While I’ve been filing several local, evergreen stories for Twin Cities’ KFAI, there’s been a terrible lag in uploading my works to the web. But I’ve a fun, timely update.
One story, for which I wasn’t paid, but which was fun, parrots the Joker if he were to ask about “important movies”: “Why So Serious?”
As America faces down the Oscars, listen to my story: “What Makes a Movie ‘Important?’”
Now, let’s finish the conversation with the man who put “The First Grader” on-screen.
W: According to the Walker Art Center’s program you thought “it was a really challenging movie to do.”
The challenge now is to actually to get the film to play to audiences. We’ve got distribution across America, which is absolutely wonderful. Because films like this, that’ve got just as good of production values as bigger movies, just as beautiful stories, that aren’t necessarily the “Thors” and “The Pirates of the Caribbean,” the –
W: The blockbusters -
There has to be a place for smaller films – not smaller in their kind of scope, but in terms of their machine behind them. Because audiences like to go the cinema, to sit in the dark, and go through these emotional stories, and there has to be a place for it. That’s gonna be the challenge. Getting them to the cinema, because we haven’t got posters on every single bus going by, we haven’t got advertisements in the papers. Audiences need these stories. There should be a place in the modern cinema.
Justin Chadwick directs his "First Grader" (courtesy National Geographic Films)
W: What has you really jazzed about this story, this film that journalists haven’t asked about? “This is a really cool thing, but nobody ever asks me about it…” Do you have something like that that you wanna get out there?
Before we were making the film, I talked to the creative team, and we talked about those hardened critics that want to see a certain kind of film, a feel-good movie, it makes you feel celebratory when you come out, make you laugh, makes you cry. What we wanted to do, what’s unusual about this story, coming out of Africa, where so many African movies have to do with huge issues: genocide, famine.
W: Corruption. Violence.
All of that. This felt like something different; this one was a celebratory film, A film about hope – in the true sense of the word. It wasn’t sugar-coated. Because those scenes actually happened.
We don’t want the film to be like spinach; you know this film is really good for you. We were very, very aware of that. I think it’s very easy to dismiss the film. It’s come out of Telluride, the snowball of the film festivals, and the audiences who’ve seen it. It’s very easy to dismiss it as a little, tiny film, but actually it’s not that at all. Again, there has to be a place for this in cinema, but it’s getting harder and harder because blockbusters are so all-consuming of the territory, and the cinema space. It’s hard to get your movie through.
Just like the majority block specific history lessons, making knowledge hard to get through, only now the UK newspapers are covering recent headlines about “found” and damning Mau Mau records. Throughout April 2011, the “Times of London” ran almost weekly stories on the “discovery” of damning files previously thought to have been long-ago lost or destroyed. They’ve a paywall just like the “New York Times,” so providing a link would be foolish.
W: As “The First Grader” raises the topic of the Mau Mau rebellion, that reminded me of a documentary that Bill Cosby made, “Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed?” I thought, considering how English folks were barely taught this, and how some modern-day Kenyans and Kikuyu might not know even the basics of the Mau Mau situation, was it lost, was it stolen, or did it stray? You mentioned you weren’t told much of this when you were in school.
Not at all! It was the stuff that’d been in the press at the time; the stuff about the Mau Mau going into people’s houses, killing them while they sleep in their beds. You didn’t hear that 1.2 million Kikyyu had been tortured, had been incarcerated, had been rounded up in concentration camps. There was many, many camps across Kenya filled with young and old men and women from the Kikuyu, and that story has never really surfaced.
This documentation has come to mind just recently. There’s not many of the Mau Mau veterans left. K’mani was 89. When they talk about compensation or acknowledgment it’s too little too late. At least the truth will come out now, with the missing files that’ve been discovered.
As an aside I mentioned, to Mr. Chadwick, my having sat near a Kenyan woman, a Kikuyu, at the screening at the Walker Art Center, who had few criticisms about the film, but wished that the tribalism would’ve been less mentioned.
The BBC were very concerned about me going there. In everyday banter and everyday conversations tribal divisions would come up. And yes they are trying to move on; I do say that. Everyday on the radio the DJs would be talking about the differences of the tribes. I know where she’s coming from. A lot in the Western press of the tribal differences in Africa are always negatively drawn.
Jane Obinchu says, in the film, we’ve moved away from that. I had a young cameraman saying “you know, everyone says on the surface that we’re all moving away from it,” but he said “you know it’s still very, very much present, and if you speak to anyone, the younger generation, it’s still very much present. I would pick it up from what I was hearing on the radio, from the Kenyans I was working with. And there’s a lot to celebrate about the different tribes. I heard all the time around me. It’s a Kenyan story; you can’t shy away from it. I mean Maruge himself wasn’t a perfect man by any stretch. It’s been a very one-sided story.
W: I was skeptical about what seemed to be indulgent, cheesy lines at the climax: “Maybe one day a Kenyan will be in the White House. Yes we Can!”
So 2003, exactly when Kenya announced free education, Obama went as a Senator; I heard this like three weeks before we started shooting. (In reality, Mr. Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, taking office in 2005.) And also I was hearing on the radio from a guy, who talked to everybody. And so Obama came here as a Senator; this is why every time I was going somewhere on a bus, somebody said, “Obama sat here;” Michelle and him had been on this Mutatu bus. This radio DJ who was the voice of the people.
