Portrait of "Portrait of Wally"

 Playing in Theaters

Portrait of "Portrait of Wally"

(brinkzine.com 5/9/12)

Portrait of Wally, about the most famous case involving the restitution of art stolen from European Jews by the Nazis was THE thinking-man's documentary at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. In fact, it was part of the Tribeca Talks series, prior to this weekend's opening at the Quad Cinema in New York. Directed by Andrew Shea (see photo) and cowritten by Shea and journalist David D'Arcy (see photo, in chair), it isn't simply the retelling of a long, intricate legal battle to determine the provenance of a masterpiece, but is also both a fascinating detective story with an array of good guys and crooks and a David-vs-Goliath tale in which a wronged family takes on the likes of Austrian government, corrupt billionaire art collectors, MoMA, and even NPR. To set the stage: The Portrait of Wally is a 1912 oil painting by Austrian Egon Shiele of his teenage mistress Valerie "Wally" Neuzil. In 1939, twenty-one years after the twenty-eight-year-old Shiele died during a Spanish flu pandemic, the Nazis seized the painting from art dealer and collector Lea Bondi (Jaray). After the war, American forces retrieved the painting but it ended up not with its owner but in the Belvedere, Austria's National Museum. In 1953 Bondi asked art collector Rudolf Leopold to try to get it back for her. Instead, he acquired the painting for himself and eventually displayed it in his government-established Leopold Museum in Vienna. Bondi Jaray hired lawyers and was still trying to get the painting back when she passed away in 1969. The story might have ended there but in 1997, Portrait of Wally was loaned by the Leopold Musuem to MoMA in New York City to be part of a Schiele exhibit. An article about the painting's history appeared in the New York Times. This prompted the heirs of Lea Bondi Jaray, most prominently Andre Bondi (see photo, at podium), to contact the New York County District Attorney, who in turn issued a subpoena forbidding its return to Austria. This set in motion years of wrangling over provenance. Leopold died in 2009 but his wife Elizabeth (see photo, displaying painting with a smile that will infuriate her detractors) carried on his fight to keep Shiele's painting at the museum in Austria. A $19M settlement was reached in 2010 but still there is controversy and anger over the outcome.

All this and much more is covered in the documentary, which I urge everyone to see. Also by copying and pasting, check out the film's site: http://www.7thart.com/films/Portrait-of-Wally. Below is Andrew Shea's statement about the film, followed by a brief email interview I did with David D'Arcy, who not only cowrote it but appears as an informative talking head.

Andrew Shea's Director's Statement: I was hesitant to take on this project when David D'Arcy, an old friend and former reporter for National Public Radio, brought the story of Portrait of Wally to my attention several years ago. The saga of this small painting by Egon Schiele spanned almost a century and several continents. Many of the key players were dead. The case had been mired in the United States federal courts

for almost a decade, with no end in sight. But as I dug deeper I was struck by the sense of outrage and loss this painting aroused in so many people: the family of the Viennese art dealer Lea Bondi, determined to reclaim the stolen portrait she had failed to recover in her lifetime; the Manhattan District Attorney who sent shock waves through the international art world and enraged many of New Yorks most prominent cultural organizations when he issued a subpoena and launched a criminal investigation following the surprise resurfacing of Portrait of Wally; the New York art dealer who tipped off a reporter about the painting during the opening of a Schiele exhibition at a major American art museum; the Senior Special Agent at the Department of Homeland Security who vowed not to retire until the fight was over; the art theft investigator who unearthed the post-war subterfuge and confusion that ultimately landed the painting in the hands of a young, obsessed Schiele collector; the museum official who testified before Congress that the seizure of Portrait of Wally could have a crippling effect on the ability of American museums to borrow works of art; the Assistant United States Attorney who took the case to the eve of trial; and the legendary Schiele collector who bartered for Portrait of Wally in the early 1950s and fought to the end of his life to bring it home to Vienna. This outpouring of passion convinced me to take on a project that I knew would take years to complete. My hope is that we have succeeded in translating a singularly convoluted story into a compelling and human film that gives voice to the raw emotion of the many people whose lives have been touched by Schieles tender portrait of his mistress.


Interview with David D'Arcy

Danny Peary: You have been covering the topic of art stolen from the Jews by the Nazis for many years. Was it something you felt deeply personal about and/or was it just an intriguing topic for a curious journalist?
David D'Arcy: I have been covering this issue since the 1980s, for Art Newspaper, Art + Auction, and NPR. Why? Property somehow creates overlapping territory shared by the worst criminals of the 20th century and those who happened to buy it or own it or hold it after the war. Recovering that property offers a faint hope of justice for those who survived.

DP: Were you feeling like an investigative reporter uncovering corruption or, as a cynical veteran on this subject, did you basically know everything or predict everything that would transpire?

DD: I am an investigative reporter. I have been doing it for 30 years (for NPR, CBC, Vanity Fair, Art + Auction, etc.). What struck me was how an institution like MoMA took the position that it took on a Holocaust property crime, and then walked away without talking about it.

DP: Did you always think of the "Wally" story as ideal for a documentary? Or did you think the opposite?

DD: "Wally" is a good story for a doc--you just have to find the filmmakers who can turn it into cinema. I hope the film achieved some of that. Just keeping the story alive is a good thing.

DP: What were your initial discussions with Andrew Shea when you decided to start tackling a script? Did you use a script to find money for the production?

DD: There wasnt much discussion--the script is just a distillation of interviews, so it wasnt used to raise money.

DP: Since it was an open-ended story with twists and turns, did you fear that you'd be constantly rewriting it?

DD: There were no constant rewrites--the story is already overtaken by events. Other works of art are the subject of restitution claims, and the money hasnt been distributed to the heirs yet.
David D'Arcy

DP: Was the most difficult challenge the fact that Lea, the heroine of the piece, died long ago while the villains were still present?

DD: Lea Bondi is not the heroine of this story. She was a victim of theft, of a Holocaust property crime, and she failed to recover her property, or even to make a claim, but the family and the US attorney made the recovery possible. The term villain doesnt seem right, but the opponents of giving back the property stolen during the Holocaust never explained why they took those positions. Please ask them why that is. MoMA ran away from this film project. So did National Public Radio. They werent pillagers, but they make accountability difficult.

DP: This film has unconventional villains--people who run museums, MoMA, NPR, in some cases the law. As a writer, what were the challenges of portraying good guys and bad guys or was that never a concern? My sense is that you had to fill the gap left by Lea and bring in Willi Korte, Sharon Cohen Levin, Jane Kallir, Robert Morgenthau, Edith Bondi, and Andre Bondi--did you think in such terms?

DD: Forget about villains, think of the opposition to Lea Bondi as the banality of indifference, which became acute when I reported on it for NPR--then you get an attack on me behind my back by MoMA, and a combination of credulity and fear by NPR--the worst qualities to be found in people practicing journalism.

DP: Did the settlement throw you for a loop? Did you suddenly worry that an unsatisfying resolution to the "Wally" story might make your film have an unsatisfying ending for viewers?

DD: I broke the story of the settlement in Art Newspaper--it was a fact, so I didn't have the luxury of having any feelings about it. So was Leopold's death, which happened when I was in Vienna. I would have wanted to speak to him, but somehow my Ouija board hasnt been able to make contact. I suppose that's a regret.

DP: What was the ending you hoped you'd write?

DD: I didnt hope for an ending. I would still like NPR to apologize for the deceit and malice that it showed toward me, and for deliberately and maliciously airing false information which documents in their possession (provided to them by me at their request) showed to be false. They betrayed millions of listeners. They have never explained why they did that. People who give them money based on a relationship of trust are owed an explanation.
 Andre Bondi (top) Elizabeth Leopold (bottom)

DP: Andrew has thanked many people for helping him with this film. Who did you collaborate with over the years, including those on the Tribeca Talks panel?

DD: Willi Korte was an extraordinary source of information and insight. Jane Kallir is a great authority on Schiele and her values are in the right place. Sharon Levin fought a long, long fight against tough odds, as did her office. Marc Masurovsky brought and brings a moral intensity to the field of restitution. Hubertus Czernin was essential to all this, opening up Austrian institutions and their secrets, and publishing what no one else would. Der Standard in Vienna does a remarkable job on restitution stories.

DP: What is your greatest satisfaction as the cowriter of this film?

DD: I am pleased that some of the story of "Wally" made it to the screen.

