ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Interviews

A Day to Die Director Wes Miller Tells It Like It Is

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When I first met Wes Miller, it was 2016 and he was the writer/director of Prayer Never Fails, a little film about a basketball coach who gets in hot water for praying with one of his players. The film didn’t blow critics away, but I noticed that Miller moved known entities like Corbin Bernsen, Eric Roberts, and Lorenzo Lamas through a story that didn’t beat folks over the head with its faith (even if the title seems direct). We chatted about life, faith, and movies, and Miller’s transition from lawyer-to-director intrigued me. 

Over the next several years, Miller would send me his projects and ask for an honest evaluation of what I was seeing on screen. In River Runs Red, a story Miller wrote about an African American judge whose son is killed in a routine traffic stop and then pursues justice, he used the talents of Taye Diggs, John Cusack, and George Lopez; with Hell on the Border, he told the story of the first black U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves pursuing evildoers while wrestling with America’s racism in the Old West with the help of David Gyasi, Frank Grillo, and Ron Perlman. Each time, there was an entertaining story that appealed to the masses, but there was something deeper going on each time as well. 

Now, with A Day to Die, Miller spins a tale about a group of ex-Special Forces soldiers who come together after one of their own is threatened, built around the talents of Bruce Willis, Kevin Dillon, Brooke Butler, Vernon Davis (yes, the ex-tight end), Leon, and Grillo again. Straight B-level action film, right? No. There’s again something going on here about the infinite striations separating good from bad, and covering all the space in between. 

Miller still articulates his desire to tell stories that entertain without preaching to people, but admits that he’s trying to make people think. “People who seem good aren’t always; people who seem bad aren’t always,” he says. “Good things are done for bad reasons and bad things are done for good reasons. Sometimes, that’s what it takes to change the system.”

In A Day to Die, the audience is challenged to see how people on both sides of the legal system actually want the same things – safety, better for their children, a prosperous future, while also acknowledging that the system is biased. Rather, more than biased – aimed at lifting some up and holding others back. “Why is it possible that a subset of Christians is afraid to admit or address bias? How can you really effect change?” asks Miller. “I want folks to discover and find the ability to change. Maybe some people won’t get it because they don’t want to see it. But if they’re open to it, they can see and identify things in the film.”

One of the ways that Miller draws the audience in is through Butler’s kidnapped police wife. She’s not a throwaway character – Miller says being raised by a single mother makes him aware of the power of a woman’s story – so he made sure that she wasn’t helpless. “She’s the strength of the film, maintaining a steely calm even when she’s kidnapped. If her relationship with Pettis (Leon’s character) doesn’t work out , then the film doesn’t work.”

Working with known actors the way he has, Miller has learned from each of the actors who excelled at what they do, helping him to become a better director. He admits that he had to be ready, prepared for each shoot, because otherwise they would’ve steamrolled him! But their relationships grew throughout each movie, and they trusted him to tell the story. 

Now, looking back and looking forward, Miller sees the way he now digs into the script, building a tool box of creative tools that keeps expanding. He learns from each mistake, and continues to work on showing more than telling. Not everyone appreciates that – that Miller is growing and adapting, balancing his faith in filmmaking and the reality of the world around him. But he perseveres, and continues to grow, holding a mirror up to society (and the church) to challenge us to be better – to follow Jesus more closely. 

It’s why I first became a fan, and why I’ll keep waiting expectantly for what lawyer-turned-director Wes Miller does next.

1on1 with Dana Canedy (A Journal for Jordan)

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I recently had the chance to speak via Zoom with Dana Canedy, who wrote the book A Journal for Jordan about her fiancé 1st Sergeant Charles Monroe King who wrote a journal for their yet unborn child prior to being killed in Iraq. The film version of the book is directed by Denzel Washington and stars Michael B. Jordan and Chanté Adams. Ms. Canedy is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who is now Senior Vice President of Simon and Schuster. She has written for the New York Times

I’m sensitive to the fact that even though it’s been a number of years since the events in the film, the writing of the book, the making of the movie, and now all these interviews you’re doing can stir up many emotions for you and for your son. So how are you feeling about it all at this point?

Thank you for appreciating that. I have a mix of emotions. I’m mostly really humbled and grateful. The fact that people all across the country care about the story and are sending me hugs and sending me emails is very healing for me. There are some days I’m really overjoyed and other days are difficult. When we were shooting the scene in Arlington Cemetery was one of the worst days of my life. One the whole I think it’s a beautiful story. I’m grateful for this experience and hopefully there are some words of encouragement in the movie that will resonate with people with their own struggles, to help them get through. So if I can serve in any way, my story and my loss, and how to deal with tragedies and serve to inspire someone else and help them through, then it’s okay. I’m happy to go through it.

In the production notes you’re quoted as saying you were willing to trust Denzel Washington with this project because “In this order, I knew Denzel was a Christian man and a good family man. And then I knew he was the best at what he does.” Can you speak a bit about the importance of who Denzel Washington is as a person as it relates to this project?

I think who he is as a person as it relates to this project is as important as who he is in Hollywood, in the sense that he made this personal. He started many of the shoots in prayer with the cast. He got to know me and my son over time. We’ve been thinking about and talking of doing this for thirteen years. So Jordan’s sixteen and I have pictures of him holding Jordan on the set of one his other movies when Jordan was three years old. He made this very personal. In fact, at one point several years ago, he was reading through the script and he was pretty emotional about it and called me about it. I told him “We’re no longer characters on a page to you; we’re people.” And so, I think part of the beauty of the movie is that everyone involved made it personal, and you can see that with the performances.

You also mention that part of what your fiancé wrote about was his love of God? How did you see that form him as a man?

He was a deeply Christian man who grew up in the church and read his bible every day. I used to watch him read and pray and he wrote in a prayer book. He’s the only man I ever dated who I felt comfortable praying with. God was at the center of his life. He really was. In fact, his pastor at his childhood church asked him, “You’re such a Christian man, how can you be in the military?” He said, “The military needs Christians, too.” Faith was at the heart of everything he did. I grew up in a very nontraditional religious household, and he helped me, actually, grow in my faith. That is one of the blessings of having known him and spend so much time with him, to watch a man of faith practice his faith.

Also in the production notes, you talk about the two different ways your fiancé was known: The warrior that the soldiers knew as “Top” and the man you describe as the gentlest man you ever met. What was it like to discover new dimensions to this man?

Incredible. It was absolutely incredible. Incredible for the soldiers and incredible for me. When I described the man I knew to the soldiers, they said “Ma’am, we never met that guy.” He was so different at his home. He had all these little flecks of gray in his mustache, and he used to let me take my mascara wand and color it in. That’s who he was at home. Of course, that’s not who he was as a military leader. He really had these two different parts of his personality that he balanced very well. To this day it makes me smile and laugh that this fierce warrior could also be so gentle. Though I shouldn’t be surprised because he was an artist who specialized in pointillism—creating beautiful three-dimensional drawings with dots of paint. He would draw children and old people and soldiers and landscapes

As I mentioned I haven’t seen the film yet, but how do you feel Michael B. Jordan did in capturing that complexity?

First of all I was struck by how much they looked alike, so that was incredible. He, again, put in a lot of time researching the role. The first day I went to the set, I took a small duffle bag that had the actual journal in it and Charles’s dog tags, and his Purple Heart. Michael wore the dog tags on set that day, and was very emotional about it. So I think he really understood that there was a boy at the heart of the story, whose name was Jordan, who’s a real person, and he had this unbelievable measure of respect for Charles. So he put in the time to talk to me a lot, to read through my book and the journal to understood us as people. And he brought all that to bear on the performance. He captured him perfectly.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – DECEMBER 09: Dana Canedy and Jordan Canedy attend the World Premiere of “A Journal For Jordan” at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on December 09, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Sony Pictures)

 Is there a kind of weirdness to watching yourself being portrayed on screen?

Oh, no. I mean, I’m so grateful. This is such an awesome, amazing experience, by the grace of God, to be able to tell my story—our story—to share that. I don’t think of it that way at all.

This is a story about fatherhood, but in a very different way than most films. How would you describe the concept of being a father that this film creates?