Basically because as a student I saw “Do the Right Thing,” loved that film. Sam Jackson was in that film; Jackson was hysterical! He was this voice; it was a brilliant, inspiring film for me. I saw that in Manchester. I remembered that. And there was no real humor in that film (First Grader.) So I managed to track down the guy; he’s called Churchill. He was at the African MTV awards. He brought the house down. I managed to track him down. I said, “Listen. I’d love for you to be part of this film.” He says, “I know Maruge. He was on my show!, on my breakfast show.” He said, “I’ll definitely do it. Are you gonna say about Obama?”
“I always said he’d be the headmaster of the world; I always said it, from 2003, he was the headmaster of the world. And he said, “I was the one, right from the beginning, and that’s why he’s in the White House!” And he said, build me a little studio just outside of where I’ve got my radio show. Be there, and I’ll give you a half an hour.” So that’s where that came from, from the true source. Everywhere I went, once I got Churchill involved, they said “We always knew Obama was gonna be President. Even way back in 2003, when they came, we knew, we just knew he was gonna be President.” That’s why I put that in there.
I spoke with Justin Chadwick, director of “The First Grader,” one day after having seen it at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center – for free! Always the right price, but particularly so during a toilet bowl economy. As with many independent film-makers, he is down-to-earth and pretty much a straight shooter.
"The First Grader's" director, Justin Chadwick, with Will Wright (courtesy Wright's Words)
Will Wright: It’s common and typical for Anglo film-makers to make movies about black people, where the anchor of the story isn’t black him or herself. It’s refreshing to see that there isn’t a heroic, superior Anglo who comes in to “save the school.” We had “Dangerous Minds,” 15 years ago, and “Freedom Writers.” How concerned were you, being a man from Manchester, who wasn’t introduced to all the dynamic and violent politics coming in and doing this story?
Justin Chadwick: Well I was very aware from the outset that I am from Manchester England. And I had not been to Kenya before, and it dealt with a period of history, as well as Kenyan history that hadn’t been told. There’s very few records remaining of that time. At the time of making this film, the British press side of things. They’re represented as being these guerilla army that basically murder people in their beds. There’s that, but this other side.
So I knew going into Kenya, that, I was from outside. I had to use that to its advantage, to use it as a way of me being able to go in as a guest in their country. The first three or four months I was there I basically observed, and listened and let people tell their stories. I’d go speak to the elders in each village that I’d go it. And because of that approach, everywhere I went I was open-heartedly received. I wasn’t like the other movies that’d been there: “Tomb Raider,” “Out of Africa,” even “Constant Gardener,” had shipped everything in to that country. I was living with the people I was working with, living in the community where the school was. Even from the very first, I was with Kmani Maruge in his hospice. I would go in with Kikuyu, which were his tribe. So they built an openness and between me and the people I was representing and also the people I was working with.
Mr. Chadwick directing "The First Grader"
I didn’t know what it was going to be like in Tudor England, or with the “Other Boleyn Girl,” or I didn’t know what it was going to be like when I did “Bleak House,” in Victorian England. With this I actually talked directly with the people that this story involves, to try and find the truth. And I think that’s what stood me in stead for it really.
W: You’re the second film-maker I’ve met recently who’s spoken of having that observational approach, attitude. Can you tell me how many of your peers use that approach?
Ang Lee, when he did sense and sensibility – I remember reading how he felt like an outsider coming into English, period, costume drama, would use that eye that he had, and that sensibility that he had to try to understand. He made a film from being like that, in that way. He made a film that was really true. And yet you know, he was from a different world, and a different country. And I remember that was something that was in my mind when I was going into this.
This began for American newsreaders in 2004, when the New York Times’ Marc Lacey wrote a Sunday profile piece. There he described what “changed when the Kenyan government declared a year ago that primary school education would be free through grade 8. Millions of new pupils showed up at neighborhood campuses, swelling enrollment from 5.9 million students to 7.3 million virtually overnight. Mr. Maruge, with his gray beard and weathered face, was among those in line.”
According to Robyn Dixon’s reporting for the Los Angeles Times, a year later, “As a young man, he was angered over his lack of education. He put those feelings away, but the thirst for education lay dormant most of his life. Now it has burst out, perhaps too late to keep up with the whirl of his belated ambitions: primary school, secondary school, university and a career in veterinary science.”
Oliver Litondo as Kimani Maruge in "The First Grader"
W: How did you design the proportion of Mau Mau flashback scenes to the proportion of the present-day, desire to learn kind of scenes?
To get that kind of balance is tricky in a film. I wanted to put in that backstory because it was so important to the man that he was when he went to the school to learn to read, he wanted to understand his past, to move on.
I worked with an editor called Carol Littleton; she’d done films like “ET” and “The Big Chill,” and she’s a brilliant editor. She always talks about the playability of a film; you go into a cinema, and the film has to play. That you’ve got to sweep your audience with you to the end of the film.
