"In this emotional documentary, we meet Chris Schoeck, a pint-sized powerhouse of a personal trainer. He spends his days pushing others to push themselves, but rarely challenges himself. In his mid-40s, he lives alone and admits he doesn’t have any meaningful relationships. But he has one growing passion: bending steel with his hands. Nails, horseshoes, crowbars, he’s building his abilities. When you bend steel, he says, you can do anything."
Over the course of developing, shooting and editing this film, did you learn anything about Coney Island you had not known prior? How has the atmosphere of Coney Island changed since the golden days of strongmen?
Dave Carroll: I was aware of the mythos and history of Coney Island but had never really spent much time there. The amusements, the beach, the food and the people were all relatively distant to me. It was just another place on the outer edge of the city that I would hear about from time to time.
Filming ‘Bending Steel’ changed that, as it required us to be out there regularly. We spent many frigid mornings on the beach catching that early winter light and many hot days on the crowded boardwalk during summer. Those moments galvanized a strong impression of Coney Island for me. Like all lasting impressions it required those experiences to make it personal and real.
It’s hard to say how Coney Island has changed over the years as it seems to be a place that is constantly in flux. There has always been forces that have tried to change it and modernize it, just as there have always been people who want to see it remain the same. It’s a magical place and some balance between old and new has to be struck before it’s bleached clean of its history. The strongmen coming back to Coney Island is a step in the right direction though.
Ryan Scafuro: I had spent a decent amount of time at Coney prior to filming Bending Steel. I remember my grandmother telling me stories about her experiences there when she was younger. So when I first moved back to NY from Boston and was living here as an adult, I tried to head down there whenever I could. As Chris says in the film, “every personality that wouldn’t fit in anywhere else should come here.” There are so many different types of people and characters down there, and that is a big part of what I love about it. It’s a place where anybody can fit in, or NOT fit in and still feel comfortable. I mean it’s a beach town complete with amusements and a boardwalk in one of the largest cities in the world. There aren’t many places like it. As Dave said it’s a community that is constantly in flux, but I think the diversity is something that has stayed the same through the years. And the strongman/sideshow presence is definitely part of that.
How did you initially come across the film’s premier subject, Chris Schoeck? Why did you want to tell his story?
Dave Carroll: I was in the basement of my apartment building doing laundry with my dog, Gizmo. We heard a noise off in the distance. She took off in that direction and I chased after her. We rounded a corner and standing before us was Chris Schoeck. He was in front of an open storage locker. Gizmo went inside to investigate. I didn’t get a good look at what Chris was doing until I went in to pick her up. The storage space was crammed with an assortment of bizarre objects. Nails were bent and thrown in to piles, phonebooks where torn and heaped together, chains hung from the ceiling.
The contents of Chris’ storage space baffled me. I had run in to him before, over the years that I had lived in the building. He would never make eye contact with me when I would greet him in the elevator. He was always awkward and uncomfortable.
I grabbed Gizmo and back peddled away, apologizing for the disturbance. Two weeks later I ran in to him again. I had been thinking about what I had seen ever since Gizmo and I stumbled upon it. I even told some friends about him. I couldn’t help but wonder. So I asked him what was going on down there. The result of that question was ‘Bending Steel.’
I wanted to tell Chris’ story because I found his struggle to be universally relatable. ‘Bending Steel’ was very clearly a metaphor for transformation with far greater implications than just the physical act of reshaping steel. It was about everything in Chris’ life leading up to that moment. He found something in this activity that was slowly changing his life. Everyone is searching for some form of fulfillment in life and it can sometimes come from very surprising places. You don’t have to bend steel to appreciate his struggle.
Ryan Scafuro: Dave and I had been looking for a subject to make short about, just a small project to work on during our free time. When he told me about that first meeting with Chris I was definitely curious. I’ve always been interested in offbeat activities or things that could be considered as a dying artform. The strongman world was a little bit of both. But as we filmed more and more with Chris, more was revealed about his character and the story became much more than just this fringe activity. It became a story about a man finding his place in the world. It became Chris’ story.
Before you had met Chris and begun development of the film, how much did you know about strongmen culture? Was their world at all familiar to you?
Dave Carroll: I didn’t know much of anything regarding strongman culture. I had everything to learn about it, which I felt was an advantage in that it put me in the same position as the audience. Because the film goes far beyond that of strongman culture and focuses predominately on Chris’ personal journal, I wanted to tell the story in a similar manner to how I experienced it, with almost no background info and very little handholding. Subsequently the film unfolds organically, through firsthand witnessing of events as he shares intimate moments with us. These moments and events added both context and subtext to the film.
Ryan Scafuro: Same as Dave, I knew very little to nothing about the oldetime strongmen. We learned as we filmed, and we were learning from people who were immersed in the culture. One of the most exciting things for me about making documentaries is being thrust into a world you would never experience otherwise. That was definitely the case with this film.
What does one’s desire for inclusion/acceptance into niche culture say about our society as a whole? Did you find there are any common reasons that strongmen have taken up this profession over the generations?
Dave Carroll: I think it is not uncommon to feel disconnected from popular culture, even marginalized in some instances. It is second nature for society to operate under demographic consensus. It’s these generic images and ideas of how we are suppose to think and feel that are shoved in to our consciousness under the false pretense of universal compatibility. ‘If it works for some people than it must work for others.’ It’s these distractions that block self-discovery, foster isolation and create disillusionment. Chris was struggling to find his place in society and wasn’t able to find it in conventional places. In many instances he was made to feel bad for previous failures at conforming to standards set by society.
The other strongmen that were in the film seemed to all have similar stories. At some point in their life they felt that they had something to contribute in their own way. This need drove them to strongmanism, a place where improvement requires vast amounts of physical, but also mental, stamina and endurance. Like Chris they were looking for excellence in some form or another. It’s all about self discovery.
Ryan Scafuro: It’s part of human nature to want to feel included or accepted. Like many people, myself included, Chris wasn’t able to find that in traditional arenas. As a youth I found that in the punk rock scene. Chris finds it in the strongman community. It’s a place where he feels comfortable, where he can excel, where he finds approval. I think that has historically drawn people to this world, it becomes a family to them.
Your film has had a very healthy festival life so far. Moving forward, what are your plans to get the film out to the widest possible audience?
Dave Carroll: We plan to continue running the festival circuit for the time being while we make negotiations for theatrical distribution. It’s been a real joy to bring the film to audiences around the world. The reactions to the film have just been phenomenal. People are really inspired by Chris’ journey.
Ryan Scafuro: Word of mouth is crucial for a film like ours. As Dave said, the audience reaction to the film have been amazing. It has been a great experience for us as filmmakers and for Chris as a person. When someone comes up to you after a screening and tells you that the film that you made has changed the way they look at life, it’s overwhelming. We have more festival screenings coming up throughout the summer and fall, and we are all very excited to continue to bring Chris’ story to audiences across the world.
- Interview prepared by David Teich & Steve Rickinson
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Monday, July 8, 2013
Review: 'Comrade Kim Goes Flying'
“Comrade Kim Goes Flying” is the first movie of its kind. Co-financed by Western producers and helmed by directors Kim Gwang Hun (North Korean), Nicholas Bonner (English), and Anja Daelemans (Belgian), it represents unprecedented artistic cooperation between North Korea and the West. But despite Western influences, this story of an aspiring female acrobat is an ode to North Korea’s communist working class. As far as propaganda goes, it could have been worse. The blood hardly boils when the film emphasizes the value of teamwork and community. The problem is artistic: Those elements dilute the sense of individualistic drive that makes rags-to-riches stories soar.
“Comrade Kim” centers on Kim Yong-Mi (Han Jong-sim), a small-town coal-miner who dreams of becoming a trapeze artist. After her father lets her move to Pyongyang to join a construction crew, she auditions to become the lead female trapeze artist at the famed Pyongyang circus. She blows the tryout, and the lead male trapeze artist, Pak Jang-phil (Pak Chung-guk), insults her.
The film repeatedly emphasizes Yong-Mi’s social support structure over her personal ambition. As a member of the “working class” – a term exalted throughout the film – she has encouraging comrades and a benevolent foreman, Commander Sok Gun (Ri Yong-Ho), who helps her train. Shortly after her failed audition, when she dances at a festival, her coworkers beam beatific grins. Yong-Mi’s own toothy smile stretches across her face throughout the film, threatening to tear her lips apart.
Up-by-the-bootstraps stories only work if we invest in protagonists’ desires. This is far easier if they are trying to escape an unpleasant existence and operate under their own steam. From Dickens’s ‘Great Expectations’ to Avildsen’s ‘Rocky’ to Raimi’s ‘Spider-Man’, effective rags-to-riches films begin with, well, rags. And while protagonists may have help along the way, they must ultimately leave the herd. Not so with Yong-Mi. When, for example, she beats Jang-phil in a cement-mixing contest, it is clear she takes pride in her craft and her working class status. We are asked to invest in Yong-Mi’s individual aspirations even though her life and relationships are already ideal.
Jin Sok Hwang’s cinematography, filled with vivid colors and expansive long shots of the Pyongyang cityscape (geared toward maximum glorification of the city), is admittedly impressive. And the film does, at points, showcase Yong-Mi’s individualism; an arduous third-act training montage illustrates her intense personal drive.
When the film emphasizes Yong-Mi’s solo efforts, it is genuinely affecting. When it suggests she can only succeed with the help of her working class brethren, it is harder to care about her journey. But perhaps a North Korean film that expresses any individualistic sensibilities whatsoever is a minor miracle.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
“Comrade Kim” centers on Kim Yong-Mi (Han Jong-sim), a small-town coal-miner who dreams of becoming a trapeze artist. After her father lets her move to Pyongyang to join a construction crew, she auditions to become the lead female trapeze artist at the famed Pyongyang circus. She blows the tryout, and the lead male trapeze artist, Pak Jang-phil (Pak Chung-guk), insults her.
The film repeatedly emphasizes Yong-Mi’s social support structure over her personal ambition. As a member of the “working class” – a term exalted throughout the film – she has encouraging comrades and a benevolent foreman, Commander Sok Gun (Ri Yong-Ho), who helps her train. Shortly after her failed audition, when she dances at a festival, her coworkers beam beatific grins. Yong-Mi’s own toothy smile stretches across her face throughout the film, threatening to tear her lips apart.
Up-by-the-bootstraps stories only work if we invest in protagonists’ desires. This is far easier if they are trying to escape an unpleasant existence and operate under their own steam. From Dickens’s ‘Great Expectations’ to Avildsen’s ‘Rocky’ to Raimi’s ‘Spider-Man’, effective rags-to-riches films begin with, well, rags. And while protagonists may have help along the way, they must ultimately leave the herd. Not so with Yong-Mi. When, for example, she beats Jang-phil in a cement-mixing contest, it is clear she takes pride in her craft and her working class status. We are asked to invest in Yong-Mi’s individual aspirations even though her life and relationships are already ideal.
Jin Sok Hwang’s cinematography, filled with vivid colors and expansive long shots of the Pyongyang cityscape (geared toward maximum glorification of the city), is admittedly impressive. And the film does, at points, showcase Yong-Mi’s individualism; an arduous third-act training montage illustrates her intense personal drive.
When the film emphasizes Yong-Mi’s solo efforts, it is genuinely affecting. When it suggests she can only succeed with the help of her working class brethren, it is harder to care about her journey. But perhaps a North Korean film that expresses any individualistic sensibilities whatsoever is a minor miracle.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Rooftop Films Filmmaker Profile: Mia Engberg (Director - 'Belleville Baby')
"What do you do when an ex-boyfriend calls you after mysteriously disappearing years before? What do you do if you’ve moved on from that painful loss, happily started a family, completely changed your life for the better? What do you do if your past is something you’d rather forget, something perhaps unpleasant? Filmmaker Mia Engberg received such a phone call, and wanted to ignore it. But she couldn’t. Her memories, foggy and unclear, were too alluring.The hybrid documentary ‘BELLEVILLE BABY‘ is framed by the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. His lover sucked down into Hades, Orpheus negotiates her release (via an act of beautiful artistry) on one condition: that he not look back, not remember what he’s seen. The man in this film is desperately trying to look back, and once again the search may not be beneficial for the woman. Our man has indeed been in an unspeakable place, a cruel and violent prison, and he has developed a necessary blunt cynicism he is now trying to pierce by rekindling beloved memories."
Your film involves reconnecting with Vincent, a criminal with whom you shared a romantic relationship many years ago. You have said the story was so personal that during production you were not sure if you would show anyone the completed film. What made you initially decide to pursue the project? How was this film’s production important to you personally?
I didn’t really want to make this film, but I couldn’t get it out of my system. It kept coming back to me so finally I just went with the flow and made it. I guess it was my way of dealing with the loss and the sorrow after realizing that Vincent wasted all those years in prison.
At first it was just a text and a black film. The images came later. While making it I wasn’t even sure if it was going to be a film.
You frame the film by recounting the Greek myth of Orpheus. Can you explain how the myth applies to your own narrative?
The Orpheus myth is my favorite among the greek myths. Orpheus goes down to the underworld to get his beloved Eurydice back, but he loses her in the last minute. To me it is a story about passion. You try to grasp it and it’s gone. It is also a story about wanting to save someone with your love. Everyone who has been in love with someone who is into crime or drugs or any kind of addiction knows that it is impossible. Everyone has to deal with their own darkness. That is the heart of Belleville Baby. The sorrow of not being able to save someone you love.
The film, which mixes a variety of audio and visual content, is experimental. You have even said that at one point you were worried few people would understand it. Why was it important to tell this story in such a non-traditional way? How did the format complement the content?
I find mainstream fiction and documentaries very boring. The stories are predictable and the way they are told doesn’t trigger my fantasy. Why does every feature film has to be told in the same way? Who made up those rules? I like films that try to use the cinematic tools to make something new and surprising. I wanted to destroy classic cinema. Like Marguerite Duras and Chris Marker.
In the film, you and Vincent remember the past differently. In what ways is memory an interesting topic to you? What does the film say about how subjective the idea of memory can be?
Me and Vincent don’t remember the same things about our common past. In the film he tells me about the happiest moment in his life, that we spent together, but I don’t remember it. I think we chose our memories to create ourselves. Our identity. In a way you could say that memory is our way of writing the fiction about ourselves. I find the concept of time interesting too. And scaring. One moment we are here. The next moment we are gone. Isn’t that very scary? I think that’s why we we make films - to resist time, to freeze the moment and make it eternal.
Since “Belleville Baby” has only recently begun screening in the U.S, how have American audiences received the film so far? Does their reaction differ from that of European audiences? To what extent will you now focus on the U.S. festival circuit?
After Belleville Baby screened in Seattle Film Festival I got a wonderful letter from someone in the audience who wanted to tell me about his own memories. This happens every time the film shows actually, same in Europe, people feels personally connected somehow and want to tell their own stories. I never had that with my previous films. I guess we all have a Vincent somewhere in the past. Someone lost and loved who stayed in our memory.
The film has been very well received everywhere except in France, which is interesting since the story takes place in Paris and Vincent did his time in a French prison.
I am very much looking forward to have more screenings in the US. There seems to be a great interest here in independent cinema. This week we screen in Rooftop Films in New York and then Mill Valley Festival in California. I hope there will be more.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Your film involves reconnecting with Vincent, a criminal with whom you shared a romantic relationship many years ago. You have said the story was so personal that during production you were not sure if you would show anyone the completed film. What made you initially decide to pursue the project? How was this film’s production important to you personally?
I didn’t really want to make this film, but I couldn’t get it out of my system. It kept coming back to me so finally I just went with the flow and made it. I guess it was my way of dealing with the loss and the sorrow after realizing that Vincent wasted all those years in prison.
At first it was just a text and a black film. The images came later. While making it I wasn’t even sure if it was going to be a film.
You frame the film by recounting the Greek myth of Orpheus. Can you explain how the myth applies to your own narrative?
