Latest / Movie Meltdown / The Interruptions Become Part of the Art
Transcript
- 0:12Speaker 1: This is Amy Simons, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
- 0:23Speaker 1: That was me melting down.
- 0:36Speaker 2: It's showtime.
- 0:37Speaker 3: The following feature has been rated R by the Motion
- 0:40Speaker 3: Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences
- 0:45Speaker 3: and parental discretion is advised.
- 0:47Speaker 4: Our nuclear reactor pumping out one.
- 0:51Speaker 2: Million kilowatts of power.
- 1:17Speaker 3: I told you this would never work.
- 1:18Speaker 5: I don't, but no, no one listens to metal beard.
- 2:07Speaker 4: Looks like I'm running late again. As it waits, it's
- 2:12Speaker 4: all concrete. Keep the beat.
- 2:15Speaker 6: Always somewhere to go.
- 2:18Speaker 4: Nowhere to be.
- 2:23Speaker 6: I'm looking for my fire over the stairs.
- 2:26Speaker 4: Those backyards and great lakes. I gotta take it easy now. Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois,
- 2:43Speaker 4: Ohio The red ones and blue ones are places that
- 2:47Speaker 4: I know Look up the way you've gone.
- 2:53Speaker 5: The way you've been away from I'm in a.
- 2:55Speaker 4: Flyover stand I've found I'm in a flyover stand I've
- 3:01Speaker 4: found What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian
- 3:05Speaker 4: and this week I'm coming to you live via digital
- 3:07Speaker 4: recording from the Flyover Film Festival. Yes, it is the
- 3:10Speaker 4: long-awaited return to Flyover. The fest went on hiatus for
- 3:14Speaker 4: a while while new events came about, but thanks to
- 3:17Speaker 4: Susie at Louisville Film Society, who has been working ever
- 3:20Speaker 4: since to get things back on track, this week marks
- 3:23Speaker 4: the triumphant return to the Flyover Film Fest. And gladly,
- 3:26Speaker 4: the return of Movie Meltdown hosting an episode from the event.
- 3:30Speaker 4: And what an episode. This week we are joined by
- 3:33Speaker 4: two guests, both connected to the independent documentary The Seer. Now,
- 3:37Speaker 4: if you're not familiar with the film, that's okay. They're
- 3:39Speaker 4: just getting going on this stage of the project, and
- 3:43Speaker 4: we wanted to help the filmmaker spread the word about
- 3:45Speaker 4: her film. Now, this here is described as a cinematic
- 3:48Speaker 4: portrait of the changing landscapes and shifting values of rural
- 3:51Speaker 4: America in the era of industrial agriculture as seen through
- 3:55Speaker 4: the mind's eye of Wendell Berry. So it is, in part,
- 3:58Speaker 4: a documentary about Wendell Berry, once the child of a
- 4:02Speaker 4: farming family that grew up to be one of America's
- 4:05Speaker 4: most accomplished and respected writers. He's a poet, a cultural critic,
- 4:09Speaker 4: and an environmental activist. But the film also serves as
- 4:12Speaker 4: an examination of several residents of Henry County who face
- 4:16Speaker 4: difficult choices that will dramatically reshape their relationship with the
- 4:20Speaker 4: land and their community. So later in the show, I
- 4:23Speaker 4: will be talking with the director of the film, Laura Dunn.
- 4:26Speaker 4: As most of you know, making an independent film is
- 4:28Speaker 4: a battle in and of itself. But over the years
- 4:31Speaker 4: of making this film, Laura has found several interesting and
- 4:34Speaker 4: impressive allies, not the least of which is Lee Daniel,
- 4:37Speaker 4: her cinematographer for the film, who also happened to be
- 4:41Speaker 4: the director of photography of the Oscar-winning Boyhood, as well
- 4:45Speaker 4: as Before Sunrise and Dazed and Confused, and a good
- 4:48Speaker 4: portion of Linklater's films going all the way back to Slacker. Now,
- 4:51Speaker 4: as if that didn't add a good amount of professional clout,
- 4:54Speaker 4: let's talk about the producers. First off, the executive producers. Oh,
- 4:59Speaker 4: I don't know. Just a couple of guys named Robert
- 5:02Speaker 4: Redford and Terrence Malick. Yeah, if those two are interested
- 5:07Speaker 4: in your film, you've got to be working on a
- 5:09Speaker 4: pretty interesting project. But we'll discuss working with them later
- 5:13Speaker 4: as we go along. The other member of the team
- 5:15Speaker 4: I want to mention, and, well, introduce, is our first guest. Yes,
- 5:20Speaker 4: I was glad to get a chance to sit down
- 5:21Speaker 4: and talk with Nick Offerman. He's someone I've wanted to
- 5:24Speaker 4: have on the show for quite a while now, and
- 5:26Speaker 4: I'm glad to say he was here at Flyover Film
- 5:28Speaker 4: Fest to help Laura promote The Seer, because he is,
- 5:31Speaker 4: in fact, co-producer of the film. Now, how does Nick
- 5:35Speaker 4: Offerman tie into this story, you ask? How did he
- 5:38Speaker 4: get involved? Well, I'll ask him just that in a
- 5:41Speaker 4: short while. But first, I wanted to take a moment
- 5:43Speaker 4: to discuss his career, which I find not only to
- 5:46Speaker 4: be impressive, but also kind of an inspiration to us all.
- 5:50Speaker 4: So I say we get to that right now, as
- 5:52Speaker 4: we talk with actor, comedian, and producer, Nick Offerman. You're
- 6:10Speaker 4: one of those people that I looking at your career
- 6:14Speaker 4: over the years is amazing and I think it's kind
- 6:17Speaker 4: of inspiring only because you well no because like I
- 6:22Speaker 4: remember you showing up you know on Parks and Rec
- 6:25Speaker 4: and you were this fully formed character if not on
- 6:29Speaker 4: the show. Also the man behind it felt like he
- 6:31Speaker 4: was just so in the place he needed to be.
- 6:35Speaker 4: And it's one of those, I think, I think it
- 6:37Speaker 4: was just sort of timing for life. You know, I
- 6:40Speaker 4: don't know. That's kind of what I was going to get.
- 6:41Speaker 4: I've heard the, the Nick version of like, you know,
- 6:44Speaker 4: how to grow a mustache and how to eat, you know, properly.
- 6:47Speaker 4: But I was just kind of like career wise. And like,
- 6:50Speaker 4: I feel like it would have been really interesting to,
- 6:54Speaker 4: cause you see these kids and they come out of
- 6:55Speaker 4: like high school and they're already leading a movie and it's,
- 6:59Speaker 4: I would think overwhelming and for the rest of us
- 7:01Speaker 4: kind of annoying when they're really good. So it's like to,
- 7:03Speaker 4: to watch somebody that kind of just no pun intended
- 7:07Speaker 4: since you like to build things, but just hammered away
- 7:09Speaker 4: at the entertainment industry for so many years and, and
- 7:12Speaker 4: found his place eventually. So I don't know. Is, is
- 7:15Speaker 4: that how you see it or did it just drag on?
- 7:19Speaker 7: Well, I suppose I wouldn't say hammered away cause that
- 7:22Speaker 7: sounds more ambitious than I am. Um, I, uh, I concur.
- 7:28Speaker 7: I'm working with an 18-year-old and two 19-year-olds right now
- 7:32Speaker 7: in this movie, House of Tomorrow, which will be out
- 7:34Speaker 7: next year. And they're so good. I can safely say,
- 7:40Speaker 7: with all modesty, they're better than I am now at 18.
- 7:45Speaker 4: I don't know if I believe that, but it's really annoying,
- 7:48Speaker 4: isn't it?
- 7:49Speaker 7: It is. And they're better looking, too. These kids. But
- 7:54Speaker 7: then you take a tiny step back and you say, Yeah,
- 7:57Speaker 7: but you're in the movie with them. So at least
- 8:00Speaker 7: you're considered qualified to stand next to them and speak.
- 8:08Speaker 7: I don't know. My technique has always been very much
- 8:11Speaker 7: following my gut. And that took me to theater school
- 8:15Speaker 7: for my little farm town upbringing in Illinois. And then
- 8:19Speaker 7: that took me to Chicago, and then I started getting
- 8:22Speaker 7: film work, which took me to L.A.
- 8:24Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 8:25Speaker 7: And, uh, before Parks and Rec, I was very happy.
- 8:28Speaker 7: I was married to Megan Mullally.
- 8:30Speaker 4: It was Mr.
- 8:30Speaker 7: Megan Mullally. I had a, maybe the coolest woman ever.
- 8:34Speaker 7: Such a sweet gig. Like keep bringing her her slippers
- 8:37Speaker 7: and her pipe at the end of the day.
- 8:39Speaker 4: There's way worse things you could be doing.
- 8:41Speaker 7: It was quite pleasing. Head of my wood shop. And
- 8:44Speaker 7: I was working as an actor just with no notoriety
- 8:48Speaker 7: as just a solid, you know, work, working actor. And, um,
- 8:53Speaker 7: And so it took me quite by surprise when then
- 8:56Speaker 7: things ratcheted up a few notches. But I suppose because
- 9:00Speaker 7: I was just enjoying living my life without having something
- 9:08Speaker 7: like Parks and Recreation, that gave me, you know, it
- 9:13Speaker 7: allowed me to have a lot of character in my
- 9:16Speaker 7: life from which I could draw for my work as Mr.
- 9:21Speaker 6: Swanson.
- 9:22Speaker 4: Well, I mean, you mentioned that turning point there. Were you,
- 9:26Speaker 4: I mean, how overwhelming was that? Because you, I mean,
- 9:29Speaker 4: you went from working steadily, but at that point when
- 9:33Speaker 4: that show hit, like you and your character in particular
- 9:36Speaker 4: became kind of one of the most identifiable characters, if not,
- 9:40Speaker 4: you know, you as an actor. Certainly that character got,
- 9:43Speaker 4: got thrown into the spotlight just more than you can
- 9:46Speaker 4: ever imagine.
- 9:46Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 9:47Speaker 7: There's, there's no accounting for taste, they say. It was,
- 9:51Speaker 7: it was, weird in a wonderful way. Fortunately, I had
- 9:56Speaker 7: been largely prepared by going through it with Megan, with
- 10:02Speaker 7: Karen on Will & Grace.
- 10:04Speaker 4: She did a little before you, yeah. I guess the
- 10:06Speaker 4: Will & Grace thing kicked it into high gear for her.
- 10:09Speaker 4: They did eight years, and then a year or two
- 10:11Speaker 4: after they were done.
- 10:12Speaker 7: Perks started.
- 10:14Speaker 4: So....
- 10:16Speaker 7: Our situations were eerily similar. We were both like 37
- 10:19Speaker 7: or 38 when we got the job. Both Thursday night, 8.30
- 10:23Speaker 7: on NBC. Shot on the same lot. Both like a
- 10:28Speaker 7: weird character with a really unique personality. Extreme in their
- 10:33Speaker 7: own way.
- 10:34Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 10:34Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 10:35Speaker 7: And so, I mean, I honestly learned a lot of
- 10:38Speaker 7: lessons from her. Watching her handle fan situations and like
- 10:44Speaker 7: getting attention. It's weird when you start getting applause from
- 10:51Speaker 7: a lot more people than a theater full of audience.
- 10:54Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 10:55Speaker 7: But it's a wonderful thing to have to learn how
- 10:58Speaker 7: to navigate.
- 10:59Speaker 4: Definitely. Well, then I guess going back to that early state,
- 11:04Speaker 4: I mean, you were working kind of in both. Like
- 11:07Speaker 4: you early on started kind of working with your hands
- 11:10Speaker 4: and building things. And then I'm assuming also were interested
- 11:13Speaker 4: in the arts. Was there a time when you were
- 11:16Speaker 4: just kind of trying to decide or was it always
- 11:19Speaker 4: just I work on whatever I want to work on
- 11:21Speaker 4: that day?
- 11:22Speaker 7: It's interesting. In my early 20s in Chicago, I wasn't
- 11:26Speaker 7: very good yet at acting. Now, and I'm still, I
- 11:32Speaker 7: would accept the term decent for 30 to 40% of
- 11:37Speaker 7: my work, but it I just hadn't figured out the
- 11:42Speaker 7: main sort of tenet of naturalistic acting. And so I
- 11:46Speaker 7: was still getting jobs because I was strong, I was
- 11:50Speaker 7: a good sword fighter, and I could make people laugh.
- 11:53Speaker 7: So they'd say, well, that crying scene blows, but he's
- 11:57Speaker 7: really funny when he falls down, so let's take a
- 12:00Speaker 7: chance on him. Meanwhile, I was professionally building scenery in Chicago,
- 12:05Speaker 7: and that was the main time that I thought, I
- 12:10Speaker 7: was on a track to become a top scenic shop.
- 12:17Speaker 7: I sort of started my own operation, building scenery, and
- 12:21Speaker 7: it was really satisfying. And the Chicago theater scene is incredible.
- 12:26Speaker 4: A huge amount of people and work constantly going on.
- 12:29Speaker 4: And because it's such a specialized job, I would think
- 12:31Speaker 4: you'd be doing okay as far as bringing in decent
- 12:35Speaker 4: money comparatively.
- 12:36Speaker 7: Yeah, everything about it was pretty dreamy. And I really loved...
- 12:40Speaker 7: Loved it. And the Chicago theater community is so supportive.
- 12:44Speaker 7: It's amazing that an American city that doesn't have Broadway
- 12:48Speaker 7: has such a fecund theater community.
- 12:52Speaker 4: It's so distant from everything else. I mean, they created
- 12:55Speaker 4: their own little industry because they were so far away
- 12:58Speaker 4: from both coasts. It still astounds me how huge that
- 13:01Speaker 4: city is and what an industry in so many different
- 13:04Speaker 4: little areas that it's kind of put together sort of
- 13:06Speaker 4: free of its own, you know, In its own weird way.
- 13:09Speaker 7: Yeah, it has its own blue collar attitude of like, yeah,
- 13:13Speaker 7: go ahead, do whatever you want.
- 13:15Speaker 4: So, of course, you find yourself there.
- 13:18Speaker 7: Yeah, so that was the only time that I thought, well,
- 13:23Speaker 7: I could give up this singing and dancing, but I
- 13:29Speaker 7: just had, my gut would never let me. I always
- 13:33Speaker 7: just had an idea that I really wanted to entertain people,
- 13:37Speaker 7: and And the world kept stringing me along. I mean,
- 13:43Speaker 7: it was by all means a very slowly rolling snowball.