It was something, from the very beginning, that I’m very conscious of, when I’m working on the script: it was, yes, a simple story about a man going back to school and being educated. But also it had to propel forward with an energy. So that was something – just the pacing of the film, how we put the flashbacks. Each time there was a scene, it pushed on to the next. So there was a momentum to the film; it always had pace to it.
As Mr. Lacey reported in 2004, having access to lessons and a great teacher is splendid. But then to have that teacher plucked out from under you, like the first rug and hint at stability, was rough and short-sighted. Mr. Chadwick mentioned an anecdote that Jane Obinchu, Mr. Maruge’s sole headmaster in the film, told him about how her students reacted to her having been away from that school, and aborting her trouble-making.
“Jane Obinchu was the one who told me about the riot at the end of the movie; that was something that wasn’t in the film’s original script, that Ann had written. Jane said,’Oh did they tell you what had happened? Let me tell you about what happened when I was thrown out of the school.’ And then she told me about these amazing children. This stand, as their parents were welcoming the new headmaster for the school, the children closed the gates of the school, stood-up against them with rocks, not plastic rocks and bits like it is in my film. And they refused to open the gates to the school. There was this big, huge riot. The parents climbed over the gates of the school. The police had to be called to break it all up,” Mr. Chadwick said.
He continues, “Yes, it feels extraordinary that kids rise up, against their parents.” That climax wasn’t in the original script. He mentioned it because, that is something like from a Hollywood film, but it wasn’t. I know, when people see that in the film, they’ll think gosh that’s a figment of a writer’s imagination. But it’s absolutely true there.”
Click, if you’re hunger for the second half of this conversation with Justin.
Justin Chadwick harnesses child power
Nathaniel Arcand alongside Sara McIntyre (courtesy Flickr)
I spoke, via Skype, with Canadian film-maker Sara McIntyre about her debut as a feature film director of “Two Indians Talking.” The 30th Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival showed it twice.
As I wrote in my review, “‘Two Indians Talking’ gives us two young Native men, cousins, on their way to a meeting where they expect to have a bunch of Cree Indians join them, a dozen or maybe dozens. But their partners don’t show. So rather than watching a cadre of zealous activists prepare an ambitious protest – a stand – we watch Two Indians Talking about what this means.”
How hard or awkward was it for you to make a film about Natives when you’re an outsider?
You’re right; that was a particularly sensitive issue. And I had to sort of get my head straight with the idea of me approaching this particular topic… And I think the thing that gave me confidence is that I was invited. The script was sent to me by a writer, who I had not met yet, although I certainly knew his name. Andrew (Genaille) was a friend of a friend at the time. And he heard that I was looking for feature scripts, and he started e-mailing me things. And because he comes from the First Nations culture (the Canadian term for Natives or Indians), all of his stories come from that community. …And this one just grabbed me; it was unlike anything I had read before; unlike anything I had seen before. It totally drew me in, the story and the characters just caught my attention right away.
So the goofy thing is, he was sending me scripts, knowing that I was looking for something to direct, but it actually took me a couple of days to get up the courage to ask him if I could please direct this.
But the bigger issue was, my approach as a director was never to impose my idea of what the story is or who it’s about so what I did, and I think it’s the thing that allowed trust and doors to open, is that I went in asking to be shown, and I did this with the actors too. I sat down with each of them and just had them tell me what their own personal experiences were, and how those related to the story. And tell me what the script meant; I was never telling them was the story was about. They were telling me what the story was about.
The cousins, Adam and Nathan, chew on the question of doing the right thing, as activists, quite a bit.
How different is the right thing for each cousin? Since each of these cousins has a different or disparate idea of what the right thing is, to your mind, how different is that for each cousin?
Well that’s an interesting place to look, isn’t it?
(She takes time to consider.)
WW: Have I thrown you a curve ball?
SM: No, I like that you’re asking good questions; this’s fun!
SM: So the bottom-line is that they both decide to take the same action, so they’re in agreement on what the right thing is, but they come to it from very different places. So the thing that fascinates me about each of their decisions is… There’s so much complexity; we can’t just say, “oh Adam is doing it for this reason, and Nathan’s doing it for this reason.”
I think that Nathan shows up ready to go; he’s there. No questions asked. He’s gonna go through with it. But when we look a little deeper, the reasons that he thinks he has are actually a little thin.
Like he’s making grand statements about this band or that band, but it turns out that he’s actually inaccurate about some of those statistics. So he needs to get a little more solid in his thinking.
Adam’s journey – he’s full of theory, full of rhetoric, full of statistics and he’s really cerebral about the whole thing. And he really needs to connect to the people, and the community, the reason that we do things like this. And I think a big part of that journey happens in Nathan’s story about the little boy who doesn’t have underwear: where his mom says, “I can feed him or I can clothe him.
(There’s a scene where the cousins clash over whether someone’s mom abused them, or simply did the best she could with what little she had. It was an allegory about the practical realities of activism vs. idealism.)
I think that’s where the shift starts for him. He (Adam) really sees his cousin, who he has hasn’t taken very seriously, and he starts to really get him, that there’s something deeper going on here.
SM: Now. So I’m interested in your take on it. Obviously you’ve done a lot of thinking about this. What does it mean that Nathan only goes when he knows it’s gonna be successful?
