All these wonderful things

Peter Richardson on Filming His Powerfully Quiet Prize-Winner, HOW TO DIE IN OREGON

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.

A Few Thoughts About This Year's Miami Film Festival

This was the second year in a row that I didn't make it to Park City for Sundance.  I had been toying with the idea of going pretty much even as the festival was starting up, but what with Sundance coming directly on the heels of this year's Cinema Eye Honors (and the multiple snow storms that struck New York while I was on the east coast), the notion of getting myself to Utah and more snow in the midst of recuperating from a months-long project was too daunting.

So, like last year, I eagerly awaited my first opportunity to see this year's new batch of films, no matter if word on the street was that this year wasn't shaping up to be on par with last (when 4 Sundance premieres would eventually make it to the Oscars and a handful of others were considered high profile snubs).

Luckily I'd been invited to participate in two different film festival juries in the first quarter of 2011.  Between the two, I'd end up seeing 13 of the docs that had premiered at Sundance.

I saw the majority of these while at the Miami Film Festival, which I attended last week.  Toronto International Film Festival doc programmer Thom Powers (also responsible for DOC NYC, Stranger Than Fiction and my co-hort in getting the Cinema Eye Honors off the ground) joined the team in Miami this year and invited me to be part of a jury that included Sheffield Doc/Fest Director Heather Croall and Jeremy Kay, the US Editor for Screen International.

Sundance 2011: HELL AND BACK AGAIN and HOW TO DIE IN OREGON Win Grand Jury Prizes

Danfung Dennis' HELL AND BACK AGAIN, a buzzed about Afghan War doc from the UK, was the big winner tonight at the Sundance Film Festival, picking up two awards in the World Documentary competition - the Cinematography Prize and the Grand Jury Prize.  The US Documentary Competition winner was the HBO documentary HOW TO DIE IN OREGON, which was directed by Peter D. Richardson.

Update: Stephen Saito reminds that HOW TO DIE IN OREGON qualified last year for the Documentary Feature Oscar, so it will not figure into next year's race.

Directing prizes went to Jon Foy for RESURRECT DEAD: THE MYSTERY OF THE TOYNBEE TILES (US) and Oscar winner James Marsh (World) for his latest film, PROJECT NIM (which was picked up just prior to the fest by HBO and cemented a theatrical release via Roadside Attractions just days ago). 

Special Jury prizes went to the IDFA Champ, POSITION AMONG THE STARS, by Dutch filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich (World) and the crowd pleasing BEING ELMO, directed by Constance Marks.

SENNA (World) and BUCK (US) grabbed the Audience Awards.  A full list of winners after the jump.

Alex Gibney Talks Creative Choices in CLIENT 9, How He Balances His Huge Slate and the Documentary Golden Age

Note - This is the third in a series of interviews with the filmmakers behind some of my favorite nonfiction features of 2010...

A few years ago, I started referring to Alex Gibney as "the hardest working man in documentary" - but these were back in the days when the man only had two films come out in the same year.  This year, it was nearly impossible to keep track of everything Gibney was doing - from his nonfiction take on Jack Abramoff to his segment of FREAKONOMICS to his HBO project, MY TRIP TO AL QAEDA, to his eagerly anticipated film on Lance Armstrong and his just-announced Sundance 2011 feature, MAGIC TRIP.

And in the midst of all that, the Oscar winner's take on disgraced, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and the forces that may have helped bring about his fall.  I didn't see the film until a few weeks ago and I really took to it.  While Spitzer and his adversaries are crackling, great characters - and a sex scandal is always good for grabbing your attention - Gibney greatest success may be in laying bare the seeds of the global, financial meltdown in ways that are both entertaining and infuriating. 

We talked last week by phone about his latest film - including some of his somewhat controversial creative choices (including casting an actress as one of Spitzer's escorts and not revealing up front that she's actually an actress) as well as how he balances the huge slate of projects in front of him.  Caution - if you haven't seen the film or don't know anything about Spitzer's story, there are spoilers aplenty.

