Before I saw Peter Richardson's HOW TO DIE IN OREGON, I'd heard over and over that it was a incredibly difficult film to get through. In our now-annual interview in December, Sundance programmers David Courier and Caroline Libresco described the film to me as "devastating". There were reports of walkouts at Sundance (where the film won the Grand Jury Prize) and HBO's Sheila Nevins, the film's Executive Producer, even told the New York Times that the film was so wrenching, that "half her staff...refused to watch the whole film".
“Nobody wants to stare death in the face, and that’s the reason nobody wants to see this film,” Ms. Nevins said over breakfast at the nearby Canyons Ski Resort. “Don’t get me wrong — it’s very harsh, a very hard watch. But ultimately it’s an important film about courage, about dignity, about compassion.”
So you might imagine my trepidation in watching the film, which I did for the jury at this year's Ashland Film Festival (we, too, awarded HOW TO DIE our Grand Jury Prize, and not because of the regional topicality). I mean, watching people die? Who wants to do that?
I won't lie to you and say that I wasn't affected by the film for hours afterward or that, more than two months later, images from the film don't continue to haunt me.
But this film is not an impossible watch and you shouldn't shy away from it when it premieres on HBO tomorrow night. For such a loud subject, HOW TO DIE IN OREGON is a quiet, sensitive, beautifully made film that reveals Richardson to be a tremendously gifted artist. I'd go further than that: the relationship that Richardson formed with his key subject, Cody Curtis (and her family) is what making documentaries is all about.
The moments, late in the film, that Richardson and Curtis and the camera share are some of the most complex, moving shots I've seen this year. Without words, they convey a range of emotion. That we get to see them is due to one thing: Richardson knew to keep the camera on.
I had the chance to query Richardson as part of a panel discussion in Ashland and also through a few questions at him during The Soapbox open forum I hosted at Hot Docs. I asked him last week if I could re-visit some of those questions via email.
All these wonderful things: Can you talk a bit about the genesis of this project and any trepidation you might have felt at the onset? Obviously you must have known that one of the keys to getting the film you wanted would be to find someone or multiple someones who agree to let you follow their death process.
Peter Richardson: The actual inspiration for the film came in a rather serendipitous moment. It was 2006, the morning I was leaving for Sundance with my first film, CLEAR CUT: THE STORY OF PHILOMATH, OREGON. I was leaving the airport hotel in Portland early that morning and as I opened my door and looked down I saw the USA Today that had been delivered. The above-the-fold headline on the right-hand column (as I remember it) announced the US Supreme Court ruling upholding Oregon's Death with Dignity Law. The law had been challenged by the Bush Administration, went all the way to the Supreme Court, and was ultimately upheld in a split decision. And this happened to be the morning that decision was announced. So I saw that headline and it was very clear to me in that moment that I should make this film.
It was about a year later that I actually started production. During that time I was on the festival circuit with CLEAR CUT, so I had a lot of time to think about this film, read a lot and research. And also really question whether I was up to the task of making it, knowing what a difficult journey it would be personally and emotionally, and also question in a way whether the film “should” be made – what would the people who appeared in the film ultimately gain from their participation, and how could the film be made in a compassionate and respectful manner when dealing with such an incredibly intimate, private and emotional subject.
There were certainly people who cautioned me, quite strongly, about making the film – that it would be too difficult for me to make and too difficult for people to watch. But there were others who were very encouraging, and saw that this was a necessary film, so ultimately those voices won out.
So I had made the decision to go on this journey, but then came the first conversation with a person I might film with, and that was incredibly difficult for me. I remember thinking, as the phone was ringing and I was waiting for this man, Glenn Elfman, who had prostate cancer and had been given less than 6 months to live, that the first thing I wanted to say was, “I’m sorry.” That I was sorry for his illness, and that I was sorry for having the audacity to contact him and ask to tell his story. But it became very clear as Glenn and I started talking on the phone that in fact the documentary was something he and his wife Linda welcomed – that he saw it as a way for others to learn from his experience, to give something to other people at the end, and also to leave a record for Linda, his wife of more than 30 years (they were high school sweethearts). So it was really the strength and the courage of the people I was filming with that then gave me the conviction that this film should be made. This didn’t always make the day-to-day of filming any easier, but had I not been met with such assuredness and candor from the people I was filming, I may not have continued on with the documentary.
ATWT: One of the things that I found so striking about the film was the intimacy of your camerawork with Cody. There are a number of moments, particularly toward the end of the film, where your camera lingers on her face and you see this complexity of emotion play out. Of course our subjects do tend to forget that we are there at times, but this felt like something more profound, both in the way she had opened up to you and in your own process of capturing these quiet moments.
PR: I think the style of camerawork really gets to the heart of why it was that I wanted to make this film. I wanted to tell a profoundly human story, not make a film “about” an issue, or espouse a particular political viewpoint. And I felt that the way to make that film, and to capture that story, was through a very quiet and almost invisible style. And because I shot the film, the way I photographed it was also an expression of my relationship with the people in it.
There was actually an image that emerged in my mind when I was spending this year of “mental pre-production” on the fest circuit with CLEAR CUT in 2006 – it was of my “main character” shopping in a supermarket. A very mundane image, which, in the context of this film, would have great meaning. I feel like we are surrounded every day by invisible stories, and I think the desire to tell those stories, to know those around us for who they really are, to let those barriers disappear, is something that really inspires my filmmaking, and I think a lot of documentary filmmakers.
So the visual style I was thinking of was in many ways very quiet and still, and was about observing and letting the story unfold in front of the camera as much as possible, rather than constructing it in the editing room. Inevitably of course there is a great deal of construction that happens in editing, but I wanted at minimum a few “anchor” images – long takes – in the film. Images that may be incredibly difficult to look at, but would also confront the viewer with the reality of what they were seeing, and allow them to connect with the people in the film in a deeper, more mindful way.
Of course it is one thing to have an idea that this is something you want to do stylistically, and another to have the privilege to actually capture it when you are filming. I say privilege because shots like this require an incredible trust on the part of the people you are filming, a real intimacy, and I would say almost a collaborative spirit – they believe in you and what you are doing and so make the conscious choice to “invite” you and by extension your camera into the most intimate moments.
There is one shot in particular in “How to Die in Oregon” that to me epitomizes this idea. It is near the end of the film, and Cody Curtis – whom I followed for about 10 months and is the primary “character” in the film – is getting her hair cut. But we have just learned that she plans to take the lethal dose of Seconal three days later (Cody actually told me that very morning, as we were waiting for her stylist, so in a way I “found out” at the same time the audience ultimately does). We see her getting her hair washed, cut and styled, and we hear voiceover from her and her physician talking about why now is the time. Her stylist exits to get Cody a cup of tea and as she does we are left with Cody staring directly into the mirror. But I was shooting from just over her shoulder -- the camera out of frame by mere inches -- as Cody was facing herself in the mirror in complete silence, so she is looking almost directly at the camera, and the audience. The shot holds on her as a series of emotions and thoughts clearly play across her face, but she does not say anything and she doesn’t look at the camera.
It is a strikingly intimate moment, and one that was a “gift” from Cody. She could have very easily looked at me, or the camera, or told me to stop filming. But she didn’t. I will never know why – we never talked about it afterwards – but I think that at that point in our relationship there was an implicit trust between us. Clearly Cody could not have forgotten I was there, because my camera was directly over her shoulder, reflected in the mirror. But maybe because we had already been through so much together, and because Cody was so invested in the film, in collaborating in a way in the telling of her story, she decided to let that moment unfold.
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