this type of character,” and I would just think, okay, we got through that bullshit answer, let’s get to the real stuff. Really, why are you into the show? You told me the same thing that everyone else did. A lot of the time I would ask some of their history, and some guys had had some rough goes, and some tragedies. So they were resorting back to a show that’s simple and kind and fun and about friendship, and is easy to watch. But the thing I heard the most was, it was never really about the show. They all said the same thing: I came for the show, and I stayed for the community. There was a sense of belonging. These people were finding something that might not be normal, but that was okay, because there were a lot of people there, and they were into it.
Do you think the film dispels any stereotypes?
There are a lot of stereotypes about what it means to be a man in our current culture. What I found with the bronies was, just because they’re into something that men supposedly shouldn’t be into, that didn’t make them less of a man.
The film features two psychologists who discuss various statistics about the bronies. Were there any that surprised you?
Going into this, you’d think a lot of them would be gay. And that wasn’t the case at all. Almost none of them were.
Do you think that being a brony requires a high level of security and self-confidence?
When you’re a brony, you’re associated with the idea that you’re so confident you don’t care what anyone thinks. I mean you feel for a couple of these guys in high school, because they get picked on pretty hard. There was one student with a “My Little Pony” lunch bag, and the school actually told him to stop bringing it in. But then there are guys who are in their mid-twenties and older, and they’ve started to really find confidence. They know who they are. They don’t care that it’s a little girl’s show. And that’s pretty cool.
You’ve mentioned that a lot of the media coverage of the bronies has been contemptuous. Do you hope your film will play some part in changing that?
I never really set out to make a doc that expressed an opinion about bronies. I wasn’t trying to make them feel good, and I wasn’t trying to make them look ridiculous either. I think the film is positive, and it shows them in a good light. But it only shows them in a good light because that’s what I saw. It’s definitely way better than half the media coverage that’s coming out about them. But I hope people take away what they want. If they still think the bronies are odd, then that’s fine. I just hope the film entertains people.
Do you hope to stay involved in the brony community?
Absolutely. As Ashleigh says in the film, as long as “My Little Pony” exists, there will still be bronies. And that’s how I feel too: As long as bronies exist, I’ll probably have some kind of involvement in the community. I’ve made some friends there. I’m not a brony. I don’t love the show. I watched it critically to see what I liked about it, and it didn’t really click with me. So I don’t think I’ll get too in depth in terms of going to conventions and coming up with fan fiction and remixing videos or anything. But I’ll definitely stay connected with all the friends I’ve made.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Friday, April 25, 2014
2014 Tribeca Film Festival Interviews: David Heilbroner and Kate Davis (Directors - 'The Newburgh Sting')
Through an insider look at the case of the “Newburgh Four,” ‘The Newburgh Sting‘ reveals the FBI’s role in targeting Muslim communities in poor neighborhoods and luring believers into committing acts of terrorism. Husband & wife team David Heilbroner & Kate Davis’ (Southern Comfort) exposé dissects the story of the four men arrested in 2009 for a plan to bomb Jewish centers in the Bronx. Led by a suspicious Pakistani businessman with questionable motives, the film exposes how these men—over the course of a year—went from being small-time criminals in poverty-stricken Newburgh to high-level national security threats. With footage gathered from hidden cameras, directors Heilbroner and Davis investigate just what homegrown terrorism means.
Part One: Director, Kate Davis
How did you and David get involved in this project?
Kate Davis: David had been wanting to do something on Islamophobia. And he went around to various legal conferences to learn about violations against Muslims in the U.S. And I kept on saying, well, we need a good story. And it took a couple years to land on the Newburgh Four as a case that crystallized a lot of the themes that we wanted to look at. From there, we got to know the defense attorneys.
How did you start reaching out to some of your specific interview subjects?
Kate: We worked closely with Sam Braverman, one of the defense attorneys, and he connected us. But that doesn’t mean it was easy to find people who would talk. Most people who know the four perpetrators were too afraid to go on camera. And even some of the defense attorneys were afraid that going on record would somehow jeopardize the appeals process. But I think the film would only help their case. In general, it took a while to get people’s trust. It was Alicia McWilliams, the aunt [of defendant David Williams], who was in a sense the bravest. She had already come out against what the FBI had done, and found other families who were victims of entrapment. So she knew a lot about the issues, and she was completely willing to put herself out there.
