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Subscribe to iCalendarNovember 2003
Featured Artist
Gordon Quinn and “The New Americans” - An Interview
Gordon Quinn, co-founder of Kartemquin Films, spoke to Lindsay Webster at American University, Washington DC in November 2003 as part of Webster’s honors thesis research “What is story?”
1. Do you think it is appropriate to say that all filmmakers—documentary and feature—are storytellers?
2. How would you define a good story for a documentary film?
3. How are narratives films and documentaries alike and different?
4. Where do you think the story really comes together? At what point? With whom?
5. Whose story is a particular film telling?
6. Is this an assumption that audiences won’t get it, so let me hammer it in one more time?
7. What advantage is there to telling a story like The New Americans as a film rather than writing a feature journalism article about these people?
8. How did you pick the individuals for The New Americans?
9. How far into the process of making The New Americans were you before you knew you had a great story?
10. At the screening of the excerpt of The New Americans at the University, you mentioned that you had to cut one story, the Vietnamese story? Why?
11. How does personalization make for a compelling story?
12. Is there ever a danger in too much personalization?
1. Do you think it is appropriate to say that all filmmakers—documentary and feature—are storytellers?
GQ: I think that most filmmakers are storytellers in the broadest sense. Even if it’s an industrial film, there’s a story there; you’re trying to tell how a product is made or what it does. I think because of the changes in the way that visual media are evolving that sometimes there’s different levels of story. There’s the visual story that’s being communicated to you that can sometimes be at odds with other elements in the way the story is going. But I think that’s what we do, we tell stories in one way or another.
2. How would you define a good story for a documentary film? What elements are needed to make a story work for the documentary film format?
GQ: I think there are a lot of different kinds of documentaries. For the kind of documentaries that we do, almost anything can be a good story. Any subject, any person any situation can be a good story. What you want to have is some ability to follow some narrative line over time, and know where it’s going. There are very personal films that start with the subject themselves, which can tell a terrific story that takes you some place. Then there are films, like some of our films, which are more verité. There’s the film, Taylor Chain I: Story In A Union Local (1980), which is just the union negotiation. You might say, “Gee, a film about a union negotiation, that sounds really boring.” In fact, we structure it and we take what happened over five days and we make it into a narrative that has its own drama to it. You get that it has an emotional dimension; it has a plot dimension. You ask, “How’s this thing actually going to come out? What will happen?” All of the elements of classic storytelling are there.
3. I think a lot of people say, “Documentaries are a totally different entity. There are interviews and there is b-roll. And then there’s the Hollywood film; now that’s a real story.” However, I think that you start to realize that there are a lot of similarities in how you construct documentaries and features. What do you think?
GQ: I think the techniques that we use are more aligned with the narrative you would see in a fiction film. We don’t even use the phrase “b-roll.” I hate the word “b-roll,” which means you’ve got a talking head and now, because people will get bored looking at that, I’ll put in some images. When we use an image or cut away from something, I want it to be furthering the story. I want it to be something that has a feel to it. For instance, when we’re interviewing Naima, she literally took us to the place. [Naima is a young Palestinian immigrant featured in The New Americans]. She says, “I want you to see where I went to school as a child, where my mother worked.” She takes us right there, right into that room and she says, “This is the room that I grew up in, this dormitory.” She sits herself down and the light is coming in the window. It’s absolutely perfect. She’s lit beautifully and that’s where she wants to tell her story. It’s like she was almost directing it. She’s talking about how much her mother did for her and how she feels about her mother. Then we cut away to her walking with her mother down the same stairs we saw her come up, and she reaches over and she adjusts her mother’s veil. That’s not “b-roll.” That’s something where what she’s talking about in the voiceover and the gesture that you see on the screen is telling you even more than what you could see if you were looking at her [in an interview].