All these wonderful things:  I finally got to see CLIENT 9 and I really, really liked it and one of the things that I was particularly glad to see was that it upended my expectations going in, pretty much having everything to do with how another filmmaker might have handled it, whether it would be dwelling solely on the sexual nature of what helped to bring Eliot Spitzer down or setting him up to be some kind of saint.  I love that you make a strong argument that in some ways it wasn’t the sex scandal that did him in but the fact that he’d been so mean to so many people that there was really no one to stand up for him when the scandal came down.

Alex Gibney: That’s right.  That’s absolutely right.  It’s a funny kind of film, too, because you don’t come out of it with any easy – in a way it was kind of the fun of doing it, also – but you don’t come out of it with any easy conclusion about what to think.  I think that’s important, too, this intersection of public and private, how do we think about that?  And then, you’re right, it wasn’t just the sex.  Other people have had sex scandals and they’ve survived them.  But Spitzer was like Sherman, Sherman’s march to the sea, he left people in his wake, so not only was there no one to support him, but people were viciously and eagerly and gleefully trying to bring him down. 

ATWT: Yeah, I loved that you were able to get his adversaries in this story, which is something that I think we don’t often see in terms of truly getting both sides.  And if you want to think that he was brought down by quote, unquote big business or bad Republicans, you can, but these guys come across as such great, fully formed characters.

AG: Yeah, and I had a blast talking to those people and I was fascinated by them and I think I showed them in all their complexity.  And you can see how gleeful they are in taking him on, and also how much enmity they have.  But then you step back and well, wait a minute, here’s a guy that everybody’s jumping on because he had sex with a high priced escort – we never heard about that 500 million dollar heist conducted by AIG prior to the global financial meltdown.  That’s utterly escaped our notice.  It’s so funny to me because almost nobody mentions the audio tapes of the AIG people talking about a pretty big crime prior to the economic meltdown.  It’s sort of proof positive of exactly what was going on there.  (laughter)  But it’s always eclipsed by the sex.  There’s just no doubt.

Part Two: Courier and Libresco Talk Sundance Stand-outs BUCK, HOT COFFEE, HOW TO DIE and WE WERE HERE

On Monday we posted part one of our now-annual conversation with Sundance Documentary Programming experts David Courier and Caroline Lebresco, touching on some of the big themes in this year's program.  In our continuing dialogue, we speculated on which Sundance 2011 films we will all still be talking about one year from now.

All these wonderful things: One thing I've heard a lot from different people was that they were excited about the breadth of topics.  I heard a lot of people say it was more “poppy” than previous line-ups that they could remember.

David Courier: Absolutely.

ATWT: In the competition you have the Elmo film, you have the Tribe Called Quest film, you’ve got TROUBADOURS…

DC: You’ve got RESURRECT DEAD.

Caroline Libresco: BUCK is not an issue film.  It has deep resonance with bigger, broader issues of nonviolence.  It’s a film about a horse trainer who can tame the wildest horses and it’s a metaphor for nonviolent action and relationships with nature.  But these were irresistible films for us.

DC: There were just as many heavy hitting films this year as there always are.  We just wound up with a slate that is a little more human interest as opposed to social activist.  That’s what happened.  They’re all great films.

CL: Each and every one of them.  But it is interesting.  I’ve been thinking about it, too.  You get down to your slate and you could have put in a heavier set of choices.  But, actually, the Sundance Documentary Competition has always had a range of topics – some cultural topics, some portraiture – there’s always a range of styles and approaches and storytelling, for sure.

DC: Art docs, music docs, sports docs.

CL: I think we get to the place, and I think everybody knows this: we have 16 slots.  There are maybe 50 films that we are maybe in love with.  And we have to get to a point where we say, what is so irresistible that I can’t put it down, like it’s so important to the group (of programmers).  That’s what it comes down to.  And we try within that to show a range of topics, a range of styles.