To learn more about the story behind Portrait of Wally and find out where it will be screening nationally and internationally, copy and paste and go to this link: http://www.7thart.com/films/Portrait-of-Wally

A Director & His Non-Supporting Characters

"Supporting Characters" is on the Film Festival Circuit

A Director & His Non-Supporting Characters

(from brinkzine.com 5/8/12)

 Karpovsky, Schechter, Lowe Photo by DP

At the recent Tribeca Film Festival everybody was reserving their praise for documentaries and serious narratives, but there was one comedy that was good as any of them, Supporting Characters. Director Daniel Schechter's delightfully quirky character piece is a consistently witty and observant picture with some terrific lead performances. It was pitched by the festival as "a truly masculine romantic comedy" because it's about the relationship between two males, best friends and skilled movie-editing partners Nick (Alex Karpovsky, an indie favorite who is now seen on HBO's Girls) and Darryl (Tarik Lowe, who cowrote the semiautobiographical film with Schechter). But women will surely recognize this nonthreatening, well-meaning duo from their own "not-so-bad-but-good-riddance" lists and get a kick out of watching them systematically sabotage their relationships with, respectively, "perfect girlfriend" Amy (Sophia Takal) and the not-particularly-interested dancer Liana (Melonie Diaz). (Also to be appreciated are the fine performances by the three female leads, as well as a bit by Lena Dunham.) Nick has a super relationship but he still emails his ex-girlfriend and begins a flirtation with Jamie (Arielle Kebbel), the star of the movie being edited. Darryl wrongly believes he too has a super relationship and will propose...in public. As finishing the movie becomes increasingly problematic, so do Nick's and Darryl's relationships with their girlfriends and each other. At the festival, I had a lively breakfast with Schechter (C in photo), Lowe (R), and Karpovsky (L) and we discussed their funny movie.
Danny Peary: Supporting Characters starts out with a bad test screening of the film Nick and Darryl are editing. Did you have test screenings for this film?
Daniel Schecter: Yes. I edited this movie, which isn't always the wisest thing for a director to do, and I found test screenings were valuable because we got some really good feedback. In the movie we have a running joke in which Nick wants to cut a scene with Rodney the Doorman but Darryl disagrees. Well, we really had a couple of "Rodney the Doormen" actors who were in good scenes that we decided to cut because they didn't support the entire film.
DP: I would think you're still testing the film at Tribeca in a way. Are you getting laughs where you wanted them?
DS: I don't think the screenings could have gone any better. I'm actually surprised by how many laughs there are in the movie. We didn't necessarily go out of our way to make it as funny as possible and there were times when I even toned down people, but Tarik and Alex are so good together and people seem to love their characters and chemistry, so there has been a lot of laughter. If I have any insecurities about a new film it's usually early on, and I think this film gets better as it goes along. I don't think I'll change the movie after the festival; it's as tight and sharp as I'm going to get it.
DP: I read that this is a semiautobiographical film about your friendship with Tarik. Did you two get to know each other while working as editors?
DS: No, I have a background in editing but Tarik is an actor. We were buddies and wanted to create a vehicle for him. He was writing on the side and I liked his writing a lot so we decided to do something mean and lean together.
Tarik Lowe: We were introduced by a mutual friend named Sebastian Sozzii, who is in the film. We hit it off immediately. I have always had trouble finding anyone, including friends, to read my writing, but everything I sent to Dan he read. I used him as the person to critique me and make me a better writer.

Lowe and Karpovsky

DP: Do the two of you have a rhythm when you talk similar to that of Darryl and Nick?
DS: It is almost exactly the same as the two people in the movie. In fact, for two or three scenes that we were writing, we'd turn on a recording device and improvise the scenes in character. We'd do about four takes and then whittle it down to the best stuff. This all came about because whenever we'd go out with friends they'd laugh at our exchanges--I think we came across as sort of a weird, charming duo.
DP: Nick and Darryl know everything about each other. Is that a reflection of your real relationship?
DS: Definitely. Maybe it's a reflection that we're both artists, but we tend to talk a lot about deeply personal things. We've known each other for only about two years and there's a lot we don't know about each other but Tarik is maybe now my closest friend.
DP: With my close male friends, I talk about movies and sports.
DS: It is unusual that we don't. I find it very difficult at this point of my life to make new friends, which is what I find unique about our relationship. Maybe it's just the nature of the people I hang out with, who are single, that makes us talk about personal things. Sometimes I'm very confessional with new groups of people and I'm aware of how bizarre that is and pull back.
DP: In writing this and working with Alex, I'm wondering if you two examined your relationship at all, without actually saying, "Hey, let's talk about our relationship."
TL: I think we knew what our relationship is and our task was to flesh it out for a script. We probably understood each other better after writing the film but a lot of it was established and it was just a matter of putting it down on paper.
DS: There's a big subplot about how Nick and Darryl are business partners too and that causes a lot of tension in their relationship. Tarik and I are just friends, not business partners, so we don't have that kind of tension in our relationship...usually.
DP: So it didn't bring up any sore points between you?
DS: No, but sometimes we'd improvise scenes and get into it and I'm not an actor so I would feel uncomfortable afterwards. For example after doing improv on the scene in which Nick tells Darryl he's taking the next job by himself there was some tension between us.
DP: There is also some black-white dialogue and a couple of times a line is crossed.
TL: We discuss race all the time.
DS: One time when Nick says something to him about "not getting married but having a lot of kids instead," he is crossing the line. But he's not coming from a place of racism, he's just trying to be funny all the time and pop that bubble--sometimes that's a big bubble to pop and it splashes back in his face. That's what happens. Nick just likes poking Darryl. I just like poking Tarik. If he were bald, that's what I'd make fun of. Whatever Darryl's sore spot is, what would make him insecure and self-conscious, that's what Nick keeps poking.
DP: Alex, Tarik is kind of playing himself, but you're kind of playing Daniel. Does that make it easier or harder coming in as an outsider?
Alex Karpovsky: It's easier because I had the reference. Dan was working in front of me so if I got confused about my character I could just ask him. It was easy to navigate, which was nice. But I should say that I didn't think Dan wanted me to play a clone of himself so I had a pretty long leash to play with stuff and bring in my own stuff. I didn't feel I had to draw too heavily from Dan but I could always get guidance from him.
DP: Dan, I've known you five minutes but you come across as very energetic while Nick in the film, like Alex, is more subdued.
DS: Alex has a calm, confident magnetism that I don't have. I'm self-conscious and fidgety, so I enjoy watching how he is. I enjoy his presence much more than if I had played Nick myself. There is something magnetic, sexy, and smart about Alex that people respond to in all the films he does, especially this character.
AK: What was different about his movie is that I had never before acted in a movie that wasn't directed by a friend of mine. Dan emailed me or facebooked me out of the blue. I didn't know him at all. He said he was interested in working with me and asked if he could send this script. So that was very different and wonderful. I was nervous working with someone whose sensibilities I didn't know but after he sent me the script I felt that, wow, I couldn't fuck it up too bad. He told me to see Albert Brooks' Modern Romance because that was a big influence on this. I loved it so I knew this was going to be good.
DS: That movie holds up. Tarik and I watched it about six months before shooting our movie. There were about four of us dying laughing. It's also a film where the filmmaking stuff is secondary to the romantic comedy aspect, and I wanted this to be the same way. It was an arbitrary choice that Nick and Darryl are editors--I just needed them to have a job to be at while they bitched about their girlfriends. It just happened to be great fun to work in that world and it was a great metaphor for editing your life and your work.
DP: In Modern Romance, Albert Brooks and Kathry Harrold keep breaking off and getting back together. Nick is still in touch with his previous girlfriend but I don't think he can ever revive that relationship or one with anybody else he break ups with. Is that accurate?
DS: The irony is that I based this on a tragic breakup I had gone through and I did get back with that person, which is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I don't want to give away the ending, but we do end on a bit of a sad note. We don't know what the future is with the characters but Nick certainly learns from his experience, as I did as well. Nick had been getting to work late and having Darryl do all the work but now he comes in early to begin their new project. He's thinking, "I'm going to be organized, I'm going to do better." I wanted to make a metaphor about relationships--if you screw it up, you learn from it, and hopefully do better in the next one, so don't beat yourself up.
DP: I considered that he's going back on the Internet not do work but to email his old girlfriend or to seek a new girlfriend. He has a history of finding a girlfriend online.
DS: That's the first I heard anyone say that, but it's valid. I had a flashback sequence there where we'd go back to his first date with Amy, and that would have made things even more confusing. I just wanted Nick and Darryl to have a fresh start.
DP: Contrast the two characters. Alex, your character doesn't realize how much he has with Amy. And, Tarik, your character thinks he has more than he has and rushes into his relationships. They have patterns.
AK: That's interesting. I've never psychoanalyzed it but I wonder if part of their friendship is that they're opposites and want an aspect of the other.
TL: I agree.
DS: I'm very susceptible to flattery. That's my insecurity. When I get any interest from a woman I become vastly more attracted to her. Tarik is the opposite. When women start treating him like crap and rejecting him, he likes them more.
TL: I almost don't like women who like me. A lot of the Liana stuff happened to me in real life. I would tell Dan about it and instead of giving me advice, he'd tell me we had to write it down. And he'd laugh really hard! I've been in relationships where I may have been taken advantage of, and I don't know if I've stopped yet.

 Tarik Lowe: Melonie Diaz
DP: The scene in the movie in Times Square in which Darryl walks Liana to another man's car reminds me of the scene in Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt, when Michel Piccoli allows his wife Brigitte Bardot climb alone into the two-seat sports car driven by crass producer Jack Palance and go where the three of them are going while he walks. She instantly falls out of love with him.
DS: It's so emasculating. That's a very flattering comparison.
DP: I love when Darryl tells Liana that they should get married because they're "good eighty percent of the time." That's enough for your character, Tarik, to think he should be with a woman for the rest of his life.
TL: I wrote that because I thought it would be a good argument to make. Darryl is just trying to convince Liana that they're right for each other. Throwing a stat at her is his last desperate attempt. Eighty percent is more than fifty percent, that's a good number!
AK (laughing): They're right for each other most of the time.
DS: I think we like to look at other couples to see where you stand.