So when we think about how we tell a narrative, it does have more to do with going from one place to the other, an accretion of details. It’s just as in a feature film, where they go to a great deal of trouble to have costume designers and set decorators that tell you more about the character and who they are. It drives me crazy when I see these documentaries where the interviews are done in limbo. Why don’t you talk to the guy in his office where I can just see if he’s messy or neat? Can I see the books on his shelf? Give me the wide shot and let me see what he’s wearing. Years ago, Jerry and I used to do these corporate videos [Jerry Blumental, my partner with whom I did the Taylor Chain films, The Last Pullman Car, and Golub]. You come in to interview the CEO and he’s there with his secretary and he’s cleaning up his desk. I go, “No, no, leave all that!” Even in a corporate video, I feel that [all of those details that are put into the frame] tell a better story just as in a narrative. It doesn’t have to be direct; I don’t necessarily cut away to some detail. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t. But, just seeing what’s in the bookcase here in this office tells me something about the person that uses this office.
4. You’ve worked on films as a producer, director, editor, executive producer and cinematographer. Where do you think the story really comes together? At what point? With whom?
GQ: In documentaries, certainly the heart of the storytelling process is in the editing room. That’s key, that’s where you structure these things, that’s where you get into working and debating story elements. “What comes first,” for example. If I give the audience all this information up here, they’re going to be bored because that’s just a lot of facts and dry material. But, if I show them the scene without any context, they’re not going to know why this is so dramatic or emotional. We often struggle with the order of things and how things need to go together. It’s flow and pacing—all those things you do in traditional storytelling.
But there are other places where the story takes place too. There are parts of the Palestinian story [in The New Americans] where, as we’re shooting, you’re dealing with a character, Naima, who has an idea of what her story is. The things that she does, the places she tells us we ought to go and the things that she says that are a part of her story creates a sense that she’s having an impact on the story and the storytelling.
5. Whose story is a particular film telling? Is it the producer’s story, is it the director’s story, or is it the subject’s story?
GQ: I think that there’s always that tension between the producer-director’s vision and the subject’s sense of what their story is or what they think is important. That’s a dialectical relationship, so that if both parties enter into it, something new comes out of it. In one class [during Mr. Quinn’s visit to American University], I showed the scene from Hoop Dreams of Sheila’s graduation, where at the very last minute, you see the room is empty [Sheila is the mother of one of the young basketball stars]. It’s this incredibly powerful, emotional thing. She’s graduated from this class and it means a tremendous amount to her. This big wide shot shows you that her little ceremony is in this empty room with all these empty chairs. Then you cut to the basketball game where people are hanging from roof to rafters; it’s crowded and everybody’s there. That’s the producer-director making his comment and how we value things in our society. Everyone sees it and everyone gets it. We had an argument when we were working on the film. I didn’t’ like the shot. I felt at that moment, I wanted to be with Sheila. For her, her room was not empty. It was kind of unfortunate; it was a small little ceremony of a few people in a very big room. If you’d put it in a smaller room, you wouldn’t have had that shot to make. So, for me at that point, whose story it is, where that point of view is, shifts in a dialectical way as you go through the process of the film. I felt I wanted to be with Sheila at that moment, that that was the right place to be. And for her—her sons were there—it was like the room was full. Steve [Steve James] felt he wanted to make this other point. Both are valid. It’s not like one is wrong and the other is right. It’s just that those are the different ways of viewing story and where that point of view. It [point of view] shifts throughout the film usually, or at least in really good films. I think there are some films in which one of their weaknesses is that they don’t respect that dialectical relationship. Where the thing should shift a little bit because someone has come into it, they kind of won’t let it go there.
I see it a lot in the magazine format shows with the on-camera person and their importance to be the person who is bringing you this story. Sometimes [the magazine shows] actually have something that’s terrific; the story’s actually there. Then they bring in this person to tell you what I’m seeing. It’s like, “Give me a break, I don’t need you here, let the story speak for itself.” Other times they’re giving you a perspective, or they’re telling you a part of it; they’re doing some framing that can be legitimate. But, even in these journalistic situations, you have to get out of the way and let the material connect with the audience. “Okay, you brought me here.” It’s almost like you’ve gone to an event with someone. They’ve taken you to this incredible thing—they’ve taken you into the inner city and you’ve gone into a little neighborhood church, and you’re hearing the most incredible gospel music and you’re seeing these people moved and they’re emotional and it’s incredibly powerful. And, the person who brought you is like, “Isn’t’t this amazing! Can you see how powerful and emotional it is?” It’s like, “Let me just watch!”