I think what it does is it doesn’t create an example of fatherhood. It gives an example of the epitome of fatherhood. You know, a man who found a way to be present for his family and his son after he was gone. I tell Jordan all the time “You’re having an ongoing conversation with your father that many people don’t have with fathers who are living.” The fact that he tried so hard and worked so hard at anticipating what he’d want to say to Jordan over the years is unbelievable. There are entries in the journal that mean a lot to Jordan at sixteen years old, but, as you can imagine, there are other things that are going to be even meaningful for him on his wedding day or when he becomes a father. Charles was able to anticipate all of that while writing this from a war zone. I can’t think of a better example of a father who is loyal and thoughtful and caring and loving. It’s why I chose him.

A Journal for Jordan is now available on Blu-ray and On Demand.

Colony of Bats: Toronto’s Eaton Centre goes Batty

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The CF Toronto Eaton Centre has officially gone batty.

In partnership with Warner Bros. Canada, the Eaton Centre is celebrating the release of Matt Reeves’ The Batman with a stunning exhibit in the central concourse that will surely draw attention. From now until March 8th, The Batman’s Colony of Bats invites viewers to stop by to untangle a mystery of their own. 

Created by Rooftop Agency, Colony of Bats is a striking piece that uses forced perspective to move seamlessly between a flock of more than 10 000 bats mid-flight and the logo for The Batman. In celebration of its unveiling, David Videka, the president of Rooftop Agency, notes that the exhibit’s massive size makes it a particularly unique experience in the famed shopping centre.

“It’s certainly large,” muses Videka. “It’s 32 feet long by 12 feet high by about 9 or 10 feet wide. It’s one of the largest things ever to go into the Eaton Centre. They usually cap build at about 10 feet. So, I think only their Christmas tree has us beat at this point for the height.”

Inspired by The Batman’s noir aesthetic, Videka wanted his installation to offer the same sorts of surprises that Matt Reeves’ film gives audiences. As such, the most important question in the development of Colony was how they could turn the piece into a ‘riddle’ of its own for viewers to unravel.

“Without a doubt, the movie inspired us the most,” Videka recalls. “To start with all these things, you have to take it back to the very beginning and try to really get a good grasp of what are the writers, the directors (and) the talent are all trying to say. What’s trying to come across in the movie, right? It’s one thing to sit around and say, ‘Oh, this would be cool to do.’ And, you know, sure, that’s a fantastic way to come about things, but this is art. This is a movie, this is cinema. The idea that we need to use that as the starting point is kind of the most important thing. We work alongside with Warner Bros. [and ask] how do we do these movies, especially something like Batman, justice.”

“What we really wanted to reflect [from] the movie is that things aren’t always as they seem, especially when we have a character like the Riddler involved. That was a really key component for us. So, by playing off of all the different twists and turns and the edge-of-your-seat sort of moments of the movie where there’s always something different happening and you’re never quite sure if you gotten to the right answer or not, we took these twists and turns and [wondered] what if we used a forced perspective art installation piece? It provides a multitude of different ways to look at a problem before you realize that, if you get it just right, everything would be revealed the way it was meant to be. We feel that this really comes to life when we look at the installation from all angles. When you’re looking at it from pretty much every perspective, it just looks like a flock or a colony of more than 10,000 bats mid-flight. But, if you stand in just the right place and figure out the riddle in just the right way, it reveals the logo, which is really striking and visually attractive… You know, so it’s been really fun to kind of mess with people’s minds in the same way that the movie does to the viewer.” 

While any art installation of this size would be a massive undertaking, Videka recognizes that Colony of Bats was particularly intricate in its detail. Even so, he and his team were excited to take on the challenge.

Says Videka, “There’s over 10 000 bats, all digitally cut through 3D rendering. [It was a challenge] to establish the individual bat sizes, how many bats per layer, and the amount of layers required to make it the most effective illusion. Again, it’s when you get up close and you look at it, there’s a lot going on. That’s sort of the fun. When you step way back and you take those 10-15 feet back and you look at it, it looks so simplistic. It says The Batman, but when you get in on it, you realize that we have to take into consideration how many bats to hang, but also there’s 56 different… opaque, hanging apparatuses that the bats sit on. So again, 10 000 divided by 56 equals how many bats and what direction do they go? Which way do they hit the light so that it reflects properly and spells the proper letters in the name and then the name itself? What vantage point do we need? Again, you’re going into a mall with a pre-conceived walkway so people are coming a certain way and you want to make sure that they see The Batman when they’re coming in.”

“So, there’s a lot of technical sort of things that go into the idea and the mathematics behind it. But, I think that’s what the challenge and fun is, right? Hey, look at it like this. Batman, he’s the best. He is badass. He’s got these gadgets. He’s all these things. And he uses technology to his advantage. And again, like as nerdy as that might seem, that’s really how deep we get. [We say,] ‘Hey, this is so difficult to do. Only maybe one person could do it and that’s probably Batman. So, you know, let’s give it a shot.’” 

In addition to the technical challenges of Colony, Videka also points out that he had to consider the different types of people that will see his work. From casual passersby to avid fans, his goal was to create something that was meaningful for everyone. 

“When you’re building something like this, you have to think of what are the different levels of consumers or fans that are going to come by and how do you relate to all of them?,” he identifies. “You’re going to have someone that’s going to come by and just be like, ‘Wow, this is really cool. I like the Batman. I know the Batman, and I’m really intrigued with this’ or you’re going to have people that come by and [think they] know everything about Batman and want to pick it apart to find out what’s wrong with what’s going on. The idea is you have to cater to all of those people. That’s sort of the fun of it because, if you can connect with all of them in a very unique way yet all within the same sort of structure installation, then you’ve accomplished your goal.” 

“Batman’s an 18-49, very mainstream movie. It has a lot of different audiences. It has a lot of different communities and sub-communities of people that love it for different reasons. It’s a heritage franchise. So, there’s a lot of people that grew up with it, like myself with Michael Keaton and Kim Basinger. That’s where I fell in love with it… So, you have to cater to all those different sorts of perspectives and mindsets. Yesterday, [we had] little kids freaking out because they saw the Batman artwork, elderly people, people that were in art or just working in the malls coming out of the stores, saying, ‘This is crazy!’ I certainly think we’ve more than achieved that goal and that was only the first day.” 

When he considers how he wants his audience to respond to Colony of Bats, Videka hopes that they’ll recognize that there’s always a mystery to life. For him, Colony is an opportunity for them to take pause and look for something deeper. 

“Things aren’t always what they seem and don’t take them for face value,” states Videka. “Everything is deeper, if you take a longer look and try to get to the solution versus just taking it and walking by. That’s what we heard a lot yesterday… From our perspective, we have brand ambassadors on site and they spent more time talking to consumers yesterday that I’ve ever seen them in 14 years. People just had so many questions. And again, I think that’s what you’re looking to do with the movie like this. There’s a lot of layers and don’t just take everything for face value.” 

The Batman’s Colony of Bats is on display now in concourse of the CF Toronto Eaton Centre through until March 8th.

Seeing Past the Smoke: 1on1 with Tony Hale (POUPELLE OF CHIMNEY TOWN)

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As we continue to move through the haze of the pandemic, sometimes it can feel like an endless haze has descended upon us all. Stuck in a seemingly endless mid-point, we continue to look beyond the COVID world, squinting to see some form of hope on the other side.

It’s for that reason that actor Tony Hale (Toy Story 4, Arrested Development) believes that his latest project, Poupelle of Chimney Town, is the movie we need right now.

“The story itself is based in this very popular children’s book of the same name and takes this little character named Lubicchi,” he begins. “He’s a little boy who lives in a town full of smoke and the father tells him that there’s stars above the smoke. And everybody in the town says, ‘You’re crazy. You’re crazy. You’re crazy.’ But Lubbichi believes [his father] and my character comes along and helps him on this journey to find the stars. I just think, man, after what we’ve all been going through these two years, just that hope of like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna get past this. There’s something on the other side.’ In addition to that, the animation is crazy beautiful. It has this kind of ethereal-like jewel-tone watercolor. It’s just so stunning. We, as voice actors, are a very, very small slice of this pie. Most of the pie is all the artists working on it.” 