The Orpheus myth is my favorite among the greek myths. Orpheus goes down to the underworld to get his beloved Eurydice back, but he loses her in the last minute. To me it is a story about passion. You try to grasp it and it’s gone. It is also a story about wanting to save someone with your love. Everyone who has been in love with someone who is into crime or drugs or any kind of addiction knows that it is impossible. Everyone has to deal with their own darkness. That is the heart of Belleville Baby. The sorrow of not being able to save someone you love.
The film, which mixes a variety of audio and visual content, is experimental. You have even said that at one point you were worried few people would understand it. Why was it important to tell this story in such a non-traditional way? How did the format complement the content?
I find mainstream fiction and documentaries very boring. The stories are predictable and the way they are told doesn’t trigger my fantasy. Why does every feature film has to be told in the same way? Who made up those rules? I like films that try to use the cinematic tools to make something new and surprising. I wanted to destroy classic cinema. Like Marguerite Duras and Chris Marker.
In the film, you and Vincent remember the past differently. In what ways is memory an interesting topic to you? What does the film say about how subjective the idea of memory can be?
Me and Vincent don’t remember the same things about our common past. In the film he tells me about the happiest moment in his life, that we spent together, but I don’t remember it. I think we chose our memories to create ourselves. Our identity. In a way you could say that memory is our way of writing the fiction about ourselves. I find the concept of time interesting too. And scaring. One moment we are here. The next moment we are gone. Isn’t that very scary? I think that’s why we we make films - to resist time, to freeze the moment and make it eternal.
Since “Belleville Baby” has only recently begun screening in the U.S, how have American audiences received the film so far? Does their reaction differ from that of European audiences? To what extent will you now focus on the U.S. festival circuit?
After Belleville Baby screened in Seattle Film Festival I got a wonderful letter from someone in the audience who wanted to tell me about his own memories. This happens every time the film shows actually, same in Europe, people feels personally connected somehow and want to tell their own stories. I never had that with my previous films. I guess we all have a Vincent somewhere in the past. Someone lost and loved who stayed in our memory.
The film has been very well received everywhere except in France, which is interesting since the story takes place in Paris and Vincent did his time in a French prison.
I am very much looking forward to have more screenings in the US. There seems to be a great interest here in independent cinema. This week we screen in Rooftop Films in New York and then Mill Valley Festival in California. I hope there will be more.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Rooftop Films Filmmaker Profile: Penny Lane (Director, 'Our Nixon')
"As years pass, historic figures appear less human and more legend; Richard Nixon has gone all the way to caricature. For those on the right, Nixon represents the tough but dowdy old school conservatives; to the left, he’s “Tricky Dick,” the wily cheating bully. The real Nixon was a more complicated character. Reading about Nixon today may spark startling revelations about some of Nixon’s remarkably liberal policies, or his undeniably villainous abuses. But nothing will reveal the truth about this complex figure better than his own staff’s home movies, artfully crafted here by director Penny Lane."
Prior to the films production, what interested you in the Nixon presidency? How were you confident the raw archival footage (shot by Nixon’s staff) would make for a compelling narrative?
I was not particularly interested in Nixon or the era of his presidency before this project. The narcissism of the baby boomers, who now occupy almost every position of power and influence, has meant that a seriously disproportionate amount of attention is paid to the 1960s and 1970s in our popular culture. Someone my age (I am 35) has spent their entire life listening to an endless drone about Nixon, Vietnam, Woodstock and all the rest, sort of as if nothing else of interest has ever happened. So I am the last person in the world one would expect to make a Nixon movie.
But, then there were these amazing home movies, and I simply could not resist them. Brian (my co-producer, whose actually had the original idea for the film) and I were quite confident that the Super 8 home movies were fascinating, but as to whether or not they on their own made a compelling narrative – well, no, they didn’t. Not at all! So first, we spent as much time as possible just watching them, out of context, without initially knowing very much about the people, places and events depicted in them, to try to listen to what story they wanted to tell. And once we had decided what that story was, we set about positioning the home movies within a larger framework of news footage, interviews, White House tapes, diaries, etc., which of course involved a tremendous amount of research.
What are the specific challenges in producing a coherent documentary wholly from archival footage? During production, was it ever frustrating to be unable to film and/or interview your own subjects?
Well, you’re constrained to the historical record, so you can’t make (or ask) someone to say or do something you feel would really help your film. But that didn’t really bother me. Both Brian and I have made lots of films using found and archival materials, so the scavenger working method was familiar to us. There’s an element of chance and luck that I find exhilarating. And frankly, I am uncomfortable pointing a camera at people, so this is great for me in that way.
But Brian and I made it even harder on ourselves by deciding we would not use still images (i.e., photographs or newspaper headlines) or any kind of “reconstructions,” even in voiceover (i.e., having an actor read from Ehrlichman’s memoir, or having a single narrator). In part, we made these decisions because we wanted everything to feel as present tense as possible, but we also wanted to stay as far away from the audience’s preconceptions about the aesthetics and tropes of “historical documentary.” I don’t know why one would spend years of one’s life working on a film, just to make something that looks and feels like every other film. That just seems boring.
But there are, of course, plenty of challenges to this method; for example, there were certain themes and story ideas we were really interested in that we just had to let go, because we didn’t have the material to flesh them out. That was a bit frustrating. And our editor, Francisco Bello, had to work really hard with us to construct a coherent and entertaining narrative out of all these fragments of history, without relying on the typical “historical documentary” devices. One of the reasons we chose Francisco was that he wasn’t just willing to take on these challenges; he was really enthusiastic about them, just as Brian and I were.
It must have been hard, if not impossible, to approach Nixon’s presidency without preconceived judgments. What steps did you take to remain fair and objective? In what ways did your views of Nixon and his staff change over the course of production?
I am completely certain that each and every one of us knows too much (or just enough) about Nixon to have quite a few preconceptions. And we were actually counting on that and planning for it in the edit; we knew that our audiences would come to the film with a lot of their own thoughts on the matter. As did we, of course. But Brian and I were able to come to this with a lot more distance and “objectivity,” if we want to use that tricky term, than many others might have, because we just don’t have a dog in this race. We didn’t really care all that much about Watergate, or the anti-war protests, or any of it. We didn’t want to make sure that our viewers would walk away feeling indoctrinated into some particular ideological stance.
Certainly, as Brian and I got deeper and deeper into our research and our thinking, we developed all kinds of opinions, but we did try to keep ourselves out of it. Our approach was to set up the events and themes in the film as a sort of series of battles, and conflicts of points of view, many of which are perhaps irreconcilable in the end, but some of which maybe aren’t. We know our viewers will come in, at least the older ones, with their ideological side already chosen, and that they will root for their team along the way. But if the film is successful, there are moments where even those with the most rigid and settled point of view on Nixon will feel challenged, or will see something in a new light. That is our humble goal.
As far as fairness goes, we weren’t out to hang anyone, or to glorify anyone. We aren’t setting up your sort of standard documentary “pitched battle” where we are telling you who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, and helping you out by cherrypicking the bits that make the good guy look the most good. In a given exchange – let’s say an interview clip where Mike Wallace challenges H.R. Haldeman – you may think that either Wallace is the correct party and the clear winner of the debate. That’s a perfectly fine conclusion, but it is your conclusion, not ours. I don’t think we included one line in the film if we didn’t think the speaker had a fair point.
Well, let me take that back… I can’t say “never.” When Nixon goes on his rant about how homosexuals are destroying America just like they destroyed Rome, we didn’t include that because he has a “fair point.” He definitely does not! We included that bit because it is insane, and insanely hilarious, and gives a sense of both his personal biases and the state of mainstream culture in the 1970s. It’s probably the easiest laugh, and thus the cheapest shot, in the film, and it was debated quite a bit in the edit. But it does serve a point!
This film is as much about Nixon’s staff as it is about Nixon. H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Dwight Chapin – these names are rarely mentioned outside the context of Watergate. What kinds of new discussions do you hope your film will start about these figures?
It will depend what point of view each individual brings into the film. But as I said before, the film provokes some people to think about old ideas a little differently.
Have you noticed increased sympathy from audiences in regards to the Nixon presidency as a result of your documentary? How have audiences reacted to the film in general?
Some people say it makes them like Nixon more, and some say it made them like him less. In general, people laugh a lot. Younger people say it was more interesting than they expected, which is my favorite comment. The response has been overwhelming to us, because we weren’t totally sure if anyone else would be interested in yet another movie about Nixon!
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Prior to the films production, what interested you in the Nixon presidency? How were you confident the raw archival footage (shot by Nixon’s staff) would make for a compelling narrative?
I was not particularly interested in Nixon or the era of his presidency before this project. The narcissism of the baby boomers, who now occupy almost every position of power and influence, has meant that a seriously disproportionate amount of attention is paid to the 1960s and 1970s in our popular culture. Someone my age (I am 35) has spent their entire life listening to an endless drone about Nixon, Vietnam, Woodstock and all the rest, sort of as if nothing else of interest has ever happened. So I am the last person in the world one would expect to make a Nixon movie.
But, then there were these amazing home movies, and I simply could not resist them. Brian (my co-producer, whose actually had the original idea for the film) and I were quite confident that the Super 8 home movies were fascinating, but as to whether or not they on their own made a compelling narrative – well, no, they didn’t. Not at all! So first, we spent as much time as possible just watching them, out of context, without initially knowing very much about the people, places and events depicted in them, to try to listen to what story they wanted to tell. And once we had decided what that story was, we set about positioning the home movies within a larger framework of news footage, interviews, White House tapes, diaries, etc., which of course involved a tremendous amount of research.
What are the specific challenges in producing a coherent documentary wholly from archival footage? During production, was it ever frustrating to be unable to film and/or interview your own subjects?
Well, you’re constrained to the historical record, so you can’t make (or ask) someone to say or do something you feel would really help your film. But that didn’t really bother me. Both Brian and I have made lots of films using found and archival materials, so the scavenger working method was familiar to us. There’s an element of chance and luck that I find exhilarating. And frankly, I am uncomfortable pointing a camera at people, so this is great for me in that way.
But Brian and I made it even harder on ourselves by deciding we would not use still images (i.e., photographs or newspaper headlines) or any kind of “reconstructions,” even in voiceover (i.e., having an actor read from Ehrlichman’s memoir, or having a single narrator). In part, we made these decisions because we wanted everything to feel as present tense as possible, but we also wanted to stay as far away from the audience’s preconceptions about the aesthetics and tropes of “historical documentary.” I don’t know why one would spend years of one’s life working on a film, just to make something that looks and feels like every other film. That just seems boring.
But there are, of course, plenty of challenges to this method; for example, there were certain themes and story ideas we were really interested in that we just had to let go, because we didn’t have the material to flesh them out. That was a bit frustrating. And our editor, Francisco Bello, had to work really hard with us to construct a coherent and entertaining narrative out of all these fragments of history, without relying on the typical “historical documentary” devices. One of the reasons we chose Francisco was that he wasn’t just willing to take on these challenges; he was really enthusiastic about them, just as Brian and I were.
It must have been hard, if not impossible, to approach Nixon’s presidency without preconceived judgments. What steps did you take to remain fair and objective? In what ways did your views of Nixon and his staff change over the course of production?
I am completely certain that each and every one of us knows too much (or just enough) about Nixon to have quite a few preconceptions. And we were actually counting on that and planning for it in the edit; we knew that our audiences would come to the film with a lot of their own thoughts on the matter. As did we, of course. But Brian and I were able to come to this with a lot more distance and “objectivity,” if we want to use that tricky term, than many others might have, because we just don’t have a dog in this race. We didn’t really care all that much about Watergate, or the anti-war protests, or any of it. We didn’t want to make sure that our viewers would walk away feeling indoctrinated into some particular ideological stance.
Certainly, as Brian and I got deeper and deeper into our research and our thinking, we developed all kinds of opinions, but we did try to keep ourselves out of it. Our approach was to set up the events and themes in the film as a sort of series of battles, and conflicts of points of view, many of which are perhaps irreconcilable in the end, but some of which maybe aren’t. We know our viewers will come in, at least the older ones, with their ideological side already chosen, and that they will root for their team along the way. But if the film is successful, there are moments where even those with the most rigid and settled point of view on Nixon will feel challenged, or will see something in a new light. That is our humble goal.
As far as fairness goes, we weren’t out to hang anyone, or to glorify anyone. We aren’t setting up your sort of standard documentary “pitched battle” where we are telling you who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, and helping you out by cherrypicking the bits that make the good guy look the most good. In a given exchange – let’s say an interview clip where Mike Wallace challenges H.R. Haldeman – you may think that either Wallace is the correct party and the clear winner of the debate. That’s a perfectly fine conclusion, but it is your conclusion, not ours. I don’t think we included one line in the film if we didn’t think the speaker had a fair point.
Well, let me take that back… I can’t say “never.” When Nixon goes on his rant about how homosexuals are destroying America just like they destroyed Rome, we didn’t include that because he has a “fair point.” He definitely does not! We included that bit because it is insane, and insanely hilarious, and gives a sense of both his personal biases and the state of mainstream culture in the 1970s. It’s probably the easiest laugh, and thus the cheapest shot, in the film, and it was debated quite a bit in the edit. But it does serve a point!
This film is as much about Nixon’s staff as it is about Nixon. H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Dwight Chapin – these names are rarely mentioned outside the context of Watergate. What kinds of new discussions do you hope your film will start about these figures?
It will depend what point of view each individual brings into the film. But as I said before, the film provokes some people to think about old ideas a little differently.
Have you noticed increased sympathy from audiences in regards to the Nixon presidency as a result of your documentary? How have audiences reacted to the film in general?
Some people say it makes them like Nixon more, and some say it made them like him less. In general, people laugh a lot. Younger people say it was more interesting than they expected, which is my favorite comment. The response has been overwhelming to us, because we weren’t totally sure if anyone else would be interested in yet another movie about Nixon!
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
David@IndieNYC.com
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Capsule Review 'Bert & Arnie's Guide to Friendship'
‘Bert and Arnie’s Guide to Friendship,’ the new comedy from director Jeff Kaplan, boasts a few decent performances and funny moments. But the two lead characters don’t share much chemistry or screen time, and their storylines don’t converge until the midpoint of the film. It is not the best formula for a buddy film.
Our two protagonists are pompous novelist and college professor Bert “B.W.” Sheering (Matt Oberg) and blowhard executive Arnie Hubert (Stephen Schneider). Arnie has a habit of sleeping with other men’s wives. Bert’s is one of them. Shortly after Bert learns the identity of his wife’s lover and briefly confronts him, she decides she would rather live alone. The repressed Bert shows minimal emotion as she walks out the door.
The idea of Bert and Arnie as an unlikely comic duo is rife with possibility. They are a classic mismatch: Arnie a career-driven, womanizing dunce, Bert an inhibited, uptight egotist. They have so much to teach each other.
Alas, the film keeps them apart. In a recurring conceit, Bert and Arnie discuss each other in separate “interviews” to an unseen filmmaker. This is a common sitcom trope, pioneered by the likes of ‘The Office’ and ‘Parks and Recreation’. But here the interviews must substitute for actual contact between the characters. Bert and Arnie rarely interact before the film’s midpoint.
Bert’s individual plotline is the more compelling of the two. Freshly separated from his wife, he tries to fend off advances from Faye (Cristin Milioti), a student who hopes to barter sex for a letter of recommendation. Faye, with her comically nasal voice and awkward sexual aggression, is a funny character, both sexy and unsexy at once. Oberg and Milioti have chemistry, and Milioti’s is the film’s strongest performance.
The film’s weakest performance belongs to Schneider. Arnie is an over-the-top caricature of the testosterone-driven executive. He screws anything that moves and unleashes obscenities when something upsets him. “Where the *&@! are my *&%$ing copies?!!!” Arnie shouts at one point, charging through his office like a lunatic. The performance is all brashness and obliviousness. There is no room for subtlety or nuances.