DC: Yeah, (having) the range came into play in a big way.

CL: So there’s no overlapping of story topic.  But you’re right, we have a lot of films that are about American culture.

DC: We do have two music films in competition – TROUBADOURS and BEATS, RHYMES, but the music is so different and the culture behind the music is important and really different.

CL: And they kind of occupy totally different corners and times in American culture. 

DC: Yeah, east coast/west coast for one thing. 

ATWT: I want to see the Phife vs. Carole King freestyle battle. (laughter) Can we plan that for Tuesday night?

Banksy (Yes, Banksy) on Thierry, EXIT Skepticism & Documentary Filmmaking as Punk

Note - The second in a series of interviews with the directors of some of our favorite nonfiction features of 2010...

Whenever the subject of EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP has come up in casual or not-so-casual conversation over the past year, a vigorous discussion has followed.  I've seen master filmmakers, newcomers, film critics and non-pros all engage in excited, lengthy dissections of the film - sometimes about what's real, what they suspect is not - often about the film's profound take on art and commerce.  In the end, no matter what point of view the individual holds, the conclusion seems to always be that it's a major work in the nonfiction canon.

One would be forgiven for not expecting all this when Sundance announced EXIT as a late addition to the 2010 festival.  The debut film by Banksy - the anonymous British artist who gained notoriety and fame for his often-politically charged work that would turn up in some very unusual places (inside museum galleries, on the West Bank wall that separates Israelis and Palestinians) - EXIT would leave the festival spurring numerous distribution offers and go out on its own, working with sales agent John Sloss and distributor Richard Abramowitz to bring the film to theatres in the spring.  And after a somewhat surprising (relief was more like it) inclusion on the Academy's Documentary Feature shortlist, the film finds itself smack in the middle of Best-of-the-Year conversations.  It's nominated for the Documentary prize at the Film Independent Spirit Awards and it's up for 6 awards at next months Cinema Eye Honors, including Outstanding Feature and Outstanding Debut, not to mention the numerous film critics prizes its been garnering (yesterday, it was announced as the Best Documentary and Best First Feature on indieWIRE's annual critics poll).

Over the past month, we've had the opportunity to spend some time with the team behind EXIT - producer Jaimie D'Cruz and editor Chris King - including hosting the duo at a screening here in Los Angeles at Cinefamily earlier this month.  In their presence, I witnessed numerous others trying to find out what Banksy thinks of this or that. 

I had my own questions and Banksy and team were kind enough to get me his answers (via email, of course)...

All these wonderful things: One thing I've heard repeatedly from members of your team was that, early on, you were alone in your conviction that Thierry could and should be the narrative focus of the film - long before his show in LA that concludes the movie.  What drew you to Thierry as a film character and, aside from the fact that he had a lot of archival material about street art at his fingertips, why did you think that he could sustain the film's narrative arc?
 
Banksy: Thierry’s entertainment potential wasn’t difficult to spot - he actually walks into doors and falls down stairs. It was like hanging out with Groucho Marx but with funnier facial hair. Thierry arrived at a point when my world was becoming infested with hipsters and heavy irony, so his exuberant man-child innocence was fun to be around. Maybe I convinced myself Thierry was a good subject just because I liked him. I’d be lying if I told you the first time I met him I thought ‘this man’s life will deliver a good narrative arc’.
 
From the outset there are problems with any movie about graffiti because all the good artists refuse to show their face on camera. I needed the film to be fronted by a personality the audience could engage with. The producer Robert Evans said that ‘vulnerability’ is the most important quality in a movie star and that’s a hard thing to portray if all your interviewees have masks over their faces.
 
ATWT: It's clear in the film that you rely on a team of people to create your artwork.  What, if anything, was different about the filmmaking process, and the work you did with that team - Jaimie and Chris and others?  And how did you know when you'd found the right collaborators?
 