DP: In the movie, when Amy tells Nick that she's seen his emails to his girlfriend on his computer, he starts to defend himself by telling her, "Being a guy isn't always easy," and then realizes that's the wrong approach and tries to explain it in a different way. But that line is really kind of the theme of the movie, isn't it?
DS: Sure. It's an argument most women should not have to and probably will never understand but it's what most guys think and is in the back of their minds. I just wanted it to be an honest line about guys.
AK: Nick should know better than to try to explain with that line to her. Dan, you said a lot of the movie, specifically that scene, is autobiographical. Did you really say something along those lines?
DS: No. But I thought that and of course I was smart enough to never say it out loud. I didn't want that scene to be funny--and there is a lot of tension if I did my job right--but I expected that line would get a laugh. I thought that line would break the tension and keep the tone balanced.
AK: It gets a tortured laugh.
DP: When you were saying that line did you realize it was important?
AK: To be honest, no. I didn't know that potentially it could reverberate and lasso in a bunch of themes of the movie. When I act, I try not to overthink things too often; if I tried to relate it to the big picture it might just have confused things and distanced me from the moment.
DS: That's one of those lines that I would have had to do a line reading for if it hadn't been done perfectly, but to Alex's credit, when he read that line, he immediately understood how to deliver it. He has great comic timing.
DP: What's the purpose of bringing in references to Nick's mother and their competitive relationship?
DS: I find that people are mostly influenced by their parents so if there are holes in them, it might often come from one or the other. I wanted to hint that there some reason behind Nick's behavior and his failed relationships with women. To me, it isn't a movie about a guy who cheats but a movie about a guy who has messed-up relationships with women, and I thought that it would give viewers some subtext as to why.
DP: I like when the DP loses an argument regarding the movie and complains about the lighting in the office.
TL: Great! Dan wanted to cut that and I fought so hard to keep it!
DS: I didn't think it made logical sense. But nobody would let me cut it.
TL: It's a great line. That was one of two things I fought for.
DP: When Nick is tempted to have an affair with the Jamie, the female lead in the movie they're editing, Darryl asks, "What if God is testing you?" And Nick counters with "What if God is rewarding me?"
TL: Dan and I always have debates over religion and the existence or God, and we were debating it during the writing of this film, so we wanted to have a scene where the characters discuss that.
DS: That's one of my favorite lines in the movie. I think the atheists' point of view often is that it's so arrogant to presume you know what God means, and it just cracks me up that Nick thinks this girl is his reward for being a great guy.
TL: Nick uses God when it benefits him in some way.
DP: One terrific scene has Nick going back and forth seductively with Jaime as she does postproduction dubbing in the recording booth, and getting her to say her lines perfectly, with an erotic bent. Of the two characters, Nick seems to the one who, like Dan, has potential to be a director.
DS: I think he can become a director. He has great taste, he's just not good at articulating what he wants. He's probably right that Jaime should say her line that way but he doesn't know hot to communicate it to her; she teaches him how to communicate with an actor, which is what I like about that scene.
AK: I agree that he has good sensibilities. He definitely nurtures his fantasies of wanting to be in charge of a movie. That comes out in the hallway fight scene. He's also a good editor, which is a huge part of the process and will benefit him if he becomes a director.
DS: He's also learning from other directors' mistakes.

DP: Talk about working together as actors. It seemed like you could be best friends and that you'd been hanging out for ten years.
AK: Thank you. Actually we didn't know each other at all. But we had the luxury of hanging out some before we shot and that usually doesn't happen on indie films. That was tremendously beneficial.
TL: Working with Alex is great because you can't throw him off. He's very intelligent and is one of those actors who is always ready no matter how things go. I learned every day working with him and we just had good chemistry that we exploited.
DP: Alex, you directed, cowrote, and star in another really good film at the festival, Rubberneck, which is genuinely creepy.
AK: There aren't many jokes in Rubberneck.
DS: (To Alex): Was your intention to do something that was completely dramatic or did you have an idea for a movie that was a drama?
AK: Well, both. I definitely wanted to do something very different and I wanted to do a thriller.
DP: Has the festival been great for you guys?
DS: I can't imagine a better festival. I'm not just saying this to be diplomatic but it's one of the greatest experiences I've ever had.

Group Photo at TFF (L-R): Tarik Lowe, Mike Landry, Arielle Kebbel, Daniel Schechter, Sophia Takal, Alex Karpovsky

You Must Visit "Booker's Place"

Playing in Theaters


You Must Visit "Booker's Place"


(from brinkzine.com 5/2/12)

In 1965, esteemed television pioneer Frank De Felitta made a documentary for NBC News about life in Greenwood, Mississippi, after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made racial discrimination illegal across the land. He was told not to stir up contgroversy by interviewing any black citizens but he couldn't resist putting on camera a riveting individual named Mack Booker Wright. Booker had grown up working in the cotton fields but for the last twenty-five years had been a popular, decently paid waiter at the exclusive whites-only restaurant, Lusco's--and also was the proprietor of his own restaurant across the tracks in the black section of town, Booker's Place. Booker was well-liked by those who ran and frequented Lusco's because he had good manners, smiled even when insulted, and seemed to be content spending days being polite to whites. But in front of De Felitta's camera, Booker delivered a blunt, inflammatory monologue about the indignities he suffered on a daily basis while being subservient to the whites in town. He expressed that he didn't want his three daughters to go through what he did. De Felitta offered to not include his heartfelt speech because he feared there would be reprisals in town against Booker if it was seen nationally, but Booker insisted that it remain. De Felitta would long feel guilt for including Booker because he immediately lost his job at Lusco's and was ostracized by the white community, was brutally beaten by a white policeman, would be threatened and suffer humiliations in his remaining years, and was murdered in 1973 by a black man with ties to a white officer. Thirty-five years later Frank's filmmaker son Raymond De Felitta (Two-Family House, City Island) and Booker's granddaughter Yvette Johnson, a teacher in Arizona, went to Greenwood to learn more about Booker's story. They put together new footage, including interviews of Greenwood citizens, black and white, with footage from the 1966 documentary, and the result is the fascinating Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story. I was able to speak to De Felitta and Johnson (who was an interview subject as well as serving as a coproducer) when they were screening their movie at the Tribeca Film Festival. Although I'm posting this too late for the festival, the film has opened at the Quad Cinema in New York City (as well as Los Angeles) and will be the subject of a full Dateline hosted by Lester Holt on NBC on May 20, 2012.
Danny Peary: Are many people who see Booker's Place surprised that what takes place in your father's NBC documentary about Mississippi, including Booker's monologue was not in 1955 but in 1965, after the Civil Rights Act?
Raymond De Felitta: In general, what people thought ended ten years earlier was still going on in the seventies. People assume that after Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, it was done. There is a huge, huge misconception about that. Booker was killed in 1973. The attitudes, the mindset, were still there deep into the next generation and some will say still exist.
DP: If your father returned to Mississippi with you, would he have said it's just like he remembered it?
RDF: I don't think he would. What he conveys, particularly in our story about how he could contact an undercover FBI agent if he was in physical danger, is that they were a crew from the north doing something very risky. They had to protect themselves because something could have happened to them. We didn't face anything remotely like that. That alone tells us that 55 years has made a major impact in certain ways.
DP: So nobody told you that you were stirring up bad memories that have nothing to do with what life is like in Greenwood, Mississippi today?
RDF: We didn't get that response but we were talking to a very specific type of white and black southerner. Middle-aged and older and educated. Nobody was reticent but we weren't talking to former Klan members and we didn't get to talk to the policeman who beat up Booker after my father's documentary ran. There are people there who you might provoke that kind of reaction from. You do get a different story when you speak to older black southerners. The way they convey what they remember is different. Usually it's by example and they'll tell you in a very impassive way what happened to them or what they saw. Even if it's the same story someone else told, it's from a very different and emotional point of view.