Bert and Arnie’s storylines only merge after Arnie falls for his boss, Sabrina (Anna Chlumsky of HBO’s ‘Veep’). Arnie learns she likes Bert’s novels and, in an effort to impress her, manages to get Bert to come out and meet her. Bert winds up lusting after Sabrina, while Arnie sinks into depression and anger. Bert and Arnie’s “friendship” is not the focus.
Ultimately, “Bert and Arnie’s Guide to Friendship” is forced to live and die by its problematic script and mixed performances. The result is a structurally flawed, only occasionally funny comedy.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Our two protagonists are pompous novelist and college professor Bert “B.W.” Sheering (Matt Oberg) and blowhard executive Arnie Hubert (Stephen Schneider). Arnie has a habit of sleeping with other men’s wives. Bert’s is one of them. Shortly after Bert learns the identity of his wife’s lover and briefly confronts him, she decides she would rather live alone. The repressed Bert shows minimal emotion as she walks out the door.
The idea of Bert and Arnie as an unlikely comic duo is rife with possibility. They are a classic mismatch: Arnie a career-driven, womanizing dunce, Bert an inhibited, uptight egotist. They have so much to teach each other.
Alas, the film keeps them apart. In a recurring conceit, Bert and Arnie discuss each other in separate “interviews” to an unseen filmmaker. This is a common sitcom trope, pioneered by the likes of ‘The Office’ and ‘Parks and Recreation’. But here the interviews must substitute for actual contact between the characters. Bert and Arnie rarely interact before the film’s midpoint.
Bert’s individual plotline is the more compelling of the two. Freshly separated from his wife, he tries to fend off advances from Faye (Cristin Milioti), a student who hopes to barter sex for a letter of recommendation. Faye, with her comically nasal voice and awkward sexual aggression, is a funny character, both sexy and unsexy at once. Oberg and Milioti have chemistry, and Milioti’s is the film’s strongest performance.
The film’s weakest performance belongs to Schneider. Arnie is an over-the-top caricature of the testosterone-driven executive. He screws anything that moves and unleashes obscenities when something upsets him. “Where the *&@! are my *&%$ing copies?!!!” Arnie shouts at one point, charging through his office like a lunatic. The performance is all brashness and obliviousness. There is no room for subtlety or nuances.
Bert and Arnie’s storylines only merge after Arnie falls for his boss, Sabrina (Anna Chlumsky of HBO’s ‘Veep’). Arnie learns she likes Bert’s novels and, in an effort to impress her, manages to get Bert to come out and meet her. Bert winds up lusting after Sabrina, while Arnie sinks into depression and anger. Bert and Arnie’s “friendship” is not the focus.
Ultimately, “Bert and Arnie’s Guide to Friendship” is forced to live and die by its problematic script and mixed performances. The result is a structurally flawed, only occasionally funny comedy.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Monday, June 10, 2013
2013 BFF Capsule Review: 'Soft in the Head' (WINNER: Best Actress)
‘Soft in the Head’, the gritty new microbudget drama from director Nathan Silver, aggressively upends convention, and to great effect. The film doesn’t follow a textbook framework for generating narrative momentum. But because of the realism of its universe and the strength of its performances, it remains riveting throughout.The film follows Natalia (Sheila EtxeberrÃa), a young alcoholic who, after splitting with her abusive boyfriend, winds up at a posh Brooklyn apartment-cum-homeless shelter with a group of men. Their unlikely benefactor is the kind-hearted Maury (Ed Ryan), whose raison d’être is helping the downtrodden. During the film we also meet Natalia’s friend Hannah (Melanie J. Scheiner), and her mildly autistic brother Nathan (Carl Kranz). Nathan frequently fights with his religious Jewish parents about his lack of a love life, and ultimately begins to fall for Natalia.
Natalia flirts with Nathan and continues to drink, the men at the homeless shelter get increasingly rowdy, and Maury tries to maintain order. But honestly, the plot is not the point. This film is all about the rhythm and texture of realistic characters staggering through difficult lives. (The actors worked from scene outlines instead of written dialogue.) Be it Natalia’s drunken interactions with Nathan or the crass rap sessions amongst the men at the shelter, nothing in “Soft in the Head” feels staged.
Natalia, who makes little effort toward self-improvement, comes off as aimlessly self-destructive. In a more traditional film about a troubled person trying to fit in amongst troubled people (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” comes to mind), the characters might be more dynamic, or their actions suffused with heightened drama. Instead, “Soft in the Head” dwells on people who sabotage themselves and carelessly hurt others, digging themselves into deeper and deeper pits and making change impossible. It is convincing and it works.
Much credit for the gritty feel of “Soft in the Head” goes to cinematogropher/editor/co-writer Cody Stokes, who also edited Mr. Silver’s 2012 feature “Exit Elena”. Mr. Stokes’s handheld camerawork contributes to the hyper-realism of the universe. And his editing shows admirable patience. The film doesn’t rush from beat to beat – its conversations play out over long periods of time, and the film feels more realistic for it. It’s a style of storytelling that recalls Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married”. That film, like this one, showed that troubled people don’t always move forward in life at a crisp, cinematic pace. Instead, they live in their problems, often unable to find – or even look for – a way out. One of the many great virtues of “Soft in the Head” is its willingness eschew traditional narrative momentum and simply linger on its characters’ lives.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Natalia flirts with Nathan and continues to drink, the men at the homeless shelter get increasingly rowdy, and Maury tries to maintain order. But honestly, the plot is not the point. This film is all about the rhythm and texture of realistic characters staggering through difficult lives. (The actors worked from scene outlines instead of written dialogue.) Be it Natalia’s drunken interactions with Nathan or the crass rap sessions amongst the men at the shelter, nothing in “Soft in the Head” feels staged.
Natalia, who makes little effort toward self-improvement, comes off as aimlessly self-destructive. In a more traditional film about a troubled person trying to fit in amongst troubled people (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” comes to mind), the characters might be more dynamic, or their actions suffused with heightened drama. Instead, “Soft in the Head” dwells on people who sabotage themselves and carelessly hurt others, digging themselves into deeper and deeper pits and making change impossible. It is convincing and it works.
Much credit for the gritty feel of “Soft in the Head” goes to cinematogropher/editor/co-writer Cody Stokes, who also edited Mr. Silver’s 2012 feature “Exit Elena”. Mr. Stokes’s handheld camerawork contributes to the hyper-realism of the universe. And his editing shows admirable patience. The film doesn’t rush from beat to beat – its conversations play out over long periods of time, and the film feels more realistic for it. It’s a style of storytelling that recalls Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married”. That film, like this one, showed that troubled people don’t always move forward in life at a crisp, cinematic pace. Instead, they live in their problems, often unable to find – or even look for – a way out. One of the many great virtues of “Soft in the Head” is its willingness eschew traditional narrative momentum and simply linger on its characters’ lives.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
2013 BFF Capsule Review: 'Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes'
‘Emanuel and the Truth about Fishes’, a surrealist drama from director Francesca Gregorini, often grasps for dramatic momentum. But strong chemistry between the two female leads, impressive cinematography, and a moving score buoy the film, which culminates in a powerful final act.
The film’s title character (Kaya Scodelario of TV’s ‘Skins’) is a young woman still tormented by the death of her mother, who died giving birth to her. She has constant visions of water flooding in from under doors and walls, threatening to consume her. Her reserved father (Alfred Molina) and distant stepmother (Frances O’Connor) cannot ease her mind. Emanuel starts babysitting for Linda (Jessica Biel), a new neighbor who bears a striking resemblance to her mother.
The film is often tediously paced, especially in its first act, which is dedicated to establishing a gloomy and foreboding mood. But a shocking reveal involving Linda’s baby (which this reviewer dares not spoil) sets some fascinating character dynamics between Emanuel and Linda in motion.
The two actresses are convincing in difficult roles. Scodelario captures Emanuel’s self-loathing and desire for maternal acceptance. Biel conveys how Linda’s placid demeanor conceals deep anguish. And the two have enormous chemistry. Emanuel’s guilt and longing as a daughter go hand in hand with Linda’s grave troubles as a mother. Emanuel, ever protective of Linda, looks after her baby and tries to protect its secret, both from Linda and from the outside world. Linda, meanwhile, provides emotional support that Emanuel cannot find anywhere else. These are two damaged people helping each other start the painful process of mental and emotional recovery.
One of the major flaws of “Emanuel” is that any distraction from their story feels out of place. This is especially true of Emanuel’s relationship with Claude (Aneurin Barnard), a young man whom she starts flirting with on the train. Scodelario and Barnard have little chemistry. Emanuel’s fledgling romance is there for thematic reasons, paralleling and rivaling her relationship with Linda. But it only takes time away from that relationship, which is the film’s beating heart.
The film’s flaws vanish in its gorgeous final act, when Emanuel and Linda are forced to confront their demons. Nathan Larson’s score soars with emotion, and Cinematographer Polly Morgan effectively emphasizes the traps the characters are trying to dig themselves out of. Her tight framing and vivid color schemes are especially effective during a sequence in which Emanuel swims her way out of a surreal flood. And the closing interactions between Linda and Emanuel are deeply moving, filled with pain and hope.
The film may take a while to get where it is going, and at times feels like it is treading water until the story kicks into a new gear. But it arrives at something beautiful and poignant. ‘Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes’ is a moving exploration of the ways that relationships can help us overcome grief.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
The film’s title character (Kaya Scodelario of TV’s ‘Skins’) is a young woman still tormented by the death of her mother, who died giving birth to her. She has constant visions of water flooding in from under doors and walls, threatening to consume her. Her reserved father (Alfred Molina) and distant stepmother (Frances O’Connor) cannot ease her mind. Emanuel starts babysitting for Linda (Jessica Biel), a new neighbor who bears a striking resemblance to her mother.
The film is often tediously paced, especially in its first act, which is dedicated to establishing a gloomy and foreboding mood. But a shocking reveal involving Linda’s baby (which this reviewer dares not spoil) sets some fascinating character dynamics between Emanuel and Linda in motion.
The two actresses are convincing in difficult roles. Scodelario captures Emanuel’s self-loathing and desire for maternal acceptance. Biel conveys how Linda’s placid demeanor conceals deep anguish. And the two have enormous chemistry. Emanuel’s guilt and longing as a daughter go hand in hand with Linda’s grave troubles as a mother. Emanuel, ever protective of Linda, looks after her baby and tries to protect its secret, both from Linda and from the outside world. Linda, meanwhile, provides emotional support that Emanuel cannot find anywhere else. These are two damaged people helping each other start the painful process of mental and emotional recovery.
One of the major flaws of “Emanuel” is that any distraction from their story feels out of place. This is especially true of Emanuel’s relationship with Claude (Aneurin Barnard), a young man whom she starts flirting with on the train. Scodelario and Barnard have little chemistry. Emanuel’s fledgling romance is there for thematic reasons, paralleling and rivaling her relationship with Linda. But it only takes time away from that relationship, which is the film’s beating heart.
The film’s flaws vanish in its gorgeous final act, when Emanuel and Linda are forced to confront their demons. Nathan Larson’s score soars with emotion, and Cinematographer Polly Morgan effectively emphasizes the traps the characters are trying to dig themselves out of. Her tight framing and vivid color schemes are especially effective during a sequence in which Emanuel swims her way out of a surreal flood. And the closing interactions between Linda and Emanuel are deeply moving, filled with pain and hope.
The film may take a while to get where it is going, and at times feels like it is treading water until the story kicks into a new gear. But it arrives at something beautiful and poignant. ‘Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes’ is a moving exploration of the ways that relationships can help us overcome grief.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Saturday, June 8, 2013
2013 Brooklyn Film Festival Filmmaker Profile: Amy Finkel (Director - 'Furever')
"‘FUREVER‘ is a feature-length documentary that explores the dimensions of grief people experience over the loss of a pet. It examines the sociological evolution of pets in the U.S. today, particularly their position in a family unit, and how this evolution is affecting those in the veterinary profession and death care industry. With interviews from grieving pet owners, veterinarians, psychologists, sociologists, religious scholars, neuroscientists, and the many professionals who preserve a pet’s body for their devastated clientele, or re-purpose a pet’s cremains in unique ways (taxidermy, cloning, mummification, freeze-drying, and many more), ‘FUREVER‘ confronts contemporary trends, perspectives, and relevant cultural assumptions regarding attachment, religion, ritual, grief, and death, and studies the bonds that form between humans and animals, both psychological and physiological."
You have mentioned that you yourself have grieved over pets. What interested you in pet preservation specifically?
We had many types of animals growing up and I became very attached to them over the years. My parents were huge advocates of animal rescue, so we ended up with all sorts: anoles, rats, dogs, budgies, gerbils (the list goes on). And no matter what the species, I found that I became unbelievably attached to each of them. As a result, I had a very tough time letting go. So when I read the article about people freeze-drying their pets several years ago, I was fascinated by what it was about keeping the body of a dead animal in a lively-looking state that was offering so much comfort to the devastated pet owners. How was it not a constant reminder that their pet was gone? Where did they think the soul had gone, if they believed in that (which I suspected they did)? That was not a discussion in my atheist household growing up. But—and I should mention that I’m not particularly judgmental in general—I never assumed they were crazy, as many do. I totally understood their level of attachment and their inability to let go; I simply didn’t understand why it would offer them comfort. I thought it was peculiar, and potentially destructive psychologically if there were a disconnect there (feeling as though their pet was still alive), but I tied to go into it with an open mind. Freeze-drying certainly would not have offered comfort to me. But I’d often wondered why I was getting so attached to my animals; whether it was projection or perhaps being less tolerant of humans than animals (I did have a lot of human friends growing up too). I figured there had to be some physiological component, which is why I put a whole segment in the film about the biology of the human-animal bond. But yes, for some reason freeze-drying was the perfect jumping off point for an inquiry of all of these questions, and an exploration of grief in general, so I set off to investigate.
For you personally, was the project ever upsetting? Did you find it cathartic in any way?
At first it was very sad to grieve through, essentially, every interview (until I was able to start interviewing more scholars — many of whom, even then, took me through their own personal grief processes). I’m actually now finding that it’s coming back to me in the same way; I’ve become somewhat of a grief counselor to a lot of strangers, which is a bit scary as I certainly don’t have a degree in it! People want to come up to me after screenings and give me short stories they’ve written about the death of their animals or share their grief process. They cry with me. I’ve often heard, “thank you for not making me feel crazy.” I didn’t think the film would be cathartic for anyone who’d just lost a pet, for obvious reasons, but for many it seems to be.
It was the same during filming, but a little tougher because I was trying to play the role of both documentary filmmaker and grief counselor. It just sort of happened that way due to the nature of the subject matter, and it was tough, because I was constantly being forced to think about my own mortality, and about the many animals that had gotten into my heart over the years but were no longer with me. At times it was cathartic for me. Now I feel like I’m becoming a little desensitized. But I was never pretending to feel something if I wasn’t. If I cried with a subject, so be it. I’m not much of a crier, so I went with it if I was overcome with that much empathy and emotion. It probably did help gain some trust between filmmaker and subject, making the scene feel more intimate to the viewer. But it was never contrived and it was such a pleasure to be able to learn from all of these amazing people. While many assume they’re all nuts, I have to say that, if I learned anything through the process, it’s that in our culture, we really don’t understand death; death is so sterile now, so taboo — we don’t talk about it; certainly not in public discourse. Once we got antibiotics in the 1940s, we became less accustomed to it. It was a natural progression. I think most of us avoid the subject (and, thankfully, haven’t had to deal with much of it until much later in life, unlike in earlier eras when people died more frequently, and died much younger). So it was interesting to me that a lot of these people were actually better able to deal with death than most. I became not only intrigued, but also impressed by the way that they were dealing with it. Very few believed that they were cheating death. Mac talks about how he’s had to explain to people that their pet is dead. That’s not the majority; that’s the exception. The majority of these people understood it in a way that I’m not sure I ever will, and whatever their memorialization method, found it offered a great deal of comfort.
As for the process being upsetting; I had the toughest time with people who were keeping their animal alive too long. That’s where I draw the line. I often say, “well you can’t fault these people for loving their pets too much — they’re all doing it out of love.” But you can when it goes into that territory. That was very upsetting for me.