- 13:47Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 13:48Speaker 7: Or I was on a path where just as I
- 13:51Speaker 7: was about to give up and turn back, I'd find
- 13:53Speaker 7: one more crumb. All right, I can make it another
- 13:57Speaker 7: half mile.
- 13:58Speaker 4: Again, that's why I think it is sort of inspiring.
- 14:00Speaker 4: It is one of those stories that's like you kind
- 14:02Speaker 4: of stuck to your guns, and because of that, it
- 14:04Speaker 4: worked out. It is that sort of can-do attitude that
- 14:07Speaker 4: you've worked your way to where you wanted to be eventually.
- 14:11Speaker 4: That's kind of awesome. Well, in the middle, any of
- 14:14Speaker 4: those crumbs, I always kind of like to throw it
- 14:16Speaker 4: out to people to sort of pick a movie or
- 14:18Speaker 4: whatever at random and just a weird story that it happened.
- 14:23Speaker 4: There were a few in the middle there that I
- 14:24Speaker 4: was like, may have only been one or two days,
- 14:27Speaker 4: but you know, I, I, I just recently watched cursed
- 14:30Speaker 4: that I loved. That was such a weird take on everything.
- 14:35Speaker 4: So it was again, just so, Hey, wait, I know
- 14:37Speaker 4: that guy.
- 14:39Speaker 7: I think my work on cursed, uh, by the great
- 14:44Speaker 7: Wes Craven, uh, I was the dog catcher in a
- 14:48Speaker 7: werewolf movie. And if memory serves, um, The leads, Jesse Eisenberg,
- 14:55Speaker 7: I remain friends with. I just saw him perform in
- 14:58Speaker 7: a play he wrote in London.
- 14:59Speaker 4: Wow.
- 15:00Speaker 7: He's one of those annoying talents that we mentioned earlier. Damn, kids.
- 15:04Speaker 7: Smart son of a bitch. But that's where we met.
- 15:09Speaker 7: We became buddies. And I think, was it he and
- 15:12Speaker 7: Christina Ricci?
- 15:13Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 15:13Speaker 7: Playing siblings?
- 15:13Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 15:14Speaker 7: So I think my role came about in reshoots. I
- 15:19Speaker 7: think they had finished the movie. Then they decided, you
- 15:22Speaker 7: know what? This part isn't working. Let's reshoot part of
- 15:25Speaker 7: the ending or something. And I just came up... I
- 15:28Speaker 7: think I just did one scene.
- 15:29Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 15:30Speaker 7: And it was on the Universal backlot on a hillside
- 15:33Speaker 7: with an animal control wagon. And it's... I mean, that's
- 15:39Speaker 7: the funny thing about the business. That reminds me of...
- 15:42Speaker 7: You just never know. Yeah. There was a time early
- 15:47Speaker 7: on with Megan where I... I was getting auditions for
- 15:53Speaker 7: like small roles in films and sometimes bigger ones, but
- 15:57Speaker 7: consistently they'd call me in for like a guy with
- 16:00Speaker 7: one scene driving the bus with a lot of characters
- 16:02Speaker 7: or whatever.
- 16:03Speaker 4: A lot of cops.
- 16:04Speaker 7: And I got this audition for one line in George
- 16:10Speaker 7: Clooney's The Man Who Stared Ghosts. And I said, you
- 16:13Speaker 7: know what, honey? I think I'm going to draw the
- 16:16Speaker 7: line here. I don't think I'm going in for one-liners anymore.
- 16:20Speaker 4: That wasn't that long ago, so you could have gotten
- 16:23Speaker 4: out of that point.
- 16:24Speaker 7: Yeah, that was 10 to 12 years ago, maybe. Probably
- 16:28Speaker 7: more like 12. But she said, you know what? I'd
- 16:33Speaker 7: worked with Clooney on the live episode of ER, and
- 16:36Speaker 7: he liked me briefly. And she said, yeah, maybe George
- 16:42Speaker 7: will see the tape. Go on it. So I went in,
- 16:45Speaker 7: went down this horrible hallway lined with folding chairs of
- 16:49Speaker 7: actors and you could just tell from the actors that
- 16:53Speaker 7: i shouldn't have gone in because they were like the
- 16:55Speaker 7: commercial guys oh yeah and they're all commercial guys are
- 16:59Speaker 7: really uh acrimonies like actors are generally kind of supportive
- 17:04Speaker 7: generally there's always one douche like flexing and staring at
- 17:07Speaker 7: you you gotta have trying to psych you out you
- 17:11Speaker 7: gotta have I would always loudly giggle in their face.
- 17:15Speaker 7: Just be like, dude, it's so sad.
- 17:17Speaker 4: That's the only thing that can unnerve them. Someone who
- 17:19Speaker 4: doubts their prowess. But this hallway was all the commercial
- 17:23Speaker 4: guys and they're just like, they're cutthroat. Because their work
- 17:27Speaker 4: doesn't rely on talent or technique. It relies completely on
- 17:32Speaker 4: the luck of who do they think like catches the
- 17:36Speaker 4: beer can the best who won't offend people and they'll
- 17:40Speaker 4: buy our product so i went in i did.
- 17:43Speaker 7: My one line and i remember i had glasses and
- 17:46Speaker 7: there was a bit i had where i push up
- 17:49Speaker 7: my glasses and then say the line and it was
- 17:52Speaker 7: part of the joke it was a great god damn
- 17:55Speaker 7: joke and the casting director said you know what do
- 17:59Speaker 7: it again don't do the glasses thing and i said
- 18:02Speaker 7: hey I got one line. I'm doing... I've prepared a
- 18:08Speaker 7: bit that involves my glasses.
- 18:10Speaker 4: Let me do my thing.
- 18:11Speaker 7: So, I refuse to do it without the glasses push. Well,
- 18:14Speaker 7: of course, I never hear anything from the thing. Megan
- 18:18Speaker 7: and I, like, I want to say two or three
- 18:21Speaker 7: months later, we're on vacation up in the wine country,
- 18:26Speaker 7: and I get a call from my agent. Hey, remember
- 18:29Speaker 7: that Man Who Stared Goats? You got the job.
- 18:32Speaker 4: The.
- 18:33Speaker 7: they want you to fly to Puerto Rico tomorrow morning.
- 18:36Speaker 7: They're sending a car for you. And then, and then
- 18:40Speaker 7: we were like, uh, I don't know, two, three hour
- 18:42Speaker 7: drive from the airport. I was like, this is insane. So,
- 18:46Speaker 7: so the next, by the next morning, I'm in a
- 18:49Speaker 7: makeup trailer with Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey.
- 18:54Speaker 4: They've got a tray full of glasses. And I was,
- 18:56Speaker 4: I get to try on whichever glasses.
- 18:59Speaker 9: Guess what?
- 18:59Speaker 7: They kept the glasses, but because you knew what you
- 19:02Speaker 7: were doing, but, But the moral was, like, for weeks
- 19:06Speaker 7: I was like, always go in for one-liners, buddy. You
- 19:11Speaker 7: never know.
- 19:12Speaker 4: You never know.
- 19:12Speaker 7: When Jeff Bridges will be serving you Tito's vodka.
- 19:16Speaker 4: That cleaning guy is hanging around.
- 19:17Speaker 7: Yeah.
- 19:20Speaker 4: Well, then, I guess, as we get into the, I mean, what,
- 19:24Speaker 4: because you're a co-producer on The Seer, so what brought
- 19:28Speaker 4: you to this, or how familiar were you with You know,
- 19:31Speaker 4: the story itself as you went into this.
- 19:35Speaker 7: Well, I'm I'm a absolutely ardent fan of Wendell Berry's
- 19:41Speaker 7: writing and have been for about 20 years. And actually,
- 19:45Speaker 7: the uh a man who's no longer with us named
- 19:48Speaker 7: Leo Burmester a great actor who I met in Chicago
- 19:52Speaker 7: at Steppenwolf gave me a book of Wendell Berry short
- 19:55Speaker 7: stories in about 95 and um it just knocked me
- 19:59Speaker 7: on my fanny uh there is first I read all
- 20:04Speaker 7: of his fiction before I dug into the essays and
- 20:07Speaker 7: the poetry but all of it just uh seemed like
- 20:10Speaker 7: it was about my family, or then a lot of it,
- 20:14Speaker 7: just the common sense and humor and decency, just plain.
- 20:20Speaker 7: I feel like he's a much wiser sort of Ron Swanson,
- 20:25Speaker 7: where he has a really simple take on things that's
- 20:29Speaker 7: really correct. He never gets heated and calls anybody a jerk.
- 20:35Speaker 7: All of his arguments come from logic and compassion. And
- 20:39Speaker 7: I just have always been immediately moved by him. And
- 20:42Speaker 7: so I exchanged some letters with him. I immediately, of course,
- 20:50Speaker 7: because I'm an actor, asked to adapt some of his works.
- 20:54Speaker 7: And he said, no, I don't let anybody do that.
- 20:56Speaker 4: He's very specific in the way that he likes his
- 20:59Speaker 4: work out there.
- 21:01Speaker 7: Absolutely. And all of it, every disappointment he handed me
- 21:05Speaker 7: just made me respect him all the more.
- 21:08Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 21:09Speaker 7: And, you know, I just have been crazy about him.
- 21:15Speaker 7: And so a few years ago, a mutual friend of
- 21:21Speaker 7: mine and Laura Dunn's from Austin named Holly Saviston got
- 21:26Speaker 7: a hold of me and said, hey, my friend Laura's
- 21:28Speaker 7: making a documentary about Wendell Berry. And I had seen
- 21:31Speaker 7: the unforeseen Laura's previous film, which begins with Wendell reading
- 21:35Speaker 7: a poem about And she said, do you want me
- 21:40Speaker 7: to put you in touch? And I did two backflips
- 21:43Speaker 7: and said, yes, please. And so I just said, she
- 21:47Speaker 7: was kind of getting near to being done with her shooting.
- 21:51Speaker 7: And I said, Holly, what the hell took you so long?
- 21:55Speaker 7: But no, then I said, Laura, you know, I'm so
- 21:57Speaker 7: excited about this. If there's anything I can do, I'll
- 22:01Speaker 7: come dig trenches. Or if there's anything I can do
- 22:06Speaker 7: to help you, I would love to. you're making a
- 22:09Speaker 7: movie about my favorite subject. And so she said, what
- 22:13Speaker 7: I could really use is some fundraising and some cheerleading, uh,
- 22:17Speaker 7: which brings me to your microphone.
- 22:19Speaker 9: Yeah.
- 22:20Speaker 7: Um, and I, I'm so thrilled and through, through the filming,
- 22:25Speaker 7: I ended up getting to meet the Barry family, uh,
- 22:29Speaker 7: who I just admire a lot. They're really, you know,
- 22:31Speaker 7: they're plain, uh, hardworking farmers, um, like the kind I
- 22:38Speaker 7: grew up with. My uncles are still farming up in Illinois.
- 22:42Speaker 7: My cousins. And I just think they really have their
- 22:46Speaker 7: heads on straight in dealing with the issues that are
- 22:49Speaker 7: presented in this film. And I'm happy that I have
- 22:53Speaker 7: an opportunity to help spread their word.
- 22:57Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's a fight for any movie, but
- 22:59Speaker 4: specifically a documentary. It's such an uphill battle trying to
- 23:03Speaker 4: get recognized by anyone and get the the green lights
- 23:07Speaker 4: that you need to kind of get everything rolling so
- 23:09Speaker 4: it's yeah it's i'm sure much appreciated by her.
- 23:13Speaker 7: Well that's you know uh i just had lunch with
- 23:17Speaker 7: wendell's daughter mary berry yeah who runs the berry center
- 23:21Speaker 7: which is kind of the main focus of support you
- 23:23Speaker 7: know she's the the nexus of using wendell's works as
- 23:27Speaker 7: well as his brother and his dad were very instrumental
- 23:31Speaker 7: in in this tobacco program in kentucky and basically taking
- 23:35Speaker 7: care of the plain old farmers that aren't industrial giants.
- 23:40Speaker 7: They're just trying to subsist off a small farm. And
- 23:44Speaker 7: they have done and are doing all of the hard thinking.
- 23:51Speaker 7: She just laid out the state of affairs to me
- 23:54Speaker 7: at lunch and said, okay, this is why I want
- 23:57Speaker 7: to be your cheerleader because you are way smarter and
- 24:01Speaker 7: you know all about this. I have a great interest
- 24:03Speaker 7: in it, but I'll never wrap my head around it.
- 24:06Speaker 7: Because you live here. You're the one growing this sweet
- 24:10Speaker 7: corn that we're having for lunch that is so delicious.
- 24:13Speaker 7: And so the first thing I do is make sure
- 24:18Speaker 7: everyone knows that I'm ignorant. But I'm holding up a
- 24:22Speaker 7: big sign pointing at that.
- 24:24Speaker 9: Supportive.
- 24:24Speaker 4: Very supportive. Well, then Terrence Malick. sort of was helping
- 24:29Speaker 4: this along too you just worked with him as a
- 24:32Speaker 4: director I guess how is he to work with in
- 24:34Speaker 4: both aspects but I guess definitely having him direct you well.
- 24:38Speaker 7: He I only I never ran into him we didn't
- 24:41Speaker 7: cross paths working on this movie but I heard he
- 24:48Speaker 7: has a wonderfully gentle guiding hand for Laura as a
- 24:53Speaker 7: filmmaker so I've heard a lot of terence's advice which
- 24:57Speaker 7: i really appreciate um and and reminds me of i
- 25:01Speaker 7: only shot one day with him on on the night
- 25:03Speaker 7: of cups and it was the fourth of july because
- 25:08Speaker 7: it was the only day we could get in this
- 25:09Speaker 7: big agency caa in la they call it the death
- 25:14Speaker 7: star it's like a huge glass and steel building and
- 25:18Speaker 7: um and it was you know I'd heard enough about
- 25:22Speaker 7: people working with him to understand what I was getting into.
- 25:26Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 25:27Speaker 7: So, like, he sent me eight pages of dialogue and said,
- 25:30Speaker 7: please memorize this, but then we're going to mostly improvise
- 25:34Speaker 7: things like this.
- 25:35Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 25:36Speaker 7: Which is crazy to begin with.
- 25:38Speaker 4: It's a whole different, yeah, bag of tricks to work with.
- 25:40Speaker 7: But, I mean, I'm such a big fan of his.
- 25:43Speaker 7: And I was like, yeah, great. Literally anything you want.
- 25:47Speaker 7: This is so goofy.
- 25:49Speaker 4: And fun.
- 25:49Speaker 7: Like, there's a free-form element to it. So I went in,
- 25:53Speaker 7: and we shot the material in a restaurant, and Christian
- 25:57Speaker 7: Bale was overhearing me. Then we shot all around the
- 26:01Speaker 7: CAA lobby. Sometimes we were almost talking to him. Sometimes
- 26:06Speaker 7: he would walk by. And Terry was just making it up.