DP: Like the story of a white man trying to find a gun to kill a black man who touched his car.
RDF: Yes. That's where you feel the divide that still exists.
DP: Yvette, do you still have family there?
Yvette Johnson: I have a lot of family still in Mississippi. My aunt, who is in the movie, lives in Greenville, which about 45 minutes from Greenwood. My mother is now in Phoenix, which is where I live. I was born in Greenwood but my immediate family left when I was two. My father, Leroy Jones, played football with the San Diego Chargers [1976-83] and we left when he signed a contract.
DP: Do both of you have the feeling that this film was destined to happen?
RDF: I'm enough of a fantasist to say there was a ghost calling to me. It was too weird how I found my father's television documentary with Booker and posted it; then David Zellerford, our producer, became obsessed with Booker; and meanwhile Yvette was looking for this piece of film of her grandfather. The collision of events was beyond serendipitous, it was spooky. Then we got to Greenwood and found that the building that had been Booker's Place was still there though deserted--and the buildings on that block of McLaurin Street, which used to contain a dozen bars and cafes, are gone except for Booker's Place. So the whole thing resonates with "somebody needs this story to be told."
DP: How did you two get together?
YJ: David Zellerford, our producing partner, brought us together. Raymond posted Booker's monologue on his blog and David couldn't get it out of his head and watched it over and over again. In that monologue, Booker said that part of the reason he endured the humiliation of waiting on customers in an all-white restaurant was because of his children. And David raised the question, "What happened to this guy and his kids?" So they started doing their own research. Meanwhile I had blogged for a couple of years and had been doing my own research about my grandfather. So they were able to find me. It was kind of neat in that they had about half the story and I had the other half. And we went to Greenwood to see what else we could find. I started this journey because I was looking for my heritage--it's me and my family, it's black America, that's where I take my pride in the film. Raymond has a deep personal connection, too, because of his father.
DP: How was it being in the film talking about your family?
YJ: I didn't know that I'd be on camera at all. But Raymond interviewed me and that was good, and it was about family, so I'd do anything.
DP: In the movie, you say you thought your grandfather, Booker, was an "accidental activist." Would you have been satisfied with that, and that it's not anything more than a family story?
YJ: Before I saw the film I was satisfied with that. The way the story of his being in a documentary was originally told to me made it sound as if was walking down the street and someone stuck a microphone in his face and asked, "What do you think?" And he just spoke off the cuff. I was impressed with just that and was excited that his statements had impact. But when I saw the documentary I saw that what he said was thoughtful and composed, and he'd thought about what he'd say for quite some time. It wasn't just a spur of the moment statement that he wished he could take back. It was intentional.
DP: And when he said it, he wanted it to be shown on television.
YJ: Exactly. Frank De Felitta was kind enough to give my grandfather many opportunities to save himself and not have his statements be seen nationally.
DP: Both of you see this film in terms of your family. Yvette, you want your family to see it so they can feel proud of Booker. Raymond, you want your father to see it partly, I would think, so he feels less guilt about having included Booker's monologue in his documentary and put him in jeopardy. You have proof that Booker was glad he said what he said but as it turns out, your father still feels guilty.
RDF: I'd say he feels ambivalent, without strong feelings one way or the other. He loves seeing that he was able to give Booker the stage that was so meaningful but has to struggle with the fact--as any documentarian does--that you're dealing with real lives. Especially when you allow someone to commit an act in public, for the record, on film, you take into consideration there might be ramifications. My father always erred on the side of caution except this once. That's why it still lives with him. The other thing--and this is why I started posting my father's films on a blog--was that he had a very strong body of work that he created for network television and it was more or less invisible. His films ran a couple of times and then were placed in a vault, and to me they represent my father's best work. They are terrific time capsules of the sixties, when he made them. They are of great value and I became their advocate and got them out there, which led to all of this.
DP: Would you have liked to have told your father that he needn't feel guilty because what Booker said in his documentary had no bearing on his death? Or would you have rather told him that even if it did have a bearing on his death, it was still worth showing--that he should take pride because Booker wanted it to be shown despite possible consequences?
RDF: The question really isn't what is going to happen in the future to Booker?, but was it appropriate for my father to censor Booker and say I know better than you, Booker? Who else would speak that way to Booker? Anybody who tried to control him during his whole life. They'd say, "We know better than you. Don't behave in such a manner." My father would have been like one of them if he told Booker he shouldn't say anything. I think that is what he finally grasped and understands why he let Booker choose to take the stage.
DP: Yvette, in the film Raymond shows a short version of Booker talking about working in the restaurant. Then later he allows the monologue to run its full course and now we see Booker really express the humiliations he experiences at work and how awful some white diners are to him. How did you feel watching the two versions?
YJ: I had seen both versions before the film was put together. Then when I saw the film with an audience and the longer version came on it dawned on me [tearing up] that what he did was so brave and that cost him so much. I just feel honored and excited and thankful that we've been able to bring his words to the world now. There's nothing else I'd rather do than take his brave moment and use it to help people deal with issues of race and have people learn about courage. It's amazing. When I watch it I'm just so proud of him.

DP: You're also watching with an audience who has never seen this footage.
YV: Right. It provides its own kind of lens, just hearing people respond by inhaling or laughing.
DP: In the movie, we learn that Booker told your aunt, his daughter, that he had a good life but earlier he said he was hurting all his life and it was always difficult. He's saying two different things.
YJ: Yes. He had a very difficult life but great too. He grew up thinking he'd been abandoned by his mother and was unwanted, although he didn't know she tried to get him back. He was a man of great character and was highly motivated and I think he built a great life for himself. He loved being a father to three children, he had a great place, he was fun, he was well known. He told his children to never be ashamed of who they were yet according to my mother he never talked about racial stuff or politics. I think in truth, he was humiliated every day but that's not the kind of truth he would share with his children because he wanted them to have hope for the future.
DP: Do you think he was a complex guy?
YJ: We know from what he said that he was incredibly smart. I think he also had to be complex to do what he did. He had been beaten years before and was being harassed by police and I really do think he knew he was going to be murdered when he told my aunt, "If anything happens to me, I had a good life." He was trying to get some peace of mind. Again, I do believe he had a good life. It depends on where you put your focus. He could think only of the things causing his pain and suffering but he chose to think of his blessings.
RDF: He may have also thought that the monologue redeemed a lot of the pain of his early life. He made big choices. He was illiterate but as an adult learned to read; he was a farmhand but left and got a job and also ran his own business. It's a stunning story. He made this speech that upset the balance of everything and ultimately he became a fulfilled man. There was no more hiding or living two lives.
DP: Documentarians make films that show either what they already knew or what they learn along the way.
RDF: We're definitely the latter. There were several things we were pursuing. We were interested in Yvette's search for her grandfather and in retracing my father's steps, and then because we had his original film we had this whole other pursuit--let's examine Greenwood today and compare and contrast with the Greenwood in 1965. We filmed a whole lot of interviews and could have made a whole other film. But we finally threw in the towel because it didn't fully support what were doing. As we were editing the film it became clear that it couldn't be all these movies and that was the least compelling aspect of it. They've already made civil rights documentaries and we didn't need this film to tell that story again. So we began with the idea that viewers already knew the basic civil rights story and just told Booker's story, filming his journey through his eyes only.
DP: But there's a scene when you gather people from Greenwood for a screening and we hear them talk. And one woman recalls how she loved Booker and also loved the racist men on the all-white town council during Booker's time. You must find that striking in particular.
YJ: I didn't feel offended or anything like that. Statements like hers make you see how complicated things are. We actually interviewed a man who was in Frank's film, someone who was against integration. If there were going to be bad guys we thought it would be him but we spent time in his home and he was just a truly kind, complicated person with some odd ideas about mixing with blacks. So I can't fault that woman for finding good qualities in him. A person may have race-based biases but that still doesn't fully define him. It's easier for them to talk about some of these issues of race if they don't have to be vilified.
DP: My feeling was that the woman didn't actually understand what those men did; I don't think she wanted to know of their transgressions or that of the police.

RDF: Those three men were civic leaders and my impression is that this woman was just a little girl or a teenager at the time. She had the point of view of her parents. This is something we got from getting to know these folks a little bit--when you grow up in a community where everyone is a segregationist, it isn't considered evil to be a segregationist. The white people even believed the black people wanted it to be that way. They weren't evil people but they were in a bad place at a bad time and they were trying to figure out what's the right side of things to be on.
DP: I have interviewed many ballplayers from the late 1940s and 1950s. White ballplayers of that time would tell me that after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball in 1947 that everything was fine for the black players who came after, and they truly believed they were content. The black players would tell me the opposite, that things were still very difficult. They just didn't complain to their white teammates.
YJ: That woman has a way to go but I commend her because she goes to these meetings every month, religiously, to bridge the gap between the races and listens to stories from the black side and tries to understand.
RFD: The old white gentry that we spoke to said their earliest playmates were the sons of the field workers. So it's proof racial bias is taught and not innate.
YJ: It's interesting because I really do feel sometimes that there was genuine affection by individual white kids toward black kids but they went along with the notion that the blacks didn't seem to mind that the white kids went to school while the black kids worked in the fields. They didn't address it and then twenty, thirty, or forty years later they feel guilty because they realize the black kids did mind. So they choose to reminisce about the affection and not the harm done to the blacks.
DP: Someone else at the Greenwood screening in the movie talks about being one of the white kids raised by black women, the help. Talk about that and your reactions to the movie, The Help.
RDF: I haven't read the book or seen the movie and part of that was because we were there and suddenly The Help was in the midst of all this. They filmed it in Greenwood while we were there, so of course we heard a lot about it. That was a $30M movie and we were about a $30 movie.
YJ (laughing): We'd drive past the fancy hotel where they were staying.
RDF: That man at the gathering is the grandson of a very famous segregationist politician. He also said that Klan members come up to him and commend him for his family heritage and he's appalled because he wants nothing to do with that. Part of the reason he's in that group is that he's trying to work out his complicated legacy. I thought that was interesting because everyone was at the screening for the right reasons and was speaking up, he still didn't quite get it. Okay, fine, you had a white mother and black "mother," but just apologize, you don't have to defend why you also considered her a mother!
YJ: Right, they're all stuck in that time and believe everyone was happy.
DP: Yvette, how do you feel watching that paternalistic white landlord in Frank De Felitta's film giving a tour of the shacks where the blacks live in on his property?
YJ: That's a terrible scene. He walks into that man's house and the look on that man's face tells so much. He looks so nervous, afraid to say the wrong thing. He may have been coached to act in a certain way for the cameras. And then the landlord humiliates a woman.
DP: He was trying to draw a distinction between "good blacks" and "bad blacks," who don't deserve his help.
RDF: Booker talks about that in his monologue, how at Lusco's the owners would tell customers, "Don't talk to Booker like that, he's a good nigger." It's very interesting he saw the distinction that way, and I hadn't thought of that before. There are the ones who are okay and the ones who aren't.
DP: Has there been any thought of making Booker's Place a shrine of sorts?
YJ: There's a Freedom Trail that's being developed and markers are being placed at locations where important civil rights events took place and the council that does that is considering putting a marker at Booker's Place. That's something that has been discussed in the last couple of months. The people who own the property are fine with that.