Directed by Yuusuke Hirota, Poupelle of Chimney Town takes place in a city covered by a thick layer of black smoke that has prevented its people from ever seeing the sky. Though the people have accepted the darkness, young Lubicchi (Antonio Raul Corbo) clings to the stories of stars told to him by his late father, Bruno (Stephen Root). Working as a chimney sweep in order to pay the bills and care for his sick mother, Lola (Misty Lee), Lubicchi has become a social outcast and struggles to connect with other kids. However, his life changes when a man made of garbage stumbles out of the night. Naming his new friend Poupelle (Hale), Lubicchi accepts this ‘monster’ when others won’t and the two begin to look for the stars together. 

Branded a monster by the townspeople, Poupelle is kept at a distance by others out of fear. However, in Lubicchi, he finds a young man who (eventually) is willing to see beyond his exterior of garbage to the beautiful soul that lies beneath. In doing so, Hale believes that the film begins a conversation about the poisonous nature of labels and how they limit our ability to connect with people. 

“[A label is] so toxic because it kills uniqueness and what somebody is bringing to the table when they’re being forced to fit into a category or a mold,” he explains. “And the fact is there’s a lot of different branches to the tree of humanity. There are so many different branches, but we don’t feel comfortable with that almost, you know? And so [a label] is incredibly toxic because it’s restrictive. That made me think of when I did Toy Story 4, there was this character named Gabby Gabby in the store and she was considered the evil doll. Forky, my character, didn’t know anything so he just kind of got started getting to know her. Everybody was putting a label on her and he just got to know her, much like Lubicchi was Poupelle. And because of that breaking through, that union, the labels came off and you be able to hear the person’s story. You can be able to get past their trauma and see their humanity and man, what power is that?” 

Although Lubicchi cares about Poupelle, their relationship definitely has its conflicts. As their push/pull dynamic comes into play, Hale sees that both characters have issues that they’re working out. Even so, he also believes that the trust between them is rooted in their willingness to truly see one another.

“It’s like any friendship, kind of,” says Hale. “Also, Poupelle is kind of this being made of garbage come into the town and he’s dealing with his own [questions about] what’s going on. But I think it’s always about trust. Lubicchi hasn’t had a lot of support from the town [in regards to] believing his vision and where he’s going and you know, trusting that this Poupelle does believe in him. What I love about this relationship is it just takes that one person who believes in you and sees you that gives you the strength to do it. Poupelle really sees Lubicchi and he really believes in him.” 

With this in mind, one of the key tensions within the film lies between Lubicchi’s decision to ‘keep looking up and the Inquisitors’ commitment to snuffing out such beliefs. Asked why he believes Lubicchi’s views are such a threat to the powers that be, Hale argues that there is a certain amount of danger that lies within change itself.
“I think it’s a threat because change is scary,” he suggests. “Even though they live in a town of smoke and even though there’s this hope, change is scary. They don’t want to believe beyond their framework because they’ve created that [sense of] what I’m comfortable in. And so that’s scary. So, they’ll fight against that, but man not look up. I mean, I personally am a person of faith and I look up all the time because it brings a reference point to my life. It makes me know that I’m not in charge, which is a huge gift because it gets scary. So, it’s a huge source of strength for me.” 

Having said this though, Hale also argues that the sense of hope embedded within the film is what makes it so essential for audiences right now. Coming at a moment when we have all been beaten down so many different cultural issues, Poupelle of Chimney Town offers a message of strength and encouragement in a troubled time.

“Honestly, I think there’s a lot of beautiful movies, but there’s something [about] this movie that, for this point in time, [is] life-giving. It’s redemptive [and] it’s strengthening. Obviously, there are a lot of dark things out there. That’s also strengthening people because they might feel seen in certain ways, but the hope that this provides I think is the medicine that we need right now. Definitely.” 

Poupelle of Chimney Town is now available in select theatres.

To hear our complete conversation with Tony Hale click here (YouTube) or here (podcast).

1on1 with Clint Bentley (Jockey)

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I recently had the chance to talk via Zoom with Clint Bentley, the director and co-writer of Jockey. The film is the story of an aging jockey coming to the end of his career. He discovers one of the new young jockeys claims to be his son. The film won an Audience Award at AFI Fest, and has been nominated for two Film Independent Spirit Awards.

I saw this at AFI Fest where you said your father was a jockey and you were raised in this world behind the barns. What was that like and how did it shape your view of the world?

You know, it didn’t feel weird at the time. We grew up in Florida, but we lived all over the place following my dad around the circuit to the point where my sister was born in Oklahoma City, just because that’s where we happened to be when she was born.

It’s such an interesting world, and such a lovely world. But I think in terms of shaping my worldview, it was seeing there’s a lot of people on the backside who all come from different places and all come from different backgrounds. A lot of them are wounded in different ways emotionally. But they create this family for each other and give each other what they need. And no matter how competitive they get in terms of winning, they all really want to take care of each other for the most part and I think that really shaped me going forward.

 You spoke of some of those people and you have several non-actors in the film. What was it like getting them to share their lives?

The first time actors in the movie are such interesting people in their own rights that it didn’t take much to get them to be interesting on camera. It really was just a process of winning their trust and letting them know what the intent of the movie was, and then working in such a way that it didn’t feel like it was taking advantage of them in any way or manipulating them, just letting them be themselves on camera. Once I was able to do that and earn their trust, the rest flowed out. I have to say huge props to Clifton Collin Jr. for being able to guide a lot of them through those scenes. None of them had been in front of a camera before.

As they recite their injuries, that really gives you an idea of what it’s like to live that life.

Yeah. There’s a line in the movie that’s a direct quote from having hung out with a jockey. He was only like 24 at the time. I asked him “Have you ever been hurt bad?”  And he just listed off his litany of injuries: “I’ve broken my ankle and I’ve broken both collarbones, my nose so many times. I’ve broken my arm. But no I’m lucky, I’ve never been hurt bad.” I was thinking “Holy shit!” That tells you enough about the world and the job right there.

Jackson Silva, the main character, is struggling with aging and a body beginning to deteriorate. That’s an issue we all face at some point. But that seem to be less an issue for riders than fear. Does that seem like a fair statement of what Jackson is going through?

That’s a good question and it’s a really astute reading of it. Because it’s something that jockeys… they talk about getting hurt and it’s just part of the job as like if you’re delivering mail, getting a flat tire on the way to work or on the route is just part of the job. For them that’s breaking a collarbone; it’s that mundane for them. It’s not a question that they talk about in terms of if but of when. But breaking a bone and getting back on a horse or getting knocked unconscious and getting back on a horse, those aren’t things that mess up their career. It’s really getting the Fear –capital F Fear. They know it inside. If they’re nervous up on a horse on their tiptoes running forty miles an hour down the track with ten other horses around them, they’re not going to do well in the race, and they’re also potentially going to get their friends hurt, or the horse hurt or themselves hurt. It really is the thing that it’s really hard to come back from that once you get it. It’s what every jockey… it’s their fear to get the Fear.

One of the things that I found very interesting in your film was the number of scenes that were at dawn or at sunset. Sunset seems especially appropriate of Jackson’s story. Can you comment about how you used that visual aspect in your storytelling.?

It really came from, first, limitations opening up opportunities. We had a small crew and just a very small light kit, so we were going to be using natural light to shoot the movie And then Adolpho Veloso, our brilliant cinematographer, really lit on this idea that the connection between the sunset and the sunrise season of Clifton’s character Jackson being at the sunset of his career, and Moises being at the sunrise of his career. We leaned into that. And something that I didn’t even notice at the time, until Adolpho pointed it out, was that the rhythms of the life of a jockey match that of what we put in the movie. They wake up before dawn and they get on horses to exercise them. They exercise them until it starts to get hot in the day, then they take a break. They go off and they work out, or they try to figure out how not to eat a meal. Then the races are over by the evening. It really follows that same rhythm that we portrayed in the movie. It’s also very beautiful at that time.

You have an interesting relationship with your filmmaking partner Greg Kwedar. What kind of dynamic does that bring to making a film like this when you both consider yourselves directors, producers, screenwriters?

Actually, it’s a real blessing to be able to work with Greg. We’ve been working together for about ten years. Yes, both of us are writer/director/producers. We switch off back and forth. We write together and one produces for the other to direct, then we switch back and forth. It’s really not only supporting your friend. I do go through that and being able to support who you know very well, and know them not as a artist, but as a person. But then also having that person over your shoulder when you’re shooting something who’s also a director. Directing is a very lonely job. To be able to look back at someone else and say “I think it’s good, but is it good?” And for them to be like, “No, it’s not good,” or “Yes,” is really and amazing thing to have. Also, we’re different as artists and as directors. That difference makes each of our projects better because you’ve got somebody working on it who has different sensibilities and different thoughts and brings different things to the project that you’d never think of.