- 26:10Speaker 7: But it was really neat. In fact, at one point,
- 26:14Speaker 7: we went out into a big van... And just did
- 26:17Speaker 7: a whole vocal improvisation.
- 26:19Speaker 9: Yeah.
- 26:20Speaker 7: He just, he takes the, like, he looks at everybody
- 26:23Speaker 7: like a palette of paints. And he's like, ooh, you
- 26:26Speaker 7: know what? Orange and purple, come here. Let's make this,
- 26:32Speaker 7: and he's painting.
- 26:34Speaker 4: There's one or two other directors I've heard that do
- 26:36Speaker 4: things like that. And I would like for, you know,
- 26:39Speaker 4: for you guys, for the actors, it does seem like
- 26:40Speaker 4: it would be kind of fun. And like, it's almost
- 26:43Speaker 4: less pressure because you don't have to stick to a
- 26:45Speaker 4: very structured kind of thing. It seems like a nightmare
- 26:48Speaker 4: from their perspective because you've got so many. I mean,
- 26:50Speaker 4: it's one thing if you can pin it down and
- 26:52Speaker 4: map out exactly what you want from the story. But
- 26:54Speaker 4: like to just be winging it like that and then
- 26:57Speaker 4: have to piece it together afterwards is.
- 26:59Speaker 7: Well, it's it's like a high end museum artist. Like
- 27:05Speaker 7: you can't make a modern Terrence Malick movie without a
- 27:10Speaker 7: budget for a lot of editing help. Because, as you
- 27:15Speaker 7: pointed out, you have years of material and ideas. And,
- 27:19Speaker 7: you know, it's kind of a more groovy version of
- 27:25Speaker 7: how Mike Lee makes films. But I think he uses
- 27:30Speaker 7: a similar lengthy process, but to then streamline so that
- 27:34Speaker 7: by the time he's shooting the film, he's used months
- 27:38Speaker 7: of preparation and exploration to To discover the most poignant storyline.
- 27:43Speaker 4: So he still has it in his head what he's
- 27:45Speaker 4: going for, even if it seems like he's winging it.
- 27:49Speaker 7: Look, if I was a movie star, and I went
- 27:53Speaker 7: and worked on the Thin Red Line or something, and
- 27:56Speaker 7: then found out I wasn't in the movie, sure, I
- 27:59Speaker 7: could understand where that would be somewhat deflating. But I'm not,
- 28:05Speaker 7: and I was tickled pink to get to play with
- 28:07Speaker 7: him for a day.
- 28:08Speaker 4: I'd be glad to make use of that. Well, I
- 28:11Speaker 4: guess you have stuff in the works you want to
- 28:13Speaker 4: tell people about or anything they should look for?
- 28:16Speaker 7: Sure. Well, I got a sweet movie with Michael Keaton
- 28:19Speaker 7: called The Founder coming out in December.
- 28:23Speaker 4: He's amazing. The resurgence of him. I'm so thrilled because he's.
- 28:28Speaker 7: And he's like as awesome of a guy as you
- 28:31Speaker 7: would want. We talked about fishing in Pittsburgh. And he just.
- 28:38Speaker 7: The most impressed I've ever been with myself was doing
- 28:41Speaker 7: scenes with him where he's spitting at me, staring daggers
- 28:45Speaker 7: at me. And I managed to keep my feet.
- 28:49Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 28:49Speaker 4: So I was like, Oh Jesus, he can be intense.
- 28:53Speaker 7: He's, he's incredibly, uh, incredibly gifted. Um, so that movie
- 28:59Speaker 7: is really great. It's a, the story of Ray Kroc,
- 29:01Speaker 7: the founder of McDonald's. Um, my wife and I are
- 29:05Speaker 7: about to tour a lot of the States with our, uh, our,
- 29:08Speaker 7: two-person comedy show summer of 69 no apostrophe um and
- 29:14Speaker 7: then in uh october i'll be back in louisville um
- 29:20Speaker 7: on my book tour i have a new book coming
- 29:23Speaker 7: out called good clean fun and it's about woodworking in
- 29:26Speaker 7: my wood shop that comes out in october and i'm
- 29:30Speaker 7: really excited about it no bad words in this book
- 29:34Speaker 7: so you can buy it for.
- 29:35Speaker 4: Your children they got rid of those keys on the
- 29:38Speaker 4: Computer yeah well definitely thank you and you come back
- 29:43Speaker 4: in October you can definitely sit down and we can
- 29:46Speaker 4: talk about whatever.
- 29:46Speaker 7: You want fantastic you can give me your thoughts on
- 29:50Speaker 7: and I don't know how soon this is airing but
- 29:53Speaker 7: I'm in Ice Age 5 in theaters now just opened
- 29:58Speaker 7: So there you go. Those things are a gas. I
- 30:01Speaker 7: had a lot of fun working on it.
- 30:02Speaker 4: Yeah. Your voiceover stuff, you know, your ex-cop forgot to
- 30:06Speaker 4: say something.
- 30:07Speaker 7: Oh, thank you.
- 30:10Speaker 4: Metal beard. I mean, you know, you turned in some
- 30:12Speaker 4: great stuff.
- 30:13Speaker 7: I appreciate it. It's a lot of fun.
- 30:15Speaker 4: Well, thank you for being with us here today.
- 30:17Speaker 7: My pleasure.
- 30:17Speaker 5: Thank you.
- 30:55Speaker 2: Good evening. It's intermission time. Our service is friendly and quick.
- 31:00Speaker 2: You'll find hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, your favorite candies, hot
- 31:04Speaker 2: and cold beverages, and other delicious snacks. So add to
- 31:08Speaker 2: your fun of watching the movie. Visit our refreshment stand
- 31:12Speaker 2: right now. We're glad to have you with us tonight.
- 31:14Speaker 2: We hope you'll come to see us often. It's great
- 31:18Speaker 2: to get out to the movies.
- 31:27Speaker 3: It's just a farmhouse and looks pretty innocent from the road.
- 31:31Speaker 3: But once you're inside, you'll see what really happens on
- 31:35Speaker 3: a terror farm. Invasion of the blood farmers. Coming in
- 31:44Speaker 3: the dead of night, coming to plant the living and
- 31:48Speaker 3: harvest the dead.
- 31:50Speaker 8: Are you strong enough?
- 31:55Speaker 3: More raw terror, more stomach-turning shock than you can take. Therefore,
- 32:01Speaker 3: we warn you, don't eat before you see Invasion of
- 32:06Speaker 3: the Blood Farmers, and you'll have nothing to lose. They
- 32:11Speaker 3: plant the living and harvest the dead. Invasion of the
- 32:16Speaker 3: Blood Farmers, released by NMD Films, in color, rated PG,
- 32:21Speaker 3: parental guidance suggested.
- 32:25Speaker 5: This episode is sponsored by World of Leathercraft. Specializing in
- 32:28Speaker 5: handmade leathercraft items with a specific nod to the geeky genres.
- 32:32Speaker 5: Whether you're looking for a wallet, purse, keychain, bracelet, money clip,
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- 33:21Speaker 5: and you can take a look at all the geek-friendly
- 33:23Speaker 5: products they have to.
- 33:25Speaker 6: Offer.
- 33:27Speaker 7: And I realize the blame is on me Cause I
- 33:32Speaker 7: knew you were trouble when.
- 33:34Speaker 8: You walked in This is Jess Weixler and Jennifer Prediger,
- 33:41Speaker 8: and you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
- 33:45Speaker 4: It's part of your problem, you know, you haven't seen
- 33:52Speaker 4: enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies.
- 34:00Speaker 7: And now, on with the show.
- 34:14Speaker 4: All right, so now we're back to round things out
- 34:17Speaker 4: with a return to our ongoing focus series as we
- 34:20Speaker 4: sit down and talk with interesting directors. And Laura Dunn
- 34:23Speaker 4: is certainly that. In this segment, I try to explore
- 34:26Speaker 4: not just her directing style, but more so the filmmaking
- 34:29Speaker 4: concepts that come into play when making a documentary. We'll
- 34:33Speaker 4: also find out about her becoming an apprentice of Terrence Malick,
- 34:37Speaker 4: how Robert Redford took notice of her work, and how
- 34:40Speaker 4: she approached all these challenges. And what you'll learn is
- 34:44Speaker 4: the even bigger challenge in her life may just be
- 34:47Speaker 4: raising a family. Because Laura's not only a filmmaker, but
- 34:50Speaker 4: also a mother. Essentially kind of a more important role
- 34:54Speaker 4: in life. And so we'll find out how she juggles
- 34:57Speaker 4: those responsibilities with the seemingly overwhelming schedule of shooting and
- 35:02Speaker 4: editing a documentary. And what you'll definitely find out is
- 35:06Speaker 4: that being a mother doesn't stop just because you have.
- 35:09Speaker 5: To promote a film.
- 35:10Speaker 4: And definitely not during this interview, but you'll hear that
- 35:14Speaker 4: for yourself. Because we may also just have a special
- 35:17Speaker 4: guest join us for this segment. His name is Archer,
- 35:20Speaker 4: and you'll hear the rest. So now let's focus on
- 35:24Speaker 4: director Laura Dunn.
- 35:43Speaker 6: Hopefully he'll stay asleep so it's a good time not.
- 35:46Speaker 4: The first baby i've had and that one was not
- 35:50Speaker 4: quite all right so um i guess to usually kind
- 35:57Speaker 4: of start off early you're based out of austin now
- 36:00Speaker 4: where did you grow up.
- 36:03Speaker 6: I was born in New Orleans, and my family's mostly
- 36:07Speaker 6: from South Mississippi. But my parents split up, and then
- 36:10Speaker 6: they both moved, so I kind of moved all over
- 36:12Speaker 6: the place, mostly in the South. Although I did spend
- 36:15Speaker 6: a few years in Cincinnati, not too far from here.
- 36:18Speaker 6: Went to a lot of Reds home games.
- 36:19Speaker 4: It's a good city. We end up there quite often.
- 36:22Speaker 6: North Carolina. My mom lives in North Carolina now, and
- 36:25Speaker 6: I went to college in Connecticut. And then ended up.
- 36:28Speaker 4: Totally the opposite direction.
- 36:29Speaker 6: Yeah. As soon as I was in Connecticut, I was
- 36:32Speaker 6: realizing I just got to get back to the South.
- 36:33Speaker 4: Was that culture shock for you?
- 36:35Speaker 6: Big time. Yeah. Big time. Oh, my goodness. New Haven, Connecticut.
- 36:39Speaker 6: I mean, urban, northeastern.
- 36:40Speaker 4: It's very different than any of those other places you've been.
- 36:43Speaker 4: It was brutal.
- 36:45Speaker 6: A brutal privilege.
- 36:46Speaker 4: No offense to our Connecticut listeners.
- 36:49Speaker 6: I knew I was a Southern girl. And then I
- 36:51Speaker 6: went to UT Austin for grad school. Did not intend
- 36:54Speaker 6: to stay in Texas.
- 36:55Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 36:56Speaker 5: But.
- 36:58Speaker 6: you know, married a Texan, had a bunch of little
- 36:59Speaker 6: baby Texans.
- 37:00Speaker 4: That's trouble already.
- 37:02Speaker 6: But also had the opportunity to work with Terrence Malick,
- 37:04Speaker 6: who lives in Austin, and he anchored me there, and
- 37:07Speaker 6: here I am, you know.
- 37:08Speaker 4: Not many years later. Again, it's almost its own little state. Like,
- 37:13Speaker 4: it's become so self-contained in the way that it sort
- 37:17Speaker 4: of supports its own little artist group and creates its own,
- 37:22Speaker 4: you know, fan base of everything. It is, yeah, we
- 37:25Speaker 4: had a pretty good fan base here in Texas for
- 37:28Speaker 4: a while so it is fun to see how they've
- 37:31Speaker 4: just attached themselves to the arts and film specifically almost
- 37:36Speaker 4: it's really great so yeah it's a good place to
- 37:38Speaker 4: be based out of I guess artistic roots I mean
- 37:44Speaker 4: were you always interested in film or was it something
- 37:47Speaker 4: that you found along the way I think I.
- 37:50Speaker 6: Was always interested in journalism and art theater social justice issues.
- 37:57Speaker 6: So you look back on the things you're interested in
- 37:59Speaker 6: and you can kind of see how they come together
- 38:01Speaker 6: in documentary. I didn't set out to be a documentary filmmaker,
- 38:05Speaker 6: but I was in college at Yale and I was
- 38:08Speaker 6: a student worker in the dining hall. A labor strike
- 38:10Speaker 6: broke out. I was a de facto member of a
- 38:13Speaker 6: local union there. And again, kid from the South knew
- 38:16Speaker 6: nothing about labor unions, knew nothing about any of this.
- 38:19Speaker 6: But I also didn't know anything about the wealth, the
- 38:21Speaker 6: extreme degree of wealth among my classmates at Yale. So
- 38:24Speaker 6: there was, I talk about this cognitive dissonance sort of
- 38:27Speaker 6: in the Ivy Halls was one experience. And then with
- 38:31Speaker 6: the workers, the people who lived in New Haven was
- 38:33Speaker 6: a totally different experience. And yet these two layers sort
- 38:36Speaker 6: of existed on top of one another without any.
- 38:39Speaker 4: Forced to coexist.
- 38:40Speaker 6: Yeah, without any seeming dialogue between the two. And I
- 38:44Speaker 6: think that I was hired to be an interviewer. I
- 38:47Speaker 6: like to interview people. I like to talk to people
- 38:50Speaker 6: and hear their stories, like a reporter would. But I
- 38:54Speaker 6: had an opportunity to be an interviewer on an alumni documentary.
- 38:58Speaker 6: And it was just one thing led to another. I
- 38:59Speaker 6: had a friend who had a camera... And I think
- 39:01Speaker 6: to me the language of film just emerged in this
- 39:03Speaker 6: natural way because you can film two disparate pieces and
- 39:07Speaker 6: then intercut them together. And it was this way for
- 39:10Speaker 6: me to try to make sense of my own education.
- 39:13Speaker 6: I didn't really think I'd continue making films, but at
- 39:16Speaker 6: Yale there was just sort of theory classes. I had
- 39:18Speaker 6: no practical application. So I had 100 hours of footage
- 39:21Speaker 6: and I didn't know what to do with it. So
- 39:23Speaker 6: I thought I'd go to grad school and maybe some
- 39:25Speaker 6: film professor could teach me how to make a movie.