WW: This is a new experience for me. (Responding to a subject’s question.)
WW: He’s human. When you think that you’re facing an overwhelming opposition, unless you figure that you have God or the gods on your side, you’re not gonna take it upon yourself to stand at the roadblock. I’m not gonna fault Nathan for having chosen kind of an easy way out. Death, or killing someone is a wonderfully easy topic to consider in drama. But when you’re on the scene and you have to actually consider facing someone down who’s aiming a weapon at you…
SM: That’s a good point; I hadn’t thought about it that way. And that’s why the film feels real. A lot of people have said, “this feels personal;” “this feels real.” And I think that’s because these guys don’t ever trivialize violence.
Ms. McIntyre spoke with Joseph Planta, for a Canadian podcast “On the Line;” they agreed in finding the educated cousin, Adam, obnoxious.
I have to pin you to a wall here, because, in your conversation with Mr. Planta, you both described Adam as obnoxious and full of himself… (I liked him.)
SM: What’s the question; do I still feel that way?
WW: Some part of him chafed against you.
SM: The first time I read it, the first impression I got was “this guy is irritating!” He’s sort of pent up, and he’s angry. He’s so tense that his humor is flat and he just sounds sort of abrasive.
…I imagine he’s the kind of guy whose just felt out of place no matter where he is. Growing up on the reserve, with the community of people largely like Nathan, who had very strong opinions about things. He probably really felt out of place. And he was craving more information…
When Sara spoke again with Mr. Planta, she said that Justin Rain, who portrayed Adam, wasn’t her first choice.
How would the film have been different, for good or for ill, if Justin Rain hadn’t been the one to bring Adam to life?
Justin actually was the first person who caught my attention for this role.
So he showed up at a table reading; just a workshop.
(Ah; the truth)
There are so many different layers to it; sometimes I just tell the abbreviated version.
So he showed up at a script workshop that we did months before the audition process. And he caught my attention, because he just is this character, on so many levels; I mean he really gets it. And I discovered that he actually knew about the script maybe a year before I did. So he was very familiar with it. Then, what happened is, I was offered the opportunity to work with someone who has a lot of experience, and has a fanbase, and also is a very good actor, and was right for the part. Completely different kind of energy than Justin.
(She refused to name him.)
His energy was a lot more calm and innocent and wide-eyed and he brings a very youthful, thoughtful – not youthful “naive” – but that wisdom that young people have: just straight forward and honest, and open. And I could see the story going that way, playing against Nathaniel’s grittiness, and that’d be a really fun dynamic to direct.
So I told Justin, “I’ve been offered ‘this name.’” And it works for the story too. For me as a first-time director, having two pretty substantial actors in the film. It felt like that’d be a pretty wise, strategic decision to make.
And Justin just said to me, “Oh, yeah. You have to do that!
So Justin stepped out of the way. And I went through my preparation process with this other actor in mind. And then, honestly, two weeks before we were supposed to go to camera, the other actor had to pull out for a number of reasons. And I called Justin. And I honestly think it turned out for the best.” So it had been Justin’s from the start. A better known, more bankable actor had interrupted the process.
What’s your next project?
I haven’t yet found a script that lit me up the way this one did. So I’m trying to meet with a lot of writers and just form relationships with people who’ve got stories. I worked with writers for a number of years; I co-produced a script-writing workshop, here in Vancouver that was quite rigorous. And I learned a lot about writing from that; and I learned a lot about writers. The biggest thing I learned is that I’m not innately a screenwriter, which I think is a good thing to know. (chuckles)
So I have a couple of stories, that’ve been very well outlined. But I want to hand them over to screenwriters who can turn them into scripts. So my focus is to meet writers, who either have work ready to be optioned, that I can get involved with, or who would like to take my stories and turn them into scripts.
But it feels a lot like chance, a lot like dating…
Documentarian Morgan Spurlock (2004′s “Supersize Me”) discusses why he made “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” and some frustrating surprises that stymied it and his aspirations.
(courtesy Sony Classics)
Of all the topics, why product placement and brand-integrated movies?
“It is literally a stepping stone. It’s one piece to a larger conversation about marketing and advertising. It opens the door to a conversation that’s easily understood from the start. From that point we can dive into other issues, about how we’re marketed to, how we’re advertised to – the impact that has on us, using this journey of the movie as kind of the catalyst.”
This morning I was watching the TED talk you did. I remember how you made your point. I thought it remarkable, your zeal for transparency. When I saw the screen burn (definition of “transparency” shown on-screen) Transparency: “absence of pretense or deceit.” That is almost a dangerous goal in our culture. How successful, how potent do you think the film is?
“I think the film is really successful in that. I think what this film does, in a really unique way…is it pulls back the curtain and gives you access to rooms, conversations, people and things you’ve never seen before. I think that’s a really valuable tool as a consumer, as a film-goer, being armed with the fantastic tool-kit of awareness is something we should all have. I think it does pull the veil back and suddenly changes the way you look at advertising and marketing.”
What was the biggest disappointment?
That In-N-Out burger wouldn’t do it.
