As 2008 comes to a close and we try to catch up on some titles that we missed earlier (all the better to formulate our list of favorite films of the year), we're connecting via email with some of the filmmakers behind the year's most noted nonfiction releases.
First up is James Marsh, the director of perhaps the year's most acclaimed film, MAN ON WIRE. Shortlisted for the Oscars, nominated for the Indie Spirit Awards and in the midst of a nearly clean sweep of the year end critics awards, MAN ON WIRE stormed out of Sundance, was picked up by Magnolia and stands just shy of 3 million dollars at the box office. It has been, no exaggeration, quite a year for Marsh.
I saw James in Copenhagen last month and he told me that he'd recently moved to Europe from New York, where he'd been based for over a decade. In our email exchange this weekend, we talk, among other topics, about his move, his film's deft handling of 9/11 and the joys of having Sean Connery invite you and your subject for drinks.
ATWT: One
of my favorite things about this time of year is looking over the
Sundance line-up, because it's this blank slate/vision of the future.
These are films that will become a big part of the conversation in our
community over the next year, but right now they are just these
titles. Going into Sundance last year, what were you feeling?
James Marsh: Relief.
Three previous films had been rejected by Sundance and I was pretty
sure MAN ON WIRE would suffer the same fate. Also I was dying to see
the film with an audience. It's really the only way you know whether a
film actually works. This was the first film I made that I actually
liked when I finished it - I guess because I was, and still am,
thrilled by what Petit did. As you know, going into the festival the
film was completely off the radar and it stayed that way during the
festival. That was fine with me - I didn't want the burden of hype and
I knew going in that most distributors would be too shortsighted to
seek out a film that they weren't being told to see by each other and
so it proved. I'm always amazed (aren't we all?) by the kind of films
that distributors go after at Sundance and the money they spend. They
never seem to learn from their mistakes. You watch, they'll do the same
this year.
Heath Ledger died during our first screening so quite a few people left to find out more about that but those that stayed seemed really tuned into the film. At festivals, films are subject to quite withering word of mouth commentary and we did get this growing sense that audiences were enjoying the film and talking about it. I heard people talking about it on the bus - almost apologizing for the fact that it was a doc but that it was definitely worth seeing. That was a pretty nice experience. This year, who knows? I do like the sound of two titles in the World Doc section: BIG RIVER MAN and Kim Longinotto's ROUGH AUNTIES. I really admire her work and I wish her films were better known in the US.
After
Sundance, the film played nearly every festival, it seems. What was
your year on the fest circuit like and did you have any favorite
experiences?
Well,
you're probably right. MAN ON WIRE was promiscuous at film festivals
but for me, going to a festival should be a little treat that you allow
yourself whilst getting on with the new work. I've been working on a
new documentary project and getting ready to shoot a feature so I did
allow myself to go to quite a few festivals and I have lots of great
memories. Getting a bit drunk and talking into the early hours with Ellen Kuras at Full Frame, the closing night at True/False and the humbling response from the huge audience there. At Edinburgh, Sean Connery was in the audience and got up and asked a question. He then invited us
all out for a drink and I have this great image in my head of Philippe Petit showing James Bond magic tricks at the bar.
If there was one festival that I would recommend to anyone involved or interested in documentary filmmaking, it would be True/False. The whole town is alive with passionate debate about documentaries, the films they show are really well chosen and David (Wilson) and Paul (Sturtz) were brilliant hosts.
Here's what I learnt on my travels: documentaries are the most vibrant and subversive genre in American film culture and that has probably been true for the last 5 years.
The
thing about MAN ON WIRE that I keep coming back to was this
fearlessness about dealing or not dealing with 9/11. I've said that
somehow you knew that you could simultaneously ignore the destruction
of the towers and also use it to create this sense of danger that hangs
over all of Petit's activities. You must have had discussions about
this during the making of the film - how far can we go?
There
was only one discussion about this. And it wasn't even a discussion. It
was a defining choice. There was no way we were going to get into 9/11
and that was that. Can you imagine the film with that as the epilogue?
How crass that would have been? I assumed that most of the audience
would feel the same way as I did as I made the film - we are constantly
aware of the tragic future of those buildings but able to inhabit the
innocent and sometimes joyous present that Petit's adventure creates in
the film. I trust the audience to complete the film on that level for
themselves to whatever degree they want. I don't believe the memory of
those buildings should be exclusively owned by the people who destroyed
them or the politicians who then exploited their actions. Why shouldn't
they also belong to dreamers and artists, at least for the duration of
the film?
While this year has been pretty good all around for nonfiction film, there still have been casualties, including one of the entities that made MAN ON WIRE, Discovery Films. I saw Andrea Meditch at the IDA Awards and we talked about how strange and melancholy it is for them, now that your film and ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD are getting all this attention at the end of the year. What was your experience with Discovery and were you surprised to hear that they were closing the theatrical unit?
It's completely baffling on one level. Discovery's film unit have produced some of the finest theatrical documentaries over the past few years and also some of the most commercially successful. They will profit more from MAN ON WIRE's success than anyone else involved in the film. Who knows what they are thinking?
I think Andrea was treated very shabbily. She was dispatched immediately after Man On Wire's prizes at Sundance and the higher echelons of Discovery had already started issuing press releases naming people at Discovery who had supposedly overseen the film but aside from Andrea and Matt Katziv (press person), I've never actually heard from or spoken to anyone at the company at all.
On a personal level, I like Andrea a lot. Unlike a lot of executives, she doesn't assume her audience are ignorant and stupid and in fact, she made a few vital editorial suggestions which in her nice way were posed as questions not prescriptions or criticisms. I hope she can find another niche in the world of documentaries. We all need people like her around.
What was one of your favorite nonfiction films this year and why did it resonate with you?