DP: Would you like to show Booker the film?
RDF: Oh, god, yes, that would be wonderful.
DP: You are quoted in the film's production notes talking about documentaries in general: "I wonder about the subjects' reactions to films about their lives and how they felt about having exposed themselves so nakedly." I know Booker only from this film, but I kind of think he'd just nod approvingly.
RDF: You develop kind of a context for why he did what he did and who he was and we often don't do that for ourselves in our lives. I'd like the opportunity to show it to him and say, "I painted a little picture of your life. Does it feel good knowing that or do you not need to know that?"
DP: What else would you ask him?
RDF: I'd ask what he thought about my father and the crew and whether he was happy with his decision. I'd like to know when he decided that he'd go as far as he did. And did he feel, ultimately, that he did it for the right people?
DP: And if he had counsel. I don't know if he was religious and whether he would have spoken to a minister.
RDF: That would be interesting to know. Because my father didn't walk in to Booker's Place knowing that was what they were going to film.
DP: Do you think Booker decided to deliver his candid monologue realizing he'd have impact or because he needed to hear himself say it out loud himself?
YJ: I think he really needed to do it for himself. I think he was boiling over. He spent twenty-five years at Lusco's waiting on white customers while feeling the way he felt. We know that a few years earlier he'd learned the reason he wasn't raised by his mother but by a family that didn't really want him was that the plantation lifestyle was still prevalent. I told Frank, "If it hadn't been for your show, there would have been nothing else." He needed to do something. He understood there was danger in being on the national news because he lived in Greenwood.
DP: if you got to spend five minutes with your grandfather, what questions would you really like to ask him?
YJ: Gosh...To be honest, if I got to spend five minutes with him I don't know if I'd do anything profound or ask questions. I know he loved jazz, so maybe we'd listen to a record. Whatever he wanted to talk about would be fine. I'd just want to hear his voice and have his eyes lock on mine. At a minimum I'd tell him I was proud of him for his part in changing the world but I don't know if that would be the bulk of it. I'd just enjoy his company.

Adam and Bitsie on "Caroline and Jackie"

Festival Movie

Adam and Bitsie on "Caroline and Jackie"

(from brinkzine.com 5/4/12)

 

 The insensitive and unimaginative parents who named the two lead characters of Adam Christian Clark's Caroline and Jackie, which was one of the most interesting and well-acted narratives at the recent Tribeca Film Festival, should have immediately lost custody of their daughters. Cats maybe, kids definitely not. With that foolish decision they doomed their daughters to lives of unmet expectations and an unhealthy us-against-the-shallow-world steel sibling bond. It's no wonder that they grow up to be a bit off-kilter, though they can hide it for a while from their shallow, self-involved "friends" and lovers. And, cleverly played by two terrific actresses--Grimm's Bitsie Tullock as Jackie and indie favorite Marguerite Moreau (whose face is in Bitsie's hands in the picture) as the unpredictable Caroline--they keep us in the audience trying to figure them out long after the end credits. The genesis of this film was Christian's lousy experience attending an intervention for someone who, it turned out, didn't need one, the kind of event that is hard to forget. In Clark's debut feature, Caroline comes to visit Jackie and her live-in boyfriend Ryan (David Giuntoli, who stars as the demon-fighting live-in boyfriend of Tullock's character on Grimm.). Supposedly she was summoned by Jackie's close friend James (Jason Gray-Stanford) to take part in an intervention by Ryan and their friends on Jackie's behalf so that she'll deal with her anorexia. But was it actually Caroline who concocted the idea of an intervention for her younger sister? And did Caroline just invent Jackie's health issue? Don't expect easy answers in this refreshingly odd and compelling film because there are endless ways to interpret it. Near the end of the festival I met up with the personable Adam Christian Clark, a much younger but fellow USC Film School grad, to talk about his film. Then I did an email interview with Bitsie Tullock, who is a major reason I'm a big fan of Grimm. My guess is that they'll be interested in each other's answers to my questions about the very cool Caroline and Jackie.
In-Person Interview with Adam Christian Clark

Danny Peary: I read where you turned down a couple of features in the past, so why did you choose to make Caroline and Jackie your first film other than because of your fondness for small, intimate films?
Adam Christian Clark: I really wanted to explore the family bond. It's interesting how you will run away from the family member who is nicest to you and you'll be the closest to one who is most abusive to you. It seems that with family or blood, you'll have the same amount of adulation, malice, charity, or hatred that you have with yourself. And you can never fully cut ties with family and things that happen between you will weigh on you forever. I wanted to explore that through sisters because women have much more emotion beneath the surface.
DP: Everyone must ask you why you chose the names Caroline and Jackie?
ACC: Not everyone has asked. In the original script I wrote their names as Caroline Wright and Jackie Wright. I didn't want people to think it's a film about the Kennedys, but I was trying to evoke this idea of their coming from a place, time and family where there would be a lot of pressure in trying to fit a certain ideal. The names Caroline and Jackie evoke a certain sentiment or emotion in the American quilt and that may help viewers understand why these characters want to be proper or perfect. I used those names because of the emotion it conveys, not necessarily literally.
DP: I'm not sure if you thought of it, but when I was watching these two women who are in a symbiotic relationship that is headed for decline and disaster as they age and remain together I kept thinking of Grey Gardens.
ACC: Oh, yeah! I guess I never thought about that! I love both versions of Grey Gardens, the documentary especially. It's a great character study and certainly it's about people dealing with extreme pressure because of family.
DP: I'm thinking of them years later when they're alone in the dilapidated house and resigned to always living together.
ACC: I think that may be accurate. I certainly don't see Caroline and Jackie, as this story is written, ending up married or living happily with other people. So I agree with that.
 Marguerite Moreau (L) and Bitsie Tullock