(Beat) (quizical look)
“Because you can’t have a doc-buster – a documentary blockbuster. That’s what we wanted to do. An independent film that has as many partners as a gigantic Hollywood summer movie, that’re doing exactly the same thing in promoting this movie, of getting people excited about it. …You wanna have that happy meal, you wanna have that kids meal. If you’re gonna make a doc-buster, you gotta have that. And we couldn’t do it; we couldn’t git it. We tried. We tried. We tried.
McDonald’s didn’t call back – big surprise there! Burger King wanted nothing to do with the film. Taco Bell said “no.” No Jack in the Box. No Wendy’s. No Pizza Hut. All the way down the line.
Even In-N-Out burger; I wanted them to do that so bad!
Why them in particular?
“One: I really like In-N-Out. I think In-N-Out makes a great hamburger.
“You know when the french fries show up at an In-N-Out you know what you find when they open the french fry box? Potatoes. Crazy. They pull out a whole potato. They put it through the shucker, and then the deep fryer. And they have this real, satirical outlook, and they’re a fun brand. Like a fun company. “
It made sense for this film, but they…
“But they thought it did not make sense.
“I wanted to make an unhappy meal, or a thoroughly displeased meal. How funny would that be: come to in-and-out burger for your thoroughly displeased meal. Woulda been genius!”
Obviously transparency is one of your caveats, one of your credos. What’s the least transparent thing about how you do what you do.
“There’s a great quote by Werner Herzog, in a documentary film, every cut is a lie; every edit is a lie.’” What he means by that is you can’t literally turn a camera on, and I can’t show you two hours non-stop. Like, you can’t make a movie like that. Literally you’re changing the story every time you cut.
The argument is “well you’re not changing it. Ultimately what you’re doing is you’re condensing it. Because we shot 375 hours. I’m not gonna present an Andy Warhol-esque movie where I’m just gonna let 375 hours run in a movie theater. Cause no one’ll ever see it…”
Somebody would wanna kill you.
“Exactly, if not multiple people.”
I asked him about his meeting with executives who didn’t know their company’s talking points.
That was really strange. When you were meeting with Ban roll-on folks. Who are branding executives who –
“Can’t identify the brand…
“I bet if you asked them that question today, they’d have an answer. …I bet they could answer that question in five seconds!”
Did you cut anything even more embarrassing out of that?”
“Well originally when we first asked it, we asked the question and we cut right to her answer, and I was like, ‘but they didn’t answer it that fast.’ So I went back into the edit with Tom and we play the whole thing out in real time. I said ‘let it play.’”
“Cut to the wide shot, so they know we’re not cutting. We’re not milking it. We’re not making it longer. Just go to the wide shot and let it sit. So, just as soon as I ask the question we just go to the wide shot – it was great! So now you know there’s no trickery. We’re not doing anything to make it longer.
That was something shy of FUBAR.
[Spurlock laughs]
“Really..?!”
You don’t know. In this economy…! All right…
“The least transparent thing about a project like this is one, the amount of work that goes into it, and the amount of stuff you don’t get to see. Cause there are tough choices, really, that go into making a movie. And I believe the sweet spot for a movie, and especially a documentary movie is about 90-minutes. You know, I think you start to lose people as you get to two hours.”
“I think we live in such a world when people have such short attention spans. Especially if you’re watching at home – forget about it. I was just watching a movie, yesterday, when I got to my hotel here. I started watching “I Am Number 4.” About halfway through “I Am Number 4,” I had my computer on my lap – I was working – I was already checked-out! I was done. And I realized suddenly ‘I’m not even watching the movie now.’ …I am that guy.”
“I love having stuff go to television after the fact. But the movie theater is an experience. It is a captive experience. There’s no place else like it. Not even sporting events. Like tennis. Cause even football games, you’re talking to one another during the game.”
“There’s no place else like it. Like Where people are so dead silent and doing nothing but paying attention to the action – doesn’t happen. I believe that filmmaking, movie theaters is like a sacred place.
I indulged in a fan-like question about his former cable series, “30-Days,” which was canceled.
A year ago, I bumped into 30-Days years ago on FX. It earned awards.
“They canceled the show because it started to get expensive. By season three, it was probably costing $750,000 an episode, maybe $800,000. Which is not astronomical at all. Especially one where we’re shooting for like five weeks straight.
“The bigger thing we were up against at FX were ratings. The ratings averaged between 1.1-milion 1.5 million viewers from the premiere. Where as “The Shield,” which was the number one show at the time, got 6-million. ”Rescue Me” got about 5.5-mil, “Nip-Tuck” got about 5-mil. …And that’s what ad sales were comparing us to.”
“So literally we’re getting put in the same box. But these shows are dramas and comedies; how can you compare these shows..? But that’s what happened. The only reason we got a third season was that I agreed to do two episodes.”
“I felt we were in great hands with that show. There’s no place else where we could’ve done this.”
After having watched his TED talk…
Now you have 900-mil media impressions domestically.
“That was in February! “Now, it’s gotta be in the billions.”
Spurlock had a compact with POM Wonderful to provide at least 600-million media impressions…
“You know where we screwed up in the negotiations, really?! I tell ya the one thing, just in terms of being not a smart negotiator, was that we didn’t negotiate for success.