One of the things that makes the documentary so convincing is that you use the FBI’s own extensive surveillance footage, which makes it clear that the FBI’s undercover informant concocted every detail of the bomb plot. How did you get ahold of that footage?
Kate: Some of the material is public record because it was shown at trial. But David and I have decided we’re not going to say exactly how we got all of the footage, because we need to protect people who felt like they were risking their jobs by getting us material. But it should really all be a matter of public record.
In your mind, when you watch these tapes, is there any debate as to whether this was entrapment?
Kate: Nope. Can’t say there is. Seeing it is believing it. And I’m used to doing films that show multiple points of view and look at things relativistically. But not in this case. On the other hand, I really tried to stay open to the idea that there was some sort of method to the madness on the FBI’s part, and we tried hard to hear their side of the story. We met with a prosecutor for hours. And it really boiled down to a very simple argument that’s stated in the film: The prosecution felt that these guys were there, they did agree to do this, and that’s enough to convict. But I think for a certain price you can get most people to do anything. If you’re poor and black in Newburgh and somebody starts flashing the promise of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, eventually they might wear you down if your only other option is to be a low bit drug dealer.
What do you think made them a more appealing target, their poverty or their connections to Islam?
Kate: I think in this case targeting poor people was at least as important as the Muslim factor. Because these guys weren’t all actually Muslim. Only two of them were, and they weren’t so religious. I really think what made this formula work for the FBI is that they’re poor, and so they had no voice.
What does the Newburgh Four case say about the current state of affairs between American Muslims and the FBI?
Kate: The FBI has been criticized, and there are changes happening. They’re sending affiliates to go and make friends in Muslim communities. But they still have informants going around. So they’re kind of playing it both ways. There are so many ironies here. And one is that in the name of fighting for the freedom of Americans to live in a country without terrorism, they’re actually potentially creating more terrorists. Because the extreme radical Muslims look at cases like this as a good reason to hate us.
Do you think that the FBI was intentionally misrepresenting certain aspects of the case?
Kate: Absolutely. No question. There were just too many public fallacies. In the film, an FBI spokesperson in New York refers to the Newburgh Four as a terrorist cell that they’d been tracking for a year. It was all bullshit. These four guys were not a cell. They didn’t even know each other.
Do you think this film might change the thinking of any of the public officials who championed this investigation?
Kate: I hope so. We want to show it to Congress, and hope to have a good Washington screening at Silverdocs in June. Because I think when they do see this, they’re just not going to have any place to hide.
What does it say about the American criminal justice system that a conviction could take place, and then be upheld on appeal, when the evidence supporting an entrapment defense was so strong?
Kate: I’m not in the jurors’ minds, but I think there’s just such a fear-based climate, where we’re so terrified on some gut level of the next 9/11, that it’s really hard to let guys go when they agreed to use a stinger missile, even if it’s fake. In a way, the whole policy works because the American public is predisposed to convict whoever’s been pointed at [in terrorism cases]. It’s a little bit of a witch-hunt mentality.
Part Two: Director, David Heilbroner
What led you to this project?
David Heilbroner: Before I was a filmmaker, I was a lawyer and an Assistant DA in New York City. And I’ve written books about law and crime. The justice system, and its failings, have been a huge interest of mine for more than twenty-five years. A few years ago an old law professor of mine said I should look at how the FBI is abusing the Muslim community. And a civil rights professor named Debbie Ramirez offered to pay to have me travel to England and Washington, D.C., to talk to FBI and MI5 officials. I took her up on it, and traveled all over researching the issue. But Kate kept saying, you need a single story to tell. Otherwise it’s just too theoretical. And so we culled through a zillion cases and talked to people, and we came across the case of the Newburgh Four.
Why did this case in particular leap out at you?
David: It contained the elements of so many things that are wrong with the FBI’s tactics in the post-9/11 War on Terror era. But the best thing about the case was that it had gone to trial. And because it went to trial, we could get access to the tapes that the FBI had recorded over the course of this one-year-long sting operation. If these guys had pled guilty, those tapes would still be in a vault, and no one would ever, ever be allowed to see them.
Just how important was it to the project to have access to those tapes?