B: I paint my own pictures but I get a lot of help building stuff and installing it. I have a great little team, but I tell you what - they all hate this fucking film. They don’t care if its effective, they feel very strongly that Mr Brainwash is undeserving of all the attention. Most street artists feel the same. This film has made me extremely unpopular in my community.

Sundance Doc Programmers Libresco & Courier on 2011's Big Themes and How the "Three G's" Led to the Doc Premiere Section

Last December, we grabbed coffee with Sundance programmers Caroline Libresco and David Courier and forecasted the festival that would unveil one month later.  We all had such a good time, we decided to make it an annual event.  So, a week or so ago, we got together for breakfast and talked about this coming year's batch of films and remembered a portion of our conversation from last year that actually might have had an effect on Sundance's program for 2011.

All these wonderful things: So when you finish the selection process and you have that first day off to reflect on what you’ve chosen each year, do you think about themes?  Maybe you think about themes while you’re actually deciding the films, but do you think, “wow, this year there were a lot of these kinds of films” or “this year will leaning toward this or that direction”?

David Courier: We actually haven’t had a day off yet, so… (laughter) But yeah, we do start to think about themes.

Caroline Libresco: And there are things that start to emerge, things we start to notice along the way and after, for sure.  And it’s really actually fun to kind of step back – even just the other day, that was the first time I really stepped back – or the day we talk to our editorial colleagues about ideas, suddenly it was just there.  There were all these interesting connections between the films.

ATWT: Does it sometimes feel like there’s something in the water that leads filmmakers toward certain topics.

DC: Yes.  If you add all the films we didn’t select, oh my God, religion and cults and the fine line between them is so much in the consciousness.  It’s insane. 

CL: And that’s throughout the festival, not just in the docs.

ATWT: Can you pinpoint any specific reason why that is the case this year?  Did something happen two or three or four years ago?

CL: I do think it has something to do with the kind of mounting power over the last decade in this country of the Christian fundamentalist movement, which is now upwards of 60 million people, 1/5 of the country, and its hold on government in the last decade.  How can you ignore it?  But it’s a lot of the (narrative) feature films in the festival and there were lots more that we didn’t end up showing, too.  It’s just fascinating.  Films in the festival like HIGHER GROUND, SOUND OF MY VOICE, SALVATION BLVD…

DC: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, which I just like saying.

CL: THE LEDGE, just a ton of these.  People just trying to make sense of religiosity, of devout Christianity.

DC: Another big theme that’s emerged – a lot in docs, too – is the state of the media and journalism and basically the evaporation of good investigative journalism.  Journalism, the New York Times for instance, used to be “the word” and that’s no longer the case with 24 hour news and the internet and people are struggling to keep up and decide what’s real because there’s no such thing anymore as “the voice”.  So we got a lot of films that deal with that.

RESTREPO's Tim Hetherington & Sebastian Junger on Their Unlikely Partnership and What They Learned From Each Other

Note - This is the first in a series of interviews with the directors of some of our favorite nonfiction films from 2010.

How to describe the journey that famed journalist and writer (The Perfect Storm) Sebastian Junger and noted photog and sometime documentary cinematographer (THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK) Tim Hetherington have been on the past few years?  First, they were put together, shotgun marriage-style by Vanity Fair to work in Afghanistan on assignment for the magazine, later realizing that they may indeed have the footage to make a documentary.  Then came surviving an edit, premiering and winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (where it was described as a nonfiction HURT LOCKER) and now a whirlwind trip on the Oscar shortlist.

Earlier this year, I wrote briefly about seeing their film, RESTREPO, projected over a river in Kosovo, the sounds of machine gun fire echoing off the sides of the mountains and buildings.  What struck me then was the film's refusal to advance an overt political message, although it's not hard to finish the film with some sense of mission futility. 