You have interviewed some interesting people with unique stories. Can you go into some detail about how you found your interview subjects? Given how personal (and painful) their stories were, how did you get them to open up? And how have they reacted to the film?
Sometimes the subjects contacted me; sometimes it was through word of mouth from other subjects. That was often the case. A lot of the pet death care community is well connected, so once everyone realized that I was not making a super sensational reality show about them, they started signing on. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the New York Times and Anna Jane Grossman, the writer who did a profile about the film just after my Kickstarter campaign. In fact that would never have come had Kickstarter not been amazingly supportive with the earliest incarnation of FUREVER; I am so grateful to their team for liking the project and promoting it. A lot of press came from that, but specifically the New York Times article, which was instrumental in getting subjects signed on. The article made it clear that this wasn’t a reality TV project, and that I was on the side of the pet owners, and empathetic to what they were going through. I could send that out and anyone would sign on. It was enormously helpful.
As for getting them to open up, that was the easiest part for me, for some reason. Part of it may be that they were never formal interviews, even if I’d memorized some general line of inquiry in my head. They were conversations. And I found that when I opened up with them, and they understood I was on their side and that I wasn’t going to make fun of them (something grieving pet parents often encounter as there’s such a stigma surrounding that type of grief), then they’d open up. Thankfully the subjects who have seen the film (many at this point) seem really happy with the results. They know they’re not being mocked, and they know that ultimately, if there’s any ulterior motive or call to action, it’s to remove that stigma.
I have a wonderful dog named Connor. While watching your film I frequently found myself thinking about his mortality, which really helped me identify with your interview subjects. Have you found that pet owners have had more empathy for your subjects than non-pet owners? In general, have you noticed any differences in the ways the two groups have reacted to the film?
I made the film with a very specific target audience in mind: pet people. I felt that I had to focus it in that way or else it wouldn’t carry the gravity that I wanted it to. I certainly wasn’t trying to preach to the converted (it’s not that type of film), but I figured that only pet lovers would likely enjoy the footage of live animals, which seemed crucial to include alongside the many dead ones. But to my surprise, numerous non-pet people are embracing it. I hadn’t anticipated that. I think they’re particularly drawn to the academic narrative that runs through it, and as a result of that content and the themes therein, they leave (or so I’ve heard), feeling more sensitive to their pet lover friends. Just the other day someone told me that her friend had to put his dog down, and that she’d initially mocked the fact that the pet had become a surrogate child to him, but that she had a new understanding and sensitivity to what he was going through, having watched the film, and that her instinct to mock had dissipated. I was, of course, thrilled. That’s the whole point.
That said, some of the scenes in the film are particularly polarizing. I’m shocked at screenings to see a large group of people in the audience crying, while others are laughing. It happens in every screening. But I can never gauge if it’s, at times, uncomfortable laughter, because it is making people think about mortality in a way with which they’re really rattled. I’m one of those people that has a problem laughing at funerals and bar mitzvahs, so I do understand that reaction too. And that reaction is fine. The film is asking people to confront a number of concepts that one is likely not thinking about regularly, so I’m of the belief that any reaction is fine.
Your film gives voice to people who have taken great comfort from preserving their pets, as well as to people who think it’s unhealthy to do so. Between when you began the project and now, how, if at all, have your views on the subject changed?
Well it’s funny that you asked that, as there are many people in the film who didn’t want to be included in the same film as the subjects who were choosing less conventional methods of memorialization. They didn’t want to be associated with them. And these are people who are working in a fairly eccentric, atypical field. Some of those subjects were the most judgmental. So it was tough to get people to sign on knowing that freeze-drying would also be included, or cloning. But when we discussed it, they also understood that the film couldn’t exclude parts of the larger story. Ultimately, I think most are fine with it. They love having the counterpoint of Sociologist, Dr. Pepper Schwartz. It was very difficult, however, trying to figure out how to make it as unbiased as we could. It was never an even playing field. Most people are coming in assuming the subjects are psychologically unhinged, so I had to temper the counterpoint. As for my views on the subjects, they really haven’t changed. Again, I’m not very judgmental. Rarely did I come across a subject I felt was truly pathological. And even in speaking with the grief counselors, asking them if there were clients who simply couldn’t be helped — they always said that when it went into that pathological realm, it was very rarely someone dealing with the grief over their pet. Usually, at that point, their grief was leftover from losses experienced prior that they’d never addressed.
Have audiences reacted to the film in ways that you were not prepared for? In general, what new ideas and emotions do you want audiences to take away from your film?
I’d love for the stigma attached to the grief experienced over the loss of a pet to disappear, no matter how extreme. From what I’ve heard, most people do not leave the film feeling like they didn’t learn something that might make them rethink their judgments about the subjects. I’m not sure I can ask for anything more than that.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
You have mentioned that you yourself have grieved over pets. What interested you in pet preservation specifically?
We had many types of animals growing up and I became very attached to them over the years. My parents were huge advocates of animal rescue, so we ended up with all sorts: anoles, rats, dogs, budgies, gerbils (the list goes on). And no matter what the species, I found that I became unbelievably attached to each of them. As a result, I had a very tough time letting go. So when I read the article about people freeze-drying their pets several years ago, I was fascinated by what it was about keeping the body of a dead animal in a lively-looking state that was offering so much comfort to the devastated pet owners. How was it not a constant reminder that their pet was gone? Where did they think the soul had gone, if they believed in that (which I suspected they did)? That was not a discussion in my atheist household growing up. But—and I should mention that I’m not particularly judgmental in general—I never assumed they were crazy, as many do. I totally understood their level of attachment and their inability to let go; I simply didn’t understand why it would offer them comfort. I thought it was peculiar, and potentially destructive psychologically if there were a disconnect there (feeling as though their pet was still alive), but I tied to go into it with an open mind. Freeze-drying certainly would not have offered comfort to me. But I’d often wondered why I was getting so attached to my animals; whether it was projection or perhaps being less tolerant of humans than animals (I did have a lot of human friends growing up too). I figured there had to be some physiological component, which is why I put a whole segment in the film about the biology of the human-animal bond. But yes, for some reason freeze-drying was the perfect jumping off point for an inquiry of all of these questions, and an exploration of grief in general, so I set off to investigate.
For you personally, was the project ever upsetting? Did you find it cathartic in any way?
At first it was very sad to grieve through, essentially, every interview (until I was able to start interviewing more scholars — many of whom, even then, took me through their own personal grief processes). I’m actually now finding that it’s coming back to me in the same way; I’ve become somewhat of a grief counselor to a lot of strangers, which is a bit scary as I certainly don’t have a degree in it! People want to come up to me after screenings and give me short stories they’ve written about the death of their animals or share their grief process. They cry with me. I’ve often heard, “thank you for not making me feel crazy.” I didn’t think the film would be cathartic for anyone who’d just lost a pet, for obvious reasons, but for many it seems to be.
It was the same during filming, but a little tougher because I was trying to play the role of both documentary filmmaker and grief counselor. It just sort of happened that way due to the nature of the subject matter, and it was tough, because I was constantly being forced to think about my own mortality, and about the many animals that had gotten into my heart over the years but were no longer with me. At times it was cathartic for me. Now I feel like I’m becoming a little desensitized. But I was never pretending to feel something if I wasn’t. If I cried with a subject, so be it. I’m not much of a crier, so I went with it if I was overcome with that much empathy and emotion. It probably did help gain some trust between filmmaker and subject, making the scene feel more intimate to the viewer. But it was never contrived and it was such a pleasure to be able to learn from all of these amazing people. While many assume they’re all nuts, I have to say that, if I learned anything through the process, it’s that in our culture, we really don’t understand death; death is so sterile now, so taboo — we don’t talk about it; certainly not in public discourse. Once we got antibiotics in the 1940s, we became less accustomed to it. It was a natural progression. I think most of us avoid the subject (and, thankfully, haven’t had to deal with much of it until much later in life, unlike in earlier eras when people died more frequently, and died much younger). So it was interesting to me that a lot of these people were actually better able to deal with death than most. I became not only intrigued, but also impressed by the way that they were dealing with it. Very few believed that they were cheating death. Mac talks about how he’s had to explain to people that their pet is dead. That’s not the majority; that’s the exception. The majority of these people understood it in a way that I’m not sure I ever will, and whatever their memorialization method, found it offered a great deal of comfort.
As for the process being upsetting; I had the toughest time with people who were keeping their animal alive too long. That’s where I draw the line. I often say, “well you can’t fault these people for loving their pets too much — they’re all doing it out of love.” But you can when it goes into that territory. That was very upsetting for me.
You have interviewed some interesting people with unique stories. Can you go into some detail about how you found your interview subjects? Given how personal (and painful) their stories were, how did you get them to open up? And how have they reacted to the film?
Sometimes the subjects contacted me; sometimes it was through word of mouth from other subjects. That was often the case. A lot of the pet death care community is well connected, so once everyone realized that I was not making a super sensational reality show about them, they started signing on. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the New York Times and Anna Jane Grossman, the writer who did a profile about the film just after my Kickstarter campaign. In fact that would never have come had Kickstarter not been amazingly supportive with the earliest incarnation of FUREVER; I am so grateful to their team for liking the project and promoting it. A lot of press came from that, but specifically the New York Times article, which was instrumental in getting subjects signed on. The article made it clear that this wasn’t a reality TV project, and that I was on the side of the pet owners, and empathetic to what they were going through. I could send that out and anyone would sign on. It was enormously helpful.
As for getting them to open up, that was the easiest part for me, for some reason. Part of it may be that they were never formal interviews, even if I’d memorized some general line of inquiry in my head. They were conversations. And I found that when I opened up with them, and they understood I was on their side and that I wasn’t going to make fun of them (something grieving pet parents often encounter as there’s such a stigma surrounding that type of grief), then they’d open up. Thankfully the subjects who have seen the film (many at this point) seem really happy with the results. They know they’re not being mocked, and they know that ultimately, if there’s any ulterior motive or call to action, it’s to remove that stigma.
I have a wonderful dog named Connor. While watching your film I frequently found myself thinking about his mortality, which really helped me identify with your interview subjects. Have you found that pet owners have had more empathy for your subjects than non-pet owners? In general, have you noticed any differences in the ways the two groups have reacted to the film?
I made the film with a very specific target audience in mind: pet people. I felt that I had to focus it in that way or else it wouldn’t carry the gravity that I wanted it to. I certainly wasn’t trying to preach to the converted (it’s not that type of film), but I figured that only pet lovers would likely enjoy the footage of live animals, which seemed crucial to include alongside the many dead ones. But to my surprise, numerous non-pet people are embracing it. I hadn’t anticipated that. I think they’re particularly drawn to the academic narrative that runs through it, and as a result of that content and the themes therein, they leave (or so I’ve heard), feeling more sensitive to their pet lover friends. Just the other day someone told me that her friend had to put his dog down, and that she’d initially mocked the fact that the pet had become a surrogate child to him, but that she had a new understanding and sensitivity to what he was going through, having watched the film, and that her instinct to mock had dissipated. I was, of course, thrilled. That’s the whole point.
That said, some of the scenes in the film are particularly polarizing. I’m shocked at screenings to see a large group of people in the audience crying, while others are laughing. It happens in every screening. But I can never gauge if it’s, at times, uncomfortable laughter, because it is making people think about mortality in a way with which they’re really rattled. I’m one of those people that has a problem laughing at funerals and bar mitzvahs, so I do understand that reaction too. And that reaction is fine. The film is asking people to confront a number of concepts that one is likely not thinking about regularly, so I’m of the belief that any reaction is fine.
Your film gives voice to people who have taken great comfort from preserving their pets, as well as to people who think it’s unhealthy to do so. Between when you began the project and now, how, if at all, have your views on the subject changed?
Well it’s funny that you asked that, as there are many people in the film who didn’t want to be included in the same film as the subjects who were choosing less conventional methods of memorialization. They didn’t want to be associated with them. And these are people who are working in a fairly eccentric, atypical field. Some of those subjects were the most judgmental. So it was tough to get people to sign on knowing that freeze-drying would also be included, or cloning. But when we discussed it, they also understood that the film couldn’t exclude parts of the larger story. Ultimately, I think most are fine with it. They love having the counterpoint of Sociologist, Dr. Pepper Schwartz. It was very difficult, however, trying to figure out how to make it as unbiased as we could. It was never an even playing field. Most people are coming in assuming the subjects are psychologically unhinged, so I had to temper the counterpoint. As for my views on the subjects, they really haven’t changed. Again, I’m not very judgmental. Rarely did I come across a subject I felt was truly pathological. And even in speaking with the grief counselors, asking them if there were clients who simply couldn’t be helped — they always said that when it went into that pathological realm, it was very rarely someone dealing with the grief over their pet. Usually, at that point, their grief was leftover from losses experienced prior that they’d never addressed.
Have audiences reacted to the film in ways that you were not prepared for? In general, what new ideas and emotions do you want audiences to take away from your film?
I’d love for the stigma attached to the grief experienced over the loss of a pet to disappear, no matter how extreme. From what I’ve heard, most people do not leave the film feeling like they didn’t learn something that might make them rethink their judgments about the subjects. I’m not sure I can ask for anything more than that.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Friday, June 7, 2013
2013 Brooklyn Film Festival Capsule Review: 'Furever'
‘Furever’, Amy Finkel’s new documentary about post-mortem pet preservation, is a focused look at an obscure topic. Yet the film succeeds as more than a curiosity because it hits on emotions and fears that people can identify with. We all dread the deaths of loved ones. And when they’re gone, it’s hard to say goodbye.
I would suggest not going into the film hoping to laugh at a bunch of wackos and their crazy behavior; that’s not what ‘Furever’ is about. Instead, the film elicits enormous empathy for its human subjects and, in a non-judgmental way, explores what’s driving them. There are undeniably some eccentric interviewees–such as a woman who tattooed her cat’s ashes into her arm. And there are morbidly funny moments–for instance, a dog reacting fearfully to its owner’s other dog, this one taxidermied. But from the very first scene, when a man brimming with grief discusses the devastation he felt after his cat of many years died, it’s hard not to feel for those interviewed.
“He’s not the same as he was, but it’s a hundred times better than not having him,” says another pet owner of Willow, his deceased, taxidermied dog. Whether or not you would taxidermy your own dog, the sentiment is a reaction to something that most pet owners – and most people – feel at some point in their lives. When loved ones die, we want to hold on to them somehow. And that resonance is the most impressive thing about ‘Furever’. Despite its quirky topic, the film gets at broader themes about bereavement and the difficulty of letting go.
Also impressive is the film’s balance. As a counterpoint, Ms. Finkel interviews those critical of the pet preservation industry. One person argues, for instance, that such businesses are coldly taking advantage of people’s grief. It would have been easy to side with either faction, but Ms. Finkel manages to present both sides in a non judgmental way.
Unfortunately, ‘Furever’ feels overstuffed. (Okay, at least one pun was inevitable.) By the time the film hits the sixty-minute mark, it has already presented the different perspectives on the issue of pet preservation, as well as the gamut of emotions involved. Yet the documentary continues, presenting more interviews and more versions of preservation without expanding on specifics. Admittedly, some of what’s covered near the film’s conclusion — such as a religious organization interested in pet mummification and a company that specializes in cloning — is pretty “out there”. But that does not stop the film from dragging for the final quarter of its eighty-minute runtime.
‘Furever’ may have some flaws. But it has taken what could have been a nasty look at eccentric people – or a critical look at the people who criticize them – and instead presents a resonant exploration of grief and the desire to hold on.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
I would suggest not going into the film hoping to laugh at a bunch of wackos and their crazy behavior; that’s not what ‘Furever’ is about. Instead, the film elicits enormous empathy for its human subjects and, in a non-judgmental way, explores what’s driving them. There are undeniably some eccentric interviewees–such as a woman who tattooed her cat’s ashes into her arm. And there are morbidly funny moments–for instance, a dog reacting fearfully to its owner’s other dog, this one taxidermied. But from the very first scene, when a man brimming with grief discusses the devastation he felt after his cat of many years died, it’s hard not to feel for those interviewed.