David: For a filmmaker, there’s nothing like contemporaneous footage. Even if you’re making an archival film, if you can get footage from the moment, it’s gold. Especially if it’s well shot. In this case, we had a one-year-long investigation recorded in every format imaginable. We had telephone calls recorded, we had video cameras in cars, we had video cameras in houses, we had surveillance aerial footage, we had infrared footage, we had still photographs. We had this incredible treasure trove that the FBI had essentially created–they were in the process of making their own movie. We just took their material and told it in a more straightforward fashion.
Did the FBI believe they were doing the right thing?
David: The FBI believes in this. Their feeling is–and there’s something to be said for this–that despite the fact that these men were broke with no options in life, and were being offered $250,000, planting a bomb anywhere is still a dreadful and criminal act. It’s simply wrong. But what was awful about this case was that the FBI created this crime out of whole cloth, and then sold it to the American public as, “We are busting a Muslim ring of terrorists in New York.” And nothing could be further from the truth. The FBI lied blatantly. As the old line goes, the cover-up is worse than the crime. They found these four guys and turned them into patsies, and sent them away for twenty-five years because they [the FBI] incorporated a stinger missile into the case–which legally prevented the judge from giving them a sentence that more appropriately reflected how they were hoodwinked. Let’s be straight: these were bad guys. This film doesn’t argue that four innocent people are in prison. It argues that the FBI is engaged in a systematic duping of the American public, on our dime.
As you point out, The Newburgh Four were not morally innocent. Do you think they should have been deemed legally innocent?
David: I think they should have been convicted of something. When people agree to plant a bomb anywhere, you can’t turn a blind eye to it, even if they were led by the nose. I think they should have been convicted, and the judge should have sentenced them to a year in jail. Even their mothers and aunts say in the film that they should have been sentenced to something. Alicia McWilliams says that [defendant] David [Williams] should have gotten five years for not having common sense. But it’s awful to put guys in prison basically for the rest of their lives for agreeing to commit acts of terrorism that you have seduced them into doing. And then to have [New York City Mayor] Michael Bloomberg, and [New York City Police Commissioner] Ray Kelly, and [U.S.] Senator Chuck Schumer publicly claim that the Newburgh Four were a Muslim ring that had been under surveillance–it besmirches the Muslim community, it dupes the American public into thinking that there is really a terrorist threat when there is not, it dupes Congress into thinking that the FBI is ferreting out this nascent threat, and as a result it wastes our tax dollars. The city of Newburgh does not need a multi-million dollar FBI investigation. The city of Newburgh needs better schools. It needs a jobs program. It doesn’t need [FBI informant] Shahed Hussain coming in and finding four idiots who would do anything for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So that’s really the gist of the film. It isn’t so much about the injustice done to these four guys–although it was a huge injustice–it’s about the fact that the FBI is engaged in blatantly lying to the American public about the truth of what they’re doing. And we’ve caught them dead-to-rights.
What’s in it for them to lie like this?
David: Very simple: Money. If you go into Congress, and you say, “We’re doing really well in the war on terror, there are are hardly any threats at all,” they’re going to cut your budget in half. Homeland security is a big business. Eisenhower talked about the military industrial complex. Now we have the homeland security industrial complex. I believe the FBI is by and large a deeply ethical, motivated, caring, serious organization that does a really good job. But the FBI has gone out of its way to make Congress believe there are more cases like this than in fact exist. It’s cynical, and it’s nothing new.
What does a case like this say about the state of the American criminal justice system?
David: It says that when terrorism is involved, the rules break down. I don’t think this kind of an investigation would happen with this extent of duplicity on the part of the FBI in a drug case, or a gun running case. Terrorism is a hot political button. It freaks out juries and judges, it’s scary, and it’s kind of the crime of the moment, not unlike communism back in the fifties. I think that the justice system is really falling down on the job of keeping prosecutors and law enforcement in line. And I think the appeals courts need to tighten up the rules.
What can else can be done to improve the system?
David: What needs to be done right now is what we plan to do with this film over the next year: spark a congressional investigation into why the FBI does this and lies to the public about it afterwards. And I think the Newburgh Four should be pardoned after serving five years, because that’s more than enough time for people who were sucked into doing something by the FBI. This has to be exposed. I think this is just what congressional investigations are for. There has to be some accountability. So we’ve been raising money to go across the country barnstorming. We’ve got the support of all the major Muslim grassroots organizations. We’ve now drawn the interest of major foundations. We’re going to try and change the law.
How exactly does one start a congressional investigation?