What are the two of you working on for the future?

We’ve got a film of Greg’s that hopefully we’ll shoot in the new year that is more in the vein of our first film, Transpecos, kind of a thriller with something more on its mind. Then, I love the way Jockey feels. Just trying to make more movies that feel like that.

The Voices of (Three) Generations: 1on1 with Rob Paulsen & Maurice LaMarche (ANIMANIACS)

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They’re Pinky and the Brain. One is a genius. The other’s insane.

Taken from their famed theme song, these simple words summarize the lovable relationship between the two animated laboratory mice from Hulu’s revived series, Animaniacs. Committed to taking over the world, the maniacal Pinky and the Brain have been beloved by millions since they first popped on screen almost thirty years ago. 

Beginning its original run in 1993, the rebirth of Animaniacs has meant that its unique brand of humour has impacted multiple generations of kids around the world. In light of this, voice icons Maurice LaMarche (‘The Brain’) and Rob Paulsen (‘Pinky’) are often amazed that these characters continue to endure and bring families together.

“It hit me at Comic Cons. I already knew that the generation that watched our show had hit their mid-thirties,” LaMarche points out. “It was when their little kids started pointing to Pinky and the Brain and wanting an autograph from them. And I’d ask, ‘how old is he?’ And they go, ’10’. I’d ask, ‘How does he know about Pinky and the Brain’? ‘Because I show it to him on the DVDs, the box sets, all of that.’ Now, we’re noticing that the dads that sat with their kids in the 90s are now the [grandparents] of the little kids who were asking for that picture with their kids. Three generations are standing in front of our tables at Comic Cons, asking for autographs. So, that’s kind of fun.” 

“That’s really unusual too,” chimes Paulsen. “I think the only other show I can think of that’s still in production is the Simpsons, where that would have happened. But we have gotten this incredibly glorious opportunity as a result of the stars aligning and Hulu. With a twenty-five year break in between, it’s so unprecedented to do it again, and then have all these world-class journalists talk to us about season two, and the show is now an unqualified hit again with an exponentially larger audience.”  

In light of their lasting legacy, it begs the question of what makes Pinky and the Brain such endearing characters? While their antics to take over the world are always hilarious, Paulsen argues that he believes it stems from the adorable relationship between the two characters.

“I think that what sets it apart for me is that it’s just a love story,” Paulsen explains. “Pinky and the Brain really love each other. I think one of the reasons that, um, that it translates pretty well to the screen is that life is imitated art. I love Maurice. We are the dearest of friends… So, if you’re going to be authentic, acting is acting. The whole idea is that you embody these characters. You don’t acknowledge the fact that it’s silly or otherwise. This is the truth. You are about taking over the world and supporting your guy, supporting the man (or the mouse) whom you believe has the best interest of the world at heart. Whether it’s nefarious or not is not, Pinky’s MO is that [he] believes that the Brain has the best of intentions and [he’s] going to do everything I[he]can to help him achieve his goal. Then, he hits [him] on the head for doing something stupid. So, that’s why I think they work together.” 

“It’s a show about a friendship,” LaMarche echoes. “It’s a show about what Peter Cook and Dudley Moore described as the ‘uninformed idiot and the informed idiot’. So, Brain, being the informed idiot who, though he is supposedly a genius, isn’t smart enough to know that a two-inch tall lab mouse that can’t possibly take over the world. So, he’s rendered harmless at that point. That’s another reason that people can get with him because they know he’s no danger. (Of course, setting aside the fact that he’s an animated cartoon.)” 

Thinking back to the very beginning, LaMarche notes that his voice for the character stemmed from the remarkable similarities in appearance to the great Orson Welles.

“The original design of Brain was very Orson Welles-ian and to the point that I actually, in my hubris, believed they’d created the character with me in mind,” LaMarche laughs. “I was notorious for doing Orson Welles whenever there was a break in recording so, I just thought, ‘Oh, they’ve created this Orson Welles lab mouse for me. The audition is a mere formality, my friend.’ So, I just laid down my Orson Welles, and then we went. He’s more angular now. I don’t know that I might’ve seen Orson Wells in there now and ergo, may not have ended up with the job. So, I’m glad we started it when we did.” 

With this in mind, Paulsen suggests that he also prefers the opportunity to bring his own unique take on the character, rather than attempt to meet the expectations of the director.

“For me, it was a six-week audition,” he continues. “I had five or six callbacks over a six-week period because it was a big deal. It was all a brand-new clean sheet of paper, lots of music. and it was a lot of ‘We’ll know it when we hear it’. To me, [that’s] a boon. I love it when a director or producer says ‘I want to hear your take on this and you give me what you got’. If somebody says ‘we’re very specific in what we want’, I can do my best but, if they’ve got it stuck in their head that no, that’s not getting close to what I want. I love it when I have a little control over what I can give them. When Moe walked into read for the Brain, once he opened his mouth and did Orson Welles, they were done… Had Mo not had the—he calls it hubris, I call it genius—but that ability to say, ‘Oh, wait a minute. I know what’s going to work here.’ He does it. Behind the glass, they just go, ‘Oh my God. All right. All the rest of you. Thank you very much.’ That’s what happens when you open it up to the actor’s interpretation.” 

Known for its boundary-pushing animation and style, Animaniacs has clearly found a new audience with its revival. Asked what he believes is the most exciting aspect of the series for him, Paulsen beams and immediately points to the series’ ability to remain self-aware and current with its humour.

“I love the fact that we’re self-aware and that we lampoon everybody, including ourselves,” Paulsen exclaims. “In fact, if you guys recall, in the revival’s… theme song, the first half is the old animation and the old lyrics. Then, it switches to the new stuff where we become self-aware. In fact, they even say ‘gender-balanced, pronoun-neutral and ethnically diverse. The trolls all say we’re so passe, but we did meta first’. That is freaking genius because it’s self-aware and right out of the shoot before one word of dialogue is spoken the theme son, lets you know what you’re in for? I find that really just so bad-ass really.”

Animaniacs is now available on Hulu.

To hear our complete conversation with Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche, click here (YouTube) or here (audio).

1on1 with Kristine Stolakis about Pray Away

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I recently had a chance to visit via Zoom with Kristine Stolakis, the director of Pray Away, a Netflix documentary about the “ex-gay” movement and conversion therapy that hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ people underwent in the last fifty years. The basis of that therapy has been discredited and denounced by medical and psychological groups and outlawed for licensed therapists in some states. It continues to be done in many church settings, however. Pray Away will be available on Netflix on August 3.

In the press notes, you mentioned that the subject came to your attention by way of your uncle. Are you comfortable talking about that?

I appreciate you asking that, but yeah.

I got the topic because my uncle went through conversion therapy when he came out as trans as a child. He went through conversion therapy at a time when every therapist was a conversion therapist back in the Sixties. He was put on antidepressants, which was a pretty common treatment at the time, and that began a lifelong battle with various mental health issues which included addiction—prescription medication as well as addiction more generally—anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, suicidal ideations, all these things that I’ve come to learn are quite common for people that go through some form of conversion therapy. I knew my uncle during a really special ten years of good mental health. He was my babysitter growing up. I lived 25 minutes away from him in Upstate New York. I spent most days after school on his couch with him telling me stories, which was very lovely and special and wonderful—a wonderful time in my life. As I got older the mental health challenges continued to mount. I really saw him live with his trauma and the aftermath of his trauma.

So when I went to film school, he passed away unexpectedly a few weeks before I went to film school, and I decided I wanted my first feature to be about the conversion therapy movement. When I started doing research, I was very prepared to feel very angry at the people who led the conversion therapy movement, because I’d witnessed first hand the pain and trauma that resulted from that teaching. I frankly anticipated finding straight, homophobic people and transphobic people running conversion therapy or ex-LGBTQ ministries, but what I found was LGBTQ Christians who claimed that they themselves had changed. And they were teaching others to do the same.

