2008 IN REVIEW: Emailing with IN A DREAM's Jeremiah Zagar

Part three in our series of conversations with some of the year's top nonfiction filmmakers.  Jeremiah Zagar's IN A DREAM premiered at SXSW this year and went on to win the Emerging Filmmaker award at Full Frame.  This fall, it took two honors - Best Documentary and Best Editing - at the Woodstock Film Festival, and was later named as one of 15 films on the Academy's Documentary Feature shortlist.

In this online conversation, I ask Jeremiah about his work with his collaborators, escaping the cliches of the "film about my folks" and he confesses to beating "the piss out of" a piñata.

ATWT: Of all the genres of nonfiction, the "film about my parents" always seems the most fraught with danger.  You run the risk of thinking that what's interesting or damaging to you may not be so compelling to audiences.  But your father chose to be extraordinarily open for your camera.  Was there a point during his confessionals to you that convinced you that you had a feature length film on your hands or - knowing your parents - did you have a sense from the start?

Jeremiah Zagar: I like to think of this film as a documentary love story that just so happens to be about my parents. In other words, the reason for making it was never personal. I started when I was 19 because my mother asked me to film my father — I think just because she felt we should spend more time together — and I did it because I trust her. I never expected it to amount to anything.

Then about three months into shooting, I took my father down to West Virginia where he would be isolated from his work and from my mother. Here, he began to speak to the camera in a way he never had before. It was extremely intimate and funny and sometimes a bit terrifying. We were supposed to stay for ten days but after five my father couldn't take it anymore and we drove home with thirteen hours of really good tape. I watched the footage over and over for the next three years, picking out my favorite moments and stories. What became clear from the footage to me and my producer Jeremy Yaches was that we could make some beautiful, surreal scenes using 35mm cutaways and that if we had a verité narrative arc maybe we could combine the surreal with the hyper real to create something exciting and hopefully new. So I went back to Philly often and shot my family, waiting for something to happen. And eventually something did.

I said to someone after I saw your film that it was "achingly beautiful".  Thinking about that, I think there's this sense of both personal and artistic longing, which is perhaps resonant to others who try to create art.  But I felt that the work you did with your cinematographers, animators and co-editor was kind of a perfect example of how to use artistic craft to compliment the art of your subject, without overwhelming it.  How did you approach the look and feel of the film in relation to your father's art?

We felt from the very beginning that in order for my father's art to inform the narrative, it had to be tangible. The audience had to feel like they were in it, like they could reach into the screen or that the screen could reach out to them. Director of Photography Erik Messerschmidt and I felt strongly that in order to achieve maximum color and detail, the work had to be filmed on 35mm. At points, we also wanted to be moving on a steadi-cam with a 10mm lens so that the art was, in a sense, surrounding the viewer.

With recreations such as the fish gutting, we applied the same principal of tangibility but in a different way. By filming the fish in 90mm macro close-ups, the imagery could become separated from reality as it might in a dream; or in this case a nightmare.

Later in the process, along with animators Cassidy Gearhart & Yussef Cole, I used that same principal on the etchings. They were so dense and intricate to begin with that we felt for them to have real meaning, we needed to isolate key areas and show those parts drawling-on so that the audience felt like they were witness to the very act of creation.

Working with Keiko Deguchi was a whole other story. She gave the film a depth in a way that I never could have alone. She brought not only editorial doc and feature experience but also life experience that I just didn't have. We worked together wonderfully. She would come over and cut an amazing scene but it would have large black spaces in it and I would spend the nights filling them with slides and archival footage. It felt very organic to work with her and I miss it very much.

Keiko and my consulting editors Ross Kauffman and Sam Pollard taught me so much about editing. It's hard to even express it in words. We cut this film for three years straight, and in the process there was just an immense amout of incredible collaborations. With my parents, with Jeremy, with our composers Kelli Scarr and Nick from the The Books. With our exective producers, Ross, Pamela Tanner Boll and Geralyn White Dreyfous. With my sound designer & mixer Tom Paul. We all had the same goal—and that was to make as beautiful and powerful a film as possible.

When the Oscar shortlist came out, I felt that including IN A DREAM meant that whatever had gone wrong last year - when a dozen or so artistic and interesting films were ignored - must have been, at least temporarily, fixed.  For all the attention that is given to the shortlist, can you talk about what it has meant for your film, if anything?

It's an incredible honor. When Jeremy called and told me, I was with my girlfriend in TLA Video on 15th and Locust in Philadelphia. She said I was shaking, I was so shocked. That night, I celebrated by buying 4 Criterion Collection DVDs.

You'd screened a short film at SXSW previously.  Was it a different experience going there with your feature?

Yes because with the short, there was no pressure. The festival was incredibly fun.

With IN A DREAM, though, it was very stressful for me. My father and brother were there so I felt like I had to take care of them along with the film. The best part was that my friends from New York, Philly & LA came to Texas and bought me a piñata and I beat the piss out of it.

In the end, I think it was the perfect place to premiere. So much has happened for the film since we screened there. I'm very grateful to the programmers and staff for believing in the movie.

What was the highlight of your festival run to date?

Winning the award at Full Frame was amazing, just because so many people I revere were there. I finally felt like I was part of a community of people I'd like to call my peers. It felt like validation. After seven years of making the film, it was very important to me. 

Pick a moment from another nonfiction film that you saw this year that has continued to stay with you.  What is it and why has it remained in your brain?

In TROUBLE THE WATER when Kim raps "Amazing" and the camera doesn't cut, it just stays on her face the whole time and you can feel her power and that of the filmmakers at the same time. It's a really gutsy moment that I love.

Comments

[help with dissertation]

Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!

[joanne Feinberg]

Great series AJ. Thanks!

[Belinda Glijansky]

Sensitive and insightful interview with a sensitive and talented director. Thanks!