6. Is this a type of “dumbing-down”? Is this an assumption that audiences won’t get it, so let me hammer it in one more time?
GQ: I don’t even think it’s that anymore. I think that pretty much the media is more sophisticated. I told this story when I showed the piece from Home For Life, my first film from 1966, where clearly these people are treating the old woman badly because they feel guilty. But, in fact, any of us could understand that. We don’t need a psychologist or an expert to explain it to us. We’re very sophisticated in interpreting human behavior and I think the media pretty much understands that, even the Primetimes and the 20/20s. I think it has more to do with what they’re selling and the story is often secondary.
7. What advantage is there to telling a story like The New Americans as a film rather than writing a feature journalism article about these people? What does the visual medium bring to that story?
GQ: That’s a complicated question because I have read things that are extremely well written where the person really comes to life. They’re quoted, they’re put on context and it’s very powerful and emotional. I work in film because I love the potential for all the complexity and detail to be in the image. [I love] that the audience is going to see things that I didn’t’t even see and that they’ll come up to me afterwards and tell me about these things or the feelings they’ve had from what they’ve watched. It’s like, “Oh, geez, I didn’t’t even see that.” I talked about gesture, and when you describe a gesture in the abstract and in words, there are dimensions that don’t come across even though they could be very powerful. When you see a gesture, it’s very, very different. I think for me, it’s the complexity of detail that’s in the visual image and visual storytelling that means so much to me. I think it’s important that we understand, that in terms of narrative force and the real power of storytelling, that one doesn’t necessarily have an advantage over another [visual versus written storytelling]. I was reading an article about…an adult education program at the college level for people in New York. It’s a beautifully written piece. Then I was looking at a proposal that one of our producers is trying to do with a similar program in Chicago, and she’s paraphrased the article. I said, “No, no, no, just go back and quote the whole thing because in taking out bits and pieces of how he told the story, it’s lost some of its emotional impact.” Sometimes a writer will describe a gesture in a way and it really resonates at many levels, so I don’t necessarily want to privilege one over the other. But for myself, I’m a visual storyteller. I tell stories with all the complex detail that you can see in real life.
8. How did you pick the individuals for The New Americans? What was it about their stories that you thought would be great for the film?
GQ: In some of our films, we have more of a process [of picking subjects], although we usually don’t. With The New Americans, it was a variety of things. The Ogonis [Ogoni refugees from Nigeria] we found through the UN High Command for Refugees. They [the UN High Command] said there’s a group coming over. They [filmmakers] went over there and had a couple of days to sort of say, “These are the people we’re going to start following.” Actually, we honed it in a little bit more after they got here. There we some other people that were being followed in the refugee camp, part of the same group, that we didn’t follow.
With Hatem and Naima [a Palestinian couple], we worked with a community organization. What was important was to find someone that was coming over that we could get to know before they left. Basically, we felt if we had that element, we had a good story. It’s almost like casting for a feature film. You’re looking for characters who are expressive, who you could see emotionally. There are some people that it’s a lot harder to deal with because their emotions aren’t on their face and they’re not out there, and they don’t want to talk about it. I don’t necessarily think that they shouldn’t be on film; you’re just going to have to find a way to capture their story. But with the Palestinian story, we went and met Hatem and his family and we were like, “Okay. I got a gut feeling. This is it, this will work.” We liked him, we liked his family and we figured let’s go do it. We showed up in the West Bank at Naima’s doorstep and said, “Hi.” Well, he [Hatem] called her and asked if she wanted to do it and she said, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” So [with Naima] it was like, “We’re here to tell the story of your life for the next couple of years.”
9. How far into the process of making The New Americans were you before you knew you had a great story. How much of the film could be scripted or thought of in advance? How much were you just waiting to see?