For me, that claim of change really helped me understand my uncle’s desperation that change was around the corner. Because until that moment it was really hard for me to understand why my uncle had committed basically his entire life to the idea of change, and he really believed that what I’ve come to understand as the ex-LGBTQ belief system that being LGBTQ in some way is both a sickness and a sin. It was the claim of change that these leaders made that really clicked in something for me about my uncle’s life. That’s when I transformed from a family member who cared about someone who hurt quite a bit to a filmmaker who said, “Oh, this is what I want to shine a light on.” This movement really is an example of hurt people hurting other people—of internalized hatred, homophobia, and transphobia being wielded outward. And a lot of my anger transformed into sadness, because I saw that this larger culture of homophobia and transphobia was essentially training leaders. That really is the way this movement works.

The other piece of the puzzle when I started doing research that made me go, “Oh, there’s really a film here”, is my growing understanding during the research process that this is something that continues into today. We know that nearly 700,000 people in the US alone have gone through some version of this. We know it’s been used on every major continent. And I say “major” because we don’t know of a recorded case in Antarctica. This is very present in many religious communities across the country. Both of those things, the idea of studying how power works, which is why the movement continues, even though, as many do in my film, leaders defect—leaders come out again and say “No, no, no, I didn’t mean the things I said. I was lying or I was lying to myself. I’m filled with regret. This is a terrible thing.” The movement continued despite  those leaders defecting. That was one piece of the puzzle I really wanted to make a film about. The other was to bring the history into the present and show that this movement that causes a lot of pain continues.

PRAY AWAY. Cr. NETFLIX

Early on Michael Bussee says “We were doing what we thought God wanted us to do.” How did that attitude affect how you tried to represent these people in your film?

I know first hand that many people heading conversion therapy or ex-LGBTQ movement are trying to do the right thing. For people who grew up religiously, or express what the right thing is through religion in some way, that can mean that they think God is asking them to do this. That is a very powerful motivator—to believe that you are on the path to change yourself—and a very powerful motivator to “help” other people. I think that motivation, those good intentions, can blind people to the pain that they’re causing. It can make them through denial, or sometimes through the structure of their ministries, push away people that don’t want to change anymore, that have addiction issues after going through this. It can blind leaders to the pain that they’re causing, because they are so motivated from what I think ultimately is a good place.

Something we talked a lot about in the edit room in making this film was trying to make a film that is compassionate. Because this is a movement in which the leaders are often victims of conversion therapy themselves. So we wanted to capture that, but we also did try in the film to hold leaders, both former and present, accountable by weaving in a survivor’s story as well, which is the story of Julie Rogers, who like my uncle, primarily participated in the movement through not being in the position of leadership, but receiving these messages as a teenager and then in her young adult phase. And that was how creatively we worked to say this does cause pain, true pain, witness this pain. And also, we did try to honor the fact that this is not a system of just bad apples. This is people, especially in the beginning that think that they’re doing the right thing, and in answer to your question, things that God might even be asking them to do this thing.

I’ll say one other piece of that, because it’s a really rich question, that I haven’t said in other outlets, and also know that you are someone who lives in a religious world. There is a very common idea in this world that I’ve seen a lot, which is that God shows his love through challenges, through pain, through suffering. I saw that a lot. I think that very sadly gets in the minds of many leaders, and participants, that if they are suffering, they are actually on the path to change. I think that for people who are trans and gay, suffering is a part of the package when you live in a transphobic and homophobic world. Asking people to suffer, it confuses people thinking it’s their responsibility to change rather than the world’s responsibility to change.

I would urge religious leader who are trying to figure out how to make sure, that they are being clear that they don’t support conversion therapy; they don’t support the ex-LGBTQ movement. They need to proactively affirm and fight for LGBTQ folks. Because the message that being trans and gay is wrong is so common and ubiquitous, I think in Christianity in general, that unless you actively fight against it, there’s a good chance that your congregation is going to get that message. I think underneath that is the assumption that you’re going to suffer, and that’s okay. We’ve got to stop that, and I think we can stop that if we see this as a way to prevent children suffering versus a political issue. Yes, that idea of suffering as a form of God’s love is an ideology that I see being passed around that I think ultimately hurts people.

PRAY AWAY. Randy Thomas in PRAY AWAY. Cr. NETFLIX

A good part of your film deals with the political power dynamic of the religious right. What was the main insight you discovered in that area?

I was very stressed and saddened by the way in which the Christian right, politically speaking, would use the stories of people who claimed that they had changed to support anti-LGBTQ legislation. So in our film that is explored through recounting the story of Prop 8 in California which made gay marriage illegal in the state in 2008. Outside of the scope of the film, we’re seeing that happen with anti-trans legislation, which is being passed a tremendous amount in the past year. We’re seeing the way in which people who claim to be ex-trans or claim to be detransitioners, those stories are being used to support legislation that takes away trans rights for everyone, whether or not you are religious.

That is very sad to me, because it’s taking people who are already in a very vulnerable place, who, again, are victims of homophobia and transphobia more largely and putting them on a stage and saying “Please fight against your own community’s rights.” And again, I think that those organizations, they have a choice as our culture changes and we understand, based on so much research and so much antidotally, that LGBTQ people need to be supported and protected and loved. They are not a threat, to say the least. They have an opportunity, I think, to support these people in being truly who they are, but instead I saw them use these people, and that is incredibly insensitive to me.

You avoid telling the horror stories of the people who had undergone conversion therapy, but you allude to the trauma that people went through. Was it tempting to go to some of those dark places to make the point of the pain caused?

We have recorded cases, and there are plenty of them, of people who go through conversion therapy and experience physical pain, electric shock therapy, aversion therapy. That is abhorrent. And the vast majority of conversion therapy does look much less like that and much more like talk therapy—like sitting in a room with an individual who is either a licensed counselor or more often someone who is a religious leader who is acting as a pseudo-counselor, or perhaps it looks like a Tuesday night Bible study on the subject of homosexuality in the Bible, where the belief system that being LGBTQ is sick and sinful gets pushed forward and it’s kind of like AA model peer support. We want in the film to make sure that the main way conversion therapy is practiced is represented, so that people who are doing this didn’t see the film and go, “We don’t do that. We don’t shock people. Therefore, we’re not doing conversion therapy.” That being said, like the physical manifestation of trauma through self-harm is extremely common in this movement. We do explore that in the film, and also allude to the fact that sadly suicide is quite common in this world. We know that you who go through this are more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide. That is something that we do touch on in the film.

A big problem with the conversion therapy movement is that a lot of people who do it don’t see themselves as doing it. Everyone has the stereotype that conversion therapy happens in camps in the woods and it’s electric shock therapy. Much more often it’s happening in your church, down the street, by a pastor who might think they’re doing the right thing, who’s teaching pseudo-psychology that’s been disproven that’s been passed through a chain of information to this gay kid who came to them for help. That is conversion therapy. Call it whatever you want—pastoral counseling, I’ve heard, for example. We need to create a common understanding that starts a dialog that what’s happening in your church down the street might not look like the conversion therapy idea that you have in your mind, but it is. That’s why we took the approach we did in the film.

We really did represent conversion therapy as it happens most often in our country. And it mostly does happen in religious organizations. We know that about two-thirds of conversion therapy happens within religious organizations—religious colleges, Christian ministries, churches. It’s only about a third or less that happens with licensed counselors. So if you see, for example that conversion therapy has been banned in X state, that’s only for licensed counselors. It is important to do that work, but it doesn’t stop it where conversion therapy happens most. We have to have a culture shift. We have to have a national and international dialog that sees conversion therapy for what it is. And we need churches to stop what they’re doing because unfortunately laws cannot stop that. It has to be people changing their minds. So we really want to reach those people with this film.

PRAY AWAY. Julie Rodgers in PRAY AWAY. Cr. NETFLIX

We see some of your subjects in church now as openly LGBTQ persons. But I know that for some people church is just too painful. Did you note spiritual injury among these people as you talked with them?

Yes, absolutely. I saw two main types of reactions regarding spirituality following an experience of conversion therapy. This is of course a generalization. One set of reactions is “My religious life is so important to me I don’t want to have to give that up. And I cannot continue to live as someone who’s trying to change their sexuality or gender identity.” And a lot of people do find, because it absolutely exists, religious communities that fully accept people for who they are, and again, not only accept them, but fight for their rights to dignity. And for some people that is so healing, to be able to be in a church and have a pastor say, “Not only welcome, but we’re going to lobby for the Equality Act next week.” That can be so healing for people.