DP: I'm a big fan of Grimm. On that Bitsie Tulloch has a supporting part while David Giuntoli is the lead, so it's funny seeing the switch here. I really like her on that but I had no idea how good an actress she is until I saw your film.
ACC: Yeah, she really is fantastic. I think David also really shines in this. Bitsie and David have an enormous range and breadth and I hope this allows them to do more films like this. It was a great coincidence that they ended up on the same TV show because we cast this film before they cast Grimm. At the time Bitsie and David had never met. I cast Bitsie first as Jackie and then cast David to be her boyfriend, Ryan. Then right after we wrapped principal photography, David auditioned for Grimm. They aren't represented by the same agency but when Bitsie was testing for Grimm David felt she should be given a greater shot because they already had chemistry after working months together on this film. When they tested together they had a real advantage having come off the movie. This was made first and there is a proposal scene in it, too, but it's coming out only now and in Grimm David's character has already proposed to and been turned down by Bitsie's character.
DP: Did you audition Bitsie with David or Marguerite Moreau?
ACC: I auditioned in a nontraditional way. I don't like cold readings or readings on the side because I don't know if an actor's ability to audition that way will give me an accurate indication of how well they will act in a film. So what I like to do instead is take a lot of meetings with actors and I'll have my own interview process and ask very extensive questions.
DP: Did you explain the movie to the auditioning actors for this?
ACC: I explained the movie but they had already read the script in its entirety. I asked them a lot of loaded questions to see how they'd respond. Then if I liked them from the meetings, I'd audition them, bringing them into a room with an actor who had already been cast. For example, I brought David in with Bitsie, who was the first to be cast. And then I did extensive scene preparation with them. I wouldn't have them read lines, but I'd have them do improv and I'd see how they interacted. That's how I did casting.
DP: Tell me about Marguerite, who I remember first seeing in Queen of the Damned. She is also really good.
ACC: I agree. She's been a few great indie films over the last few years, including Easier with Practice and Drake Doremus's first film Douchebag. I have to give credit to the casting directors, Angela Demo and Barbara McCarthy, for understanding what I was looking for and putting me in touch with her. We met and I talked to her for about two hours and then we rehearsed scenes together with Bitsie. As the first actor cast, Bitsie more than anyone else tested with other people, though I did have the Michelle [Valerie Azlynn] and Charlie [David Fuit) characters test with each other.
DP: Did you have time to do a lot of readings with the final cast?
ACC: We had a solid month of rehearsal, usually seven days a week. I rehearsed extensively while we were shooting as well.
DP: You brought in two strong, talented actresses to play two strong, complex women and they had to have ideas of their own. So did things change during that month?
ACC: No. The cast was so, so, so supportive and knew exactly what they were getting into. On day one everybody was told that this was something that they really had to dive into and really had to trust me with. Of course this was a collaborative process but they did not fight me. They were wonderful to work with.
DP: Did you want two actresses who look sort of alike to play the sisters?
ACC: Yeah, but I got lucky with Bitsie and Marguerite. I think they especially look alike. To give credit to them, I think they began to look more alike as they started rehearsing and began to almost mirror each other's mannerisms. I know them very well and they look less like sisters alone than when I see them together and they start mirroring each other. They really get into each other's energy.
DP: How did you explain the tone of this movie to actors? Did you say it's a totally serious film with bits of humor--as when Caroline wants everyone to recite ten things they hate about Jackie--or a black comedy or something else?
ACC: My number one goal with this film was to make it always seem as real as possible in a stylized world. I still struggle to explain it genre-wise because while I think it's a drama it's certainly comedic at times. It's like life, my life at least, which is funny and dramatic at the same time. I wouldn't describe it as a black comedy but if somebody did I'd be flattered.
DP: I think it's a black comedy.
ACC: Thank you, that's very flattering.
DP: One reason I say that is that everyone comes together at the house for a serious intervention and they all seem worried, yet when the distressed Jackie runs off into the night, they stay behind to eat and party, even shooting off fireworks. And Ryan returns home and in the middle of all this takes a shower!
ACC: I wanted to show these characters--as is their world--are vapid and self-involved. Until that point in the movie, he seemed very concerned and up for the challenge and was telling everyone we need to do this and we need to do that for Jackie. But I wanted to show him alone and suddenly he's very vain, glancing at himself in the mirror and freshening up. It's like when James is alone and he has a cocaine moment. I wanted to show that these characters aren't as genuine as they portray themselves to be because it's accurate to that world and also because I wanted to set up a powerful ending. If the bonds were too great between Jackie and the other characters then I don't think my ending would have the same impact.
DP: Well, Caroline, who is having a secret affair with James yet accuses Jackie of promiscuity, tries to seduce Ryan while he's wearing just a towel in the bedroom he shares with her sister. But he tells this beautiful, sexy woman to leave, so I thought at the time you were showing us that Jackie really has a decent guy for a boyfriend.
ACC: Right, it's walking a fine line. I intentionally wanted all the characters to be morally ambiguous. I just feel we don't live in a white-black world and I respond to characters who are greyer. I didn't want Ryan to be an overly nice or bad guy.
DP: Is there something that happened in Jackie and Caroline's childhood that had an incredible impact on them and made them go through the years unchanged, still in a sibling relationship in which Caroline is controlling?
ACC: I have been asked at screenings what exactly their backstory is. Certainly it's implied that there was a level of abuse--their mother is talked about in the dinner scene and we learn she was abusive and pitted them against each other. But in preparing for the film, the backstory I'd work on with Marguerite would be different from the backstory I'd work on with Bitsie, and then we'd combine. The reason that I leave the full backstory ambiguous is because if I had a prologue it would rob moviegoers of the ability to identify their own troubled pasts to the unspecified troubled past of Caroline and Jackie..
DP: While making the film, did you have a complete backstory in your head that you still want to keep secret?
ACC: No, I had a back-up emotion that I tapped into that connected to the abuse or childhood trauma and I made sure that the characters' reactions and consequent events in the film were correct. I was really conscious not to hold on to a specific event. And it certainly wasn't just one thing that happened to them.
DP: At one point Jackie tells Ryan that Caroline stabbed someone in college. But later on, she says Caroline never went to college because she wanted to stay home and protect her.

So are we supposed to figure out if Caroline went to college or just realize that Jackie lies as much as Caroline?
ACC: What I was trying to say is that we often lie about things when we're insecure about them. I would assume the truth is that Caroline didn't go to college but stabbed someone of college age and was sent to the mental hospital for a minute. This is something Jackie is ashamed about so she's not honest. Jackie went to an Ivy League school so she wouldn't present Caroline's real story to Ryan.
DP: The intervention turns out to be a sham but is there the possibility that Caroline is right in saying Jackie has anorexia and is promiscuous? Jackie examines her slender body with curiosity in the mirror but she has been eating all day and even cooked a beef stew.
ACC: Right. She does have troubles. But does she have an eating disorder that warrants intervention? Probably not. But then I have it that way intentionally because with anorexia, alcoholism, and other things that we now classify as diseases there are sliding scales and it's hard to define them. That inner struggle is something a person is going to deal with and try to contain always because there is no cure. Jackie may have symptoms, but whether she is or isn't anorexic depends on how you define it. There are certainly enough issues and evidence and characteristics present so those people could be wooed to come for her intervention.
DP: Could Caroline be setting up her own intervention by inviting these people to one of her breakdowns?
ACC: I think she's making an extreme cry for love and help. I don't know if she's setting up her own intervention but she's going to extremes to get needed attention.
DP: I think she may just be orchestrating this to get Jackie back for herself, which she does by exposing everyone else for who they really are.
ACC: I think so too. But I think it's also that she needs love and support at this time.
DP: I would think Caroline is very close to a breakdown, although she may be faking that. Jackie doesn't seem close to a breakdown and she has always been more stable than her sister, but she seems a bit loony too.
ACC: I think Caroline is crazier but they're both crazy--but crazy in the nicest sense of the word, because we're all a bit crazy. Caroline is a little more dangerous but I don't think Jackie is that stable. They're both exciting for men to be with but no man could devote the rest of their lives to them, so Jackie realizes that she is always going to be alone because her relationships are always going to be sabotaged in the same fashion. She is resigned to always being with Caroline, who can't reciprocate her needs. Though part of her finds comfort in being with her sister, she won't allow herself that comfort for very long.
DP: I see in your credits that you directed Big Brother while you were at USC Film School. In Caroline and Jackie, there are a bunch of people who are stuck together in a house and reveal themselves, so I see a link to Big Brother. Do you?
ACC: Sure, although I don't know if there's a link in terms of the narrative because my putting my characters into a house was due mostly to the constraints of my budget. I couldn't afford a lot of locations. Also, on Big Brother I didn't have the control of what the cast did that I had on other reality shows. I had years of experience on other reality shows dealing with nonprofessional actors and real people and that made it a lot easier to direct professional actors--and when they're as gifted as my actors were on this, it is even easier.
DP: I think you used space very well. As you learn to make movies, are you thinking in terms of space and how to use the frame?
ACC: Oh, yeah, mise-en-scene is very important to me. This is a story that is character-based and very naturalistic in a lot of ways and has overlapping dialogue, but I don't really identify with mumble-core films, which is the mainstay nowadays for telling stories with depth. The reason I don't like them is because they don't really respect the craft of filmmaking. My favorite films are probably John Cassavetes and Robert Altman films of the seventies. I love them because they are very naturalistic but also very much take style and lighting and framing into account. On this film I was very conscious of production design and of confining people with a tight frame or loosening it up. I wanted an ebb and flow to convey and release tension.
DP: It's filmed at night but even so it's very dark, with light coming at times from candles and at one point fireworks.
ACC: I wanted it be dark. I'm more of a fan of hard lighting than soft lighting so that was a style choice.
DP: Your film has a lot of twists that I don't want to ask you about because it will spoil the film for those who haven't seen it.
ACC: It's difficult to talk about. Now the film is getting reviews that give away the whole plot, and if you give a too detailed synopsis of the film it takes away the effect.