GQ: I’m a great believer in waiting. I think if you have enough patience, almost anybody, any place can become pretty interesting. With The New Americans, we certainly had a sense right away with Naima. Within the first week, we knew that not only Naima, but also her family and her sisters and her mother and her brother—all of these people were going to be good characters for us.
10. At the screening of the excerpt of The New Americans at the University, you mentioned that you had to cut one story, the Vietnamese story? Why? What was it about that story that made it not as strong as the others?
GQ: It wasn’t so much that [it wasn’t as strong]. It was the story that was started last and so it was less far along. It was about a thirteen-year-old girl who was being reunited with her biological father, her biological father who she’d never known. It was very different from the other stories.
Sometimes you’ll have two characters and their stories have so many similar elements that you’re like, “Okay, let’s focus in on one.” Hoop Dreams is a good example of this situation where we were following these two boys, figuring that one of them would become the main character as the story progressed. But, it was like their lives, their stories—everything—was completely different. The drama of the different paths that they were taking, the intertwining of it, made it very powerful.
11. Most of the films that you work on seem to focus on a particular individual or a group of individuals. How does this personalization make for a compelling story? What do audiences identify with in seeing a certain individual(s) drawn out?
GQ: I guess my feeling is that’s the easy part. If you think about feature films or you think about novels—in many works of art, the easiest thing to understand is something that’s about an individual person or a particular person. Or, it’s often the relationship between a couple of people. That’s what we’re very used to in terms of storytelling. What’s more of a challenge is when the story really is about a group of people, like in Taylor Chain I: Story In A Union Local. That film is not about this one guy and whether he’ll lose his job. It’s about this group of people, and in the union negotiation, it’s about the negotiating team. There are some characters that come to the foreground, but really, it’s the group that you’re trying to tell the story about. I think that’s a more difficult challenge to figure out, but sometimes we really feel that [the group] is where the story is and we struggle with how to make that work.
12. Is there ever a danger in too much personalization? Might audiences come away saying “I want to help Person A that I just saw” and lose sight of the greater issue at hand?
GQ: Yes and no. Certainly that happens. In Hoop Dreams, I had friends who were dentists who saw Sheila’s teeth and were like, “Oh, we’ll fix her teeth. We’d love to fix her teeth.” We had the same thing in Stevie, which couldn’t be more personal and unique in its way. If you look at the stories we portray in The New Americans, you know two things. You know this story is this person’s unique, particular story and you also know that there are a thousand or a hundred thousand more just like them. They’re not exactly the same—and that’s the other thing I think is so important to us in doing a film about immigration. Once people are labeled, once you say, “Immigrants are draining the economy,” or “Immigrants are crucial for the economy,” or whatever generalization you make and statistics and facts [you give]—all those things are important. In some of our films, in The Last Pullman Car [1983], in The Chicago Maternity Center Story, we quote a lot of statistics. We bring [statistics] into certain kinds of stories, but we always want to make that connection that that’s not all these people are. They’re not just immigrants. They’re teenagers and they’re mothers and they’re fathers and they’re someone trying to get an education or they’re someone who cares about their job. All of those dimensions of those people are as important or more important than the fact that they’re immigrants.
So, our worldview is when you deal with the general, it’s the tension between the two. Again, it’s that dialectical relationship between the generalization and a very particular person and their story. One could say that that’s a danger. I tend to think that it isn’t in that so much of the media deals in generalizations or statistics. We’re always explaining to people that we’re not journalists because they’ve been burned by journalists. The journalist comes in and he’s working for a sound byte. He doesn’t care who they are. What he cares is, “Is this an immigrant who can say to me that he has been abused under the Patriot Act?” That’s all he wants to know. Once he gets that sound byte about, “Yes, they stopped me and they saw that I was a Muslim and then they took me in and treated me unfairly.” Boom, that’s it, and that’s all he is as a person. We’re really saying if you want to know about the impact of that Act and what its meaning is to immigrants in this county, you have to know the person. It didn’t happen to a statistic. It happened to somebody who has a complicated life and all these other issues, and that incident reverberates through that. We’ll put in [facts and figures], but let’s connect it. We’re not telling these stories about people who are just immigrants. They’re so much more than that.