- 39:28Speaker 6: And one thing led to another. I just kind of kept...
- 39:31Speaker 6: I stayed in the medium. And here I am 20
- 39:32Speaker 6: years later still making films.
- 39:34Speaker 4: Did you get attached in the editing process more than anything?
- 39:37Speaker 6: Yeah. I think the editing process is where... Some documentarians
- 39:44Speaker 6: have an idea of what they want to do. They
- 39:45Speaker 6: script it out. They go find the things to... confirm
- 39:50Speaker 6: their script. I'm much messier. I really like getting lost
- 39:56Speaker 6: and letting the material get me completely turned around and
- 39:59Speaker 6: then find my way out. I feel like it's the
- 40:02Speaker 6: most honest way to be a documentary filmmaker because there's
- 40:05Speaker 6: no objectivity and subjectivity. It's all subjectivity. So the question is,
- 40:09Speaker 6: what is my subjective perspective? And if I myself get
- 40:12Speaker 6: lost and transformed by the experience... then there's something more
- 40:15Speaker 6: honest about that. Of course, it's more messy, expensive, and
- 40:18Speaker 6: it takes longer, too.
- 40:19Speaker 4: Of course, yeah.
- 40:21Speaker 6: But so, yeah, I like to just figure it out
- 40:24Speaker 6: as I go, and that's kind of how it's continued
- 40:28Speaker 6: to unfold.
- 40:29Speaker 4: Yeah, that's one of those I was going to ask is,
- 40:31Speaker 4: you know, you set out to make a fictional movie,
- 40:34Speaker 4: you know, a story. You've got your story laid out.
- 40:36Speaker 4: You have it exactly mapped out most of the time
- 40:39Speaker 4: as to what you want to do. So going into documentary,
- 40:43Speaker 4: like even, and it's funny talking to people, it's like
- 40:45Speaker 4: sometimes they do set out and a lot of times,
- 40:47Speaker 4: some of those better documentaries you run into, they set
- 40:50Speaker 4: out to make one movie and they get halfway in.
- 40:52Speaker 4: They're like, Oh, I'm in the middle of another story.
- 40:55Speaker 4: That's probably more interesting. And like they, they suddenly have
- 40:59Speaker 4: to figure out how to deal with new information and,
- 41:03Speaker 4: and re design their movie to be about this new
- 41:07Speaker 4: thing maybe, or maybe just this new turn that comes about.
- 41:10Speaker 4: So it's, Yeah, I think it is way more interesting,
- 41:13Speaker 4: I guess, as a filmmaker being thrown in the middle
- 41:15Speaker 4: of it and then having to almost daily update, you know,
- 41:19Speaker 4: what am I doing and where am I going with this?
- 41:23Speaker 6: Well, I think what you're getting at is awesome. I mean,
- 41:25Speaker 6: I think the question is in anyone's life, whether you're
- 41:27Speaker 6: a filmmaker or whatever you do, you know, truth is
- 41:30Speaker 6: this elusive quest. We can't, none of us is God.
- 41:34Speaker 6: We can't see it all. So every day you're sort of,
- 41:38Speaker 6: grappling with what's real, what isn't, what's my purpose, where
- 41:42Speaker 6: to go, what to do, what's right, what's wrong. So
- 41:44Speaker 6: I think the question of truth is this really elusive, mysterious,
- 41:48Speaker 6: and inspiring quest. And documentary just tends to be this
- 41:52Speaker 6: art form that really allows you the space to pursue
- 41:56Speaker 6: that and ask those questions. So what you're talking about
- 41:59Speaker 6: in terms of you're starting one story, you find yourself
- 42:01Speaker 6: in another story, I think of that as like parenting
- 42:05Speaker 6: or life exactly you have this plan it never works
- 42:10Speaker 6: out that way so the question is can you be
- 42:12Speaker 6: like a tree and bend in the wind or are
- 42:14Speaker 6: you going to steadfastly pursue this one single objective and
- 42:18Speaker 6: that's you know good luck.
- 42:19Speaker 4: With that yeah i mean it i guess if you
- 42:24Speaker 4: really are like but again then you get to i
- 42:27Speaker 4: won't name names but there are certain documentary in quotes
- 42:30Speaker 4: filmmakers who have such an agenda that you feel their
- 42:34Speaker 4: hand in there. Like, you really, and I guess we
- 42:37Speaker 4: all bring what we have to the table, especially, you know,
- 42:40Speaker 4: as artists, you have an end result that you're going for,
- 42:43Speaker 4: but I guess it is one of those they've kind
- 42:46Speaker 4: of started to question over the years now. Like, is
- 42:48Speaker 4: there a completely, you know, just facts documentary and leave
- 42:53Speaker 4: it at that, or just the fact that you are
- 42:55Speaker 4: the filmmaker making it, you're biased in some way, shape,
- 42:58Speaker 4: or form, and you're adding some aspect to it. So
- 43:02Speaker 4: it is one of those, the more you watch, the
- 43:04Speaker 4: more you kind of have to decide for yourself sort
- 43:06Speaker 4: of what, and I guess approach it that way as
- 43:08Speaker 4: a filmmaker too, what you want to bring to the
- 43:11Speaker 4: movie because whether you know it or not, you probably are.
- 43:14Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a really interesting, complex, and kind of ever-unfolding question.
- 43:20Speaker 6: I think that when I was younger, I set out
- 43:22Speaker 6: to look at a problem, diagnose it, document it. The
- 43:26Speaker 6: Rodney King videotapes were a big part of my influence because...
- 43:30Speaker 6: It was the first time where like a video bore
- 43:32Speaker 6: witness to something and then things happened. And so I
- 43:36Speaker 6: think as an activist, as a 19-year-old, I was an activist.
- 43:40Speaker 6: And the whole reason to use film, there was no
- 43:42Speaker 6: art to it. The whole reason to use film was
- 43:44Speaker 6: to document, to bear witness to an injustice. Surely if
- 43:47Speaker 6: people see it. then things will change.
- 43:49Speaker 4: You can show other people. It's evidence.
- 43:51Speaker 6: Exactly.
- 43:51Speaker 4: Literally in some cases.
- 43:53Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 43:53Speaker 6: And then you as a filmmaker too are charged with
- 43:56Speaker 6: prescribing the exact action that someone's supposed to take the
- 43:59Speaker 6: minute they walk out the door. And if everyone makes
- 44:02Speaker 6: that action, then things will change. Yeah. Well, you know,
- 44:05Speaker 6: I got further into things.
- 44:07Speaker 4: Or not. In life once again.
- 44:08Speaker 6: And it just didn't work that way. I might show
- 44:11Speaker 6: the National Institute of Health a film about poor people
- 44:16Speaker 6: children dying of rare cancer clusters in Louisiana because of
- 44:20Speaker 6: petrochemical pollution. And I would think if I show you
- 44:22Speaker 6: their story, surely you're going to go, you know, enforce
- 44:26Speaker 6: the laws in Louisiana so more children don't have cancer.
- 44:28Speaker 4: You'll drop what you're doing and go fix this problem.
- 44:31Speaker 6: Didn't happen. No. No, didn't happen.
- 44:33Speaker 4: That's not how we're... That's not how corporations work.
- 44:36Speaker 8: No.
- 44:37Speaker 6: So I think that for me, and I think everyone
- 44:40Speaker 6: has a different approach, and I respect other approaches, but
- 44:43Speaker 6: I think for me now, I want to make you
- 44:46Speaker 6: care about something. I care about something. I want to
- 44:49Speaker 6: make a film that will make you care about something.
- 44:53Speaker 6: And so if something moves in you emotionally, you connect
- 44:55Speaker 6: to the story in a personal way, then maybe you'll
- 44:58Speaker 6: care about farmers. Maybe you'll look at the next rural
- 45:01Speaker 6: quote-unquote nowhere you drive through. Maybe you'll think there's something
- 45:04Speaker 6: redemptive here. There's something of value here. And so I
- 45:07Speaker 6: think as a filmmaker, I've become much more comfortable with
- 45:10Speaker 6: the impressionism, but with very intentional values behind that.
- 45:16Speaker 4: That's one of the things I was going to ask
- 45:19Speaker 4: because it is also another thing watching documentaries over the years.
- 45:23Speaker 4: There's some that will totally present the facts. I've seen
- 45:27Speaker 4: quite a few that are like factually this is very
- 45:31Speaker 4: well researched and organized and put together but not engaging.
- 45:36Speaker 4: And that's kind of that indefinable quality. It's like how
- 45:40Speaker 4: do you make a documentary that does represent you know
- 45:45Speaker 4: your subject or your subject matter whatever accurately but it
- 45:49Speaker 4: also just pulls the the viewer in and like makes
- 45:52Speaker 4: them part of the story and that's i don't know
- 45:56Speaker 4: as a filmmaker do you consciously try to find a
- 45:58Speaker 4: way to do that i mean i guess you would
- 46:00Speaker 4: ideally want to but day to day is it something
- 46:03Speaker 4: you're taking.
- 46:04Speaker 6: Into account yeah well i i'm a very emotional person
- 46:07Speaker 6: so um i think that um I feel a lot
- 46:12Speaker 6: of things before I think them, if that makes sense.
- 46:15Speaker 6: So the emotion for me is definitely just raw and there.
- 46:20Speaker 6: And I'm not really probably going to choose a story
- 46:22Speaker 6: that I don't feel strongly about. So I think that's there.
- 46:25Speaker 6: I think that I think of film as a documentary,
- 46:30Speaker 6: at least, as a kind of mirror, as a kind
- 46:32Speaker 6: of transparency. So when I go into a story, I
- 46:36Speaker 6: don't really, I'm not really thinking about the filmmaking. I
- 46:39Speaker 6: don't really want to draw attention to myself or the
- 46:42Speaker 6: DPE or our music selection, I want to create a
- 46:46Speaker 6: kind of transparency onto a place. So I'm really trying
- 46:50Speaker 6: to just absorb a place and then render that authentically.
- 46:55Speaker 6: And in this case, I had Wendell Berry as a standard.
- 46:58Speaker 6: So I had 50 books to read and I had
- 47:01Speaker 6: a lot of detail to absorb and reflect upon as
- 47:05Speaker 6: I tried to edit that material together. Or as I
- 47:07Speaker 6: wandered around Henry County with our wonderful crew, You know,
- 47:11Speaker 6: there were all these impressions in my mind from his
- 47:13Speaker 6: books and his writing that then we would see in
- 47:15Speaker 6: the landscapes and record. And then in the editing room,
- 47:18Speaker 6: it was I had his books as a reference in
- 47:20Speaker 6: my mind and the way he pieces the world together.
- 47:23Speaker 6: So that really became it. I think that it's not
- 47:26Speaker 6: so much that I'm trying to make you cry. It's
- 47:29Speaker 6: just that I'm trying to make you see what I see.
- 47:32Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 47:33Speaker 4: Do you, and again, this is something you see in documentaries,
- 47:37Speaker 4: do you want to make yourself a character in the film? Sometimes, literally,
- 47:42Speaker 4: they physically are in the frame, but other times, again,
- 47:45Speaker 4: you can still feel the presence of the director there,
- 47:48Speaker 4: even if they're not.
- 47:49Speaker 6: It's a good question. I used to hate the idea
- 47:52Speaker 6: of me ever being in the film whatsoever. I think
- 47:56Speaker 6: as I've gotten a little bit older, I'm a little
- 47:58Speaker 6: more comfortable with being honest about the fact that there
- 48:02Speaker 6: is a hand here and you know, you, I want
- 48:05Speaker 6: you to trust me. And I think there's times where it's,
- 48:08Speaker 6: there's a personal, like for example, in this year, you
- 48:10Speaker 6: don't see me, you don't see me. I'm not sitting
- 48:12Speaker 6: there narrating to you, but you do hear a piece
- 48:15Speaker 6: of a conversation I have with Wendell. And I used
- 48:18Speaker 6: that because he said something that was just so personal
- 48:21Speaker 6: and was so, it wasn't, um, kind of an essay voice.
- 48:25Speaker 6: It was just a conversational voice. And so it's not
- 48:27Speaker 6: that I wanted you to hear me by any stretch
- 48:29Speaker 6: of the imagination. Um, It's just that I wanted you
- 48:31Speaker 6: to feel like you were in a room with him,
- 48:33Speaker 6: talking with him. And so by hearing my kind of
- 48:37Speaker 6: rambling question, I'm hoping that was the intention that it
- 48:41Speaker 6: would create that sense that you too are in the
- 48:43Speaker 6: room in a kind of intimate, unvarnished way, just real,
- 48:48Speaker 6: raw conversation.
- 48:51Speaker 4: Again, I think I've come to like that, again, because
- 48:53Speaker 4: you can't, You can't take that out. You're going to
- 48:57Speaker 4: be a presence in the film. You're the director. So,
- 48:59Speaker 4: I mean, I think I'm okay with the fact that
- 49:01Speaker 4: if you're just honest about it, even if you become
- 49:04Speaker 4: someone on screen, whether it happens, whether you planned it
- 49:07Speaker 4: that way or not. But, yeah, if you become a
- 49:09Speaker 4: presence and you're honest about it, you're just like, we
- 49:12Speaker 4: all know I'm making a film. I'm here and this
- 49:14Speaker 4: is what I'm trying to do. I think as long
- 49:16Speaker 4: as you bring yourself in sort of in the right aspect,
- 49:20Speaker 4: you know the right way I think it's okay because
- 49:22Speaker 4: it gives especially if it's well done it gives us
- 49:25Speaker 4: someone to you know the kind of go I'm on
- 49:28Speaker 4: to that like this is we're taking your perspective anyway
- 49:32Speaker 4: so like this gives us our entry point is like
- 49:34Speaker 4: you're coming into this holding the camera, not knowing what's
- 49:37Speaker 4: going to happen, and we're kind of along for the
- 49:39Speaker 4: ride with the director sometimes.
- 49:41Speaker 6: Yeah, I know what you mean. There's also a really
- 49:43Speaker 6: self-conscious way to do it that makes it all about
- 49:46Speaker 6: the filmmaker, and that's pretty obnoxious, I think.
- 49:50Speaker 4: I agree. But even as silly as this show is,
- 49:55Speaker 4: it's like I think I try to approach it the
- 49:57Speaker 4: same way. It's like I've forced myself into it every week,
- 50:00Speaker 4: but I think along the way, It is that same
- 50:04Speaker 4: thing you were talking about, that because of the structure
- 50:07Speaker 4: that I throw this into, I end up with really
- 50:10Speaker 4: interesting and sometimes intimate conversations with people that I think
- 50:14Speaker 4: you wouldn't get any other way.
- 50:15Speaker 6: I think you're right.