My favourite film in any genre this year was WALTZ WITH BASHIR. I think it is a truly great war film and comparable to movies like Apocalypse Now and Paths Of Glory.
It's also an important breakthrough in the documentary genre. It dealt
with issues many docs engage with - history, politics, memory - but in
ways that were surprising, inventive and subversive. Above all it was a
trippy, witty cinematic experience and it's great that it has been
doing so well. I liked a lot of other films this year - ANVIL! was
hilarious and heartbreaking and true. THE ORDER OF MYTHS
was such a surprising and subtle film. It challenged so many
assumptions and cliches and yet it didn't editorialize or make cheap
political points. THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON) was weighty and sad and a labour of love in all the right ways. UP THE YANGTZE was another film that opened (and ravished) my eyes.
So you've moved from New York,
you're working on a new film, can you talk about what's happening now
in your life, besides what appears will be a full slate of award shows
in the next few months?
I
left New York because I thought I could be more productive as a
filmmaker in Europe. I've only ever had one paying job from a US
company as a filmmaker, even though I lived in the US for 14 years. It
was supposed to be a documentary about the making of a Broadway musical
- I hate musicals but I was desperate and broke and I had to do it.
But they wanted an informercial not a documentary and I was fired after
a few weeks. I did get one offer at Sundance to make a Fox studio film
about the evangelist Rick Warren that Rupert Murdoch himself had
initiated. They wanted a straight up heroic film about Rick and his
work in the Third World and they already had lots of footage of Rick
holding hands with little African children who had AIDS. They saw MAN ON WIRE and they thought I was the man for the job. I laughed until I
cried.
Anyway, it felt perverse to struggle on in New York when I had offers and opportunities to work in the UK. But it was really tough to leave and part of me is heartbroken about it. I left the same week that MAN ON WIRE opened in New York and I hope it doesn't sound maudlin to say that it's become my personal love letter to the city.
I just finished a narrative feature here in the UK working again with the DP and editor of MAN ON WIRE. I'm very lucky that I've been able to move between documentaries and fiction but I try to use the same collaborators on all my films so we all learn together and cross fertilize the work we do. The film is a paranoid thriller with a big cast of actors and a strong factual background - it's based around a notorious serial killer called the Yorkshire ripper who was at large in the north of England in the late '70's. Now I want to make another feature documentary and I'm working on absolutely crazy idea based on a dream diary. Basically, an old jewish guy in Toronto wrote down all the dreams he ever had about a woman he was in love with who died tragically and young. The film is a kind of doomed love story based on his dream narratives. It could be an absolutely unwatchable disaster and I have no idea how I am going to make it. Hence it has to be done.
Great interview, AJ! Not having the luxury of access to festivals or nearby theaters that would show a film like "Man On Wire", I didn't get see it until last week when it became available on Netflix. It was worth the wait. I posted about it on my blog and encouraged everyone to see it.
Posted by: Chris | December 16, 2008 at 06:09 AM
Thank you for all of these interviews. It is heartening to hear that even the most accomplished documentary filmmakers experience tremendous doubt about their work. Man on Wire was one of my favorite films of the year. It demonstrated that documentary film can be successful as craft and story, not just as a means to promoting a certain agenda. Here's my glowing review of the film http://eidolonfilms.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/review-man-on-wire/
Posted by: Tessa | December 22, 2008 at 10:16 AM
hi james this is pierre,i've been trying to get in touch with philippe petit, about something very important,i can't contact him anywhere.please pass this message to him,he wants to walk across the grand canyon he said. i know that robby kneivel the motorcyclr daredevil owns a portion of the grand canyon at a narrow point,he needs to contact robby kneivel to ask his permission to use his land,please pass the word to him thanx [email protected]
Posted by: pierre leclerc | February 16, 2009 at 09:01 PM
Hello James,
Congratulations on this exciting Academy Award for Man On Wire! I know how hard you have worked and am so glad you are receiving the acclaim you deserve! Seeing you on the Awards brought me to tears! All the best to you and Ana and your daughters.
Theresa Boyeson
Wisconsin Casting - Wisconsin Death Trip
Posted by: Theresa Boyeson | February 22, 2009 at 07:40 PM
Thank you James (and Phillipe, and the unsung hero of the story, Jean-Louis). I'm constantly seeking out documentaries which are also films, but I missed this one entirely (until my barber recommended it to me). I watched it end to end three times within the first 24-hours. It could also have been called: "Two Miracles in Two Towers" (but fortunately, was not).
In addition to all the immediately obvious originalities of the film, the epic story, and of course the heroically human cast of characters, what struck me most was the profound connection it made to 9/11. Without even the slightest innuendo, the scenes of the steel girders and frameworks being raised into place, transported me inside those final moments more than any newsreel of the carnage I saw after it happened, decades later.
And to Phillipe, having now witnessed what you did (I was 22 years old at the time, and barely remember reading about it then), I believe you conferred upon those two buildings a blessing that remains standing, invisibly, in the space you traversed, and they once occupied. I have witnessed three transcendent things in my 56 years: The Apollo 8 Christmas Eve broadcast from the Moon in 1968, the election of President Obama, and now, through this great film, your consecration of the human imagination, upon which all our accomplishments, no matter how massive or complex, inevitably depend.
Posted by: ted in pdx | March 17, 2009 at 01:54 PM
Hey, I really enjoyed this interview. Informative and informal. James sounds more relatable, just like any artist talking about life and reflecting on the highs and low of the movie world. Whats come and been, the next project on the stove and the other one in their head. It was refreshing to actually get someones real opinion and not just endorsed commercial chatter which makes me want to throw up. Thank you I appreciate it!
Posted by: kathleen | October 06, 2009 at 01:32 PM