“He’s not the same as he was, but it’s a hundred times better than not having him,” says another pet owner of Willow, his deceased, taxidermied dog. Whether or not you would taxidermy your own dog, the sentiment is a reaction to something that most pet owners – and most people – feel at some point in their lives. When loved ones die, we want to hold on to them somehow. And that resonance is the most impressive thing about ‘Furever’. Despite its quirky topic, the film gets at broader themes about bereavement and the difficulty of letting go.
Also impressive is the film’s balance. As a counterpoint, Ms. Finkel interviews those critical of the pet preservation industry. One person argues, for instance, that such businesses are coldly taking advantage of people’s grief. It would have been easy to side with either faction, but Ms. Finkel manages to present both sides in a non judgmental way.
Unfortunately, ‘Furever’ feels overstuffed. (Okay, at least one pun was inevitable.) By the time the film hits the sixty-minute mark, it has already presented the different perspectives on the issue of pet preservation, as well as the gamut of emotions involved. Yet the documentary continues, presenting more interviews and more versions of preservation without expanding on specifics. Admittedly, some of what’s covered near the film’s conclusion — such as a religious organization interested in pet mummification and a company that specializes in cloning — is pretty “out there”. But that does not stop the film from dragging for the final quarter of its eighty-minute runtime.
‘Furever’ may have some flaws. But it has taken what could have been a nasty look at eccentric people – or a critical look at the people who criticize them – and instead presents a resonant exploration of grief and the desire to hold on.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Thursday, June 6, 2013
2013 Brooklyn Film Festival Filmmaker Profile: James E. Duff (Co-Writer/Director - 'Hank & Asha')
"In this modern love story, an Indian woman studying in Prague and a young New York filmmaker begin an unconventional correspondence – two strangers searching for human connection in a hyper-connected world. As their relationship intensifies, they must decide whether or not to meet face to face. ‘Hank and Asha’ is a story about isolation, identity, and the irresistible appeal of entertaining life’s what-ifs."
Your wife, Julia Morrison, co-wrote and edited the film. The film itself is about a romance between two filmmakers. Is your own relationship reflected here? What is it like making a romance film with your wife?
The circumstances in the film are much different than the way we met and began our relationship. But the heart of it and the feelings of connection are definitely similar. The making of the film was very personal; we met in New York City and spent the year before and after our marriage living in Prague.
Prague and New York serve as very important backdrops in the film. What did those cities bring to the production that others would not?
Prague is one of the most beautiful, romantic cities that I’ve ever seen. You walk down the street and are instantly swept up in its magic; it feels almost like a fairytale. It’s an environment where anything seems possible. New York is our home and I think of it as the greatest, most diverse city in the world, but you have to create something for yourself in order to stay afloat. New York and Prague provided the perfect backdrop; two cities where anything can happen.
This is an independent film about two independent filmmakers making independent films for each other. Has the indie community noticed and appreciated these layers of affection? How has the indie community responded to the film?
The indie film community has responded quite positively to the film, and we are very grateful for the support. But the film is more of a love story, rather than a film about independent film, and that is what people are responding to.
You have said that the production was a very collaborative process. What kinds of material were the two lead actors, Mahira Kakkar and Andrew Pastides, allowed to come up with on their own? Were their any restrictions on them?
It’s never been easier to find people to connect with, but the paradox is that it seems to be harder and harder to make real connections. People aren’t making the time to slow down. My step-sister’s high school class decided not to have their 10-year reunion because they’re all already connected on Facebook, and thought it would be a waste of time. That, to me, is tragic! We wanted to make a film that combined modern technology with the nostalgic feeling of letter writing.
Even though the film is about two characters who communicate remotely, there’s a tremendous amount of chemistry and (even) sexual tension. How did Kakkar and Pastides go about summoning these feelings, even though they weren’t performing in the same room? As a director, how did you guide them?
The production was very much a collaborative process. We structured the script around an outline of scenes. We knew what we needed to accomplish with each scene, and generally what needed to be said. I worked with Andrew and Mahira to find their objective in each scene, and we would do a number of takes a number of different ways. The main thing that I was looking for were the emotional beats behind the words. The only restrictions were the reality of their characters and their environment.
Andrew and Mahira didn’t meet until the last day of the shoot, so the biggest challenge in making the film was to create chemistry between them. So rather than focus on specific dialogue, we focused on what they wanted to achieve with each individual message, how they wanted to make the other person feel, and what their expectations were in creating the messages. Basically putting them firmly in the shoes of their character and situation. Again, mainly looking for the truth of the emotion. I never asked them personally what they summoned up to generate their feelings, as I believe that’s a private thing.
You and Julia have talked about the production being a “feel-your-way” process that yielded more footage than ultimately needed. And yet the final film feels very tightly structured. Can you describe the editing process? What kinds of scenes did you tend to cut? How difficult was it to pare this film down to its essence?
We did each scene a number of different ways, so editing was a real challenge. The first rough-cut was 2:45! It came down to finding the key moment of each scene, and cutting it as close to that moment as possible. The old editing rule of starting late, and getting out early. We did a number of scenes where the characters revealed more of their backstories, which were enjoyable as Mahira and Andrew are such skilled actors, but ultimately they didn’t advance the story so we had to cut them.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Your wife, Julia Morrison, co-wrote and edited the film. The film itself is about a romance between two filmmakers. Is your own relationship reflected here? What is it like making a romance film with your wife?
The circumstances in the film are much different than the way we met and began our relationship. But the heart of it and the feelings of connection are definitely similar. The making of the film was very personal; we met in New York City and spent the year before and after our marriage living in Prague.
Prague and New York serve as very important backdrops in the film. What did those cities bring to the production that others would not?
Prague is one of the most beautiful, romantic cities that I’ve ever seen. You walk down the street and are instantly swept up in its magic; it feels almost like a fairytale. It’s an environment where anything seems possible. New York is our home and I think of it as the greatest, most diverse city in the world, but you have to create something for yourself in order to stay afloat. New York and Prague provided the perfect backdrop; two cities where anything can happen.
This is an independent film about two independent filmmakers making independent films for each other. Has the indie community noticed and appreciated these layers of affection? How has the indie community responded to the film?
The indie film community has responded quite positively to the film, and we are very grateful for the support. But the film is more of a love story, rather than a film about independent film, and that is what people are responding to.
You have said that the production was a very collaborative process. What kinds of material were the two lead actors, Mahira Kakkar and Andrew Pastides, allowed to come up with on their own? Were their any restrictions on them?
It’s never been easier to find people to connect with, but the paradox is that it seems to be harder and harder to make real connections. People aren’t making the time to slow down. My step-sister’s high school class decided not to have their 10-year reunion because they’re all already connected on Facebook, and thought it would be a waste of time. That, to me, is tragic! We wanted to make a film that combined modern technology with the nostalgic feeling of letter writing.
Even though the film is about two characters who communicate remotely, there’s a tremendous amount of chemistry and (even) sexual tension. How did Kakkar and Pastides go about summoning these feelings, even though they weren’t performing in the same room? As a director, how did you guide them?
The production was very much a collaborative process. We structured the script around an outline of scenes. We knew what we needed to accomplish with each scene, and generally what needed to be said. I worked with Andrew and Mahira to find their objective in each scene, and we would do a number of takes a number of different ways. The main thing that I was looking for were the emotional beats behind the words. The only restrictions were the reality of their characters and their environment.
Andrew and Mahira didn’t meet until the last day of the shoot, so the biggest challenge in making the film was to create chemistry between them. So rather than focus on specific dialogue, we focused on what they wanted to achieve with each individual message, how they wanted to make the other person feel, and what their expectations were in creating the messages. Basically putting them firmly in the shoes of their character and situation. Again, mainly looking for the truth of the emotion. I never asked them personally what they summoned up to generate their feelings, as I believe that’s a private thing.
You and Julia have talked about the production being a “feel-your-way” process that yielded more footage than ultimately needed. And yet the final film feels very tightly structured. Can you describe the editing process? What kinds of scenes did you tend to cut? How difficult was it to pare this film down to its essence?
We did each scene a number of different ways, so editing was a real challenge. The first rough-cut was 2:45! It came down to finding the key moment of each scene, and cutting it as close to that moment as possible. The old editing rule of starting late, and getting out early. We did a number of scenes where the characters revealed more of their backstories, which were enjoyable as Mahira and Andrew are such skilled actors, but ultimately they didn’t advance the story so we had to cut them.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Saturday, June 1, 2013
2013 Brooklyn Film Festival Filmmaker Profile: Jeremy O'Keefe (Writer/Director - 'Somewhere Slow')
"Anna Thompson, a 40 year old skin care rep, is coasting through an unfulfilled marriage and an estranged relationship with her family. When Anna gets mixed-up in a deadly convenience store robbery, she makes a split-second decision and walks out of her life and into the unknown. On her travels, she meets Travis, a teenage drifter on his own journey of self-discovery. Together they break into the New England summer home of Anna’s childhood. It is in this quiet house, far away from the world, that both Anna and Travis begin to shed their protective shells, and for the first time, embrace the simple human connection they’ve spent their lives avoiding. Sparse and provocative, this film shines light on how sometimes we must learn to break our own rules to find the life we’ve been yearning to live."
Describe the thought process behind naming the film “Somewhere Slow?”
That’s an interesting question, especially when it comes to marketing, as it’s dangerous to have the word “Slow” in the title of a movie. The title came almost immediately to me, as it has to when I’m writing for me to trust that it’s a story I should embark on telling. I was on an airplane traveling to see friends for a wedding, and I was kicking around the story of a woman who was unhappy in her life. She was a woman who was not unhappy in her life because of anything in particular – nothing at least worth writing a movie about – but unhappy in the way we all get unhappy sometimes. This type of unhappiness or paralysis is often even more dangerous than the unhappiness that comes from external events. I thought to myself, this is a woman, who of her own accord is going nowhere fast. So I thought that if I was going to take her on a journey she needed to learn to live, somewhere slow. That idea then told me the rest of the story, told me where physically I needed to take her.
I read you wrote the first draft of the script in a week. That is a pretty explosive burst of inspiration. Why do you think this particular story came out of you with such urgency?
Yes, yes, yes. It was a crazy burst of inspiration. The type that can almost be crippling when I’ve sat down to write another story – because if it happened so “easily” when writing Somewhere Slow, and it isn’t happening on the new script, I become very insecure about my new content, dialogue, plot. Somewhere Slow, however, came at a point in my life, when I had just been let go from a job, and I was in between relationships and I felt lost. I felt a loss that I had felt before – one that could only be fixed by my own actions, by my own self-generation. So I fueled Anna’s story with my own emotional stuckness – and used the writing of the script as a way to both honor my current feelings and also look for a way out of them. Additionally, when I was living in New York, I had met someone who’s very presence and sense of adventure helped me look outside of myself – and thus, the Travis character was created to help Anna.
The film’s locales really stand out. How did you decide where the story would take place? Did you have a specific desire to shoot in those areas – perhaps a personal attachment to Maine or New England?
Thank you. I have a romance with New England. Both because I’ve escaped to the Cape in my own adulthood and because as a child, every summer my family would go this tiny cottage on the coast of Rhode Island for two weeks. When I began writing, I had no idea where the bus was going to take her. The bus is heading to Maine, but she and Travis get off in Boston and then, like me, they head to this tiny cottage on the coast of Rhode Island. I knew I wanted to shoot Somewhere Slow, and I knew I would be able to do it on the independent budget if I chose locales where we could shoot for cheap or shoot for free. The cottage we use in the movie is the same cottage that my family owns. Now when I go back there, its full of memories from both growing up and creating the film with everyone.
You have said that this is a film about breaking out of a very boxed-in existence. What specifically appealed to you about a protagonist with Anna’s problems (which include a troubled marriage and an eating disorder)? What made you decide to create a character who broke out of these particular circumstances?
I wanted to burden Anna with challenges that aren’t all that unique – that aren’t all that earth- shattering, world-ending. Yes, they are difficult, but we, as people, are much stronger than we give ourselves credit for. I wanted Anna’s challenges to relatable, but not to define her. I didn’t want to make a movie ABOUT bulimia or ABOUT a troubled marriage, because I didn’t want people to think she is in her situation as a result of those challenges. To me, the eating disorder and troubled marriage could have easily been replaced with a broken leg and pre-mature hair loss. We all feel victimized at some point in our lives, and I set out to tell a story that is about empowering ourselves to take that risk, to make that change and to break free of the shackles we’ve put on ourselves.
Jessalyn Gilsig’s Anna and Graham Patrick Martin’s Travis have a very interesting relationship. What about these two characters makes them so drawn to each other?
They do have a very interesting relationship. When I’m not writing or directing, I teach acting and go to therapy. I love therapy. I love trying to figure out and identify why we do things, why we react, what we’re hiding from. I’m figuring out that before society and “nurture” fucks (messes) us up, we are all basically working from the same base, the same organs, tissue and emotional capability – before we build up these protective walls around us. And I think, we all secretly wish we didn’t have to build these walls, and wish that we could just be children playing pretend with our GI Joes and Barbies in the creek. I know I do. So when Anna and Travis collide they are both, whether they know it or not, seeking this innocence, this sense of play, this freedom – and it’s that desire to be authentic, before rules, before wrongs, that draws them to one another.
I read you saying that Jessalyn Gilsig approached the role of Anna with a total lack of vanity, but it was not just her; you certainly picked actors who were willing to give humble performances. Gilsig, Graham Patrick Martin, David Costabile – none of their characters are bad people. But to use a word that feels appropriate to the film, they are all very blemished, whether physically or emotionally (or both). In the initial creative stages, were you ever nervous that you would not be able to find actors who would dive into the roles like this cast did? And how did you think audiences would react to characters like this?
Look, I could not be happier or feel more fortunate to have found these actors who were willing to trust me, trust the script and trust the process. I spoke a lot to my actors and designers about going for something real. The one fortunate thing about making an independent movie on the small budget we did was that we were allowed to take risks – risks that allowed us to not worry about “how the film was going to test in market research” – so that gave us the opportunity to look at these people as real. As real as our audiences are. As you, as me. Doing this gives us the chance to really connect to an audience, to say, I’m not just going to show you some car crashes and sex scenes, but I’m going to try my hardest to represent you. Real people often aren’t like the ones in the movies and TV. We’re a little fatter, our hair is messed up, we think about how we’re going to make rent, and how we’re going to live every second of every day with whomever we partner up with. Travis, as the 18 year teenage runaway, could have easily been styled and portrayed as that sexy guy everyone wants to have a fling with. But the story is not about exciting a bunch of housewives to go out and sleep with a teenager. He needed to come from a real place. Rather than wearing designer jeans and trendy boots, Tasha Goldthwait, our costume designer, was like “His family doesn’t have much money, he probably got his jeans at Walmart.” And she was absolutely right. And to finally answer your question, I wasn’t worried about finding actors to take these types of roles on. More often than not, the real artists are looking to only play types of roles like these. Audiences have been embracing these characters. The relationship an audience makes with a character is lot more valuable when it’s “I’ve been there” rather than “I wish I was there”. I can’t tell you the casts of Bravo’s reality series are gonna totally relate, but the rest of the world will.
There are a lot of complex emotions in this movie. A lot of pain, and also hope. Without giving away too much, how do you hope audiences will react to the film emotionally?
I can tell you how audiences throughout our festival run thus far are reacting – and they’re getting it. I had a woman approach me after one of our screenings at Cinequest. She was very quiet. She wrapped her hand around my wrist, leaned in and said, “She had the strength to do something I’ve never been able to do.” For me, that sums it up.