- 50:17Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you have to kind of force yourself
- 50:18Speaker 4: in there a little bit and then hopefully go in
- 50:20Speaker 4: with the best intent and just try to have an
- 50:22Speaker 4: honest dialogue.
- 50:24Speaker 6: Well, even just talking with you, like I can tell
- 50:25Speaker 6: the way you approach it right away is like we're
- 50:27Speaker 6: going to have a conversation. And that's different than I've
- 50:30Speaker 6: got a list of questions and I'm going to mine
- 50:32Speaker 6: out of you A, B, C, D, E, F, G.
- 50:35Speaker 6: And a lot of interviewers, right, like what they do
- 50:37Speaker 6: is they have this list of questions and they're not
- 50:39Speaker 6: listening to you. It's a checklist. Okay, I talk, you talk.
- 50:42Speaker 6: I talk, you talk. I've covered my bases.
- 50:44Speaker 3: Done.
- 50:45Speaker 6: But what I try to do in my interviews with people,
- 50:48Speaker 6: like I interview people for a long time.
- 50:50Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 50:51Speaker 6: And I let it roll a long time. And it
- 50:53Speaker 6: makes it harder in the editing room. But then you're
- 50:55Speaker 6: really trying to find real moments, right? And I think
- 50:58Speaker 6: one of the things too is making yourself vulnerable as
- 51:02Speaker 6: the interviewer. In other words, I don't have a perfectly
- 51:04Speaker 6: framed question. And I think sometimes that allows the person
- 51:07Speaker 6: you're interviewing to realize, well, I don't have to have
- 51:09Speaker 6: a perfectly framed answer. We can just talk like friends, right?
- 51:13Speaker 4: Or where you leave off, they pick up. And maybe
- 51:15Speaker 4: they wouldn't have had you perfectly pieced it together. They
- 51:18Speaker 4: would have come in somewhere else down the line, but
- 51:21Speaker 4: you left this opening for them to kind of jump
- 51:23Speaker 4: in with this personal aspect. So, yeah, I think that, again,
- 51:28Speaker 4: that's sort of what I've taken from this over the
- 51:30Speaker 4: years is how useful it is to just sit down
- 51:34Speaker 4: and talk to people. And I guess that's kind of
- 51:37Speaker 4: a Wendell thing, too. Like, he's very specific in the
- 51:40Speaker 4: way that you use his work, too, right? I mean,
- 51:44Speaker 4: he didn't want to appear on film.
- 51:46Speaker 6: Right.
- 51:47Speaker 4: So then you're left with just his words, both, you know,
- 51:50Speaker 4: from the page and then him reading and talking. So,
- 51:53Speaker 4: I mean, I guess that's kind of his approach, too,
- 51:56Speaker 4: is conversation and, you know, the poetry and, you know,
- 51:59Speaker 4: that kind of stuff is important more so than the
- 52:03Speaker 4: flashy visuals that, you know.
- 52:04Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
- 52:04Speaker 4: He doesn't want in a film about him or probably
- 52:07Speaker 4: at all.
- 52:08Speaker 6: Well, you know, early on we talked about all of
- 52:10Speaker 6: this and he made it clear to me that he
- 52:14Speaker 6: disregards screens. So it's not personal against me. I hope not. It's,
- 52:20Speaker 6: you know, he thinks that screens contribute to the decline
- 52:23Speaker 6: of literacy, that they deaden the imagination, that if you
- 52:28Speaker 6: have all the answers in an image, it doesn't signal
- 52:31Speaker 6: in your mind the imagination. It doesn't evoke the imagination
- 52:35Speaker 6: the same way. And I think I see what he means.
- 52:38Speaker 6: means by that.
- 52:39Speaker 4: I mean, I watch civilization going on around me and
- 52:42Speaker 4: I see that every day.
- 52:43Speaker 6: Screens, right?
- 52:44Speaker 4: I watch, again, I'm around little kids, nieces and nephews,
- 52:48Speaker 4: and like I watch how much of their day is
- 52:51Speaker 4: attached to a screen. And I'm a weirdo that sits
- 52:54Speaker 4: here looking at a computer all day editing this show.
- 52:56Speaker 4: But I still feel like I'm not attached to it.
- 52:59Speaker 4: Like I use it because it's something I have to
- 53:01Speaker 4: do work-wise.
- 53:02Speaker 6: Mm-hmm.
- 53:03Speaker 4: But I don't live and breathe it the way that
- 53:05Speaker 4: this next generation kind of does.
- 53:06Speaker 6: It's scary.
- 53:07Speaker 4: And I wonder what's going to come of that in
- 53:10Speaker 4: the next 20 years.
- 53:11Speaker 6: I agree with Wendell. And it's an awkward thing as
- 53:13Speaker 6: a filmmaker to say that the medium I've chosen is
- 53:16Speaker 6: a kind of lesser medium. I think that to some degree.
- 53:21Speaker 6: I think that it's a product of our culture and
- 53:23Speaker 6: our time.
- 53:24Speaker 8: It is.
- 53:24Speaker 6: I think that it can be a medium that you
- 53:27Speaker 6: use like any medium. I think you can imbue it
- 53:29Speaker 6: with artfulness and a message. I don't think that it's throwaway,
- 53:33Speaker 6: but I do think that the written word is a
- 53:36Speaker 6: different kind of space in your mind. And I do
- 53:39Speaker 6: have great reverence for his work and for the work
- 53:41Speaker 6: of writers. So he made that clear to me early on.
- 53:44Speaker 6: So the question would be like, how do you draw
- 53:45Speaker 6: a portrait of someone? Well, a portrait is really the
- 53:47Speaker 6: likeness or the essence of them. It doesn't simply have
- 53:50Speaker 6: to be the contours of their face. It can be,
- 53:52Speaker 6: who is this person? Who are they? And so I
- 53:56Speaker 6: kind of came to this idea, well, maybe it's not
- 53:58Speaker 6: so much about the way the world sees Wendell It's
- 54:01Speaker 6: more about the way Wendell sees the world. What does
- 54:04Speaker 6: he see? And how can we see like he sees?
- 54:08Speaker 6: And as I went through that, he told me that
- 54:11Speaker 6: we're all just a part of one another. I'm not
- 54:14Speaker 6: some individual on a pedestal. That's not real. That's not true.
- 54:17Speaker 6: And so I thought, you know, and the themes in
- 54:19Speaker 6: his work are all about place. They're about people. They're
- 54:22Speaker 6: about membership in a community. So that's how we chose
- 54:26Speaker 6: to frame our story is that it's a portrait of
- 54:29Speaker 6: a man. And in that way, because of who he is,
- 54:32Speaker 6: it's a portrait of a place.
- 54:34Speaker 4: I mean, you can definitely get such a good, I
- 54:39Speaker 4: like the way you phrased it there, like what he
- 54:41Speaker 4: is and what he represents is who he is. It
- 54:44Speaker 4: is the portrait of him, whether it be visual, you know,
- 54:48Speaker 4: whether he's on screen or not, you can so much
- 54:50Speaker 4: capture the essence of who he is. just by what
- 54:53Speaker 4: he stands for and what he believes in and that's
- 54:56Speaker 4: yeah that's that's a great way to approach it but
- 54:59Speaker 4: then i don't know i do also early on you
- 55:03Speaker 4: mentioned uh working with malik is that that's sort of
- 55:07Speaker 4: the way he seems like he wants to shoot his
- 55:09Speaker 4: stuff too is a lot of stuff as as we
- 55:12Speaker 4: were talking about earlier just a lot of shooting and
- 55:15Speaker 4: then in his mind he pieces it together how how
- 55:20Speaker 4: much of an influence has he been on you as
- 55:21Speaker 4: a filmmaker Um, he's been.
- 55:25Speaker 6: A very big influence and he's been a great teacher. Um,
- 55:31Speaker 6: I'm very grateful to him. He, I first saw thin
- 55:34Speaker 6: red line when I was a film student and I
- 55:37Speaker 6: wasn't really that interested in narrative film, but I loved
- 55:39Speaker 6: his film because I think to me, the natural world
- 55:44Speaker 6: is very evocative to me emotionally and spiritually, but it's
- 55:48Speaker 6: the natural world, not as sort of a deity, um,
- 55:51Speaker 6: but the natural world as a way to look at
- 55:53Speaker 6: humans and our relationship to one another, our relationship to
- 55:56Speaker 6: the land, our relationship to God. So there's this theological
- 56:00Speaker 6: underpinning for me when I look at the natural world.
- 56:04Speaker 6: So to me, Terry's work has all of those questions.
- 56:08Speaker 6: And the natural world nature is a character in of itself.
- 56:12Speaker 6: And I loved through his soundscapes how the grasses and
- 56:15Speaker 6: the trees and the light were so prominent, they were
- 56:18Speaker 6: interleaved with the characters themselves. So He was really one
- 56:21Speaker 6: of my favorite filmmakers, and it was a strange moment
- 56:24Speaker 6: when I volunteered to do, I was supposed to go
- 56:27Speaker 6: to Israel. I was going to do a piece over
- 56:29Speaker 6: there about water. The Intifada was really horrible in 2002,
- 56:34Speaker 6: so I kind of pressed pause and was just in
- 56:36Speaker 6: a holding pattern until I felt like Israel was safer.
- 56:39Speaker 6: At that time, I volunteered to do some PSAs for
- 56:42Speaker 6: a local environmental group in Austin, and it was through
- 56:44Speaker 6: that that I met Terry. He saw some of my
- 56:46Speaker 6: graduate work and just said, well, let's just make a
- 56:49Speaker 6: film about and asked me to do that film. And
- 56:52Speaker 6: so I've known him for, let's see, that was in 2002,
- 56:55Speaker 6: so for a good 14 years. And he's so generous.
- 57:00Speaker 6: But what he does is that, if someone asked me,
- 57:03Speaker 6: how was it working with Terry? I said, very humbling.
- 57:06Speaker 6: Because you do something you think is good, and then
- 57:09Speaker 6: he tears it apart and makes you start over. But
- 57:13Speaker 6: he's patient. And I think, for me, the big influence
- 57:16Speaker 6: he has had is to say, you know, don't just
- 57:18Speaker 6: make a film about the literal fact of things. Ask
- 57:22Speaker 6: questions why. What are the forces behind this? What are
- 57:26Speaker 6: the forces that make something so? And the other thing
- 57:30Speaker 6: he's really emphasized to me in the editing room is
- 57:32Speaker 6: don't just tell me a basic chronology A to Z.
- 57:35Speaker 6: So as a documentarian, I approach things very literally. And
- 57:39Speaker 6: he challenged me to say, no, edit it like a
- 57:42Speaker 6: piece of music. Let there be tangents, these little themes
- 57:46Speaker 6: that come up. And maybe they don't go anywhere. Maybe
- 57:49Speaker 6: they just happen and then they go away. And you
- 57:52Speaker 6: can see that in his own films. And I think as,
- 57:54Speaker 6: you know, he's trying to create a space in his
- 57:58Speaker 6: films as opposed to lecture you or didactically create an experience.
- 58:05Speaker 6: And so he's had a really big influence on me
- 58:08Speaker 6: and he's been encouraging and he's been a great teacher.
- 58:13Speaker 4: Well, I, describing how he was sort of taken with you. Again,
- 58:18Speaker 4: he's so unconventional in the way he makes his movies.
- 58:22Speaker 4: He was probably responding to you are not your normal
- 58:25Speaker 4: up-and-coming filmmaker that is probably just climbing over other film
- 58:31Speaker 4: students to get an internship with Terrence Malley. He probably
- 58:35Speaker 4: saw how detached you were from the normal way that
- 58:38Speaker 4: things go. Yeah, I can see that being sort of
- 58:42Speaker 4: the way that he would want to come into it, too,
- 58:43Speaker 4: and why he would probably respond to you. There's probably
- 58:46Speaker 4: way more honest an approach from your end.
- 58:49Speaker 6: Well, thank you.
- 58:49Speaker 4: That's interesting to hear. Yeah, I can see that happening.
- 58:53Speaker 6: He's chasing the ideas. From what I've experienced, there's no
- 58:57Speaker 6: vanity project here. It's really kind of I'm chasing the ideas,
- 59:03Speaker 6: and all the other stuff is just noise.
- 59:06Speaker 4: When he does a lot of fictional, do you see
- 59:08Speaker 4: yourself wanting to do... just something story oriented or.
- 59:13Speaker 6: I'm kind of sick of the tent, the track I've
- 59:15Speaker 6: been on, you know, like I think you kind of
- 59:17Speaker 6: tire of your own voice.
- 59:19Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
- 59:19Speaker 6: You know, I bet you knew how it's, you.
- 59:22Speaker 4: Realize you're doing similar things over and over. So sometimes
- 59:26Speaker 4: you need a weird tangent that doesn't necessarily go where
- 59:29Speaker 4: people expect you to go.
- 59:30Speaker 6: Yeah. If you have the privilege to take some risks,
- 59:33Speaker 6: I think it's really a good thing. So maybe I'm open. Um,
- 59:39Speaker 6: I don't know. I did a lot of theater when
- 59:41Speaker 6: I was in college and I'm open to ideas. I
- 59:46Speaker 6: think that in a way I've been on an arc
- 59:48Speaker 6: for the past several years and I'm kind of ready
- 59:51Speaker 6: to make a different turn. I'm not quite sure what
- 59:54Speaker 6: that is yet, which is a nice feeling, actually.
- 59:58Speaker 4: Well, that actually leads to another thing. It's such a
- 1:00:02Speaker 4: time investment and so overwhelming to make a film. You
- 1:00:06Speaker 4: have Several children, I'm assuming. There's one with us right now.
- 1:00:13Speaker 4: How is it possible to be able to balance all
- 1:00:15Speaker 4: that stuff? Because I'm just trying to do what little
- 1:00:19Speaker 4: I do, and thank God I have no children dependent
- 1:00:22Speaker 4: on me. So, yeah, the fact that you are in
- 1:00:26Speaker 4: the process of raising a family, too, that seems overwhelming
- 1:00:29Speaker 4: to me.
- 1:00:30Speaker 6: Yes, it is overwhelming. And the word balance isn't in
- 1:00:33Speaker 6: my vocabulary. People ask that, how do you balance it?
- 1:00:36Speaker 6: I don't balance it. There's no balance. You just kind
- 1:00:39Speaker 6: of do it. I don't sleep much. You know, it's
- 1:00:43Speaker 6: a lot of nights. Because to me, you know, I
- 1:00:47Speaker 6: really want to be with my kids.