David: You need advocates on Capitol Hill. And the way you get people’s attention on Capitol Hill is through, essentially, a quasi political campaign. A write-in campaign, petitions, telephone calls, and influencing. You need to have op-ed pieces, you need to have opinion-makers on your side. So in order to pull that together, we need to go city to city. We need to have panels and screenings, targeted to certain groups. And we need to get leaders who have influence with their elected officials who will meet with them and hand them petitions, and show that there’s a real interest in reform–that the people are deeply offended when they’re lied to. And I think we have an issue that has real traction at this moment in time.
And do you think the more people see the film, the more traction you’ll get?
David: Yes, I believe that to be the case.
The Newburgh case is being appealed to the Supreme Court right now. What specific arguments are being made there?
David: I just read the brief. What’s going to the Supreme Court is the question of, what is entrapment? There are two parts of entrapment: One is, was it the government’s idea to commit the crime? And everyone agrees that it was. Even the prosecutors agree: It was the government’s idea to create this event. The second issue is, was the defendant “predisposed?” In other words, had they done this kind of thing before? Were they asking around about doing it? And in this case, lower courts ruled that if they agreed to do it, that means they are predisposed. But if you think about it, that means there can never be a viable entrapment defense. So entrapment law has essentially been eviscerated by the courts. That’s now true in New York, but it’s not true in California, where you still have to prove predisposition. So now there’s what’s called a “circuit split,” where… [different appeals courts have ruled differently]. Hopefully the Supreme Court will rule in favor of a viable entrapment defense, where you can look at the backgrounds of the defendants and say, These guys aren’t terrorists. They may have done many bad things, but they’re certainly not terrorists. And in this case, therefore, they were entrapped by the government into committing a crime they never, ever would have done on their own.
Read the interviews at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Part One: Director, Kate Davis
How did you and David get involved in this project?
Kate Davis: David had been wanting to do something on Islamophobia. And he went around to various legal conferences to learn about violations against Muslims in the U.S. And I kept on saying, well, we need a good story. And it took a couple years to land on the Newburgh Four as a case that crystallized a lot of the themes that we wanted to look at. From there, we got to know the defense attorneys.
How did you start reaching out to some of your specific interview subjects?
Kate: We worked closely with Sam Braverman, one of the defense attorneys, and he connected us. But that doesn’t mean it was easy to find people who would talk. Most people who know the four perpetrators were too afraid to go on camera. And even some of the defense attorneys were afraid that going on record would somehow jeopardize the appeals process. But I think the film would only help their case. In general, it took a while to get people’s trust. It was Alicia McWilliams, the aunt [of defendant David Williams], who was in a sense the bravest. She had already come out against what the FBI had done, and found other families who were victims of entrapment. So she knew a lot about the issues, and she was completely willing to put herself out there.
One of the things that makes the documentary so convincing is that you use the FBI’s own extensive surveillance footage, which makes it clear that the FBI’s undercover informant concocted every detail of the bomb plot. How did you get ahold of that footage?
Kate: Some of the material is public record because it was shown at trial. But David and I have decided we’re not going to say exactly how we got all of the footage, because we need to protect people who felt like they were risking their jobs by getting us material. But it should really all be a matter of public record.
In your mind, when you watch these tapes, is there any debate as to whether this was entrapment?
Kate: Nope. Can’t say there is. Seeing it is believing it. And I’m used to doing films that show multiple points of view and look at things relativistically. But not in this case. On the other hand, I really tried to stay open to the idea that there was some sort of method to the madness on the FBI’s part, and we tried hard to hear their side of the story. We met with a prosecutor for hours. And it really boiled down to a very simple argument that’s stated in the film: The prosecution felt that these guys were there, they did agree to do this, and that’s enough to convict. But I think for a certain price you can get most people to do anything. If you’re poor and black in Newburgh and somebody starts flashing the promise of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, eventually they might wear you down if your only other option is to be a low bit drug dealer.
What do you think made them a more appealing target, their poverty or their connections to Islam?
Kate: I think in this case targeting poor people was at least as important as the Muslim factor. Because these guys weren’t all actually Muslim. Only two of them were, and they weren’t so religious. I really think what made this formula work for the FBI is that they’re poor, and so they had no voice.
What does the Newburgh Four case say about the current state of affairs between American Muslims and the FBI?