You have to have a metric then.
“I would’ve kept that metric going. Cause if this’s the metric going up to 600 million. I would’ve said this’s the metric going up to a billion. Three billion. Whatever that crazy number is. I feel like we totally missed an opportunity.
(beat)
“A real opportunity. I real financial opportunity was squandered!”
Mr. Spurlock wears a Tom Baker suit with brand logos embroidery sprawled over it.
I gotta ask about the suit. Assuming this was tailored, did the tailor just have to laugh?
“Well first the suit was tailored. But then we took it to Jonathan in New York City; Jonathan’s the embroiderer. And so the embroidering was done after the tailor. The embroiderer was like “you wanna do what to the suit?”
“This is a fantastically expensive suit that we have Nascar’d up. The embroidery does cost more than the suit, which is incredible: I think the suit’s about a grand. All the embroidery is about $1400- $1500 per suit.”
How many do you have?
This is version 4.0
(beat, with another quizical look)
Well, cause each time we had different sponsors come on. So this’s the final version.
Mane and Tail? What’s the deal?!
“Come on. It’s the greatest shampoo you’ll ever use. It’s a shampoo for you And your horse.”
(beat) laughs
“It’s crazy, right? Can I say one thing? I’ve never seen a bald horse.”
…That (brand) just tripped me out.
A cinematographer, Jack Cardiff, of England, waited until age 95 to leave us. He had a story of 70 years of defining and designing how the light looks in movies – chiefly British ones. His reputation across the pond was so eminent that independent filmmaker Craig McCall (not a household name in American movies) just had to make a film about his talents, his contributions and ambitious & zealous artistry. That’s “Cameraman: the Life and Work of Jack Cardiff.”
When was the last time you went to a movie and considered who was in-charge of its look or visual attitude? Cardiff and others talk about how he was inspired by painters, particularly impressionists, such as Vincent Van Gogh and Johannes Vermeer, to light for drama and emphasis. In fact Christopher Callis, one Mr. Cardiff’s peers, said that he helped to found the British movie look.
In the late 1940s his work founded his reputation as a go-to cameraman, and as a man who was game for artistic risks. His big break came with 1946′s “Matter of Life and Death” aka “Stairway to Heaven” in America. His work on 1947′s “Black Narcissus” helped to forge his reputation; the lighting and look of it are extraordinary, bold and evocative. It showed new ways to see and understand how artistic a film could be. In addition, he worked on the first ever documentary that wasn’t a travelogue: 1945′s “Western Approaches.”
Martin Scorsese, a renowned American movie icon, whose voice seems to out weigh several of the others in this film, described Mr Cardiff’s work as “painting in-motion.” To that point, Orson Welles once called movies “an enormously expensive paint box,” which is another way to say just how Cardiff expressed his talents when directors gave him the led-way.
In a couple of books about Mr. Scorsese, he describes how he reveres English filmmakers, especially Michael Powell, and the degree to which they inspired his own work. “Cameraman” uses a brilliant split screen that briefly illustrates point-by-point, on how Mr. Powell’s “The Red Shoes,” from 1948, showed a daring new way to show point of view: from the mind’s eye of a performer. Rewatch in boxing scenes in 1980′s “Raging Bull” after watching “Red Shoes’” dance scenes – you’ll get it.
This is a niche movie; there aren’t a lot of people who watch documentaries. And this isn’t the first documentary about a director of photography, or a group of them.
During an audience Q & A with the filmmaker, Craig McCall, after the first screening, at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, he said that this, which he spent 13 years making independently, was inspired at least in part by the American Film Institute’s (AFI) 1992 documentary “Visions of Light.”
That’s an extraordinary documentary about American movie aesthetics, and specifically about movie lighting and those men – mostly – who made movies like how they do. McCall had wanted to make a version about cinematographers from the United Kingdom, but… he hadn’t the AFI’s wallet.
Jack among some of his subjects (courtesy JackCardiff.com)
McCall calls this a conversation with Mr. Cardiff – that’s the style. Movie’s usually summarize some part of our world, and how we understand or want to understand it. Maybe cinematography summarizes how freely we might use our imaginations, or how open it is, when watching movies.
If you’re the kind of movie-goer who goes to film festivals or habitually checks out the special features on DVDs, which are barely and rarely special these days, then “Cameraman” is great. Even if you’re not…You’ll have a lot of fun while learning fascinating details about movies and how they’re made.
A conversation with Sandra Schulberg, the film’s co-creator/co-producer
Let Nuremberg stand as a warning to all who wage aggressive war, Justice Robert H. Jackson said in his closing statement at the first International Criminal Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.
“Nuremberg” is a peculiar film to critique or write about; there are two different ways to consider it. If you read the poster’s tagline and see the trailer, you’ll expect an epochal courtroom drama, which knocks almost any last half-hour of “Law & Order” on its butt. If you somehow ignore or avoid the publicity, you find a disparate experience; you find the adamant anti-war message, which Justice Jackson, the Chief Prosecutor wanted.