- 1:00:48Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 1:00:49Speaker 6: I think that if I'm not with them, I don't
- 1:00:52Speaker 6: feel right. And then you can't make art that's from
- 1:00:54Speaker 6: the heart if you're kind of broken up inside. So, yeah,
- 1:00:57Speaker 6: we have– my husband and I have six children. And
- 1:00:59Speaker 6: six little boys.
- 1:01:01Speaker 4: That's overwhelming just thinking about it.
- 1:01:03Speaker 6: And they're all boys. So people say that really is
- 1:01:05Speaker 6: like 12 children.
- 1:01:05Speaker 4: That's an ordeal right there.
- 1:01:10Speaker 6: It is hard. It is hard. I think there's this
- 1:01:12Speaker 6: lovely line in The Seer that a woman named Arwen
- 1:01:16Speaker 6: Donahue says. And she's quoting– a conversation she had with Wendell,
- 1:01:20Speaker 6: which is about art and life. Because she's talking about
- 1:01:22Speaker 6: as an agrarian trying to be a farmer, and she's
- 1:01:24Speaker 6: also a painter trying to be an artist. Like, how
- 1:01:27Speaker 6: do you do all of that? And she's quoting him
- 1:01:30Speaker 6: as saying, the art and life, they go together. In fact,
- 1:01:36Speaker 6: the interruptions can feed the artistic.
- 1:01:39Speaker 4: And creative process. It becomes part of the art.
- 1:01:41Speaker 6: Absolutely. And I think if you look at them as
- 1:01:44Speaker 6: diametrically opposed and antithetical to one another... you'll be torn apart.
- 1:01:48Speaker 6: And I have felt that at times because there's only
- 1:01:51Speaker 6: 24 hours in a day. However, I think if you
- 1:01:54Speaker 6: really allow the interruptions to be interruptions, that it can
- 1:01:59Speaker 6: feed the creative process. But it is a challenge, and
- 1:02:02Speaker 6: it does affect the kinds of work I do, and
- 1:02:05Speaker 6: it affects what I want to do next. But it's
- 1:02:08Speaker 6: worth it. Like I said, it's messy. I kind of
- 1:02:12Speaker 6: like the messy creative process.
- 1:02:14Speaker 4: That's kind of what I was thinking. I would think
- 1:02:17Speaker 4: you probably start to direct the way that you have
- 1:02:20Speaker 4: to parent. Everybody I know that's parenting, after a while
- 1:02:23Speaker 4: it just becomes one foot in front of the other.
- 1:02:25Speaker 4: What's the next step? What's the next thing I have
- 1:02:27Speaker 4: to deal with right now because I have to? Because
- 1:02:29Speaker 4: I have people depending on me, so I do what
- 1:02:32Speaker 4: I have to do next. So I assume that's probably
- 1:02:34Speaker 4: not the worst way to go into a film, as
- 1:02:37Speaker 4: huge an ordeal as that is too. It does kind
- 1:02:40Speaker 4: of feel like you would start to do similar things
- 1:02:42Speaker 4: at work.
- 1:02:43Speaker 6: Well, I think it's liberating because then it's not all
- 1:02:45Speaker 6: about you.
- 1:02:45Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
- 1:02:46Speaker 6: You know? It's not about what I need today. It's
- 1:02:49Speaker 6: really about what someone else needs.
- 1:02:51Speaker 4: It makes you accountable, yeah, for something bigger, yeah.
- 1:02:57Speaker 6: I'm just going to feed him right now. I've done
- 1:03:07Speaker 6: many interviews nursing, so I hope you're okay with that.
- 1:03:10Speaker 4: At this point, yeah. That's why I was telling him earlier,
- 1:03:15Speaker 4: I was like, there's been a lot of strange places
- 1:03:17Speaker 4: I've ended up recording and weird scenarios. I just roll
- 1:03:20Speaker 4: with it.
- 1:03:21Speaker 6: Yeah, I haven't had to do any award shows or anything,
- 1:03:24Speaker 6: but I did accept an award for South by Southwest
- 1:03:28Speaker 6: with Archer in my little baby carrier. And afterwards, the
- 1:03:31Speaker 6: head of South by Southwest came up to me and
- 1:03:34Speaker 6: she said, I had so many female directors who commented
- 1:03:37Speaker 6: to me about how encouraging that was to see because
- 1:03:40Speaker 6: I think as a mom, you often feel like If
- 1:03:42Speaker 6: you have your child with you, it weakens you. You're
- 1:03:44Speaker 6: not as professional. And for me, I used to think that,
- 1:03:47Speaker 6: but the problem is I have six of them, and
- 1:03:49Speaker 6: no one, even my parents, want to watch all of them.
- 1:03:51Speaker 4: At the same time. That's overwhelming.
- 1:03:53Speaker 6: So I always have at least one or two with me,
- 1:03:55Speaker 6: and it's just the way it is. So I had
- 1:03:58Speaker 6: a photo shoot before the film festival here with the mayor.
- 1:04:03Speaker 6: You know, I tried to hand off the baby, but
- 1:04:04Speaker 6: he cried. So it was just me, the mayor, and
- 1:04:06Speaker 6: the baby.
- 1:04:06Speaker 4: Just hand it to the mayor. He's got nothing else
- 1:04:09Speaker 4: going on. Just hold my baby. But it is one
- 1:04:14Speaker 4: of the, yeah, I think that kind of comes into play.
- 1:04:17Speaker 4: Like you were saying, I mean, not only does it
- 1:04:20Speaker 4: not make you weaker, I mean, to me, that makes
- 1:04:22Speaker 4: you more an impressive filmmaker, that you are able to
- 1:04:27Speaker 4: still continue to create artistically and creatively. the overwhelming aspects
- 1:04:32Speaker 4: of raising a family is, yeah, I think that, yeah,
- 1:04:35Speaker 4: we should see more of that on, you know, I
- 1:04:37Speaker 4: want to see people pick up their Oscar with a
- 1:04:39Speaker 4: kid in tow.
- 1:04:40Speaker 2: Right?
- 1:04:41Speaker 4: Couldn't get a sitter, guys.
- 1:04:42Speaker 6: Sorry. What's wrong with kids?
- 1:04:44Speaker 4: I mean, that's why you end up doing all these.
- 1:04:47Speaker 6: But they interrupt all the control, you know, especially little boys.
- 1:04:51Speaker 6: Like those little perfect green lawns, you know. Not for long.
- 1:04:56Speaker 5: No.
- 1:04:56Speaker 6: They want to tear it all apart and, My boys
- 1:04:59Speaker 6: teach me a lot about control and when to try
- 1:05:03Speaker 6: to have it and when to let it go.
- 1:05:05Speaker 4: Again, I see directing here. Truly. You can't get any
- 1:05:09Speaker 4: more practice than dealing with, you know, actors. So when
- 1:05:13Speaker 4: you get in, if you start doing more of your,
- 1:05:15Speaker 4: you know, fancy actors, you'll know how to deal with babies.
- 1:05:19Speaker 6: I would like to. I'd like to do some of that.
- 1:05:21Speaker 6: I think it'd be fun.
- 1:05:23Speaker 2: It would, yeah.
- 1:05:24Speaker 4: It would definitely mix things up a little bit. But, well,
- 1:05:27Speaker 4: then of other, you know, legendary people that have gotten
- 1:05:31Speaker 4: involved in this process. I mean, how do you deal
- 1:05:33Speaker 4: with Robert Redford when he gets involved in your project?
- 1:05:39Speaker 6: I like how you asked that question. You know, with
- 1:05:44Speaker 6: Robert Redford, you just respond when he reaches out. And
- 1:05:50Speaker 6: you don't bug him too much. He has a lot
- 1:05:54Speaker 6: going on. And I try not to ask much of him.
- 1:05:58Speaker 4: Just to hold the baby every once in a while.
- 1:05:59Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 1:06:00Speaker 7: Hold this.
- 1:06:00Speaker 4: I got something needed. I got to get this out
- 1:06:02Speaker 4: of my bag.
- 1:06:02Speaker 2: Hold on.
- 1:06:03Speaker 6: I try just to always express to him my gratitude
- 1:06:06Speaker 6: and respect. And he has stuck with me. And I'm
- 1:06:11Speaker 6: amazed at that. I first met him through Terry when
- 1:06:14Speaker 6: we were working on The Unforeseen, which is the film
- 1:06:16Speaker 6: about water in Austin and Barton Springs. And Redford learned
- 1:06:20Speaker 6: to swim in Barton Springs. And he... And Terry got
- 1:06:23Speaker 6: him involved in supporting that film. As we all know,
- 1:06:26Speaker 6: Redford's a very vocal and articulate environmentalist. And this was
- 1:06:30Speaker 6: a place dear to him and water and with Terry.
- 1:06:32Speaker 6: So he got involved with that and I interviewed him
- 1:06:35Speaker 6: for that film. And then, you know, like it played
- 1:06:38Speaker 6: at Sundance and I didn't hear from him. I didn't
- 1:06:42Speaker 6: know if he'd see the film or if he would
- 1:06:43Speaker 6: see the film. I sent it to him, but I
- 1:06:45Speaker 6: hadn't heard anything. And then at some point I get
- 1:06:47Speaker 6: a call from him like that spring after it played
- 1:06:49Speaker 6: at Sundance. He had seen the film and really loved
- 1:06:52Speaker 6: it and really responded to it. And so I talked
- 1:06:55Speaker 6: to him often for several weeks and he came to
- 1:06:58Speaker 6: the screening at the MoMA and he sent the film
- 1:07:01Speaker 6: to people and he was a wonderful advocate. He ended
- 1:07:03Speaker 6: up coming to Austin when we had our theatrical premiere.
- 1:07:07Speaker 6: He did a press conference with me. We ended up
- 1:07:09Speaker 6: having a triple lock at the Alamo Drafthouse with like
- 1:07:12Speaker 6: sold out and we played for six or seven weeks.
- 1:07:14Speaker 6: So he was just, when he comes in, he gives so,
- 1:07:18Speaker 6: so much in just a little moment. But he asked
- 1:07:20Speaker 6: me then what I wanted to do next. And at
- 1:07:23Speaker 6: the time, I really didn't want to do anything. I
- 1:07:25Speaker 6: was exhausted. But he said he wanted to help me
- 1:07:28Speaker 6: do something else. And so I was really, you know,
- 1:07:33Speaker 6: felt inspired by that. And at the time, I was
- 1:07:35Speaker 6: rereading Wendell Berry's The Unsettling of America. And I said,
- 1:07:38Speaker 6: you know, if I were to do anything, I'd want
- 1:07:39Speaker 6: to do something around this. And it turned out that
- 1:07:43Speaker 6: he also was very impressed by that book when it
- 1:07:45Speaker 6: came out in the 70s. I actually handed it out
- 1:07:48Speaker 6: to people. He was a big I wouldn't say fan
- 1:07:52Speaker 6: because it's kind of a funny word but he Wendell
- 1:07:55Speaker 6: Berry's work has meant a lot to him as well
- 1:07:57Speaker 6: so he jumped on board right away and helped support
- 1:08:00Speaker 6: the film from the beginning and and then actually just
- 1:08:05Speaker 6: recently saw it and really loves it and is going
- 1:08:09Speaker 6: to help me get it out to bigger audiences so
- 1:08:13Speaker 6: yeah he's awesome he's the real deal I think sometimes
- 1:08:16Speaker 6: you think of a movie star as being kind of
- 1:08:17Speaker 6: a lightweight naturally He's so not. He really pays attention.
- 1:08:22Speaker 4: He's very smart. Even back in the day, he was
- 1:08:25Speaker 4: kind of a different cut than a lot of the
- 1:08:27Speaker 4: other stars. He is a different cut. Yeah, yeah.
- 1:08:29Speaker 6: He's truly dedicated to his causes, and he's so sharp,
- 1:08:33Speaker 6: and he's very genuine. So he is a rare person.
- 1:08:39Speaker 4: You've had some great helpers on this project.
- 1:08:42Speaker 6: I know, right? I know.
- 1:08:44Speaker 4: But, I mean, that's kind of what you need, especially documentary.
- 1:08:48Speaker 4: It's such a fight to get them out there.
- 1:08:50Speaker 6: It sure is.
- 1:08:51Speaker 4: And find your audience. And the audience is out there,
- 1:08:53Speaker 4: but there's just so much other stuff. Yeah. So any
- 1:08:57Speaker 4: help you can get, yeah.
- 1:08:58Speaker 6: That's that's a big help definitely.
- 1:09:00Speaker 4: And then you you mentioned the being exhausted on that
- 1:09:03Speaker 4: last one and that is something i think people that
- 1:09:05Speaker 4: don't work within it or deal in any way with
- 1:09:08Speaker 4: filmmaking don't realize the time invested and i mean this
- 1:09:12Speaker 4: was years and years that you worked on it here
- 1:09:16Speaker 4: and I guess you've almost answered that already. I was
- 1:09:19Speaker 4: going to ask, are you okay with that? I mean,
- 1:09:21Speaker 4: as you get into these projects, it's such a long
- 1:09:25Speaker 4: period of time that you're working on this one somewhat
- 1:09:28Speaker 4: focused project that I don't know, how grueling is it?
- 1:09:34Speaker 4: It is grueling. Is it something that, yeah, you've kind
- 1:09:38Speaker 4: of said coming out of it that it does inspire
- 1:09:42Speaker 4: you to keep going on and wanting to throw yourself
- 1:09:44Speaker 4: right back in the mix next time around?
- 1:09:46Speaker 6: Yeah, no, it is grueling. I mean, I always tell
- 1:09:48Speaker 6: people it's sort of the art of endurance documentary is.
- 1:09:51Speaker 6: I'm sure there's a lot of arts that are that way.
- 1:09:54Speaker 6: Maybe arts in general are like that. I don't know.
- 1:09:56Speaker 6: There's a lot that requires a lot of endurance, but
- 1:10:00Speaker 6: this requires a lot of endurance.
- 1:10:02Speaker 4: There's no specific payoff, though. With most of the other
- 1:10:05Speaker 4: performance-based art, you know, if you're a musician, there's people
- 1:10:08Speaker 4: right in front of you. If you're on stage, you know,
- 1:10:10Speaker 4: at the end of the night, they applaud. Like filmmaking...
- 1:10:12Speaker 4: You sit on it for years, and then maybe, if
- 1:10:15Speaker 4: you're lucky, it comes out and people are pleased with it.
- 1:10:18Speaker 4: So it is more endurance, I feel like, because you
- 1:10:23Speaker 4: have no feedback, certainly not from a mass audience, for
- 1:10:26Speaker 4: years sometimes.
- 1:10:27Speaker 6: Yeah, no, that is true. I think you have to.