Kate: The FBI has been criticized, and there are changes happening. They’re sending affiliates to go and make friends in Muslim communities. But they still have informants going around. So they’re kind of playing it both ways. There are so many ironies here. And one is that in the name of fighting for the freedom of Americans to live in a country without terrorism, they’re actually potentially creating more terrorists. Because the extreme radical Muslims look at cases like this as a good reason to hate us.
Do you think that the FBI was intentionally misrepresenting certain aspects of the case?
Kate: Absolutely. No question. There were just too many public fallacies. In the film, an FBI spokesperson in New York refers to the Newburgh Four as a terrorist cell that they’d been tracking for a year. It was all bullshit. These four guys were not a cell. They didn’t even know each other.
Do you think this film might change the thinking of any of the public officials who championed this investigation?
Kate: I hope so. We want to show it to Congress, and hope to have a good Washington screening at Silverdocs in June. Because I think when they do see this, they’re just not going to have any place to hide.
What does it say about the American criminal justice system that a conviction could take place, and then be upheld on appeal, when the evidence supporting an entrapment defense was so strong?
Kate: I’m not in the jurors’ minds, but I think there’s just such a fear-based climate, where we’re so terrified on some gut level of the next 9/11, that it’s really hard to let guys go when they agreed to use a stinger missile, even if it’s fake. In a way, the whole policy works because the American public is predisposed to convict whoever’s been pointed at [in terrorism cases]. It’s a little bit of a witch-hunt mentality.
Part Two: Director, David Heilbroner
What led you to this project?
David Heilbroner: Before I was a filmmaker, I was a lawyer and an Assistant DA in New York City. And I’ve written books about law and crime. The justice system, and its failings, have been a huge interest of mine for more than twenty-five years. A few years ago an old law professor of mine said I should look at how the FBI is abusing the Muslim community. And a civil rights professor named Debbie Ramirez offered to pay to have me travel to England and Washington, D.C., to talk to FBI and MI5 officials. I took her up on it, and traveled all over researching the issue. But Kate kept saying, you need a single story to tell. Otherwise it’s just too theoretical. And so we culled through a zillion cases and talked to people, and we came across the case of the Newburgh Four.
Why did this case in particular leap out at you?
David: It contained the elements of so many things that are wrong with the FBI’s tactics in the post-9/11 War on Terror era. But the best thing about the case was that it had gone to trial. And because it went to trial, we could get access to the tapes that the FBI had recorded over the course of this one-year-long sting operation. If these guys had pled guilty, those tapes would still be in a vault, and no one would ever, ever be allowed to see them.
Just how important was it to the project to have access to those tapes?
David: For a filmmaker, there’s nothing like contemporaneous footage. Even if you’re making an archival film, if you can get footage from the moment, it’s gold. Especially if it’s well shot. In this case, we had a one-year-long investigation recorded in every format imaginable. We had telephone calls recorded, we had video cameras in cars, we had video cameras in houses, we had surveillance aerial footage, we had infrared footage, we had still photographs. We had this incredible treasure trove that the FBI had essentially created–they were in the process of making their own movie. We just took their material and told it in a more straightforward fashion.
Did the FBI believe they were doing the right thing?
David: The FBI believes in this. Their feeling is–and there’s something to be said for this–that despite the fact that these men were broke with no options in life, and were being offered $250,000, planting a bomb anywhere is still a dreadful and criminal act. It’s simply wrong. But what was awful about this case was that the FBI created this crime out of whole cloth, and then sold it to the American public as, “We are busting a Muslim ring of terrorists in New York.” And nothing could be further from the truth. The FBI lied blatantly. As the old line goes, the cover-up is worse than the crime. They found these four guys and turned them into patsies, and sent them away for twenty-five years because they [the FBI] incorporated a stinger missile into the case–which legally prevented the judge from giving them a sentence that more appropriately reflected how they were hoodwinked. Let’s be straight: these were bad guys. This film doesn’t argue that four innocent people are in prison. It argues that the FBI is engaged in a systematic duping of the American public, on our dime.
As you point out, The Newburgh Four were not morally innocent. Do you think they should have been deemed legally innocent?