Jessalyn always talks about this story in such a lovely way – that it isn’t about a total transformation of a character, but it’s a small step in a direction that the audiences know she must take. I say the movie is the moment before the rest of Anna’s life. Is it always easy to watch? No, there is an undercurrent of discomfort, not because Anna is doing all sorts of treacherous things, but because we watch Jessalyn, as Anna, feel every moment, good and bad. From the moment, Jessalyn first read the script aloud at a reading we did in Los Angeles before we began production, I was blown away to see how much she valued and respected and loved the importance of Anna’s journey — because it’s the most common challenge we come across, daily, yearly, in our lifetimes – that decision to stop all the bullshit and just be yourself.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Describe the thought process behind naming the film “Somewhere Slow?”
That’s an interesting question, especially when it comes to marketing, as it’s dangerous to have the word “Slow” in the title of a movie. The title came almost immediately to me, as it has to when I’m writing for me to trust that it’s a story I should embark on telling. I was on an airplane traveling to see friends for a wedding, and I was kicking around the story of a woman who was unhappy in her life. She was a woman who was not unhappy in her life because of anything in particular – nothing at least worth writing a movie about – but unhappy in the way we all get unhappy sometimes. This type of unhappiness or paralysis is often even more dangerous than the unhappiness that comes from external events. I thought to myself, this is a woman, who of her own accord is going nowhere fast. So I thought that if I was going to take her on a journey she needed to learn to live, somewhere slow. That idea then told me the rest of the story, told me where physically I needed to take her.
I read you wrote the first draft of the script in a week. That is a pretty explosive burst of inspiration. Why do you think this particular story came out of you with such urgency?
Yes, yes, yes. It was a crazy burst of inspiration. The type that can almost be crippling when I’ve sat down to write another story – because if it happened so “easily” when writing Somewhere Slow, and it isn’t happening on the new script, I become very insecure about my new content, dialogue, plot. Somewhere Slow, however, came at a point in my life, when I had just been let go from a job, and I was in between relationships and I felt lost. I felt a loss that I had felt before – one that could only be fixed by my own actions, by my own self-generation. So I fueled Anna’s story with my own emotional stuckness – and used the writing of the script as a way to both honor my current feelings and also look for a way out of them. Additionally, when I was living in New York, I had met someone who’s very presence and sense of adventure helped me look outside of myself – and thus, the Travis character was created to help Anna.
The film’s locales really stand out. How did you decide where the story would take place? Did you have a specific desire to shoot in those areas – perhaps a personal attachment to Maine or New England?
Thank you. I have a romance with New England. Both because I’ve escaped to the Cape in my own adulthood and because as a child, every summer my family would go this tiny cottage on the coast of Rhode Island for two weeks. When I began writing, I had no idea where the bus was going to take her. The bus is heading to Maine, but she and Travis get off in Boston and then, like me, they head to this tiny cottage on the coast of Rhode Island. I knew I wanted to shoot Somewhere Slow, and I knew I would be able to do it on the independent budget if I chose locales where we could shoot for cheap or shoot for free. The cottage we use in the movie is the same cottage that my family owns. Now when I go back there, its full of memories from both growing up and creating the film with everyone.
You have said that this is a film about breaking out of a very boxed-in existence. What specifically appealed to you about a protagonist with Anna’s problems (which include a troubled marriage and an eating disorder)? What made you decide to create a character who broke out of these particular circumstances?
I wanted to burden Anna with challenges that aren’t all that unique – that aren’t all that earth- shattering, world-ending. Yes, they are difficult, but we, as people, are much stronger than we give ourselves credit for. I wanted Anna’s challenges to relatable, but not to define her. I didn’t want to make a movie ABOUT bulimia or ABOUT a troubled marriage, because I didn’t want people to think she is in her situation as a result of those challenges. To me, the eating disorder and troubled marriage could have easily been replaced with a broken leg and pre-mature hair loss. We all feel victimized at some point in our lives, and I set out to tell a story that is about empowering ourselves to take that risk, to make that change and to break free of the shackles we’ve put on ourselves.
Jessalyn Gilsig’s Anna and Graham Patrick Martin’s Travis have a very interesting relationship. What about these two characters makes them so drawn to each other?
They do have a very interesting relationship. When I’m not writing or directing, I teach acting and go to therapy. I love therapy. I love trying to figure out and identify why we do things, why we react, what we’re hiding from. I’m figuring out that before society and “nurture” fucks (messes) us up, we are all basically working from the same base, the same organs, tissue and emotional capability – before we build up these protective walls around us. And I think, we all secretly wish we didn’t have to build these walls, and wish that we could just be children playing pretend with our GI Joes and Barbies in the creek. I know I do. So when Anna and Travis collide they are both, whether they know it or not, seeking this innocence, this sense of play, this freedom – and it’s that desire to be authentic, before rules, before wrongs, that draws them to one another.
I read you saying that Jessalyn Gilsig approached the role of Anna with a total lack of vanity, but it was not just her; you certainly picked actors who were willing to give humble performances. Gilsig, Graham Patrick Martin, David Costabile – none of their characters are bad people. But to use a word that feels appropriate to the film, they are all very blemished, whether physically or emotionally (or both). In the initial creative stages, were you ever nervous that you would not be able to find actors who would dive into the roles like this cast did? And how did you think audiences would react to characters like this?
Look, I could not be happier or feel more fortunate to have found these actors who were willing to trust me, trust the script and trust the process. I spoke a lot to my actors and designers about going for something real. The one fortunate thing about making an independent movie on the small budget we did was that we were allowed to take risks – risks that allowed us to not worry about “how the film was going to test in market research” – so that gave us the opportunity to look at these people as real. As real as our audiences are. As you, as me. Doing this gives us the chance to really connect to an audience, to say, I’m not just going to show you some car crashes and sex scenes, but I’m going to try my hardest to represent you. Real people often aren’t like the ones in the movies and TV. We’re a little fatter, our hair is messed up, we think about how we’re going to make rent, and how we’re going to live every second of every day with whomever we partner up with. Travis, as the 18 year teenage runaway, could have easily been styled and portrayed as that sexy guy everyone wants to have a fling with. But the story is not about exciting a bunch of housewives to go out and sleep with a teenager. He needed to come from a real place. Rather than wearing designer jeans and trendy boots, Tasha Goldthwait, our costume designer, was like “His family doesn’t have much money, he probably got his jeans at Walmart.” And she was absolutely right. And to finally answer your question, I wasn’t worried about finding actors to take these types of roles on. More often than not, the real artists are looking to only play types of roles like these. Audiences have been embracing these characters. The relationship an audience makes with a character is lot more valuable when it’s “I’ve been there” rather than “I wish I was there”. I can’t tell you the casts of Bravo’s reality series are gonna totally relate, but the rest of the world will.
There are a lot of complex emotions in this movie. A lot of pain, and also hope. Without giving away too much, how do you hope audiences will react to the film emotionally?
I can tell you how audiences throughout our festival run thus far are reacting – and they’re getting it. I had a woman approach me after one of our screenings at Cinequest. She was very quiet. She wrapped her hand around my wrist, leaned in and said, “She had the strength to do something I’ve never been able to do.” For me, that sums it up.
Jessalyn always talks about this story in such a lovely way – that it isn’t about a total transformation of a character, but it’s a small step in a direction that the audiences know she must take. I say the movie is the moment before the rest of Anna’s life. Is it always easy to watch? No, there is an undercurrent of discomfort, not because Anna is doing all sorts of treacherous things, but because we watch Jessalyn, as Anna, feel every moment, good and bad. From the moment, Jessalyn first read the script aloud at a reading we did in Los Angeles before we began production, I was blown away to see how much she valued and respected and loved the importance of Anna’s journey — because it’s the most common challenge we come across, daily, yearly, in our lifetimes – that decision to stop all the bullshit and just be yourself.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Friday, May 31, 2013
2013 Brooklyn Film Festival Filmmaker Profile: Damon Maulucci and Keir Politz (Co-Writers/Directors: 'Detonator')
"Sully, former frontman of a prominent Philly punk band, struggles for a new identity after moving into an affordable rental outside of Philadelphia with Karen and their 5-year-old son. Mick, his ex-bandmate, resurfaces with a promise to pay back money owed. In a long night, Sully must negotiate a gauntlet of revenge and deceit in order to get back home."
What has the reaction to ‘DETONATOR’ been like so far (whether on the festival circuit or elsewhere)?
KEIR POLITZ: First, let me thank you guys for doing what you do. It’s important work. One thing I can say for sure is that those who respond to Detonator respond very strongly. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but those are the type of movies we are interested in making. The audience members that react positively connect with the story in a deep and profound way. They get excited about it.
DAMON MAULUCCI: Yeah, it’s been great. So far we’ve had a lot of positive feedback from audiences and in reviews. It’s interesting; many people have come up and recounted the story back to us. I think that comes from there being a lot going on with our protagonist and a long build up of tension. It’s always reassuring when people relate to the psychology and circumstances underneath the story. Overall, people seem to appreciate the sense of place in Detonator– our Philadelphia. Also, we are proud that there has been such a strong connection to the characters and authentic performances from our actors, particularly our leads, Lawrence Levine and Benjamin Fine. I think it feels like a departure from some of the characters that audiences have seen Lawrence play on screen. He plays, Sully, with a kind of subtle brooding and steady ramp up toward physical action. With Ben, it’s just exciting to watch some people discover him through this extremely palpable depiction of, Mick, a fairly toxic and desperate guy.
Keir: One reaction that stands out in particular was at the Philadelphia Film Festival where we did a work-in-progress, “sneak preview” screening to our hometown crowd. After the Q&A, a well-dressed, older gentleman (who I later came to learn is a man of some consequence in the city) charged up to the front and told us how much he appreciated the film and shared a quick story from his past. He was so determined to remember a film it reminded him of that he just loved… “A young guy gets caught up in some trouble in SOHO in the eighties, money flies out of the cab window, he spends the night trying to get home, and ends up getting dumped in a plaster of Paris cast right in front of his house the next morning.” He was giddy about his forgetfulness, the experience of watching our movie, and piecing the two together from his memory. His reaction was visceral. We had a good laugh and a hearty handshake. Those are the moments long after the joy and agony of the creative process that make it all worth a damn. That is the connection we are looking for as artists and storytellers.
How did the two of you come up with this idea? Why these characters, why this story?
DAMON: Keir had an idea that he made into a treatment about two ex-punks from a formerly prominent band in Philly coming up against an older, dangerous anarchist punk they once knew. Keir and I had been working with one another off and on for close to 10 years. We shared some sensibilities and influenced each other’s work, and at that point, we were talking and giving notes, almost on a daily basis. We had both been around the block with a few projects and we were always waiting for investors or name actors to get back to us and essentially green-light our scripts.
KEIR: As Damon mentioned, I had been kicking around this story for a while and an opportunity arose to get the screenplay in the hands of a notable actor who was interested, but the turn-around had to be quick. Damon and I had already spent so much time over many years talking about our scripts and ideas that it made sense to write it together, and we wrote a first draft in a little over two weeks. When this particular actor became unavailable, we took back the script and re-worked it into something that we could shoot ourselves on a modest, but ambitious scale. Then, a dear old friend, David Jacovini, came on board and made it all happen financially. Dave works in finance, and actually left Wall Street to start his own fund, so he already had the right frame of mind. What he lacked in actual film producing experience, he made up for with sheer ambition and innovative ways of thinking. It was a hell of an experience to see this thing through, a crash course on feature filmmaking for all of us.
DAMON: Yeah, I remember standing on the sidewalk pacing back and forth discussing how Keir and I could get the script down in two weeks. Right then and there we decided to officially work together and met over video chat and Skype all day, every day for those two weeks. We managed to get out a pretty good draft and a year later we had become very attached to the material. The characters in the film found a voice through our talking and writing together. Certainly they are some kind of composite of people that we both knew and cared about, as well as parts of us. Ultimately, of course, we passed them over to the actors and they made it all real.
You’ve assembled a great cast. Lawrence Michael Levine, in particular, is significant exposure on the indie circuit lately, with movies like ‘Molly’s Theory of Relativity’, and you mention that Robert Longstreet broke the Sundance record for a male actor by appearing in four separate features. How did you get the cast on board, and what was it like working with them?
DAMON: Once we decided on the scope of this film and that we were going to make it, by hook or by crook with our own resources, we stopped using that lottery ticket mentality that some other thing or some other person we haven’t met is going to come and make things happen for us. We were confident in our script and materials and we lifted our heads and recognized we are fortunate to know talented actors and filmmakers who have the chops to pull this off. Both Keir and I know Lawrence through Columbia film school and have been friends for years. We were speaking to him about the script and getting notes. It was a great way to begin because we all care about each other’s work.
KEIR: I directed Larry in a short film that I shot back in grad school. Though the film turned out to be more of a learning exercise, I really saw something in his performance. He’s easy-going, but has an intensity lingering just beneath the surface that, if given the opportunity to emerge, can be explosive and raw and honest. I think Larry is an amazing actor and I expect to see even bigger and better things from him on screen, things that might blow our minds. Larry also helped with casting, specifically, his wife Sophia, Robert Longstreet and Joe Swanberg, who were both a blast to have on the set and great to work with in their roles. I can’t say much more about Ben Fine, other than I think this is the beginning of an exciting film career, and I hope he lives to enjoy it.
DAMON: And we were all there to serve the story. Oftentimes, their questions or suggestions allowed us to go deeper and add more layers to the story. A guy like Longstreet comes in with his skills and amazing spirit and is a champion of independent film. He knows how to effortlessly lift the set and take everyone to a higher level. Can’t beat that.
KEIR: We also held casting calls that introduced us to the wonderful Dawn Hall who gave a stellar performance as Karen, and Chris Lamothe, the little boy who played Albert. Chris had never acted, but he was incredibly comfortable and patient on set and on camera. And he’s an intelligent kid. He reacted well and seemed to genuinely understand what we were trying to do. I had a lot of fun with Chris, and his parents, Rich and Monica, are wonderful people, which is a big deal when working with children. Fittingly, Dawn also took a bit of a motherly role with Chris both on and off camera.
Why did you make the main characters ex musicians? Have either of you ever been musicians? What impact did the punk artist Jack Talcum (the film’s composer), have on the film?
DAMON: I know Keir has a strong relationship with punk music. I was exposed to the music at an early age and the brash and raw energy of it always stayed with me. As a kid in the 80’s, it felt like one of the first recognitions and response to some of the family dysfunction and institutional hypocrisies I was experiencing. I idealized aspects of the scenes but still have a deep appreciation for the performers who need to shout out and be heard while trying to live their principals.
KEIR: I love certain punk music. I also loathe some. The Clash, among other bands, definitely changed my point of view when I was younger. My introduction to it came somewhere in those heady times when I was realizing that many of things I was taught in my childhood by people in positions of authority out in the world, were dead wrong. Punk struck a chord at the time when I was searching and therefore, susceptible. Then, I had a radio show in undergrad, and I did play music and attempt to make a few bands work. It’s hard and humbling to put yourself out in that way. Fortunately, I reached a point early on when I realized that I just didn’t have it. I could perform well enough, but I lacked in the material department, my songs weren’t so good, and I just wasn’t passionate about it. My friend Dave Marchione, who has a song in the film (the guitar store scene), has been playing music around Seattle since he was in high school. He’s honestly one of the most talented musicians and songwriters I have ever known, but he could never quite make that leap into the limelight, which seems to be necessary to keep going strong in that world. I still hope he will get his shot to be heard by larger audiences. I actually know a lot of musicians who are a little older now, and man, it is a lifestyle that truly accentuates aging… you get “old” very quickly and at a relatively young age. You can write and make movies into your 90s (wishful thinking?), but in punk or rock or pop music, your window of relevancy passes before you ever have a chance to acknowledge it. Then before you know it you are working in sales, playing Wednesday nights with your buddies at the local pub, and dreaming about the old days. If it’s the music you love, this is actually a real, sustainable life that can be very fulfilling, if you let it. One thing I greatly admire about Joe Jack Talcum is that his music evolved gracefully as he got older. He still plays with the Dead Milkmen. They are actually putting out great new material. But his solo work is very spare and personal and tender and amazing.
Damon, I read you saying that the film was very personal to you and Keir. I’d be curious to hear more about that from both of you. I know you mentioned Keir having a son (which brings up parallels to Sully), but are there other reasons the film felt personal? In what ways do you relate to your main characters, Sully and Mick, who have really seen their artistic dreams evaporate?
DAMON: My father is a musician and growing up I watched him deal with the ups and downs of that industry and how he altered his personal view of success. There are so many ways that I feel connected to both Sully and Mick. I’ve been on both ends of calling someone out and holding them to the ideals and principles that they once spouted off. I have always tended to make my friends like family and tend to have intense, emotive and, basically, brotherly relationships with my male friends. So, I can certainly relate to the competition and emotions of the Sully, Mick and Dutch triangle. It is true that Keir and I were writing this script before and after his first son was born. I have always grappled with the idea of having a family while trying to maintain some sort of creative lifestyle. I’m happy to report that I will now actually share that struggle with Keir, as I have a little one on the way this fall. To be clear, the baby is not with Keir, but with my long-term girlfriend JB :-)
KEIR: My son, Lorenzo, is actually almost 3 now, and I have a 9-month-old daughter, Stella Jo, so I am deep in that world, and I would not want it to be any other way. I am very excited for Damon to get to experience this. I do differ from Sully in that I am very happily married to my best friend, Anne. I know I am fortunate to have a very supportive wife, and not in the pep talk sort of way, but in that she understands what I am trying to do with my time in this world. We share values and have similar expectations for our lives. We enjoy simple things. She’s not crossing her fingers and waiting for my career to take off, she is just happy that we are both passionate about the work we are doing and we both put family first. That’s all I ever wanted. That said, it is often humbling to find yourself drifting into your late 30s and still trying to do something so impractical, like make art, music, films, whatever. It can seem absurd, especially coming from a place like the neighborhood where I grew up in Philadelphia. There, something like art is a pipe dream at best, something that makes you shine as a kid, but you outgrow for a sport and eventually a job. I regularly have these moments when I call everything I am doing into question, but I always return to that simple fact that, even if I tried, I can’t not do this in some form, even if it is a version of Wednesday nights at the local taproom. I need to follow my bliss for no other reason than to be grounded, so that I am able to be a decent husband and the best possible father to these kids.
An interesting trick the movie pulled, at least on me, was that it got me to think, “Oh, I’ve seen this movie before.” Then very suddenly (and jarringly), I realized I was wrong. In the first act and even the beginning of the second, it seems like the film is going to be a traditional drama, and then it suddenly becomes a thriller with the introduction of Robert Longstreet’s scary-as-hell character. Usually rapid shifts like this don’t work this late into a film, but here it is effective. Both of you wrote and directed the film, and you both teach screenwriting, so I am sure you are aware how you have broken some traditional rules. What made you decide to wait this long into the movie to bring it into this other gear? Were you always confident in your decision?
KEIR: We are drawn to naturalistic stories that have a heightened sense of urgency. I personally tend to enjoy simple character-driven stories that begin with a rather quiet and ordinary problem and build to a breaking point where things spiral completely out of control. I think we waited until that point in the film to implement a shift because we wanted to evoke your very reaction to the experience of watching this film. There is also an absurdity to the predicament that these characters put themselves in. Sully is in his mid-30s and he’s chasing this guy around town for something that, after a little consideration, could have easily been avoided. So for those viewers that get it, we’d like to give them the chance to swim through the drama and lose themselves in the comedy a little before we shove them into the physical danger. And I just love the idea of seemingly everyday choices leading to business casual getting ripped and minivan windows being shattered with elbows in the wee hours of the morning.
DAMON: This story was always designed to draw out Sully’s inner turmoil until it is fully rendered, externalized and physically threatens the world he inhabits. I’m so pleased you feel this happens in a way that feels like a realistic thriller. We started with a framework and had the overall intentions of taking the audience on a ride over one crazy night between two old friends. For me, a lot of writing this script was about making inner demons real and ratcheting the tension into the tangible stakes that remain germane to the story and the world. And as Keir mentioned, we gravitate towards a naturalistic approach in how our characters behave and unfold. The film’s tone and structure stem from our way of exploring the character’s need to deal with the angst that comes with changing one’s self identity– accepting responsibility for his actions and being part of, and taking care of, a family.
KEIR: And Damon and I speak endlessly about structure, how a story is working and what it’s doing to a viewer, how it could work more economically and affectively, so I think we are always conscious about testing the limitations of that textbook form or formula so prevalent here in the U.S. And I always want to be breaking the rules. I would rather crash and burn in an effort to subvert the system, than play it safe with convention or models that have been proven by market research people to “test well” with audiences. That’s death to us. Damon and I are very driven by the thrill of creative risk, calculated risk, but risk nonetheless. I have noticed recently that people working in film in some capacity are completely obsessed with “the shifting paradigm” of the business. They love to talk about this, and so desperately want a mouthpiece of the system to tell them what they must do in a few simple steps to have “success,” similar to the “how to” books on screenwriting. More than ever, there seems to be an endless stream of “visionaries” talking about the future of making money in movies, and let’s be honest, that’s really what the conversation is about… money, what sells, how to sell, finding that sweet spot, running the tap dry, and moving on. Yeah, there is the reality of the business of it all and we all need to pay rent and support livelihoods, but are the people talking, writing, reading and tweeting about the state of the film business and those trying to get on board with the latest trend, ever really the people doing the necessary, personal work? Taking the real risks? In my view, this process should always be about seeing just how far you can lean off the ledge. Money, and the act of creating solely with the idea of making money in mind, consistently eviscerates art. If anything, money and the conventions put in place to ensure it, whether in story structure or business models, these are all our mortal enemies. We must know them intimately, only to battle them. Screw with them. Make them our servants, or at least make them unable to pin us down to a board. To me, this is a far more healthy relationship with capitalism or any sort of marketplace. Artists, musicians, filmmakers from history who have had any traction in their work, have always done this in some way, sometimes it lead to their own personal destruction, but I guess that’s the real challenge we face, and I guess this is a lot of what Detonator is about. The lesson I take from it is one of the better lessons we should be teaching our kids, and happens to be a thread in punk music, that, as human beings, we should always be questioning the establishments, great and small, that we have created, and all-too-often the hard truth is that our heroes (our Micks, our Dutches) are frauds at best. At worst, they have become monsters. But in their quiet moments, they are always nothing more than human, and hopefully, at some point, like Sully, they might try to do their very best with what they have to offer to the world. As filmmakers, that’s really all we are trying to do, tell stories and continue to make films that come from a good place, a place of integrity. Fortunately, between the two of us, we have half a dozen projects on deck and ready to go.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
What has the reaction to ‘DETONATOR’ been like so far (whether on the festival circuit or elsewhere)?
KEIR POLITZ: First, let me thank you guys for doing what you do. It’s important work. One thing I can say for sure is that those who respond to Detonator respond very strongly. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but those are the type of movies we are interested in making. The audience members that react positively connect with the story in a deep and profound way. They get excited about it.
DAMON MAULUCCI: Yeah, it’s been great. So far we’ve had a lot of positive feedback from audiences and in reviews. It’s interesting; many people have come up and recounted the story back to us. I think that comes from there being a lot going on with our protagonist and a long build up of tension. It’s always reassuring when people relate to the psychology and circumstances underneath the story. Overall, people seem to appreciate the sense of place in Detonator– our Philadelphia. Also, we are proud that there has been such a strong connection to the characters and authentic performances from our actors, particularly our leads, Lawrence Levine and Benjamin Fine. I think it feels like a departure from some of the characters that audiences have seen Lawrence play on screen. He plays, Sully, with a kind of subtle brooding and steady ramp up toward physical action. With Ben, it’s just exciting to watch some people discover him through this extremely palpable depiction of, Mick, a fairly toxic and desperate guy.
Keir: One reaction that stands out in particular was at the Philadelphia Film Festival where we did a work-in-progress, “sneak preview” screening to our hometown crowd. After the Q&A, a well-dressed, older gentleman (who I later came to learn is a man of some consequence in the city) charged up to the front and told us how much he appreciated the film and shared a quick story from his past. He was so determined to remember a film it reminded him of that he just loved… “A young guy gets caught up in some trouble in SOHO in the eighties, money flies out of the cab window, he spends the night trying to get home, and ends up getting dumped in a plaster of Paris cast right in front of his house the next morning.” He was giddy about his forgetfulness, the experience of watching our movie, and piecing the two together from his memory. His reaction was visceral. We had a good laugh and a hearty handshake. Those are the moments long after the joy and agony of the creative process that make it all worth a damn. That is the connection we are looking for as artists and storytellers.
How did the two of you come up with this idea? Why these characters, why this story?
DAMON: Keir had an idea that he made into a treatment about two ex-punks from a formerly prominent band in Philly coming up against an older, dangerous anarchist punk they once knew. Keir and I had been working with one another off and on for close to 10 years. We shared some sensibilities and influenced each other’s work, and at that point, we were talking and giving notes, almost on a daily basis. We had both been around the block with a few projects and we were always waiting for investors or name actors to get back to us and essentially green-light our scripts.
KEIR: As Damon mentioned, I had been kicking around this story for a while and an opportunity arose to get the screenplay in the hands of a notable actor who was interested, but the turn-around had to be quick. Damon and I had already spent so much time over many years talking about our scripts and ideas that it made sense to write it together, and we wrote a first draft in a little over two weeks. When this particular actor became unavailable, we took back the script and re-worked it into something that we could shoot ourselves on a modest, but ambitious scale. Then, a dear old friend, David Jacovini, came on board and made it all happen financially. Dave works in finance, and actually left Wall Street to start his own fund, so he already had the right frame of mind. What he lacked in actual film producing experience, he made up for with sheer ambition and innovative ways of thinking. It was a hell of an experience to see this thing through, a crash course on feature filmmaking for all of us.
DAMON: Yeah, I remember standing on the sidewalk pacing back and forth discussing how Keir and I could get the script down in two weeks. Right then and there we decided to officially work together and met over video chat and Skype all day, every day for those two weeks. We managed to get out a pretty good draft and a year later we had become very attached to the material. The characters in the film found a voice through our talking and writing together. Certainly they are some kind of composite of people that we both knew and cared about, as well as parts of us. Ultimately, of course, we passed them over to the actors and they made it all real.
You’ve assembled a great cast. Lawrence Michael Levine, in particular, is significant exposure on the indie circuit lately, with movies like ‘Molly’s Theory of Relativity’, and you mention that Robert Longstreet broke the Sundance record for a male actor by appearing in four separate features. How did you get the cast on board, and what was it like working with them?
DAMON: Once we decided on the scope of this film and that we were going to make it, by hook or by crook with our own resources, we stopped using that lottery ticket mentality that some other thing or some other person we haven’t met is going to come and make things happen for us. We were confident in our script and materials and we lifted our heads and recognized we are fortunate to know talented actors and filmmakers who have the chops to pull this off. Both Keir and I know Lawrence through Columbia film school and have been friends for years. We were speaking to him about the script and getting notes. It was a great way to begin because we all care about each other’s work.
KEIR: I directed Larry in a short film that I shot back in grad school. Though the film turned out to be more of a learning exercise, I really saw something in his performance. He’s easy-going, but has an intensity lingering just beneath the surface that, if given the opportunity to emerge, can be explosive and raw and honest. I think Larry is an amazing actor and I expect to see even bigger and better things from him on screen, things that might blow our minds. Larry also helped with casting, specifically, his wife Sophia, Robert Longstreet and Joe Swanberg, who were both a blast to have on the set and great to work with in their roles. I can’t say much more about Ben Fine, other than I think this is the beginning of an exciting film career, and I hope he lives to enjoy it.
DAMON: And we were all there to serve the story. Oftentimes, their questions or suggestions allowed us to go deeper and add more layers to the story. A guy like Longstreet comes in with his skills and amazing spirit and is a champion of independent film. He knows how to effortlessly lift the set and take everyone to a higher level. Can’t beat that.
KEIR: We also held casting calls that introduced us to the wonderful Dawn Hall who gave a stellar performance as Karen, and Chris Lamothe, the little boy who played Albert. Chris had never acted, but he was incredibly comfortable and patient on set and on camera. And he’s an intelligent kid. He reacted well and seemed to genuinely understand what we were trying to do. I had a lot of fun with Chris, and his parents, Rich and Monica, are wonderful people, which is a big deal when working with children. Fittingly, Dawn also took a bit of a motherly role with Chris both on and off camera.
Why did you make the main characters ex musicians? Have either of you ever been musicians? What impact did the punk artist Jack Talcum (the film’s composer), have on the film?
DAMON: I know Keir has a strong relationship with punk music. I was exposed to the music at an early age and the brash and raw energy of it always stayed with me. As a kid in the 80’s, it felt like one of the first recognitions and response to some of the family dysfunction and institutional hypocrisies I was experiencing. I idealized aspects of the scenes but still have a deep appreciation for the performers who need to shout out and be heard while trying to live their principals.
KEIR: I love certain punk music. I also loathe some. The Clash, among other bands, definitely changed my point of view when I was younger. My introduction to it came somewhere in those heady times when I was realizing that many of things I was taught in my childhood by people in positions of authority out in the world, were dead wrong. Punk struck a chord at the time when I was searching and therefore, susceptible. Then, I had a radio show in undergrad, and I did play music and attempt to make a few bands work. It’s hard and humbling to put yourself out in that way. Fortunately, I reached a point early on when I realized that I just didn’t have it. I could perform well enough, but I lacked in the material department, my songs weren’t so good, and I just wasn’t passionate about it. My friend Dave Marchione, who has a song in the film (the guitar store scene), has been playing music around Seattle since he was in high school. He’s honestly one of the most talented musicians and songwriters I have ever known, but he could never quite make that leap into the limelight, which seems to be necessary to keep going strong in that world. I still hope he will get his shot to be heard by larger audiences. I actually know a lot of musicians who are a little older now, and man, it is a lifestyle that truly accentuates aging… you get “old” very quickly and at a relatively young age. You can write and make movies into your 90s (wishful thinking?), but in punk or rock or pop music, your window of relevancy passes before you ever have a chance to acknowledge it. Then before you know it you are working in sales, playing Wednesday nights with your buddies at the local pub, and dreaming about the old days. If it’s the music you love, this is actually a real, sustainable life that can be very fulfilling, if you let it. One thing I greatly admire about Joe Jack Talcum is that his music evolved gracefully as he got older. He still plays with the Dead Milkmen. They are actually putting out great new material. But his solo work is very spare and personal and tender and amazing.
Damon, I read you saying that the film was very personal to you and Keir. I’d be curious to hear more about that from both of you. I know you mentioned Keir having a son (which brings up parallels to Sully), but are there other reasons the film felt personal? In what ways do you relate to your main characters, Sully and Mick, who have really seen their artistic dreams evaporate?
DAMON: My father is a musician and growing up I watched him deal with the ups and downs of that industry and how he altered his personal view of success. There are so many ways that I feel connected to both Sully and Mick. I’ve been on both ends of calling someone out and holding them to the ideals and principles that they once spouted off. I have always tended to make my friends like family and tend to have intense, emotive and, basically, brotherly relationships with my male friends. So, I can certainly relate to the competition and emotions of the Sully, Mick and Dutch triangle. It is true that Keir and I were writing this script before and after his first son was born. I have always grappled with the idea of having a family while trying to maintain some sort of creative lifestyle. I’m happy to report that I will now actually share that struggle with Keir, as I have a little one on the way this fall. To be clear, the baby is not with Keir, but with my long-term girlfriend JB :-)
KEIR: My son, Lorenzo, is actually almost 3 now, and I have a 9-month-old daughter, Stella Jo, so I am deep in that world, and I would not want it to be any other way. I am very excited for Damon to get to experience this. I do differ from Sully in that I am very happily married to my best friend, Anne. I know I am fortunate to have a very supportive wife, and not in the pep talk sort of way, but in that she understands what I am trying to do with my time in this world. We share values and have similar expectations for our lives. We enjoy simple things. She’s not crossing her fingers and waiting for my career to take off, she is just happy that we are both passionate about the work we are doing and we both put family first. That’s all I ever wanted. That said, it is often humbling to find yourself drifting into your late 30s and still trying to do something so impractical, like make art, music, films, whatever. It can seem absurd, especially coming from a place like the neighborhood where I grew up in Philadelphia. There, something like art is a pipe dream at best, something that makes you shine as a kid, but you outgrow for a sport and eventually a job. I regularly have these moments when I call everything I am doing into question, but I always return to that simple fact that, even if I tried, I can’t not do this in some form, even if it is a version of Wednesday nights at the local taproom. I need to follow my bliss for no other reason than to be grounded, so that I am able to be a decent husband and the best possible father to these kids.