- 1:10:30Speaker 6: I remember telling my husband, like, you know, I mean,
- 1:10:34Speaker 6: the reason why this year took longer also, though, is
- 1:10:36Speaker 6: because I did have four children in the course of
- 1:10:38Speaker 6: making the film. So, um, it might've happened a little
- 1:10:41Speaker 6: bit quicker if I hadn't had so many babies, but, um.
- 1:10:45Speaker 4: Were any of these twins?
- 1:10:46Speaker 6: Yeah, one was twins.
- 1:10:47Speaker 5: Okay.
- 1:10:47Speaker 6: One set of twins.
- 1:10:48Speaker 4: I was going to say, that's, that's really knocking off.
- 1:10:52Speaker 6: It was pretty hardcore. But, um, so most of my work,
- 1:10:55Speaker 6: you know, editing works in the middle of the night. Um,
- 1:10:58Speaker 6: and yeah, it was hard. I mean, I would take
- 1:11:01Speaker 6: care of my kids all day and, you know, I
- 1:11:03Speaker 6: don't have help and we don't, we part-time homeschool and
- 1:11:06Speaker 6: everything else. So, um, It was sort of like I'd
- 1:11:08Speaker 6: get him to sleep at 9 o'clock and I'd take
- 1:11:09Speaker 6: a shower and then go to work, you know, and
- 1:11:11Speaker 6: work until sometimes 3 or 4 in the morning. And
- 1:11:14Speaker 6: it was exhausting, right?
- 1:11:15Speaker 4: You're exhausted listening to these stories.
- 1:11:18Speaker 6: Yeah, it was very intense. But I remember telling him,
- 1:11:21Speaker 6: and there were tears shed just from exhaustion, but I
- 1:11:24Speaker 6: remember telling him at some point, like, if I'm doing
- 1:11:26Speaker 6: this in the middle of the night, you know, tired,
- 1:11:30Speaker 6: and yet I still really love it, it's a test. Yeah.
- 1:11:33Speaker 6: You know, I do think, and there's so many people
- 1:11:35Speaker 6: who come to me who want to make films, and
- 1:11:37Speaker 6: And I kind of tell them, like, you know, you
- 1:11:39Speaker 6: have to really– there's no romance to it. I mean,
- 1:11:42Speaker 6: you really have to just be driven and want to
- 1:11:45Speaker 6: do it. You have to love it, and you have
- 1:11:47Speaker 6: to have something you need to express. That's kind of
- 1:11:51Speaker 6: how I see it. It's not really something that's fun.
- 1:11:54Speaker 4: I think that's part of the magic of moviemaking is
- 1:11:58Speaker 4: the fact that we still, like, this many decades into
- 1:12:02Speaker 4: this process since it became a thing– is that there's
- 1:12:05Speaker 4: still that illusion that we really do still have this
- 1:12:09Speaker 4: aura of, you know, how, how wonderful and amazing all
- 1:12:11Speaker 4: of this, you know, movie stars and Hollywood and all
- 1:12:14Speaker 4: of that. And I'm like, anybody that works in the
- 1:12:17Speaker 4: industry will completely go against all of that. Like there
- 1:12:20Speaker 4: are moments here and there, it does come together and
- 1:12:24Speaker 4: eventually you do create something artistic if you're doing it right. But,
- 1:12:28Speaker 4: but yeah, I think it, the fact that, we still
- 1:12:31Speaker 4: kind of buy into that. And I, myself, it's like,
- 1:12:33Speaker 4: I'm still find that allure in film as a finished product.
- 1:12:37Speaker 4: To me, it's a very different thing to want to
- 1:12:39Speaker 4: go and make them. I think it is two camps.
- 1:12:42Speaker 4: It's like, do you want to be a filmmaker or
- 1:12:44Speaker 4: do you want to be like a cinephile? You know,
- 1:12:46Speaker 4: it's like, do you want to love movies? Because you
- 1:12:48Speaker 4: probably need to stay on the other side.
- 1:12:50Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 1:12:50Speaker 4: If you want to have that pure love of movies
- 1:12:53Speaker 4: versus the, in the trenches, love of filmmaking.
- 1:12:56Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 1:12:58Speaker 4: It's a different, different aspect. Well, and if somebody in
- 1:13:02Speaker 4: the trenches, I did want to get to Lee Daniel.
- 1:13:04Speaker 4: I mean, that's pretty impressive, you know, pulling in as
- 1:13:09Speaker 4: your cinematographer. So I guess he's had years of work,
- 1:13:14Speaker 4: a lot of Austin-based stuff. So, I mean, how is
- 1:13:17Speaker 4: he as, you know, your co-conspirator? How do you work
- 1:13:22Speaker 4: with another person and specifically how was he to work
- 1:13:25Speaker 4: with to set up stuff like.
- 1:13:27Speaker 6: Yeah, Lee's like a member of our family. He's like
- 1:13:30Speaker 6: a brother to us and to Jeff and me both.
- 1:13:32Speaker 6: We really love him. And I think people have asked me,
- 1:13:37Speaker 6: how do you work with Lee? And we've known Lee.
- 1:13:39Speaker 6: Lee shot my last film, and so I've worked with
- 1:13:41Speaker 6: him quite a bit. And I think with Lee, you
- 1:13:44Speaker 6: give him space. And he'll tell you that he likes
- 1:13:47Speaker 6: working with me because I give him a lot of space.
- 1:13:50Speaker 6: You don't really direct Lee. I think that you create
- 1:13:54Speaker 6: spaces for him and you have a lot of conversations
- 1:13:57Speaker 6: with him about what you see, about what you want
- 1:14:00Speaker 6: to see, about what's in your mind, what's in your
- 1:14:03Speaker 6: mind's eye. And you also give him material. Like I
- 1:14:06Speaker 6: would give him audio recordings or Justin, our sound recordist,
- 1:14:09Speaker 6: who was with us from the very beginning and he
- 1:14:11Speaker 6: was awesome. He lives across the street from Lee. He
- 1:14:14Speaker 6: would go bring Lee some audio recordings of interviews I
- 1:14:17Speaker 6: did with Wendell or I'd bring Lee recordings of poems.
- 1:14:21Speaker 6: So you plant those seeds in his mind so that
- 1:14:24Speaker 6: when he's in a place, he's got the right equipment,
- 1:14:27Speaker 6: he's got the right helpers, and the right light, the
- 1:14:30Speaker 6: right time of day. He's responding to his environment. He's
- 1:14:34Speaker 6: not someone I can really just say, go do this, this, this,
- 1:14:37Speaker 6: and this. Sometimes I give him a shot list. Sometimes
- 1:14:40Speaker 6: I say, we're going here and I need this. Because
- 1:14:42Speaker 6: I also edit my own stuff, so I kind of
- 1:14:44Speaker 6: know what literal content I need sometimes. Just not some artistic...
- 1:14:51Speaker 6: but just this is a piece of the puzzle I
- 1:14:52Speaker 6: need to tell my story. And he does that. So, yeah,
- 1:14:59Speaker 6: he's a really talented person.
- 1:15:01Speaker 4: Do you feel you have the vision and then he
- 1:15:03Speaker 4: has to find a way to make it work in
- 1:15:05Speaker 4: the real world? Is it one of those that you
- 1:15:08Speaker 4: come to him.
- 1:15:08Speaker 2: With a concept?
- 1:15:09Speaker 6: He has his own vision. Yeah, no, he really is
- 1:15:12Speaker 6: a collaborator. When I watched The Seer... The thing I
- 1:15:16Speaker 6: love about it the most, and I think most, I
- 1:15:18Speaker 6: think if you watch your art and you think it's great,
- 1:15:20Speaker 6: then maybe you should not be an artist. I think
- 1:15:24Speaker 6: you always, in a way, hate it. It's never quite right.
- 1:15:27Speaker 6: There might be moments that you think are authentic or true,
- 1:15:30Speaker 6: but you're always reworking it in your mind. But I
- 1:15:33Speaker 6: think that the thing I do like about this year
- 1:15:37Speaker 6: is that when I watch it, it truly is a
- 1:15:39Speaker 6: collaborative effort.
- 1:15:40Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 1:15:41Speaker 6: You know, I don't watch it and say, oh, I
- 1:15:42Speaker 6: had this vision and I went up and now that's me.
- 1:15:45Speaker 6: It's my mind and vision on screen. I don't feel
- 1:15:47Speaker 6: that way at all. I feel proud of the fact
- 1:15:49Speaker 6: that I helped put the people together who told a story,
- 1:15:55Speaker 6: you know, and I think Lee is truly a collaborator
- 1:15:57Speaker 6: in that sense. He has his own vision and I
- 1:16:00Speaker 6: find it in the editing room when I'm editing his footage.
- 1:16:03Speaker 6: He doesn't, you know, shoot you, he doesn't just, you know,
- 1:16:07Speaker 6: shoot a specific shot. I always It's like mining when
- 1:16:12Speaker 6: you go into the edit room with his dailies because
- 1:16:16Speaker 6: you have to find where a shot begins and where
- 1:16:18Speaker 6: it ends. And there's a lot of dead space in between.
- 1:16:20Speaker 6: And some editors might get really frustrated by that.
- 1:16:24Speaker 4: Yeah, I could see.
- 1:16:25Speaker 6: But I know from having worked with his material for
- 1:16:27Speaker 6: a long time that it's totally worth it. And I
- 1:16:29Speaker 6: also would tell people that I think that he kind
- 1:16:32Speaker 6: of unframes things. So his need to just be intuitive
- 1:16:37Speaker 6: and try to kind of lay bare things he sees
- 1:16:41Speaker 6: It works with my kind of philosophical approach.
- 1:16:45Speaker 4: I mean, it's a good mixture to have. It is
- 1:16:47Speaker 4: one of those, do you think he purposely does it
- 1:16:50Speaker 4: that way, or is it just how he shoots?
- 1:16:52Speaker 6: I think he purposely does it that way. I think
- 1:16:55Speaker 6: that that is a very intentional act.
- 1:17:00Speaker 4: Again, I'm just trying to decide artistically, is it like
- 1:17:03Speaker 4: in that process of shooting more than you as the
- 1:17:07Speaker 4: editor might think you need, He finds things that you
- 1:17:09Speaker 4: wouldn't have had otherwise.
- 1:17:10Speaker 3: Definitely.
- 1:17:11Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 1:17:12Speaker 6: I mean, I think he's trying to find things that
- 1:17:14Speaker 6: are real.
- 1:17:14Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 1:17:15Speaker 6: And I think he's seen enough films and he's a
- 1:17:18Speaker 6: skilled enough cinematographer that he knows like, you know, if
- 1:17:21Speaker 6: you do this, it's going to look like you meant
- 1:17:23Speaker 6: to do this. As opposed to if you do this,
- 1:17:27Speaker 6: all you'll be thinking about is how beautiful that barn is.
- 1:17:31Speaker 6: You're not even going to be thinking about the filmmaker,
- 1:17:33Speaker 6: you know. You don't want to draw attention to the frame.
- 1:17:36Speaker 6: You want You want the frame to draw attention to
- 1:17:38Speaker 6: what's inside the frame.
- 1:17:40Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 1:17:41Speaker 4: I mean, there are things that can be too polished
- 1:17:46Speaker 4: and too perfectly framed. Yeah, there's certain filmmakers, once again,
- 1:17:51Speaker 4: we won't name.
- 1:17:52Speaker 6: Yes.
- 1:17:52Speaker 4: I was watching one of theirs recently. I'm like, it's
- 1:17:55Speaker 4: technically everything is exactly top of the line what you
- 1:17:58Speaker 4: would want. And it's kind of nauseating. Yeah. Like it's
- 1:18:02Speaker 4: sort of. it's so overwhelmingly shoved in your face how
- 1:18:07Speaker 4: good this looks that it doesn't look good anymore. I
- 1:18:09Speaker 4: just see this big over, it becomes ugly. Like it's
- 1:18:12Speaker 4: so perfectly well put together and has its own weird
- 1:18:17Speaker 4: tint that the director loves that like, I'm like, it
- 1:18:20Speaker 4: now just looks like some weird thing that you're shoving
- 1:18:23Speaker 4: at people.
- 1:18:23Speaker 6: And it, yeah. We live in such a narcissistic culture.
- 1:18:27Speaker 6: You know, everyone is all into themselves. And I mean,
- 1:18:29Speaker 6: think about like, social media and Facebook and Instagram, all
- 1:18:33Speaker 6: these things that I don't do, thankfully. But I mean,
- 1:18:35Speaker 6: they're just like, you know, it's all about me. It's
- 1:18:38Speaker 6: about me, my own image, the image I project to
- 1:18:40Speaker 6: the world, me, my story, all that I am. And
- 1:18:43Speaker 6: I just, you know, I think that that people are
- 1:18:46Speaker 6: making their whole lives now are films. Like my life
- 1:18:50Speaker 6: is a film and it's really all about this image
- 1:18:52Speaker 6: you're projecting. And so I'm really not interested in any
- 1:18:55Speaker 6: of that. Like I'm interested in, you know, what do
- 1:18:59Speaker 6: people feel? What are they thinking about? Like, how can
- 1:19:01Speaker 6: you connect? How can you tell a story in a
- 1:19:04Speaker 6: truthful way? And what does that story then do when
- 1:19:06Speaker 6: it's out in the world? What work can it do
- 1:19:08Speaker 6: in the world? And, It's a really different thing. You know,
- 1:19:11Speaker 6: I'm not really trying to like draw attention to the filmmaking.
- 1:19:15Speaker 6: I want to just illuminate something. And if I fail
- 1:19:20Speaker 6: to do that, then I will just do something else.
- 1:19:22Speaker 4: It is weird that we are as, again, the shift
- 1:19:26Speaker 4: that has happened in culture in these last 20 years
- 1:19:29Speaker 4: that like we are so self-centered in the way that we,
- 1:19:33Speaker 4: you know, work out our day so that we can like, well,
- 1:19:35Speaker 4: I need to get a shot of this thing that
- 1:19:37Speaker 4: I'm doing so I can let everybody know that I'm
- 1:19:39Speaker 4: doing this thing. I do wonder, looking back at somebody
- 1:19:42Speaker 4: like Wendell, I'm like, if people at that time had
- 1:19:46Speaker 4: the opportunity, like if you were tweeting things back in 1938,
- 1:19:50Speaker 4: like would people have done... half the creative or sometimes just,
- 1:19:54Speaker 4: you know, get off their ass and do some work.
- 1:19:56Speaker 4: You know, it's like, would anybody have built the country
- 1:19:59Speaker 4: that they did if they were busy just tweeting about
- 1:20:02Speaker 4: it all day or Instagramming, you know, the life that
- 1:20:05Speaker 4: they could be doing if they bothered to actually do anything?