We met a couple weeks ago as the duo were prepping to launch the DVD of RESPTREPO.  The conversation was lively and genuine – they are comfortable enough with one another to rib each other in front of another writer/filmmaker – and you get the sense that they’re still wondering just how they ended up here, in this situation, together.

All these wonderful things: How did you guys meet? Or how did this project come that you guys worked on it together?

Sebastian Junger: I convinced Vanity Fair to let me follow a platoon for a whole deployment and I needed a good person to work with, a photographer, but also someone who could shoot video, because I had this sort of crazy idea that, if I shot a lot of video, if we shot a lot of video, maybe we could make a documentary.  I just had no idea… It was an incredibly naïve thought, but luckily Tim sort of knew about that world and so, the first trip I was by myself – I was with another photographer that was a friend of mine, but essentially I was on my own – and the project really started on the second trip, when I went out there with Tim.  Tim and I immediately just synched up really well together, he saw the potential in the film and in the project and that was when the project really began.  Ultimately, he was put on the assignment by Vanity Fair.

Tim Hetherington: We met in the airport lounge in Heathrow.  He was changing planes and I was coming…

SJ: I talked with him on the phone and just asked him some questions because I knew how hard it was out there and I wanted to make sure he had his shit together and was fit.

ATWT: And did you guys have any idea that you would still – it’s a long journey to take together.

SJ: No, no. (laughter)

TH: (laughter) No, absolutely no idea.  Absolutely no idea. Yeah, everything just grew organically.  You know, as Sebastian points out, we got on really well straight away.  If we hadn’t got on well, we wouldn’t have been able to have done it.  You know what I mean?  Because the whole process is so super intense – not just being together in Afghanistan in very extreme situations but also being together in the edit, just making decisions together.  I mean, that really, in some ways, there were parts of the edit that really stretched our relationship in ways…

SJ: Yeah, it was hard.

Sundance 2011: Shorts Feature New Work by Jonathan Caouette, Jem Cohen, Jessica Oreck, Isabella Rossellini & Gail Dolgin

The Sundance Film Festival unveiled their list of shorts that will screen at the 2011 festival and among the US Documentary Shorts is a new film from actress/filmmaker Isabella Rossellini, an Oscar-shortlisted doc about the Virginia Tech shootings and the last film from Gail Dolgin, the Oscar nominated co-director of DAUGHTER FROM DANANG, who died in October.

Meanwhile, the festival's New Frontier Shorts section features an exciting line-up of films, including new work by Jem Cohen, Jonathan Caouette (TARNATION) and Jessica Oreck (BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO).

Here's the documentary line-ups in each section, with descriptions supplied, naturally, by the festival:

Sundance 2011: Where The Stars Are - Spurlock, Garbus, James, Jarecki, Bailey & Barbato All Set to Debut New Films in Premieres Section

After announcing a documentary competition slate last Wednesday that was surprisingly light on big names, the Sundance Film Festival announced a new section on Thursday called Documentary Premieres (seemingly replacing the inclusion of nonfiction films in last year's Spotlight section) and voila, there were some of the big names we'd been expecting.  New films from Morgan Spurlock, Steve James, Eugene Jarecki, Liz Garbus, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato were all announced as heading to Park City for their World Premieres.

Last year's festival had some wondering if the US Documentary Competition should feature films from a trio of Oscar winners (Davis Guggenheim's WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN', Alex Gibney's CASINO JACK AND THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY and Leon Gast's SMASH HIS CAMERA).  I asked documentary programmers about it when we spoke last year, just after the line-up was announced.  Reportedly, others continued to rasie this issue to Sundance programmers.

In Sundance's press release announcing the Premiere line-up, Festival Director John Cooper addressed the topic head on: "The decision to create a Documentary Premieres section was a natural evolution to shine a light on films with prominent filmmakers or anticipated subjects without distracting from documentaries in competition."

Here's this year's Documentary Premieres line-up (with descriptions provided by the festival) followed by nonfiction features screening in other announced sections of this year's fest.: