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- Hello and welcome to Director's Cut , I'm your host,
Charles Monroe-Kane.
Here at Director's Cut, we're dedicated to bringing you
the best in independent films and filmmakers.
Today we're talking with filmmaker Jim Carrier,
his documentaries include Faces in the Water,
that tells the stories etched in the civil rights memorial,
and a film about Hank Williams fans
called Midnight in Montgomery.
Jim Carrier's also the founder of the Wisconsin Film School
based in Madison.
Jim, excellent to have you here, let's start with
Faces in the Water, tell me about that film,
what's it about?
- Well, in the early '80s, believe it or not,
there was a young black man lynched in Alabama,
and Morris Dees, the famous civil rights lawyer and
co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center
sued the Ku Klux Klan on his behalf, and won the case,
ran the Klan out of business there in Alabama.
And on his way home from an awards banquet
he remembered talking about the martyrs of the civil rights
movement, and young people came up to him and said
"who are these people?"
they didn't know who they were,
and on his way home he said, you know, we need a memorial.
And this would've been in '87.
And so he actually called Maya Lin
in the New York telephone book.
- Who made the famous memorial, the Vietnam memorial.
- The Vietnam memorial, she was famous at that time,
and she said "isn't there a civil rights memorial?"
- That's what I thought before I saw the film, too,
I said there must be one, right?
- And there wasn't one. - Wow.
- And it was the first one in the country,
and it was opened in 1989.
And her memorial is essentially a black granite column,
upon which water flows out and over the names of 40 people
who died, along with, in chronological order,
the major events of the civil rights memorial.
And on the face of the wall coming down behind it,
is water streaming.
The whole metaphor of the memorial is water.
From that Book of Amos quote that King spoke with
actually at the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott.
We will not be satisfied until righteousness flows down
like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
And so that's the metaphor.
And thousands of people come
and put their hands in the water
and see themselves reflected and they had a brochure
for many years but then they decided to open
a visitor center behind it and they wanted a film that would
actually bring the memorial to life and tell essentially
the civil rights story in 20 minutes.
- That's interesting because, you know, the title is
faces in the water, but there's an irony as well
to the water, a bitter irony, because so many of the victims
the martyrs of the civil rights movement
were found in rivers and lakes.
- They were thrown in the rivers to drown, they were
forced to jump off bridges, the name of this particular film
really came out of I think watching and reading Mamie Till's
autobiography, her son, Emmett, very famous case,
was killed in August, murdered in August of 1955
just a few months before the Montgomery bus boycott.
An incident that really, I think upset Rosa Parks,
who, months later, refused to give up her seat
on the bus in Montgomery.
He was found in the Tallahatchie River,
behind Money, Mississippi.
With a gin fan tied to his neck, and he had been so
brutally beaten that his mother, or that they wanted
to bury him right away, but his mother Mamie said "No,
I wanna show the face, his face to the world, so that
people can face themselves." And reading that,
I realized that that was really what this memorial
was all about.
So that we could face these people and face themselves.
- That's so powerful as well because their names in there,
but you call it faces, but you realize that every name
is a story and for every story, there is a face.
- In many of the cases, we actually don't have photos
of the victims, it was 40 people who died between
1954 and 1968 but in those cases that we did, we basically
let them float in the water, and we think it's very powerful
for people who come up and touch it, and ripple the water
and think about what they might, what they should be
doing today, because it's still going on today,
many of those cases are still unprosecuted.
- Of course in a reflecting pool, you touch the water and,
like you mentioned, you see your own face as well.
- It's a beautiful thing to see people standing there
by themselves, or sometimes in a group, a busload of kids
will come, congressmen come every year and lay flowers
on the memorial, it's a very interactive kind of memorial.
- And you know like we said, each one of those names,
each one of those events, each one of those dates,
each one of those words, is a story, we're gonna play
a clip from one of those stories,
why don't you set it up for us?
- Well, this was actually, what people now think of as the
end of the civil rights era, 1965,
there was a voting rights march,
a young man was killed in Marion, Alabama
and they were going to carry his body to George Wallace
and actually place it on the steps of the capital.
But instead of doing that, they buried him, but then
King called for a great civil rights march to make,
we had the civil rights act in 1964, but still,
the power of the vote was not equal, so, and it was
lying in congress, and he said "let's have a big
voting rights march"
so they marched from Selma, 50 odd miles to Montgomery,
and along the way of course and they called on ministers
and people from all over the country to come down.
And they joined them and they had this great march
and it culminated at the state capital, where King gave,
again one of his great speeches, which is, uh,
I can't remember the words right now, but, oh,
"The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice."
One of his great lines.
They broke up, within a couple of months, congress had
approved and Johnson signed the most important
civil rights act, which was the voting rights act.
But that night, they were ferrying people back to Selma,
and a Detroit house woman named Viola Liuzzo, who was
giving a ride to a young black man was followed
by Klansmen and the details that you'll hear in this clip
are actually from the court testimony of, they actually
had an FBI insider who testified about what actually
happens, though some of the details you'll see about
them looking right at them came out of that court testimony.
- Let's see that clip.
? We shall overcome ?
- [Narrator] Over 25,000 people walked to the steps of
the Alabama capital.
- [Narrator] Viola Liuzzo was in the crowd.
A restless Detroit mother of five, she had heard King's call
and driven alone to Alabama.
In Montgomery, she walked the last miles barefoot, singing.
That night, she began driving marchers home.
One of them was a young black man.
On highway 80, halfway to Selma,
Klansmen started chasing her.
Viola pushed her Oldsmobile to 100 mph singing at the top
of her lungs, the men pulled alongside.
Before they fired, Viola looked right at them.
(gunshot)
She was the first white woman to die in the movement,
and the 11th person to die in a decade of voting rights work
Their sacrifice spurred the passage of the most successful
civil rights act in history, America's core right:
the right to vote, was now guaranteed.
- That was a clip from Jim Carrier's documentary
Faces in the Water.
Jim, for you, as a journalist, and an activist,
where's the line, where do we know, where can our listeners
know where to draw that line?
- Well, I think you have to be honest with them.
If you're being a journalist and trying to report things,
factually and partially, you, they expect that,
but then if you're going to be, have an opinion,
you should telegraph that,
that that's exactly what you're doing.
I think, when I went to Southern Poverty Law Center,
and began volunteering and then became a staff person
and made this film, that's when I crossed the line,
and realized that I had tools that they could use.
I wrote a book called Ten Ways to Fight Hate and then I
wrote and directed this film, and so we were telling a story
that really, I mean if I was to see it every day,
and you know, we're trying to remind people of what went on,
empower them to try to do some of the same kinds of things
because these problems still exist, and I guess that's
the activism.
- Now, you're an author, you've been a print journalist,
you've written books, you've done radio, and now,
in this part of your career, you're making film, why?
Why the medium of film now?
- Well, for one thing, I had never done it,
and, uh, but we needed a film for this particular memorial,
and the story came to me, and no matter what I do,
no matter what medium I've been involved in,
that's basically what I do, I'm a story teller,
and I think that's the basis of it all, you know,
a lot of people, I think, fear the blank page, blank screen,
and to me, it's much like building a house.
You start out as a carpenter and the first thing you do
when you first start out as a carpenter is learn to
maybe put up 2x4s and you miss the nail a few times,
but the better you get at it, the better skills you have,
the better stories you can tell.
And pretty soon, you become, like an artist maybe,
and somebody can appreciate it, but still,
what you're trying to do is tell the story,
throw out the stuff that you don't need,
focus in on that story line, include just
the detail you need to tell that story.
This particular film is pretty minimalist in terms of
the other thing that's nice about being a storyteller is
you work with found materials, you know, wherever you are,
there it sits around you, and I've been lucky enough to
do that all over the country.
- Another documentary that I found really powerful
that you made that I wanna talk about called
Midnight in Montgomery, which I went to with a little bit
of trepidation thinkin' like okay this is gonna be,
he's gonna be making fun of some people or just gonna be
more laid back, but I found extremely powerful.
Tell me about this film, what it's about.
- Well Hank Williams spent most of his life in Montgomery,
and left there and became a superstar,
the first country superstar, and it was on his last trip,
at the age of 29, on New Years Eve 1953
that he died in the car, and he came back and was buried
and it was the biggest event, still to this day
in Montgomery and his gravestone is the single biggest
tourist attraction, 50 some thousand people come look at it.
And one of the things, there's this whole mythology
that occurs, I was living in Montgomery,
we would go up there and have a drink with Hank,
which people do, and the thing that I found,
I found it kinda weird, really, and every New Years Eve,
people gather, Hank fans gather, and sing, what I thought
was really bad karaoke, so bad that it was good film,
or could be a good film.
And I set out to make fun of them, I thought, I'll just
let these people perform, and you'll see how
how odd they are, but of course,
once I began to listen to them, hear what Hank's stories,
his lyrics, his own personal story meant to them,
to their love life, to their losses, as they grew older,
I couldn't help but become, or, appreciate, not only the man
but the people who worship him.
- There you go, the power of stories, well let's see a clip
from this documentary.
- ? I saw the light, no more darkness, no more...?
- ? one day I passed you on the street and my heart just
skipped a beat, I can't help it if I'm still in love
with you? "I can't help it" that's my favorite.
- ? Your cheatin' heart will make make you weep,
you'll cry and cry and try to sleep?
? You'll walk the floor the way I do
? Your cheatin' heart will tell on you?
- That was a clip from Jim Carrier's documentary
Midnight in Montgomery about Hank Williams,
you know, are you a Hank Williams fan?
- Ha ha ha, when I first went down there and started
playing music for those folks,
there was way too much Hank for me,
but uh, you know, and his lyrics, just kind of on a page
are kinda like doggerel, but he does, you know,
he's considered the hillbilly Shakespeare.
And he spoke in his voice and his lyrics and his music
to generations, and it's, you know, his music today is still
selling, people are still recording it,
I've become much more of a Hank Williams fan.
- You know, it's interesting, it's a more serious film,
these are very serious people,
with very powerful stories to share,
I mean, it says something about you as a human being,
right, that you go there to make fun of people,
and you end up doing a serious powerful documentary
full of amazing stories,
there's stories on everything isn't there?
- There are, and I think the secret is being empathetic
and being open to their story.
I didn't go in with, I mean I didn't show and attitude
that I was skeptical of these folks, I simply turned the
camera on and then asked them questions,
to elicit their story, why they liked Hank Williams and
what it meant to them,
and the stories that poured outta there,
you know, a guy bought a karaoke machine when his wife died
and began singing Hank and he sang all night until
his daughter woke up at five in the morning and said
"that's my daddy singing Hank Williams"
stories like that.
- You know, what does it mean, it seems like,
for some of the people in this documentary,
I don't think anyone's ever asked them
what this means to them at all, their kids don't care,
maybe they're alone, what do you think of this,
the power, as a documentary filmmaker, of that camera
in someone's face that says
"tell me your soul, who are you?"
- Well, I think they forget the camera, what they're
really focused on is you as an empathetic listener,
and a person who wants to know their story,
they trust, and believe me, when they tell a story like this
there's no way I can make fun of them, because,
they're so sincere, and it means so much to them,
and it was such an important moment.
I mean, these people are lifetime members of the
Hank Williams museum, and they take,
they wear those hats proudly.
- Well, let's, there's a clip that I wanna show,
that was a turning point for me when I watched this
documentary, where I kind of like, leaned forward
on the couch and realized "I'm stepping into
something intimate here, some sacred ground"
So let's run another clip from Jim Carrier's documentary
Midnight in Montgomery.
- Favorite song, uh, yes I do, Jim, and it's a song
that's not sung that much, when God Comes and Gathers
His Jewels, and after my father died, he was 93,
or one day short of 93, I had all this emotion built up
in me, and not two weeks later, I said Jerry, will you play
When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels? He played that and
I don't think I've ever cried, I just sobbed like a baby
enough, so when you lose a father or mother or
special person, you know, God is coming,
has come and gathered one of His jewels to take back.
- Could you sing a verse of that?
- ? The ceremony was over, a lad stood alone in tears
? for he just said goodbye to the one he had loved
? Through the years, he stood all alone with his head
? Bowed down as though his heart would break,
? Then the parson came over and took his hand
? And to him, these words he did say
? When God comes and gathers his jewels,
? All his treasures of diamonds and gold,
? He'll meet you up there, up in heaven so fair
? When God comes and gathers his jewels
- That was a very powerful clip from Jim Carrier's
documentary Midnight in Montgomery, you know,
after I watched the film, the first thing I did,
you know, I had to go on iTunes, but I went and got that
song, and bought it, and it is a great song, and because
he brought something to it, what advice would you give
for young filmmakers or for filmmakers starting out
to elicit, how to get them to elicit such powerful stories,
'cause all I heard your voice say was "can you sing us it?"
I think he was dying to sing it, but, what advice would
you give people to get that kind of people out of someone?
- Well, I think in any interview,
you have a list of questions that you will ask,
certain who what where when how kinds of things,
but you want these open-ended questions
and what you really want to do is pay attention,
to sort of body language and some sense of when they
are reaching, when they touch an emotional nerve,
you can see them, and I can see that, when he said that,
you know when my father died and I cried like a baby,
well clearly this song, you know, had,
I couldn't let that go, I had to push, and ask one more
question, and I thought he might know the words,
I didn't know how he would react, but I had to ask,
and of course it was very powerful.
- Yeah, you're talking about wanting to make fun of someone
and after you see that, you wanna do the opposite,
you wanna be like you deserve.
- I wanna honor him, that's Henry Rollins, the man's name
is Henry Rollins, he also told me that Hank Williams
was the first dead body he'd ever seen.
He was a very young impressionable man at the time,
when he first saw, knew of Hank Williams, and of course
he's followed him all his life, just a beautiful guy.
- I wanna change gears here for a moment, you're also
the founder of the Wisconsin Film School, so tell me
a little bit about the school.
- Well I moved to Madison in early 2007 and because I made
these films and wanted to continue to make documentaries
and other films, I looked around for people in the film
industry and asked around "where's the film community?"
and I more or less got deer in the headlight looks.
So I said "maybe I'll just create one."
Your show wasn't on the air yet, and I said
so one of the ways we could create one is to create
a workshop, and I have a friend who puts on workshops,
and he agreed to come and we're gonna have our first one
on October 18th and 19th and basically
what I see in Wisconsin is there's a group of filmmakers
in Madison and elsewhere who make five minute films,
48 hour kinds of things, with skino,
and on the other hand you've got Film Wisconsin
making, kind of catering to the Hollywood crowd
and the tax breaks and all of that, and there's a huge
wide difference between, and I think we can provide
some skills, we can provide, and most of all, a sense that
this isn't, don't get caught up in the whole idea that
this is a, that you gotta learn all this crazy, you know,
technical stuff, that, ignore, or you can find people
who can do it, what's important and our kind of goal
for this first school is find a story and find a way to
make a film about it, and I think that's what we're gonna
do is encourage, the other thing is frankly, very personally
and selfishly, I like to be around creative people.
And I want to find a group of people who I can call on
and we can work on films together and encourage each other
to do that.
- And so the idea of this, of the school,
and you're gonna have multiple workshops, right?
You have this one coming up, you'll have more,
is it just documentaries, or whatever people wanna do?
- No, in fact this first one is, we're doing, Kelly Baker
is doing one on making a super low budget full length
feature film.
He made a feature film, he said he set out to make it for
a thousand dollars, and it mushroomed to 4000 when he
realized he had to feed his crew.
So he makes super, he used to be a Hollywood sound designer
so he does, he's going to do a technical thing on sound
design and then we're going, because obviously we're all
going to the mobile and web-based media,
we're gonna actually create a YouTube video in three hours
film it, light it, mic it, edit it and upload it to YouTube
in one session.
- Oh, excellent, well, we're gonna have all that
information on our website
and we'll totally make sure people can check that out.
Now you're also going to teach people how to ask questions
to get first person narratives, too aren't you?
- How to tell a story.
- How to tell a story, and how to listen to a story too.
You know I, obviously I interview people, as well,
and sometimes, you forget, it's like people, you want to
hear the whole story, they want to hear the beginning
the middle and the end, it's interesting for me
when I think about you know, independent filmmaking
and what we're doing here in Wisconsin, like
there is no, I think total infrastructure for it,
if there was, what do you think would rise up out of it,
what do you think would happen if this state had an
infrastructure for middle budget films
like you're discussing, what do you think we would see?
- Well, you already said it, everyone has a story
they're great stories, there was a story this last year
at the film festival this last year about folks from
northern Wisconsin who went and homesteaded in Alaska
during the FDR administration.
There are stories everywhere, and I think for one thing,
I think there are a lot of people, there are
underserved communities, minorities, black, hispanic,
people who are deaf, who could make films if they were
just given a little support, I also think that
Wisconsin, the culture is so rich here that
what film would do is basically bloom like you know
a flower garden, and um, I think we both
would love to see that.
- Oh, I would love to see it too.
Thank you very much and good luck with the film school,
I'm sure some of your students will end up here, you know
in a year from now or so after they made their films.
- Absolutely they will.
- And thank you all very much for joining us today,
it's a joy to do this with you, for more information
on today's show, or any of the films featured on our show,
please go to WPT.org/directorscut and while you're there,
send us an email, we would love to hear from you.
I'm your host, Charles Monroe-Kane, and from
everyone here at Director's Cut, thank you very much,
check the gate.
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