David Giuntoli and Bitsie Tullock

DP: Were you satisfied with the audience reaction at the Tribeca Film Festival?
ACC: I am tremendously flattered. I'm always better received than I anticipate. I worried that it would be inaccessible. It is a risky, very tension-filled film that I didn't know would pay off. I know every line in the movie and when I listened in I was worried that there is so much naturalistic chatter on top of each other and people wouldn't even hear crucial lines. It requires a lot from an audience. I thought people would hate it and walk out. But nobody did.
Email Q&A with Bitsie TullockDanny Peary: Adam wrote two strong female parts in Caroline and Jackie. I asked him if once he gave those parts to two strong actresses, who would explore them from their own perspectives, if he watched those characters change in big or subtle ways. He contends that you and Marguerite Moreau stuck to the script and the characters didn't change really. I ask you: do you think you, because you inhabited her, got to know Jackie better than Adam did and showed more of her than is in the script or were you trying to play exactly the Jackie that Adam wrote?
Bitsie Tullock: Both. While the outline was thorough and specific, one of the most magical aspects about working on this movie was how generous Adam was with us--for example, during the intervention scene, all of those actors "wrote" their speeches to Jackie, which was very effective and I believe added a lot to the "documentary/reality show" feel that audiences have mentioned a few times. If I had to choose though, I would contend without hesitation that nobody knows the character of Jackie better than I do (and rightly so).
DP: Did you try, maybe coming up with a full backstory of the relationship between sisters, to know everything about Jackie or did you think it was better to play her if she remained partly a mystery to you, too?
BT: While every character I have played has remained a bit mysterious, which is to be expected as there are parts of ourselves and our psyches that we are constantly discovering and exploring, overall the way I work as an actor involves quite a bit of 'homework' and imagination. You do a ton of work at home on a character's backstory and then the minute you start shooting it's much easier to let all of that go and trust that the character is within you.
DP: Did you have to fully understand Caroline as well as Jackie in order to play this part?
BT: No. In fact, of the three actors I rehearsed with one-on-one before filming, Marguerite and I spent the least amount of time together, and I believe part of the movie's success lies within the ambiguity of the characters and outcome, and within the characters' inability to understand each other and connect. So Marguerite and I never had coffee like I did with Valerie Azlynn (Michelle), or went out to dinner/drinks like I did with David Giuntoli (Ryan). I should add that Marguerite and I have the benefit of having younger and older sisters, respectively, so much of that relationship was already there.
DP: Do you think it was essential that Caroline and Jackie are sisters rather than just lifelong best friends?
DP: Truthfully, I don't think Jackie would have been friends with Caroline in real-life, which is one of the main points of the movie. We are stuck with our families from birth, for better or worse, whether we like it or not. We can choose our friends, but we can't choose our families, and that oft-irritating and undeniable bond is impossible to sever. I know Adam is fascinated by family dynamics and even more so the very intense and very emotional bond between sisters, so I don't think the movie would have worked had it been about friends.
DP: Do you think what happens in this film, with Caroline wrecking Jackie's relationship and getting her back for herself, has happened before? (It may not be a negative since Caroline does expose that Jackie made poor choices in choosing her lover and friends. And perhaps, maybe you agree, Jackie does have body and promiscuity issues that need to be addressed.)
BT: While I don't think this exact scenario has played out before, I do believe that this is not the first time Caroline has intervened in an unwelcome and 'crazy' way. Jackie does not immediately walk out of the intervention, which to me indicates that she has been here before. As to whether Jackie actually has body and/or promiscuity issues, while I know the conclusion I came to as the actress playing her, it would be negligent of me to answer this question, as the director intentionally left this ambiguous.
DP: Do you remember how it was reading the script the first time, in regard to surprises, feelings, or being stimulated?
BT: Not really other than that it terrified me. On paper, Jackie is very much the "straight woman" and I was scared that I wouldn't be able to play her with integrity and depth without her being unsympathetic. It's also obviously a little scary working with a first-time feature director, but having seen a few of Adam's short films, I knew we were in good hands.
Bitsie Tullock

DP: I asked Adam this: do you think it's a black comedy? (There is some funny and odd stuff in this film.)
BT: No. In my opinion this is a drama. It is peppered with welcome light-hearted moments, but is, at the end of the day, a drama. I loved that people were laughing during the two screenings I attended, but it was a nervous and uncomfortable laughter, which to me signals that people were getting very emotionally involved with the characters and the story.
DP: How was it playing with David (who I told at the festival that I like Grimm) when you have the main part and he follows your lead?
BT: David Giuntoli and I had wrapped Caroline and Jackie about 6 months before we auditioned for Grimm. After the movie, we kept in touch and remained friends. It never really occurred to me to think about the dynamic of who is the lead and who isn't, we are just both lucky--since Grimm has been picked up for a full 2nd season--and very grateful and happy that we get to continue working together. He's a great actor and a wonderful friend.
DP: Do you have a co-producing credit on this? I wonder what that entailed.
BT: I do have a co-producer credit on Caroline and Jackie and was involved in things such as location scouts prior to filming, but for the most part I drastically cut down any involvement on the production side of things once we started filming--Adam and I wanted my full attention focused on the character.
DP: Talk about working with Adam. I thought his Big Brother experience may have influenced him to write this script about a group of weird people who are mostly confined to a house.
BT: Adam was a delight to work with. He was remarkably generous--he tried very hard to shoot the film in chronological order, let the actors bring their own ideas to the table, and was very much committed to making the entire experience feel as "real" as possible. In hindsight, filming Caroline and Jackie felt a bit like filming a one-act play, and I think that is a huge compliment, as theater is so freeing and creative.
DP: Finally, do you think both characters are a bit crazy as Adam says--although only one is destructive? And would Jackie want to stay away from her crazier sister or does she find her only comfort in being with her?
BT: Everybody is a little bit crazy. One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given as an actor was to not judge a character, because we all have a little bit of everything within us--the martyr, the clown, the judge, even the murderer. That's what makes people so boundlessly fascinating. All I remember, as Jackie, was that I wanted to be both as close and as far away from Caroline as possible.

Fine on fine "Any Day Now"

Playing at Tribeca Film Festival

Fine on fine "Any Day Now"

(from brinkzine.com 5/1/12)

Travis Fine, photo Danny Peary

For the first time I predicted the Audience Award winner at the Tribeca Festival. I had seen Travis Fine's Any Day Now with a huge audience and judging by the thunderous applause for the film and the standing ovation given to the cast and crew who stood on the stage afterward, I knew it would get a lot of votes. Maybe my three or four ballots giving it a top score (don't tell anyone) put it over the top. Like everyone else I was deeply moved by this brilliantly and lovingly acted film about two gay men who have just met and fallen in love in 1979 L.A.--Alan Cumming's flamboyant, penniless Rudy performs in a transvestite revue and Garret Dillahunt's Paul is a rising star in the district attorney's office until he comes out of the closet--and now fight to gain custody of Marco (Isaac Leyva), a lovable teen with Down syndrome whose mother is an addict. It's a brave, poignant film that Fine (The Space Between, TFF 2010) was drawn to because, as he told the audience, "of a deep personal connection to the loss of a child." He not only directed but also coproduced the movie with his wife Kristine Fine and Chip Hourihan and cowrote the screenplay with George Arthur Bloom. I spoke briefly with the former actor and airline pilot the day after I saw the film and a few hours before it was awarded the festival's most coveted award.
Danny Peary: Could you have set your film in the present but in a location where it's still frowned upon to have adoptions by gay couples?
Travis Fine: I suppose it could be set today as long as it's not in a big city, where there wouldn't be some of the issues. I don't know if it would be a better story or a worse story, it would just be a different story. When the story came to me and it was set in the seventies I saw a chance to write about something that was true then and to a certain extent is true now.
DP: Do you think it's more a story about the law or a love story?
TF: I think it's a love story. There are three people who are thrown together and form a family unit. It's very much a love story about these three.
DP: My wife loved the movie but questioned how quickly Rudy, Alan Cumming's character, takes to Marco and wants to care for him. But I think that's what your film is about, how quickly Rudy with Paul fall in love and then how quickly Rudy and Paul with Marco become attached to each other. There's love in the air once Rudy and Paul meet and I believe love sensations are let loose and everyone is sensitive to love.

TF: I don't know if it's love sensations. I do know what I was told by two of our executive producers, Wayne LaRue Smith and Dan Skahen. They are a gay couple who has fostered 33 kids and fought the Florida Supreme Court for a number of years and spent a ton of time and money to win the right to adopt two of these boys. They have told me about the moment when the door opens and you first see this broken young soul and spirit. It does not take a lot of time or experience to feel compassion for them and to want to wrap your arms around them and protect them--particularly those who are malnourished or have been mistreated. So it's quick but there's a certain reality to it.
DP: She asked why Rudy would fall in love with Marco so quickly and I said, "Why wouldn't he?"
TF: Without question. I remember meeting Isaac when he auditioned for the part. It's a different kind of falling in love but I came to adore him after being with him about five minutes because he's such a wonderful, pure, sweet spirit. His emotions aren't kept in check. When he was on the stage after the screening, you saw him break down and really sob. He was expressing an emotion that I guarantee a lot of us on the stage felt. It was: "Oh, my God. I'm in New York at a premiere of my movie and the audience loves it." For him there is no filter that makes him try to look cool on stage, he doesn't hold back. One thing: if Marco wasn't a human being but a puppy dog with one leg I don't think anyone would question why Rudy falls in love with him so quickly. That's interesting.
DP: Well, everyone in the theater fell in love with Isaac in about two seconds.
TF: Two seconds is all it takes.
DP: And it's on the screen too--there is a real sweetness to Isaac that comes through as Marco.
TF: There's that moment when Marco breaks into that really big smile when they're having breakfast, when Rudy and Marco connect for the first time, and every time I see that scene I fall in love with Marco.
DP: The ending of the movie is strong stuff. Maybe you felt you could soften it for the audience by showing what happens right away, but you didn't. That was your choice.

TF: It's interesting that the beginning was written in the editorial room. In the script we opened on Rudy singing in the club and we shot a big number with feathers and boas and he came through the feathers and started singing a slow song that picks up in tempo. And we had a title credit sequence. But then in editorial my editor Tom Cross--who will cut everything I ever do--and I talked a lot about setting a perfect tone. At a certain point we decided to play around with a flash forward of Marco walking and from the get-go set a tone that made it clear that the movie wasn't going to be light-hearted and fluffy. The disco number that was our original opening would have set the wrong tone. So with our new beginning, I tried to say to the audience that the movie was going to be dramatic and a bit serious. That gave me freedom to get into the drag queen and camp elements, and the comedy--there are some laughs.
DP: All the people who were part of the system that failed Marco receive a letter about what happened to him as a result. We hope they learned their lesson, but do you think they will make wiser choices later on?
TF: I think changes often begins very slowly, and for any worthwhile cause there are often martyrs. If anything Marco is a martyr for his cause. I think going forward, the people sitting on the bench and the attorneys might take a different approach. We do see Paul change. At the beginning Paul was very castrated as a person--he's in closet and is not able to express who he is what he believes. So his meeting with Rudy and Marco is the beginning of his journey in which I think he'll become an outspoken advocate. So my belief is that, yes, this is the beginning of a pendulum swing for these people and the beginning of a larger change.