- 1:20:09Speaker 6: No, I can answer emphatically no.
- 1:20:13Speaker 4: I don't know why you're not playing on the computer.
- 1:20:15Speaker 4: You don't have anything else going on throughout your day.
- 1:20:18Speaker 4: There's not six kids running in different directions all day long.
- 1:20:21Speaker 6: Aye, aye, aye.
- 1:20:23Speaker 4: Well, then, I guess just as we round out here,
- 1:20:27Speaker 4: you've mentioned potential new things. Have you started down a path,
- 1:20:31Speaker 4: or is it still just sort of finish this one
- 1:20:33Speaker 4: and then see how I feel?
- 1:20:34Speaker 6: I have a couple things I want to work on.
- 1:20:38Speaker 6: One of them I want to work on with my husband,
- 1:20:40Speaker 6: and I want him to direct it. I think that
- 1:20:43Speaker 6: he's stood by my side, and he's supported me a lot,
- 1:20:46Speaker 6: and he's been the breadwinner. But his ideas are all
- 1:20:49Speaker 6: throughout this year. And I think he has really good ideas.
- 1:20:52Speaker 6: And I'm interested in producing something he wants to direct
- 1:20:56Speaker 6: that I'll let him talk about at some point. He's
- 1:20:59Speaker 6: got a really interesting, neat idea. And I can say
- 1:21:02Speaker 6: it's sort of historical. It's sort of satirical and funny.
- 1:21:07Speaker 6: But it's also a critique of the financial system. So
- 1:21:10Speaker 6: it's not so in much environmental issues. It's really... looking
- 1:21:14Speaker 6: at the forces behind what's destroying this world. Nice. So
- 1:21:18Speaker 6: I think there's something really great there, and I'm excited
- 1:21:20Speaker 6: about that. And then I'm also interested in working with,
- 1:21:24Speaker 6: I'd like to work with Nick Offerman some more. Oh, yeah.
- 1:21:27Speaker 4: He's pretty impressive.
- 1:21:28Speaker 6: He's wonderful.
- 1:21:29Speaker 4: And humble about it.
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: He is.
- 1:21:31Speaker 4: Surprising. I mean, for somebody who is who he has
- 1:21:34Speaker 4: played and has kind of done the stuff that he's
- 1:21:36Speaker 4: done in the industry all these years, he's surprisingly humble
- 1:21:40Speaker 4: about it.
- 1:21:40Speaker 6: He's very thoughtful.
- 1:21:41Speaker 9: Yeah.
- 1:21:42Speaker 6: We're interested in wood and trees and the making of things.
- 1:21:45Speaker 6: And then one of my co-producers from this year is
- 1:21:48Speaker 6: a woman named Elaine Musselman. And I want to work
- 1:21:51Speaker 6: with her some more on some of those things. She's
- 1:21:53Speaker 6: very interested in art and wood and trees and sustainable forestry.
- 1:21:56Speaker 6: So I don't know what form that takes. We're just
- 1:21:59Speaker 6: sort of in the very early kind of seeding ideas stage. But,
- 1:22:05Speaker 6: you know, I like to develop an idea a while
- 1:22:07Speaker 6: before I try to spend money. Yeah.
- 1:22:11Speaker 4: Well, he's made an appearance. Should we introduce this guy?
- 1:22:14Speaker 6: This is Archer. He's nine months. And here he is.
- 1:22:19Speaker 4: Say hello.
- 1:22:21Speaker 6: He's just learning to make noises.
- 1:22:24Speaker 4: Well, you came to the right spot. We've got microphones.
- 1:22:28Speaker 4: It's all kinds of fun. Well, I guess where is
- 1:22:30Speaker 4: the best place for people to look for this? What
- 1:22:33Speaker 4: is the path it's going to take now? I mean,
- 1:22:35Speaker 4: you mentioned it. Finding a wider audience. What's the next
- 1:22:40Speaker 4: step for this?
- 1:22:42Speaker 6: Well, there's some good things that are going to happen,
- 1:22:46Speaker 6: but I can't really talk about them at the moment.
- 1:22:48Speaker 4: That happens a lot in this situation.
- 1:22:51Speaker 6: So we're going to relaunch it. We're going to kind
- 1:22:54Speaker 6: of make some small revisions to the film and relaunch
- 1:22:58Speaker 6: it in 2017. And what we want to do then
- 1:23:01Speaker 6: is we'd really like to have a distribution model that
- 1:23:04Speaker 6: reflects the values of Wendell and his world. So we're
- 1:23:10Speaker 6: hoping to work with Tug and do a theatrical self-distribution
- 1:23:14Speaker 6: so that it's not like a distributor buys the film
- 1:23:16Speaker 6: and puts it in a few art houses and we
- 1:23:18Speaker 6: win an award. That's kind of just not what we're
- 1:23:21Speaker 6: wanting to do. We really want to bring the film
- 1:23:23Speaker 6: to the little nowheres, quote unquote. We want the film
- 1:23:26Speaker 6: to be able to play in communities that want to
- 1:23:27Speaker 6: see the film and can self-organize. And so Tug is
- 1:23:31Speaker 6: an awesome model.
- 1:23:33Speaker 4: It's really interesting.
- 1:23:34Speaker 6: It's really interesting.
- 1:23:35Speaker 4: Again, something that wouldn't have worked without this framework of
- 1:23:38Speaker 4: all these other things that cause problems, but somebody who
- 1:23:41Speaker 4: found a way to make it useful and to use
- 1:23:44Speaker 4: the internet and the constant contact we have with each
- 1:23:47Speaker 4: other all over the world to be like, hey, we
- 1:23:49Speaker 4: can do something cool if we all actually like get
- 1:23:51Speaker 4: it together and try to do that.
- 1:23:53Speaker 6: I totally agree. And we know the folks there and
- 1:23:55Speaker 6: we've talked with them and We're interested in something like that.
- 1:24:00Speaker 6: So we're going to work on that. We just did
- 1:24:01Speaker 6: a really cool screening in Austin on July 9th with
- 1:24:05Speaker 6: the Johnson's Backyard Garden, which is one of the biggest
- 1:24:08Speaker 6: CSAs in the Austin area. And we worked with the
- 1:24:11Speaker 6: Sustainable Food Center of Austin. And we had this cool
- 1:24:17Speaker 6: screening at a farm. Alamo Draft House Rolling Road Show
- 1:24:20Speaker 6: brought their huge inflatable screen and their great sound system.
- 1:24:23Speaker 6: And we had about 500 people. We raised a ton
- 1:24:26Speaker 6: of money for the farmer to rebuild his greenhouses. We
- 1:24:28Speaker 6: had a panel of farmers beforehand talk about different issues
- 1:24:32Speaker 6: that local farmers are facing. And it was really cool
- 1:24:36Speaker 6: because it kind of brought the urban consumer directly to
- 1:24:39Speaker 6: the farm to connect with the farmer. So they wouldn't
- 1:24:41Speaker 6: just romanticize organic food, but they could start to hear
- 1:24:44Speaker 6: some of the hard work and struggles that the farmers
- 1:24:47Speaker 6: go through and It was awesome. And so I'd like
- 1:24:49Speaker 6: to do that kind of thing also, tour the film
- 1:24:53Speaker 6: to farms in a way that raises resources for the
- 1:24:55Speaker 6: farms that host the screenings. So, yeah, I want to
- 1:24:59Speaker 6: do something unconventional with it because I don't think you
- 1:25:01Speaker 6: can make a film about Wendell Berry and then sell
- 1:25:04Speaker 6: it to some conventional channel. It would be a kind
- 1:25:06Speaker 6: of violation of the principles therein, you know.
- 1:25:09Speaker 4: I'm sure there's plenty of people who would do just that. But, yeah,
- 1:25:12Speaker 4: it does sort of go against the idea of what he's,
- 1:25:15Speaker 4: you know, stood for all these years. Yeah.
- 1:25:17Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 1:25:18Speaker 4: But you can find out.
- 1:25:20Speaker 6: We do have a website, theseerfilm.com, and we will be
- 1:25:24Speaker 6: putting updates on that. And we've gotten a lot of
- 1:25:27Speaker 6: really neat response from people, I think, wanting the film
- 1:25:30Speaker 6: to come to their communities. And so you can sign
- 1:25:33Speaker 6: up there. You can let us know that you're interested,
- 1:25:35Speaker 6: and we've got a database we're building so that once
- 1:25:37Speaker 6: we have everything ready to go and we're ready to
- 1:25:40Speaker 6: really relaunch it, we can be in touch.
- 1:25:43Speaker 4: All right, so there you go. You can go to
- 1:25:46Speaker 4: that website and then tell people to come to your city.
- 1:25:49Speaker 4: So come check it out. All right, well, thank you
- 1:25:52Speaker 4: for being with us today.
- 1:25:53Speaker 6: Thank you.
- 1:25:53Speaker 9: Thank you.
- 1:26:03Speaker 4: So a big thank you once again to Laura and
- 1:26:05Speaker 4: Nick for sitting down with me this week. They're both
- 1:26:08Speaker 4: terrific guests and certainly go out there and support them
- 1:26:10Speaker 4: in general. but specifically support this film, The Seer. Again,
- 1:26:15Speaker 4: that site is theseerfilm.com. Go there and find out more
- 1:26:18Speaker 4: about the film itself and find out where it will
- 1:26:21Speaker 4: be playing or request it to come to your city
- 1:26:24Speaker 4: once they relaunch it. And I definitely want to give
- 1:26:26Speaker 4: thanks to the Louisville Film Society for not only putting
- 1:26:28Speaker 4: this festival together, but all the impressive work they do
- 1:26:31Speaker 4: year-round to support not just this city, but the overall
- 1:26:35Speaker 4: film community that we all create. I mean, you, just
- 1:26:39Speaker 4: by listening to this episode, are part of that film community.
- 1:26:42Speaker 4: So do your part. Seek out interesting films, and equally
- 1:26:45Speaker 4: as important, in my mind at least, obviously, week in
- 1:26:49Speaker 4: and week out, have conversations about those films. That is
- 1:26:54Speaker 4: a huge part of what makes us not just a
- 1:26:56Speaker 4: local or even national, but a worldwide community of film lovers,
- 1:27:01Speaker 4: is that we take this art form seriously, and we
- 1:27:04Speaker 4: choose to have intelligent conversations about film. So that's what
- 1:27:08Speaker 4: I challenge you with. I've had several great conversations about
- 1:27:12Speaker 4: film today. Now you go out there and start one yourself.
- 1:27:15Speaker 4: But that aside, again, thank you to Susie and Nancy
- 1:27:18Speaker 4: and everyone at the Louisville Film Society. for organizing this festival,
- 1:27:21Speaker 4: and for helping me put this episode together. For more
- 1:27:24Speaker 4: on them, go to louisvillefilmsociety.org and see what they have
- 1:27:27Speaker 4: in the works, and keep an eye out for the
- 1:27:29Speaker 4: next Flyover Film Fest. Alright, well that about does it
- 1:27:32Speaker 4: for this episode. We will return next time, same geek feed.
- 1:27:36Speaker 5: Thanks for listening.
- 1:27:43Speaker 9: This poem is called The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer.
- 1:27:50Speaker 9: I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my inheritance
- 1:27:54Speaker 9: and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission
- 1:27:59Speaker 9: to go in at exits and come out at entrances,
- 1:28:02Speaker 9: so be it. I have planted by the stars in
- 1:28:06Speaker 9: defiance of the experts and tilled somewhat by incantation and
- 1:28:12Speaker 9: by singing and reaped as I knew by luck and
- 1:28:15Speaker 9: heaven's favor in spite of the best advice. If I've
- 1:28:21Speaker 9: been caught so often laughing at funerals, that was because
- 1:28:26Speaker 9: I knew the dead were already slipping away, preparing a comeback.
- 1:28:31Speaker 9: And can I help it? And if at weddings I've
- 1:28:34Speaker 9: gritted and gnashed my teeth, it was because I knew
- 1:28:38Speaker 9: where the bride grew. had sunk his manhood and knew
- 1:28:42Speaker 9: it would not be resurrected in a piece of cake. Dance,
- 1:28:49Speaker 9: they told me, and I stood still. And while they
- 1:28:52Speaker 9: stood quiet in line at the gate of the kingdom,
- 1:28:56Speaker 9: I danced. Pray, they said, and I laughed. covering myself
- 1:29:02Speaker 9: in the earth's brightnesses, and then stole off gray into
- 1:29:07Speaker 9: the midst of a revel and prayed like an orphan.
- 1:29:11Speaker 9: When they said, I know that my Redeemer liveth, I
- 1:29:16Speaker 9: told them, He's dead. And when they told me God
- 1:29:20Speaker 9: is dead, I answered, He goes fishing every day in
- 1:29:25Speaker 9: the Kentucky River. I see Him often. When they asked
- 1:29:31Speaker 9: me would I like to contribute, I said no. And
- 1:29:34Speaker 9: when they had collected more than they needed, I gave
- 1:29:38Speaker 9: them as much as I had. When they asked me
- 1:29:41Speaker 9: to join them, I said I wouldn't. And then went
- 1:29:45Speaker 9: off by myself and did more than they would have asked.
- 1:29:49Speaker 9: Well then, they said, go and organize the International Brotherhood
- 1:29:55Speaker 9: of Contraries. And I said no. Did you finish killing
- 1:30:00Speaker 9: everybody who was against peace? So be it. Going against men,
- 1:30:07Speaker 9: I have heard at times a deep harmony thrumming in
- 1:30:11Speaker 9: the mixture. And when they ask me what, I say
- 1:30:15Speaker 9: I don't know. It is not the only or the
- 1:30:19Speaker 9: easiest way to come to the truth. It is one way.
- 1:30:28Speaker 2: Uh-oh.
- 1:30:28Speaker 4: Nice.
- 1:30:29Speaker 1: No shit.
- 1:30:30Speaker 4: Uh, we're screwed now. Did she say it's permitted?
- 1:30:38Speaker 7: It's encouraged.
- 1:30:39Speaker 4: Wait, wait, wait. I think she said prohibited. We'd like
- 1:30:55Speaker 4: you to bootleg things as much as you possibly can.
- 1:30:59Speaker 7: If you're going to pirate this, please make sure it's
- 1:31:01Speaker 7: in high resolution.
- 1:31:03Speaker 4: I mean, really, that's all we can have.
- 1:31:04Speaker 5: This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and
- 1:31:07Speaker 5: edited by The Oddity Studios, with the opening music performed
- 1:31:10Speaker 5: by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or
- 1:31:13Speaker 5: support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.
- 1:31:16Speaker 8: Talk hard!