“The greatest courtroom drama in history” poses more than a rhetorical problem; not only does that not describe “Nuremberg,” but that was neither Budd or Stuart Schulberg’s objective in making it, nor Justice Jackson’s. He chose to use the film as evidence in his case against the Nazis. Films made to be used as evidence probably don’t lend themselves to mass audiences with ease.
Sandra Schulberg, daughter of Nuremberg's writer-director Stuart Schulberg (courtesy Schulberg Productions)
To Sandra Schulberg’s mind, Mr. Jackson meant for the trial film to fill a nearly impossible order: be a comprehensive anti-war film, above and beyond the topics of war crimes or the Holocaust. But those last pieces would show their faces, even if they were incidental to his agenda against what he called “aggressive war.” And, then, he faced trial-based considerations. Above all, his and the court’s zealous efforts established what we now call The Nuremberg Principles and the prospect of filing charges against crimes against peace (as in violating treaties) not humanity.
A conversation with Sandra Schulberg answered several profound questions. And without being asked many of the questions that had been prepared, she went on to answer them either out of instinct or in an organic follow-up.
Will Wright: The poster calls the film “the greatest courtroom drama in history.” I was surprised that so much archival footage dominated the story. I expected more court room, direct and cross examinations.
Sandra Schulberg: “This goes back to how the film was constructed. It’s a very complex film! All the affidavits from my father’s [Stuart Schulberg] unit [Photographic Branch/War Crimes unit] to identify every bit of footage…”Ms. Schulberg said. “They [film crew] were sent to Germany in the months leading up to the trail, to put those together hand-to-hand with the prosecution with the film, “The Nazi Plan,” from 1945, according to imdb.
U.S. Signal Corps camera teams were able to shoot only 25 hours during the 10-month trial, a major challenge for the filmmakers (courtesy Schulberg Productions)
“I think the problem they ran into with the courtroom footage, they were supposed to film the courtroom themselves, but they had to turn it down ‘we can’t shoot the courtroom, we’re too busy’ with the evidentiary assignment.”
“Also they were really trying to…tell the whole story of the trial. In a way they had to explain what led to the trial. …To support the four counts of the indictment.” (They felt an obligation in 1949 to tell or remind people of the time-line of atrocities.) “So when it came to there not being a court trial film… this was a critical reason for that.”
The filmmakers also confronted unpleasant and pragmatic geopolitical considerations. America’s foreign policy agenda had been knocked around a bit.
SS: “Two, it [America] became dedicated to rebuilding Germany’s economy. So a film that reminded you of just how horrible they had been would have undermined the American support for helping Germany. …During the war, people were persuaded that Germany had to be stopped.”
“The person who was – two people – who were very disturbed by the American decision not to show it to Americans. The Russians became impatient, released “Judgment of the People,” and rented a big theater, [the] Stanley Theater, in NYC.”
“Pare Lorentz was the unsung hero. Lorentz, he hired my father to make this film. He was in charge of film, theater and music for the War Department. It was Pare’s job to supervise the making of this film. When he heard of American hesitance, he offered to buy it, so that he could release it. He was refused. He only got a print in the 1970s, getting a copy from” the U.S. National Archives.
SS: “When Jackson wanted to show the film, he thought “how on Earth do we expect to compete with the Russians?!,” Jackson wondered, when the Americans couldn’t even get the film released. “He really pushed the government to show the film.” He was finally sent a letter from the Secretary of the Army: “…It would not be useful to have the film seen.”
“They [American senior leaders] were very worried that, by that time,1949, if you showed the film to American’s, that it would undermine support for the new Germany.” So the United States, as ever, had to decide which “truth,” among the several valid, although conflicting ones, best served the nation’s and culture’s strategic agenda, even if others, like either of the Messrs Schulberg or Justice Jackson were disgusted.
WW: It’s a vital historical document?
SS: “That’s on the one hand. One is that the film leaves incontrovertible record of the Nazi crimes. And Jackson says in his opening statements. Every count of this can be proved by their own records, this avalanche of documents of the Nazis. The trail left this indelible record,” Ms. Schulberg said.
“…Another piece of this is that the principle established at Nuremberg, the crime against humanity began the precedent: ‘The Nuremberg Principles.’” There was a forty-some year gap between that and the modern trials,” such as those in Rwanda or Serbia and Yuoslavia and elsewhere.
Exposing this vehement anti-war film to fresh American eyes and minds
SS: “What I’ve learned from showing that film, in the US, they’ve never seen any of the courtroom material. They haven’t seen a succinct summary of every thing that led to this. All of the emphasis in the first third of the film was… the crimes of peace. ”Let Nuremberg stand as a warning to all who wage aggressive war,” Chief Prosecutor Jackson said. “I’ve come to see this film as a really powerful message against all war. Jackson was focused on using the trial as a way of deterring future acts of aggression,” Schulberg said.
Ms. Schulberg had also been stunned by the paucity of trial footage, and what the film’s and Justice Jackson’s objective had been. The question – what constitutes crimes against humanity came into play. “These are very important pieces of the story. That’s what surprised me – how much emphasis on crimes of aggression, crimes against peace,” she said.
SS: “The lesson of the film, today, of course one learns again a great deal about World War II, we’re still dealing with these crimes against humanity. There were legal principles that established to punish those crimes.”