David: I think they should have been convicted of something. When people agree to plant a bomb anywhere, you can’t turn a blind eye to it, even if they were led by the nose. I think they should have been convicted, and the judge should have sentenced them to a year in jail. Even their mothers and aunts say in the film that they should have been sentenced to something. Alicia McWilliams says that [defendant] David [Williams] should have gotten five years for not having common sense. But it’s awful to put guys in prison basically for the rest of their lives for agreeing to commit acts of terrorism that you have seduced them into doing. And then to have [New York City Mayor] Michael Bloomberg, and [New York City Police Commissioner] Ray Kelly, and [U.S.] Senator Chuck Schumer publicly claim that the Newburgh Four were a Muslim ring that had been under surveillance–it besmirches the Muslim community, it dupes the American public into thinking that there is really a terrorist threat when there is not, it dupes Congress into thinking that the FBI is ferreting out this nascent threat, and as a result it wastes our tax dollars. The city of Newburgh does not need a multi-million dollar FBI investigation. The city of Newburgh needs better schools. It needs a jobs program. It doesn’t need [FBI informant] Shahed Hussain coming in and finding four idiots who would do anything for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So that’s really the gist of the film. It isn’t so much about the injustice done to these four guys–although it was a huge injustice–it’s about the fact that the FBI is engaged in blatantly lying to the American public about the truth of what they’re doing. And we’ve caught them dead-to-rights.
What’s in it for them to lie like this?
David: Very simple: Money. If you go into Congress, and you say, “We’re doing really well in the war on terror, there are are hardly any threats at all,” they’re going to cut your budget in half. Homeland security is a big business. Eisenhower talked about the military industrial complex. Now we have the homeland security industrial complex. I believe the FBI is by and large a deeply ethical, motivated, caring, serious organization that does a really good job. But the FBI has gone out of its way to make Congress believe there are more cases like this than in fact exist. It’s cynical, and it’s nothing new.
What does a case like this say about the state of the American criminal justice system?
David: It says that when terrorism is involved, the rules break down. I don’t think this kind of an investigation would happen with this extent of duplicity on the part of the FBI in a drug case, or a gun running case. Terrorism is a hot political button. It freaks out juries and judges, it’s scary, and it’s kind of the crime of the moment, not unlike communism back in the fifties. I think that the justice system is really falling down on the job of keeping prosecutors and law enforcement in line. And I think the appeals courts need to tighten up the rules.
What can else can be done to improve the system?
David: What needs to be done right now is what we plan to do with this film over the next year: spark a congressional investigation into why the FBI does this and lies to the public about it afterwards. And I think the Newburgh Four should be pardoned after serving five years, because that’s more than enough time for people who were sucked into doing something by the FBI. This has to be exposed. I think this is just what congressional investigations are for. There has to be some accountability. So we’ve been raising money to go across the country barnstorming. We’ve got the support of all the major Muslim grassroots organizations. We’ve now drawn the interest of major foundations. We’re going to try and change the law.
How exactly does one start a congressional investigation?
David: You need advocates on Capitol Hill. And the way you get people’s attention on Capitol Hill is through, essentially, a quasi political campaign. A write-in campaign, petitions, telephone calls, and influencing. You need to have op-ed pieces, you need to have opinion-makers on your side. So in order to pull that together, we need to go city to city. We need to have panels and screenings, targeted to certain groups. And we need to get leaders who have influence with their elected officials who will meet with them and hand them petitions, and show that there’s a real interest in reform–that the people are deeply offended when they’re lied to. And I think we have an issue that has real traction at this moment in time.
And do you think the more people see the film, the more traction you’ll get?
David: Yes, I believe that to be the case.
The Newburgh case is being appealed to the Supreme Court right now. What specific arguments are being made there?
David: I just read the brief. What’s going to the Supreme Court is the question of, what is entrapment? There are two parts of entrapment: One is, was it the government’s idea to commit the crime? And everyone agrees that it was. Even the prosecutors agree: It was the government’s idea to create this event. The second issue is, was the defendant “predisposed?” In other words, had they done this kind of thing before? Were they asking around about doing it? And in this case, lower courts ruled that if they agreed to do it, that means they are predisposed. But if you think about it, that means there can never be a viable entrapment defense. So entrapment law has essentially been eviscerated by the courts. That’s now true in New York, but it’s not true in California, where you still have to prove predisposition. So now there’s what’s called a “circuit split,” where… [different appeals courts have ruled differently]. Hopefully the Supreme Court will rule in favor of a viable entrapment defense, where you can look at the backgrounds of the defendants and say, These guys aren’t terrorists. They may have done many bad things, but they’re certainly not terrorists. And in this case, therefore, they were entrapped by the government into committing a crime they never, ever would have done on their own.
Read the interviews at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
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