There are some people, to your point, where just being in a church almost can create a PTSD-like response, because of the pain and trauma people have endured often when they were children. For those people, sometimes the healthiest thing to do is to step away from trying to be a part of a community where your religion, your spirituality, is expressed through organized religion. For that group of people, I’ve seen the fact that going to brunch on Sunday with friends becomes very healing. And that’s okay too. We are not here to tell people how to heal. How to find community is up to the individual. If people want to express their religious life through organized religion, they can absolutely find places to do that. If people want to step away from organized religion and that to them feels like healing, that’s fantastic. So, I’ve seen both.

And to answer your question very directly, absolutely, spiritual wounds are a part of it. For a lot of people, they’ve grown up learning that having a relationship with a higher power, which often in this world is through God and through a relationship with Jesus, has to come with a cost. If you believe that for years, it can be very very hard to reengage with that form of relating to a higher power through organized religion. Again, it can create some kind of PTSD response. So, yeah. You hear survivors talk about this. “I didn’t only lose my sanity. I didn’t only lose my mental health and my physical health. I lost my relationship to God when I had to step away from this.” That’s where I think churches have to step up. They have a responsibility to say if you want to practice religion here in the way that you grew up, you’re welcome to do it. Churches have to be proactive if they want to fully affirm LGBTQ people, because it’s overwhelmingly the message that people still get is “you’re not welcome here,” and that has consequences.

PRAY AWAY. Cr. NETFLIX

Rewriting the History Books: 1on1 with Tracey Deer (BEANS)

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I remember the Oka Crisis. Or, at least, I thought I did.

As a pre-teen, I vaguely remember hearing the stories of the Mohawk people who protested the building of a golf course. I remember seeing it on the news and hearing the testimonies of those who were worried that things would escalate. Because I was so young though, I didn’t understand what was really going on or issues such as media bias. Maybe none of us outside the situation really did.

Thankfully, in her stunning new film Beans, writer/director Tracey Deer offers some much-needed perspective on the events that took place that summer. Set against the drama that took place in 1990s Quebec, Beans (Kiawentiio Tarbell) is a young girl who lives on the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawa:ke. Staying with her loving parents (Rainbow Dickerson and Joel Montgrand) and her little sister (Violah Beauvais), Beans lives a life of innocence and safety on the reserve. However, when a proposed expansion to a golf course threatens their burial ground, an armed stand-off develops between the Canadian government and Mohawk population, exposing the racist undercurrents of the local population against the Indigenous population. Unprepared for the hatred that she experiences, Beans must re-examine who she is and transform herself into her own kind of warrior.

Although Beans itself is a fictional story, the film showcases many true events that took place during the events of the Oka Crisis. Having grown up during that time herself, Deer used her personal experiences to shape the characters and story.

“’The film is inspired by true events’ is how we phrase it because all of the events depicted of the Oka Crisis in the film did happen,” she explains. “But my family in the movie is a fictional family. Beans, my protagonist, played by the incredible Kiawentiio is the emotional through line. The coming-of-age journey that she goes on is very much my coming-of-age journey. But I have placed the character in these various historical events [and] I wasn’t at all of them myself. Some of the things that she does and her experiences are not identical to my own, but the emotional through line, the feelings and the growth and the shattering of innocence, all of that, is pulled directly from my own coming-of-age summer.”

While Oka was a massively important event in Canadian culture, Deer notes that history has only ever told it from one side. However, Beans allowed her the opportunity to tell a more complete picture of what really took place and the damage that it caused her family.

“[Voice] is so important. It’s one of the big reasons it was so important to me to make this film,” says Deer. “The way the media [covered] that event 30 years ago did not at all jive with the experience I was having of it. The way they would talk about the Mohawk protesters. These were my neighbors, my cousins, my uncles, my aunties, and to call them terrorists and send the army in against them, it didn’t make any sense. So, it was important to me to show the other side of it—the inside out view of it—so that people could see what it was really like… For so long, the policy of the powers that be [in] the government is to squash us, divide and conquer and take. Oka was really that watershed moment where Indigenous people stood up and said ‘no more’. I’m so proud that we did that. I learned so much about our strength and our resiliency from that summer. I learned so much about the importance of voice and to have my voice heard.”

“I learned a lot of negative things [and] devastating, destructive things that almost destroyed me. I was suicidal at 15 because of all of that rage and all of that hatred was just living inside me. That was that sense of innocence. That sense of safety, the ability to dream, all of that was stolen from me that summer. And I don’t want that stolen from any more indigenous children. So, it’s important that we tell the story like it is and Canadians step up to right the wrongs of history and make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself.

Embedded within Beans lies a powerful question about the nature of resistance. Torn between her father’s more aggressive stance and her mother’s insistence on integrity, Beans must wrestle with what it means to stand up against injustice. By showing this tension, Deer wanted to highlight the value of both perspectives but also show the damage that hatred can do to the soul.

“It’s really the tight rope that I have walked my entire life,” she considers. “I would say certainly as an Indigenous filmmaker, I firmly believe that violence is like a disease. Hatred is a disease. When we put it on to others, it then grows in others and then it’s put in and then it continues. I say that because I know that that was my experience. I learned to hate that day when those rocks were thrown at us, when the back window was burst open and my sister got cut with glass. That is the moment that I learned to hate. Unlike Beans, who lashes out quite a bit in the movie, I wanted to show what that hate looks like. But, for me personally, that hate lived inside me and it started tearing me up.”

“We have to have a line that says violence is never the answer. We need to stand up for ourselves and we do need to be strong. As her mother says, you need to be able to stand up for what’s important to you. And I believe, for me, that is the line that there is a way to stand up and not feed the cycle. And I feel you see that in the scene where the women deescalate the violence. There are ways to do that and we have to get much better at doing that. I think we’re a society that turns to violence and turns to retribution and vengeance way too easily.”

Through Beans’ childlike lens, Deer remembers how these events affected her own childhood and reshaped her understanding of the world.

“That’s exactly what my adolescence felt like. It was a really carefree, fun childhood up until that summer,” she remembers. “That summer really, really shattered that when I realized that who I am is not welcome in the wider world. There’s no place for me. When those people threw those rocks at me, they told me I was worthless. They considered me and my family worthless. So, how as a child, how do you process that? How do you understand that? Okay, I am so worthless that they are allowed to throw rocks at me and the cops stand by and let that happen.”

“This film takes place during the backdrop of the Oka crisis, but incidents like this are happening across the country to this day, right?,” she continues. “Our children are being told by our society, by our country that they are not welcome. And we are told every day that it is not safe for us in the wider world. That is really what I wanted to get across, because I think that sense of entitlement and sense of safety is something that the majority of Canadians take for granted. It is a given that with the right motivation and the will, you can pursue your dreams. You have a tonne of examples of people just like you, who were doing every single thing in the world. So, if they can, why can’t you? You can do it. I want people to understand that that’s not the country that they present to us. If your child was Beans, and this is what she was going through, how would you feel about that? I believe we all have the ability to make a difference. We all have our personal sphere of power, so we can all do something about this. I want people to see this devastating journey that Beans goes on and leave the theater wanting to do what they can to prevent it from happening to any other young indigenous child.

Having said this, the obvious question remains whether or not things have changed in Canada since then. Considering the horrors of abuse that have taken place against the Indigenous children continue to lead the headlines, there remains a great deal of work to be done to heal the pain that has been caused. Even so, Deer also says that she believes some progress has been made.

“The film is a historical movie, you know. It took place 30 years ago but, as you said, the themes are all incredibly current,” she contends. “That makes me really sad and it makes me really angry because, on many levels, I don’t think we’ve come very far as a country in the way that the country handles Indigenous issues. I don’t think the country and the leadership are very good at listening to Indigenous people. I think that’s one of the big things that has to happen for change to happen is [that] Canadians need to become much better listeners and not be so quick to judgment or so quick to think that they know what the solution is. I think it’s just about listening and then doing, based on what you’ve heard.”

“Now, on the other hand, the thing is [that] I don’t want to be all just doom and gloom and dire. I do think there has been progress on some levels. I see it right now. I see that there’s an openness in this country to be hearing from us. There’s a willingness to take down those walls. It’s hard to take down those walls because those walls protect you from feeling implicated[and] responsible, but you are. This is your country, and these things are still happening across the country. The coming of age story for our indigenous kids is still incredibly similar to the story that you see in Beans. So, more work needs to be done. I do think that I am encouraged. I am an optimist, and I always look for ways to be helpful. And I am hopeful. I want to believe in this country and believe in Canadians because I need to. I need you all to do the work. It’s not on us to make things better for things that we didn’t because it’s up to Canadians to do that. So, my answer is twofold. We have not come far enough, but things are happening that are giving me hope.”