DP: I think Garret Dillahunt was an inspired choice to play Paul. He was making a mark playing nasty TV villains on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Life, so I was surprised when he was cast playing silly comedy in Raising Hope, but this is something entirely different again. Did you see anything in him that made you think he could play this quiet, sensitive gay man so well?
TF: It was a really tough role to cast and we talked to a lot of different actors. Some were skittish about the subject matter. Alan was already involved, but Garret came in very late. Because of our casting director, Garret's name kept coming back around. Like you I'd seen him do a lot of villains and heavy stuff but I took a look at some video--I forget what it was now--and I said, "He's so crazy-talented that this will work." Then it was just a matter of convincing him to play the role. He had a tight schedule and it was a real challenge to fit it in. I was thrilled that he did.
DP: What I really appreciated about your film is that you watch Rudy and Paul, played by two terrific actors, and you understand why they fall in love with each other, which is a really hard thing to get across.
TF: Alan's performance is exquisite and showy, Garret's is subtle. There's this notion of Abbott and Costello; if you have two Costello's it doesn't work. Garret was willing to let Alan steal the spotlight, but he always gave a subtle yet strong presence. And that's what makes the movie. Otherwise you don't know why Rudy falls for this guy, and does it so quickly.
DP: What they each do in the film, the other one really focuses on and is appreciative of, including their humor and bravery.
TF: After Paul tells Rudy "I'm sorry"...
DP: Which is a great line--"You had me at I'm sorry"...
TF: Yes, he forgives him. And there is a moment at the bar when Paul is telling a story about himself and Rudy makes one of his flamboyant comments and Garret swallows and chokes and looks a little uncomfortable for just a second and Paul can't quite go on. I remember that when we were editing that scene I was thinking that I could fall in love with his guy because there was something so sweet and endearing and honest and pure and strong about him. I think Garret's performance is beautiful.

DP: Every time Alan Cumming plays a new character you see a different side of him. That happens again with Rudy. Once he was cast, did you at all change the role for him?
TF: If anything, the role was perfect for him and his skill set, including the singing. So no we didn't make changes once Alan came on board.--with one exception. We did add the element of him singing live. In the original script, Rudy does not become a singer at the end. I think he just continued to do his drag performances with lip-synching. It's funny that I don't remember what happened to the character in the early drafts but it was a while ago. But I know we added the element of Rudy doing live singing and took him and a sensational trio of musicians into a studio and recorded them.
DP: It works that he becomes a singer because after having gone through this amazingly emotional experience with Marco, he is able to sing with more passion than before and is in fact a better singer.
TF: That's absolutely how I feel.
DP: I was happy to see Kelli Williams as Marco's teacher because since The Practice she has been one of my favorite actresses. She was fabulous in that but they kept giving the Emmy she deserved to Camryn Manheim.
TV: She was my high school sweetheart. We went to high school together and dated. I've known her since I was fourteen. She's a wonderful girl.
DP: Talk about the title of your film coming from Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released."
TF: The film was originally titled Famlee and when we shot it that was what it was called. There's a scene that didn't make it into the final cut in which Marco is drawing his pictures and he can't spell the word family, so he writes famlee. That becomes a picture on Rudy's mirror and it took us into a place of sentimentality that I didn't want to go to. So I actually put a stop to that on the set, telling the production designer not to put the picture up. So I was trying to figure out what we should retitle the movie and one day I was watching in editorial Alan singing the lyric "Any day now" and I told my editor that's the new title.
DP: Many singers, including when many famous singers jam, end their shows with "I Shall Be Released." But did it have any thematic relevance in the movie?
TF: Sure. It's an anthem and I think the lyrics certainly speak to the story itself and it's one of the reasons I chose it. At the end, Rudy sings "We shall be released." He looks right at Paul and alters it so it's about their experience.
DP: What do you think everyone's experience was making this film? Do you think anybody who worked on it will ever have that experience again?
TF: This is the third film I've made and every one is a little different. Every one has a different energy. What I try to do, however, to make a through-line to every film that I do is to work very hard, to have a lot of fun on the set, to treat everyone very well, and to, hopefully, put a product out that people are proud to be a part of. And the term that has come up a number of times with the cast, crew, and investors is feeling proud to be part of this film. It means a lot to me that they're proud because there are a lot of stories to tell and the people who work on my films move from project to project. I know from my years working in front of the camera that there are very few projects you're proud of in a true sense. So it makes me very happy that they feel this way about Any Day Now.

Joe Papp Doc A Class Act

Playing at Tribeca Film Festival

Joe Papp Doc A Class Act

(from brinkzine.com 4/29/12)

Karen Thorsen, photo by Danny Peary

Joseph Papp has been dead for twenty years yet he continues to be a major force in New York and other cities that promote public theater. Everyone who loves theater realizes they owe Papp a debt, including documentarians Tracie Holder (last picture) and Karen Thorsen (first picture) and the celebrities they have gathered to celebrate him in their inspiring, heartfelt movie Joe Papp in Five Acts. You'll be able to see Holder and Thorsen's film on PBS next year, but there's no reason to wait that long when you can see the world premiere on a big screen this Sunday (4/29) at the Tribeca Film Festival. Be sure to catch it at the AMC Loews Village at 66 3rd Avenue at 11th Street. The other day Thorsen had to rush back to the editing room to assure the film would be finished in time for tomorrow's debut, but we did this quick interview.

Danny Peary: What does it mean to you to have a Joe Papp film at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday?
Karen Thorsen: Well, this is an extraordinary festival and it's great to have the world premiere in the city where Joe Papp was born and did all of his work.
DP: Was he from New York?
KT: He was from Brooklyn. His parents were from Lithuania--but there's a reveal in the film I don't want to give away. Imagine him growing up with English not being his first language. He had a teacher who introduced him to Shakespeare and he'd go to the library to read his plays. He didn't know they were in Old English, he just thought it was how people spoke English then. Then he found out people no longer spoke that way.
DP: Are you from New York?
KT: I live in Connecticut but I was born in New York and saw Joe Papp plays all my life. And now my son stands in line. It's amazing how the tradition goes on. There's still the Public Theater on Lafayette, there's also Shakespeare in the Park. He died twenty years ago but his legacy lives on.
DP: Are you surprised that many people don't know he's dead or haven't heard of him?
KT: A lot of people don't know who he is but they know his institutions, and they believe in what he believed without understanding that he's the guy that really started the idea of free Shakespeare. He started it on a truck in the fifties, going to the five boroughs of Manhattan, and getting a permit to put on a play in a park or local square. So all these kids, including blacks and Latinos, would come out to see Shakespeare. The wouldn't know that Romeo and Juliet die in the end and shout, "Don't do it!

DP: What do you think is the most important thing to remember about him?
KT: What's most important is that he believed art should be for the people, that theater should be like the public library and people could see a play for free.
Q: Who funded his work?
KT: He had a lot of friends and got a great deal of non-profit funding, government funding, and funding from organizations who believed in Joe, patrons of the arts, and actors who got their start with him. So many people were grateful to Joe and wanted to pay him back. They also helped us over the years it has taken us make the film. The list was so long that we couldn't put them all in the credits.

DP: You have Meryl Streep and an impressive group of famous people talking about him in the movie.
KT: All of them have a story to tell. They got their starts with him. In our electronic press kit, there is a huge quote by Kevin Spacey. And there are others. All of these people believed in him.
DP: How come there are five acts?

KT: We had six acts at one point but it's a classic play structure. We had enough to say about him.
DP: What was your motivation for spending years working on this film?
KT: Joe Papp had an extraordinary personal story and an extraordinary passion in something I believe in, which is that art should be for everyone. Art shouldn't be just for the elite, it should belong to everyone. In these difficult economic times that's an especially important issue and we need people to talk about it. If they see this film, I think they'll talk about money for the arts.
DP: Why is that important to you?
KT: Because I like the intersection of art and social justice. I did a film on James Baldwin, who wrote and worked on civil rights, and I'm making a film about Thomas Paine, who did the same thing for democracy, writing and then starting the American Revolution. Joe Papp did it for the arts. He wasn't a writer but he was an impresario who had a social conscience. And he had an intense and complex life, so Tracie Holder and I got to tell a good story and tell a message. There is one important line in the film where the British playwright David Hare says Joe Papp taught him to be radical at the center. I really love that line and it was almost the title of the film.
Tracie Holder

DP: Do you consider this film to be political?
KT: It's about social justice, it's about the politics of race and inclusion, it's about the economics of art for everyone. But it's also a biography about a very complex, wonderful guy, who really was radical at the center.