An interesting trick the movie pulled, at least on me, was that it got me to think, “Oh, I’ve seen this movie before.” Then very suddenly (and jarringly), I realized I was wrong. In the first act and even the beginning of the second, it seems like the film is going to be a traditional drama, and then it suddenly becomes a thriller with the introduction of Robert Longstreet’s scary-as-hell character. Usually rapid shifts like this don’t work this late into a film, but here it is effective. Both of you wrote and directed the film, and you both teach screenwriting, so I am sure you are aware how you have broken some traditional rules. What made you decide to wait this long into the movie to bring it into this other gear? Were you always confident in your decision?
KEIR: We are drawn to naturalistic stories that have a heightened sense of urgency. I personally tend to enjoy simple character-driven stories that begin with a rather quiet and ordinary problem and build to a breaking point where things spiral completely out of control. I think we waited until that point in the film to implement a shift because we wanted to evoke your very reaction to the experience of watching this film. There is also an absurdity to the predicament that these characters put themselves in. Sully is in his mid-30s and he’s chasing this guy around town for something that, after a little consideration, could have easily been avoided. So for those viewers that get it, we’d like to give them the chance to swim through the drama and lose themselves in the comedy a little before we shove them into the physical danger. And I just love the idea of seemingly everyday choices leading to business casual getting ripped and minivan windows being shattered with elbows in the wee hours of the morning.
DAMON: This story was always designed to draw out Sully’s inner turmoil until it is fully rendered, externalized and physically threatens the world he inhabits. I’m so pleased you feel this happens in a way that feels like a realistic thriller. We started with a framework and had the overall intentions of taking the audience on a ride over one crazy night between two old friends. For me, a lot of writing this script was about making inner demons real and ratcheting the tension into the tangible stakes that remain germane to the story and the world. And as Keir mentioned, we gravitate towards a naturalistic approach in how our characters behave and unfold. The film’s tone and structure stem from our way of exploring the character’s need to deal with the angst that comes with changing one’s self identity– accepting responsibility for his actions and being part of, and taking care of, a family.
KEIR: And Damon and I speak endlessly about structure, how a story is working and what it’s doing to a viewer, how it could work more economically and affectively, so I think we are always conscious about testing the limitations of that textbook form or formula so prevalent here in the U.S. And I always want to be breaking the rules. I would rather crash and burn in an effort to subvert the system, than play it safe with convention or models that have been proven by market research people to “test well” with audiences. That’s death to us. Damon and I are very driven by the thrill of creative risk, calculated risk, but risk nonetheless. I have noticed recently that people working in film in some capacity are completely obsessed with “the shifting paradigm” of the business. They love to talk about this, and so desperately want a mouthpiece of the system to tell them what they must do in a few simple steps to have “success,” similar to the “how to” books on screenwriting. More than ever, there seems to be an endless stream of “visionaries” talking about the future of making money in movies, and let’s be honest, that’s really what the conversation is about… money, what sells, how to sell, finding that sweet spot, running the tap dry, and moving on. Yeah, there is the reality of the business of it all and we all need to pay rent and support livelihoods, but are the people talking, writing, reading and tweeting about the state of the film business and those trying to get on board with the latest trend, ever really the people doing the necessary, personal work? Taking the real risks? In my view, this process should always be about seeing just how far you can lean off the ledge. Money, and the act of creating solely with the idea of making money in mind, consistently eviscerates art. If anything, money and the conventions put in place to ensure it, whether in story structure or business models, these are all our mortal enemies. We must know them intimately, only to battle them. Screw with them. Make them our servants, or at least make them unable to pin us down to a board. To me, this is a far more healthy relationship with capitalism or any sort of marketplace. Artists, musicians, filmmakers from history who have had any traction in their work, have always done this in some way, sometimes it lead to their own personal destruction, but I guess that’s the real challenge we face, and I guess this is a lot of what Detonator is about. The lesson I take from it is one of the better lessons we should be teaching our kids, and happens to be a thread in punk music, that, as human beings, we should always be questioning the establishments, great and small, that we have created, and all-too-often the hard truth is that our heroes (our Micks, our Dutches) are frauds at best. At worst, they have become monsters. But in their quiet moments, they are always nothing more than human, and hopefully, at some point, like Sully, they might try to do their very best with what they have to offer to the world. As filmmakers, that’s really all we are trying to do, tell stories and continue to make films that come from a good place, a place of integrity. Fortunately, between the two of us, we have half a dozen projects on deck and ready to go.
Read the interview at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Movie Review: ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’
Review: ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’
Director by Ryan Gielen
Writers by Brian W. Seibert, Ricardo Valdez
Staring Brian W. Seibert, Ricardo Valdez, Joie Bauer
“Everybody lies to everybody else about everything,” says a supporting character early in ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’, a micro budget indie feature directed by Ryan Gielen and written by Brian W. Seibert and Ricardo Valdez, who also star. The film often demonstrates the truth of those words, but also shows how people earnestly try to overcome them.
The film centers on Will (Seibert) and Mateo (Valdez), a gay couple, as a large crowd of largely LGBT friends gather around their house and backyard to celebrate Will’s 30th birthday. Though the movie centers heavily on interactions between gay and lesbian characters, it’s really not about LGBT issues: It’s about people in relationships, and how they try to work past their secrets and lies.
Early in the film, before the party starts, Will’s sister, her husband and young daughter in tow, unexpectedly show up at Will and Mateo’s place and discover a shirtless Mateo emerging from Will’s bathroom. “This isn’t normal,” says Will’s sister, fleeing with her family. The interesting trick this film pulls is that it doesn’t then take the obvious route, becoming a film about coming out to family and struggling for acceptance. It’s more modern than that. See, Will had told Mateo that his family knew he was out. And in ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’, that’s much more significant than his family’s disapproval of his gay lifestyle. Those are the lies, the film argues, that truly threaten our happiness: The ones we make to our partners.
Over the course of ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’, many secrets and lies are revealed. Among them: Mateo’s fling with Will’s personal trainer, a transgression that Will and Mateo must ultimately discuss together. Moments like this lend heartfelt emotion and charged conflict to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the film can’t always escape the dullness of an at-times leisurely birthday party, and the movie has its slow stretches. But the film’s emotional richness helps it overcome the limitations of its setting (and of its tiny budget) more often than not.
“Being gay isn’t all that I’m about,” says a gay “Log Cabin” Republican partway through the film, defending his political affiliation. Taken in larger context, this is a broader statement about the film. The film may be about gay couples, but it really isn’t about being gay. Despite a late return from Will’s closed-minded sister, Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’ largely takes place in an era, or at least a locality, in which gay acceptance is the norm. But that’s just it: Even when everyone’s out, we see that gay relationships, like anyone else’s, can be full of dishonesties and secrets that have nothing to do with being gay. Being out doesn’t mean that couples are out about everything.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Director by Ryan Gielen
Writers by Brian W. Seibert, Ricardo Valdez
Staring Brian W. Seibert, Ricardo Valdez, Joie Bauer
“Everybody lies to everybody else about everything,” says a supporting character early in ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’, a micro budget indie feature directed by Ryan Gielen and written by Brian W. Seibert and Ricardo Valdez, who also star. The film often demonstrates the truth of those words, but also shows how people earnestly try to overcome them.
The film centers on Will (Seibert) and Mateo (Valdez), a gay couple, as a large crowd of largely LGBT friends gather around their house and backyard to celebrate Will’s 30th birthday. Though the movie centers heavily on interactions between gay and lesbian characters, it’s really not about LGBT issues: It’s about people in relationships, and how they try to work past their secrets and lies.
Early in the film, before the party starts, Will’s sister, her husband and young daughter in tow, unexpectedly show up at Will and Mateo’s place and discover a shirtless Mateo emerging from Will’s bathroom. “This isn’t normal,” says Will’s sister, fleeing with her family. The interesting trick this film pulls is that it doesn’t then take the obvious route, becoming a film about coming out to family and struggling for acceptance. It’s more modern than that. See, Will had told Mateo that his family knew he was out. And in ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’, that’s much more significant than his family’s disapproval of his gay lifestyle. Those are the lies, the film argues, that truly threaten our happiness: The ones we make to our partners.
Over the course of ‘Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’, many secrets and lies are revealed. Among them: Mateo’s fling with Will’s personal trainer, a transgression that Will and Mateo must ultimately discuss together. Moments like this lend heartfelt emotion and charged conflict to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the film can’t always escape the dullness of an at-times leisurely birthday party, and the movie has its slow stretches. But the film’s emotional richness helps it overcome the limitations of its setting (and of its tiny budget) more often than not.
“Being gay isn’t all that I’m about,” says a gay “Log Cabin” Republican partway through the film, defending his political affiliation. Taken in larger context, this is a broader statement about the film. The film may be about gay couples, but it really isn’t about being gay. Despite a late return from Will’s closed-minded sister, Turtle Hill, Brooklyn’ largely takes place in an era, or at least a locality, in which gay acceptance is the norm. But that’s just it: Even when everyone’s out, we see that gay relationships, like anyone else’s, can be full of dishonesties and secrets that have nothing to do with being gay. Being out doesn’t mean that couples are out about everything.
Read the review at IndieNYC.com
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Movie Review: 'The Girls in the Band'
Directed by Judy Chalkin
“Seems that a lot of girls had to go back to the kitchen,” says a nearly 100-year-old Viola Smith partway through “The Girls in the Band.” Smith may be far past her ‘30s and ‘40s heyday as a jazz drummer, but she still vividly remembers when World War II ended, and the ample paying gigs that female jazz musicians had been receiving for the past few years suddenly vanished as men returned from combat.
Smith’s account is one of many in Judy Chaikin’s comprehensive documentary. The film is about female jazz musicians’ decades-long struggle to gain equal work and recognition with their male counterparts. “The Girls in the Band” is a music documentary, but it’s about much more than that. The film’s best achievement is in making its somewhat obscure subject stand as a proxy for the history of the women’s movement in the United States.
The film describes how, as jazz became extremely popular in the early 20th century, talented women musicians managed to find some work and success, but were also often disrespected and shut out of paying gigs due to institutional sexism. The interview subjects, many of them now in their 80s and 90s, vividly describe trying to make it in the field, and their words incite strong emotions. One can’t help but feel infuriated when saxophonist Peggy Gilbert describes being drummed out of a band by male counterparts. With a woman around, they complained, “we can’t talk the way want to talk, and we can’t do things we want to do, and…besides, [women musicians] can’t play very well.”
The film is girded by an astonishingly detailed history of jazz in the U.S., with much credit there undoubtedly going to executive producer/producer Michael Greene, who served as CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences from 1988 to 2002. Yet while the amount of information and the number of interviews is impressive, the sheer breadth of the project at times works against it. “The Girls in the Band” can be too diffuse, with too many people talking about too many things too rapidly. During those stretches, it can be tough to find any individual stories to engage with. The film is at its best when it cuts through the clutter to focus on specific individuals and narratives. One of the most fascinating stretches comes when saxophonist Roz Cron and others describe traveling the Jim Crow South in the early ‘40s with The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the first integrated female jazz band in the U.S. White members of the band were threatened with arrest for associating with their black bandmates, and at one point Cron even considered artificially darkening her skin.
Ms. Chaikin has fielded an impressive array of interview subjects and information, and the documentary strongly evokes the time periods it dives into. An immense amount of credit also goes to editor Edward Osei-Gyimah, who seamlessly weaves in era-appropriate stock footage and shots of the musicians themselves. And the film’s sound department, consisting of Roger Phenix (sound), Michael Jones (sound-recordist), Derek Alan Jones (sound re-recording mixer), and Victoria Rose Sampson (supervising sound editor) further brings the era to life with a lively jazz score interspersed throughout.
The last segment of “The Girls In the Band” turns to modern jazz musicians, and the debt they owe to the women musicians who fought for equality before them. It’s an appropriate final act for a film with a keen sense of the social stakes not only for old-time female jazz musicians, but also for old-time feminists in general. What is possible for women now, the film says, is possible only because of what women did then. It’s an old idea, but one made lively and original through unique subject matter. When the documentary uses its more focused stories to explore these themes, they’re brought to life in an especially informative and emotionally affecting way.
Read the review at Indiewood/Hollywoodn't
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
“Seems that a lot of girls had to go back to the kitchen,” says a nearly 100-year-old Viola Smith partway through “The Girls in the Band.” Smith may be far past her ‘30s and ‘40s heyday as a jazz drummer, but she still vividly remembers when World War II ended, and the ample paying gigs that female jazz musicians had been receiving for the past few years suddenly vanished as men returned from combat.
Smith’s account is one of many in Judy Chaikin’s comprehensive documentary. The film is about female jazz musicians’ decades-long struggle to gain equal work and recognition with their male counterparts. “The Girls in the Band” is a music documentary, but it’s about much more than that. The film’s best achievement is in making its somewhat obscure subject stand as a proxy for the history of the women’s movement in the United States.
The film describes how, as jazz became extremely popular in the early 20th century, talented women musicians managed to find some work and success, but were also often disrespected and shut out of paying gigs due to institutional sexism. The interview subjects, many of them now in their 80s and 90s, vividly describe trying to make it in the field, and their words incite strong emotions. One can’t help but feel infuriated when saxophonist Peggy Gilbert describes being drummed out of a band by male counterparts. With a woman around, they complained, “we can’t talk the way want to talk, and we can’t do things we want to do, and…besides, [women musicians] can’t play very well.”
The film is girded by an astonishingly detailed history of jazz in the U.S., with much credit there undoubtedly going to executive producer/producer Michael Greene, who served as CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences from 1988 to 2002. Yet while the amount of information and the number of interviews is impressive, the sheer breadth of the project at times works against it. “The Girls in the Band” can be too diffuse, with too many people talking about too many things too rapidly. During those stretches, it can be tough to find any individual stories to engage with. The film is at its best when it cuts through the clutter to focus on specific individuals and narratives. One of the most fascinating stretches comes when saxophonist Roz Cron and others describe traveling the Jim Crow South in the early ‘40s with The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the first integrated female jazz band in the U.S. White members of the band were threatened with arrest for associating with their black bandmates, and at one point Cron even considered artificially darkening her skin.
Ms. Chaikin has fielded an impressive array of interview subjects and information, and the documentary strongly evokes the time periods it dives into. An immense amount of credit also goes to editor Edward Osei-Gyimah, who seamlessly weaves in era-appropriate stock footage and shots of the musicians themselves. And the film’s sound department, consisting of Roger Phenix (sound), Michael Jones (sound-recordist), Derek Alan Jones (sound re-recording mixer), and Victoria Rose Sampson (supervising sound editor) further brings the era to life with a lively jazz score interspersed throughout.
The last segment of “The Girls In the Band” turns to modern jazz musicians, and the debt they owe to the women musicians who fought for equality before them. It’s an appropriate final act for a film with a keen sense of the social stakes not only for old-time female jazz musicians, but also for old-time feminists in general. What is possible for women now, the film says, is possible only because of what women did then. It’s an old idea, but one made lively and original through unique subject matter. When the documentary uses its more focused stories to explore these themes, they’re brought to life in an especially informative and emotionally affecting way.
Read the review at Indiewood/Hollywoodn't
IndieWoodDave@gmail.com
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