Beans is now available in theatres.

To see our complete conversation with Tracey Deer on YouTube, click here.

To hear our conversation with Tracey Deer, click here.

Cultural Crossovers: 1on1 with Will Gluck (PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY)

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It’s no secret that the work of Beatrix Potter is beloved by her fans.

As the author of the Peter Rabbit franchise, Potter’s stories have been read to millions of children over the years around the world. Of course, these expectations also make translating these stories onscreen even more challenging, especially if you want to honour what has come before.

Directed by Will Gluck, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway takes us back to McGregor’s garden for the wedding of Bea and Thomas (Rose Byrne and Dohmnall Gleeson). Though they have no kids of their own, Bea and Thomas have developed a makeshift family with the rabbits and other animals and all seems well in their abode. Even so, despite the fact that he wants to be a good rabbit, Peter (James Corden) can’t seem to break free from his reputation of causing trouble. Then, when Bea gets a call from a publishing company about her book, the family hops into the truck and travels to the city. Suddenly out of the garden, Peter finds himself in a world where being a rascal is celebrated. After he meets Barnabas (Lenny James), an old friend of his father, Peter is invited into the criminal underworld (well, for bunnies that is) and must decide what type of rabbit he wants to be.

After having so much fun with the crew directing the first entry, Gluck was excited to return to the world once again. Admittedly though, one of the other major factors in his decision was the opportunity to share the experience with his family as well. 

“I had an idea for the second one,” he explains. “I didn’t want to walk away from something, but I also wanted to bring my family down to Australia. We all moved down there for more than half a year and gave them a new experience and that was a big part of it, to be honest.”

“[We shot in] Sydney and London. We all moved down to Sydney and then we went to London… and they went to school down there. They all fell in love with the country. I [also] loved the crew the first time. I had such a great time. As you go through life, you realize that, when you meet people that you like and work well with, why not try to replicate it with them? I think, when I was younger, I probably would’ve not done it. But as you get older and say, ‘Wow, these are these people that are amazing. Let’s keep going.’” 

Having directed mostly character-driven films early in his career, the move to a CGI-heavy franchise was a difficult transition. Even so, he and his team embraced the challenge of blending computer effects with live action and fought hard to give it the same authentic feel of traditional filmmaking.

“I didn’t know anything in the first film. I was completely blind then,” Gluck recalls. “They always say being a director is having the illusion of control, but being director of a live action/CGI movie is not even an illusion. You have to just kind of give yourself up and trust everybody. It was such a fun process to learn. So, the second time, since I knew more about it, we could play even more. I know it’s something that people don’t notice but, for a CGI/live action movie, this is so, so complicated. They always say that the simplest things are so complicated to pull off, but we never wanted to do a stationary shot. We never wanted to make it easy for ourselves. We never locked off. The camera’s always moving. It’s just like it’s a regular live action movie, which makes it really hard. But everyone was up for the challenge and it was challenging but fun, ultimately.” 

Certainly, taking on the Peter Rabbit franchise is not an easy task. Beloved for generations, the works of Beatrix Potter held in high regard for their classic sensibilities and innocence. While Gluck did everything he could to respect these memories, he also recognizes that these memories are also tainted by our own sense of nostalgia.

“It’s challenging for many reasons,” Gluck begins. “I want to honor Beatrix Potter, for all the reasons you can think of. I feel incredible responsibility to the British people and the people in the Commonwealth who loved and grew up with Peter Rabbit. I did too. But you also have to make a movie that people want to see. So, it’s a constant dance. Now, if I were to actually think all the time about how much pressure it is, I would be paralyzed. So, at some point, you just have to say, ‘we’re doing it this way, and this is the way it is.’ It’s tough [because] it’s Beatrix Potter. She’s so beloved as she should be. She’s so beloved.” 

“Everyone has their own memory of Beatrix Potter,” he continues. “But, really what their memory is… when they read the book or when they read the book to their kids, like me. It’s not necessarily the actual [material]. I’ve had so many people say, how could you kill Peter Rabbit’s father? I’m like, I didn’t kill Peter Rabbit’s father. Beatrix Potter put him in a pie. So, we took every inch of the source material we could and used it. So it’s more their fond memories of the grandmother, of their dishes, of their samplers. That’s a tough memory to mess around with. It’s dangerous.“

As he attempted to blend more modern humour with Potter’s fabled characters, Gluck did his best to bring them together in a healthy balance. Despite the franchise’s success, he’s still not entirely certain that he was able to fully accomplish his goal.

“I don’t know if we did [find the right balance],” admits Gluck. “A lot of people think we didn’t. The majority of people in the UK think we did, but there’s a lot of people who think we [didn’t]. Listen, there’s a line in the movie [where] Rose Byrne says ‘I’d be spinning in my grave if my pictures ever get turned into some puerile hip-fest.’ All those lines in that scene were taken directly verbatim from critics.”

Over the course of his career, Gluck has created a wide variety of film styles, ranging from more R-rated comedies such as Easy A and Friends with Benefits to the family-oriented, CGI-heavy Rabbit franchise. When he thinks about what types of stories he wants to tell, he believes that the best stories are more upbeat and stem from our common experiences.

“I’ve done all different types of movies [and] all different genres,” he says. “I don’t like seeing bummers of movies. I like seeing movies that have really bummer stuff in them, but ultimately are very optimistic and positive. That’s what I choose to watch. I understand the value of the other movies. I want to be on a happy, fun and a funny set. Whenever I have to do dramatic scenes… just a straight sex scene, or even an action scene. I’m bored out of my mind because it seems like math to me. I like kind of fun, upbeat, funny movies about the human condition.” 

For Gluck, the driving force behind his creative process remains his own life experiences, regardless of style.

“All the stuff I do for a living is informed by my life,” he contends. “It’s a hundred percent. So, it’s what I’m going through, what I enjoy and who I’m with. Friends with Benefits is a sex comedy because that was before you got married. Before that, [Easy A was] in high school. Then, guess what? I had kids, so now I want to do stuff for kids. It’s’s not calculated. It’s not that hard to figure out. My next movie is adult action comedy because my kids are now like, all right, we got that part. Dad give us something for us. So, my family is always so close to me and that’s what I’m inspired by.” 

As with any film, Gluck believes that the soul of the character matters most. With the latest entry into the franchise, he wanted to show Peter at a time in his life when he had to decide for himself what type of rabbit that he wants to be.

“In the first movie, in my head, Peter was 11 or 12 years old and figuring life out,” Gluck points out. “He thinks he knows better, as we all do, often wrong, never in doubt. Then, when he gets older, and in this movie he’s about 14, 15 years old, you go through different things. We wanted to kind of honor the time in your life when you are right at that crossroads and deciding who you are going to be in life, whether you’re going to be who people tell you to be, or whether you’re going to be who you really are. That really is kind of like an identity search for the soul of Peter. This is the moment in life so many people figuring out who they are, right. It’s in high school, [at the age of] 15, 16. That’s when they kind of take that path and it kind of imprints them forever. Some people change. My theory is that no one does, but some people change. So, this is kind of like the fight for Peter’s soul in this movie. Unlike other kids in life, you actually saw him dealing with it and talking about it and, ultimately, he makes the right choice, I think. This movie was kind of imprinting his soul.” 

Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is now available on demand and in theatres.

To see our complete conversation with Will Gluck on YouTube, click here.

Rewriting the History Books: 1on1 with Questlove (SUMMER OF SOUL)

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One of the most horrific things that can be done to a culture is to erase it from history. But it’s always something special when those storie are finally given the representation that they deserve.

The directorial debut by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, the new documentary  Summer of Soul takes the viewer back to the summer of 1969. At a time where Woodstock is fondly remembered and the moon landing changed the world, The Harlem Cultural Festival also made a mark on cultural landscape. Filled with six weeks of incredible concerts by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Ray Baretto, Abbey Lincoln & Max Roach and more, one would expect that the fest would be as well-known and fondly remembered as Woodstock itself. However, until now, the footage was never seen and largely forgotten. 