Comparing “Nuremberg” to iconic popular Holocaust films…
WW: How do you expect viewers to take different from better known or iconic Holocaust films, like 1993′s “Schindler’s List or 1990′s “Europa, Europa” or a recent documentary like 2004′s “Paper Clips?”
SS: “The films that you cite are fiction films” the most closest fiction film to dealing with this is “Judgment at Nuremberg” at lot of people will assume that it’s about the same trail I will be that one is about the fourth one – the third that followed the first one.”
“This film fills a big gap in the historical record…because at the time, there was no other film about the trail. This was meant to be the film that…the world should see,” Ms. Schulberg said.
I met Ms. Patel for a brief conversation prior to La Mission’s first evening screening in Minneapolis. I wrote a critique of the film. Her film career began on the ground floor of one of Hollywood’s blue chip talent agencies. At different times, she wound up working for William Morris and International Creative Management. This thoroughly contemporary, and American, Indian professional spoke about how hard it is producing a film in costly San Francisco, the slow increase of South Asians in the film industry, and why blaming it on bigotry misses certain cultural circumstances.
I wish I would’ve brought my danged camera! Solo photos of Alpita Patel are not strewn across web.
"La Mission's" primary actors, and its producer, Alpita Patel, 2nd from the right
If La Mission’s Che Rivera is struggling, as he says, “to make $1 out of 15 cents.” The film’s budget was approximately $2.4 million. What should the budget have been to make a full $1?
I mean that’s a hard question. You kind of go by what the industry says. The budget sort of keeps decreasing, in terms of what you can get financed. So, comfortable for us would have been $4 – $4.5 million. I mean to really not have to stress about it. And to shoot in San Francisco really, you can’t go below $4 million. We also had to make a lot of cuts in the script in order to do it for $2.25 million. Also, if we had anything left over, it would’ve helped for marketing.
During the post-screening Q&A, she mentioned that the production had struck it lucky: they had “really supporting private equity investors who did not want a return.” They were the executive producers. One of them put up 85 percent of the money; the other, the balance. She said that equity is really the only money.
I remember when a typical Hollywood movie budget was $20 – $30 million.
I think what you’re seeing is a dichotomy. The studio movies have gotten more expensive. The studios don’t make $20 – $30 million movies. They only make movies that’re $100+ million and then it has to be a movie that can justify that kind of budget. So it’s gonna be an Avatar, or it’s gonna be a Salt, or Twilight, and Batman. And then what happened, independent movies, a lot of the funding sources have dried up, especially internationally. There’s a cash flow issue. Ten to 15 years ago, you could make a film for $12 million and get independent financing. Definitely even $8 – $10 million would not have been a big deal. Now, raising even $2 million is a huge deal, on the independent side.
Basically what’s suffering is you’re not getting a lot of quality films. Ultimately, you’re not getting enough drama. You’re either getting comedies and you’re getting, you know, big action movies.
Did you pursue the brothers Bratt or did they pursue you and your skill set?
It was a very organic relationship. I’ve known Benjamin for over 10 years. When I was training to be an agent, I assisted, and learned from his agent. So, when I was promoted, he had seen me come up through that process.
When I was promoted, I actually started working with him, so I was one of his agents. His brother (Peter Bratt, La Mission’s director) had the script. So, unofficially I said let me just work this with you. That just worked. Now, the three of us, having gone through this project, have realized that we want to continue making relevant, thought provoking, and conscientious films together.
We created a company called 5 Stick.
On a completely different topic, I had to ask her to discuss, ever so briefly, her experience as a South Asian female in the business. She began at ICM, and was the first “one” there. She said that the problem isn’t necessarily or simply bigotry. She said that, in South Asian culture, children are raised to become professionals, not artists, not in entertainment. As South Asians become more Americanized, it’s changing.
She said that the situation in Hollywood has definitely improved. When it comes to the idea of a swelling cadre of South Asians in the business, she kind of scoffed.
“Are there hundreds? …Dozens?”
“There are over 10 – 15, in agencies, with authority,” she said.
Now that you have a taste for producing, you want to stick with it?
Absolutely! I love it. You know, what’s great about producing is that you can be creative in a much more overall way; sort of like putting together the ingredients in a recipe. You’re not in charge of the black pepper, or making it, but you want to get the best quality that you can to help your chef make something, so to speak.
So, I like that process, and I like helping artists. I like protecting the artist so that he or she can make a product and have the creative freedom to do that, so that they can do their best work without any interference. As a producer, that’s my job. My job is to protect the director and give him the tools, and everything he needs to or she needs to make the best movie – to make the movie that they envision.
So a problem solver, protector for the filmmaker.
In the process, I’ve learned that I do have good taste, and I can find quality people, on a budget! So I’m proud of the elements that I’ve added as well.
What’s next? Do you have a set of scripts, of projects to work on over the next two or five years?
Absolutely. Peter and I have a list of projects that we’ve been mulling back-and-forth. We’re honing in on a bunch, because you have to. You just don’t know which one’s gonna go next. And Peter’s actually writing, called the “Silent Spring,” by Rachel Carson. is sort of the mother of the environmental movement.
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