Considering that the festival that had seemingly been removed from the history books, Questlove was shocked when he first found out what had taken place.

“I first inadvertently saw the footage back when the Roots went to Tokyo in 1997,” starts Questlove. “My translator for that tour, who knew I was a soul fan, took me to a place called the Soul Train Cafe. So, unbeknownst to me, I was watching two minutes of Sly and the Family Stone’s performance. But, because it was what I knew to be camera two (which was the bird’s eye view of a nosebleed section), I didn’t know I was watching the Harlem Cultural Festival. I just assumed that all festivals in the ‘60s were from Europe because America really didn’t have that culture yet. [Then, I] find out exactly 20 years later when David Dinnerstein and Robert Fivole told me that they had this footage and they wanted me to direct the film. So, first seeing it without knowing it in ‘97 and then it was presented to me in 2017. Even then, I didn’t believe it was real.”

As a first-time filmmaker, Questlove also notes that this experience has been formative in his development as both an artist as a storyteller.

“Without being all touchy feely with it, this project more than anything has helped me develop as a human being,” he reflects. “Sometimes artists can be really neurotic, living inside our heads… I will not hesitate to admit that, of all the things that I’ve done creatively, this is the one that I was really, really nervous about. And, by nervous, I mean, scared, partly because I’m a perfectionist. What I will say is that this film has really brought out an awareness and a competence in me that I never knew that I ever had. A lot of the times everything that I do creatively is behind a shield. Behind the drum set… With the exception of teaching at NYU, you guys have never like experienced me one-on-one, There is always a barrier that gets you from getting in there. That’s sort of how I thought I liked it. So, I will say that, with the amount of confidence that I got as a human being, this was a game changer for me.”

“But on a technical side of things, I also learned the power of editing. Most Roots albums are these gargantuan, ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ projects. This is what I’m bringing to the table. My first draft was like three hours and 35 minutes. This is where I really learned that less is more and less is impactful. The three hour and 35-minute version of the film probably wouldn’t have hit you in the gut more than a very succinct two hours.”

Although, with all that he has learned throughout the filmmaking process, he also felt that his skills as an artist also allowed him to tell the story in his own unique voice.

“Me being a DJ’s is exactly what informed me on how to tell the story,” Questlove  explains. “There was a point where I was wondering ‘Could I take the same approach that I take deejaying or putting a show together with this movie?’ That’s exactly what I did. So, for five months, I just kept it on 24-hour loop, no matter where I was in the house or in the world. If anything gave me goosebumps, then I took a note of it. I felt like, if there were at least 30 things that gave me goosebumps, we could have a foundation.”

“I tend to work backwards whenever I’m given a project,” he continues. “The first thing I think about is what is the last 10 minutes of the show or the set that makes the person that goes home think ‘Man, that was incredible’ because it’s usually the last 10 minutes of a show or a presentation that’s your chance to make your audience [forget the rest]. I’ve had disastrous Roots shows where I knew, ‘okay, if I make these the last two songs and do this certain things, they’ll forget about what happened in middle of the show.’ That happens a lot. So, that’s a trick I play. Of course, I wanted to make my entry in the film world my version of inserting myself in this film… I figured that [Stevie Wonder’s drum solo] was the best way for me to crash land into your lives as a director, without really being about me. We have not seen Stevie wonder in a sort of in this light of a drummer so I thought that was the perfect beginning. That’s pretty much how I crafted the show. I searched for my ending. I knew I wanted what my beginning was and then I worked backwards. So .I added it and paste this film backwards as opposed to the other way”

Taking place in the backdrop of 1969 when the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak, its shocking that the festival has remained deleted from the history books. Asked what he believes needs to take place in order to prevent such erasure from happening again, Questlove suggests that conversations have changed in a healthier way in recent years.

“This is a step forward,” he points out. “This is the first time that I’m really seeing conversations that were never had before, especially post-pandemic. We weren’t talking about mental health for Black people and we really weren’t speaking of Black erasure. Previously, before we sort of coded it as like cultural appropriation, which was like a really politically correct way of saying… ‘Yo man, why always bite my [stuff]‘ or whatever. It was always sort of draped in slang so that you couldn’t see the heart or the sincerity of what the problem was… I know this one thing: this isn’t the only out there… So, perhaps maybe this film can be an entry sort of a sea change for these stories to finally get out. But really for us to acknowledge… one of the first ever like Black festivals is important to our history. Normally, the process is that we talk about it for three months and then we forget about it. So, that’ll remain to be seen, but I know as for me, I didn’t come into this wanting to be a director or any of those things. I do believe that again, creativity is transferable. This is not my last rodeo with telling our stories. If anything, I’m more obsessed now than ever to make sure that history is correct, so that we don’t forget who this artist is, or that event.”
Featuring performances from Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone and many more, Questlove was fascinated by the balance of styles that took place within the festival. With the development of Summer of Soul, he attempted to mirror that blend of jazz, soul and gospel music in order to show the therapeutic nature of the moment.

“As far as I’m concerned, there was a perfect balance of soul music, free jazz and salsa music,” says Questlove. “For me, I kind of saw the gospel and free jazz as one in the same thing. Oftentimes, I’m a guy that’s always doing litmus tests with people, as far as testing music out on them… but there’s one thing I always noticed. When I play really intense soul music for younger people, they tend to find James Brown’s yelling humorous. That’s funny to them because we live in a meme culture. So, those three seconds of something out of context can seem funny to people. There was a lot of, I guess, what we can call primal musical expression or primitive, exotic expression, or, in layman’s terms, like people acting wild. I wanted people to know that that was more of a therapeutic thing than anything.”

“So, if it’s a gospel singer, that’s catching the spirit. If it’s Sunny Sharrock doing one of the most atonal destructive, violent souls I’ve ever seen on a guitar… I wanted people to know that this just isn’t black people acting wild and crazy. This was a therapeutic thing and, for a lot of us, gospel music was the channel because we didn’t know about dysfunctional families and therapy and life coaches that we have now.” 

With such a personal project, it’s fair to say that Questlove found it a particularly emotional experience. For him, one of the most surprising elements was the realization that the type of musical code-switching of that era still affects his own life today.

“The emotional component of the film was something that I wasn’t preparing for and really didn’t know what was going to happen,” Questlove explains. “The sort of emotional trigger moment, at least where the Billy Davis Jr. and Maryland McCoo portion, was the fact that… my memory of all the 5th Dimension performances I saw were sort of composed and unsteady and very passionate, sophisticated. This performance of theirs at the Harlem Cultural Festival was closer to that of a gospel revival. I’ve never heard Billy Davis—with the exception of one of their songs on their solo records—use his raspy gospel baritone, like that sort of James Brown sort of thing. So, I thought it was humorous. I was like, ‘Wow, Billy, I’ve never heard you use your gospel register before.’ They kind of opened the door and said, it was because we were comfortable and excited to be there. It wasn’t the pressure of [being] on the Ed Sullivan show or the Jack Parr tonight show.” 

“And I realized then, Black people have to code switch all the time. It’s not just in the office space, but even in entertainment, because I related to that. I’m a guy that has to adjust his show… What’s the audience look like? I had to code switch all my shows that aren’t transferable to each audience. I have to adjust it for every place we go to. And I noticed that, and that was their way of telling me that they too had to go through that pressure.”

However, at the same time, Questlove also points out that one of the most emotional components to the project was the fact that it validated the memories of so many who felt the sting of that erasure of Black history..

“Opening that door is also Mussa Jackson,” he remembers. “He was five years old at the time and I was a little bit, like ‘What five-year-old is going to give me insight of the emotional deepness of being there when he’s five years old?’ He is the thing that won us over was like, this is my first memory ever, but he wasn’t sure he had it… So, once we showed him the footage, suddenly the tears started welling because for him as a 57-year-old, he didn’t know if he remembered it. He didn’t know if anyone believed him. If I didn’t believe this happened as an adult, who’s going to believe a ten-year-old… So, for him, it was sorta like that little boy that cried wolf exoneration moment. Like, I knew this happened. That’s why I started crying. So, I didn’t realize there was a heavy emotional component really until we allowed people to give commentary. I’m so glad we made that decision instead of not doing that.” 

Summer of Soul is available on Hulu on July 2nd, 2021.

To hear the full press conference with Questlove, click here.