A scene from the documentary "Our House," directed by Greg King and David Teague

Greg King’s new documentary, Our House, is about an experimental Christian community in Brooklyn. Led by several young, punk, vegan Christians, Our House is an abandoned warehouse-turned-homestead for the chronically homeless and recovering addicts. The handful of individuals who end up living there experience a new kind of community, one where prayer and love abound. Beautifully shot and delicately edited, the film is sure to challenge the viewer’s ideas of community and definition of home.

Since the film centers on a community that tries to hide from public view, how did you find “Our House”?
I was invited to one of their prayer meetings one night by a friend of a friend of the Our House guys, who herself was visiting New Y0rk, interested in starting a Christian community there. The story of how she learned of them is rather long, but I could summarize it by pointing out that there is a network of “intentional Christian communities” growing in the United States, and I simply tapped into it through random connections. My friend and I were having dinner, and she invited me to tag along with her to meet the guys one cold early March night, because she thought I might find it interesting. When we got to the building, I couldn’t believe there were people living in it, as it was a long-abandoned warehouse that looked like no one had set foot in it in a decade. Derek – one of the dreadlocked squatter punks – answered the door, and led us into the pitch-black space (we used our cell phones as flashlights), where the only light (and heat) came from this tent they had hung inside, filled with candles and a propane heater, and a dozen people huddled within. They welcomed us warmly, and continued on with group prayer, singing, and discussion. I was immediately transfixed at the intimacy of their lifestyle and spirit, and wanted to document the community on film right away.

Setting out to take over an abandoned warehouse and make it into a home for the chronically homeless is ambitious to begin with, but these young men also choose to live there themselves. For a viewer who can’t imagine making such an extreme lifestyle choice, what would you want them to take away from the film? How can they relate?
The Our House building was just one manifestation of how the young men behind it engage with the poor and less fortunate around us. They have all made commitments to invest time in the lives of others in simple, concrete ways, and the building was a culmination of that, not a starting point. Derek was inspiring to me for the casual approach he has in striking up conversations with just about anyone he meets on the street, and developing authentic friendships. JP spent a lot of one-on-one time with Dan, teaching him weight-lifting and sharing rich conversations about their life experiences, so that Dan knew he could always turn to JP for support on his road to recovery from drugs. Neil “escorted” Monica on appointments in New York City, holding her hand in reassurance when she had to pass by neighborhoods where she used to get high, in support of her newfound sobriety. To them, it wasn’t about creating another program or shelter, but developing friendships and relationships of love and concern for people less fortunate. Whether or not they had a physical building, they were guided by a desire to personally know people living on the street, and help them in any way they could. My hope is that viewers would be inspired by the film to find their own means of doing the same in their neighborhoods and cities.

While we never hear your voice, the presence of the filmmakers is clearly felt as the subjects address the camera. What was your relationship with the people in the house like? Were there ever any ethical or personal dilemmas in making the film?
The guys who started Our House were very accommodating, allowing us to start filming soon after meeting them. Not everyone living in the space wanted to be on camera, and we respected their wishes, but those folks seen in the film were basically open to it from the get-go. I think because of the personalities of the Our House founders, their generosity of spirit to try and appreciate the reality of anyone they met, and the kind of lifestyles the residents have had living on the street, it really wasn’t a big deal to them to be filmed. “Documentaries” weren’t a part of their life experiences, really, so they were natural on camera and didn’t think too much of it.

While at first we felt somewhat awkward in our role as “filmmakers” (we mostly worried that they would think we were square, since we had no tattoos or piercings), before long we became friends with the group, especially after they were kicked out of the building. We never felt any ethical dilemmas really, but we were wrapped up in the fates of some of the residents once they had to move out. I personally became close to Dan Taylor and was really worried about what would happen to him. There was one time that I was shooting on my own, and I just couldn’t film him, because it was on the eve of his having to leave the building, and it was simply too painful to try and interview him in that vulnerable state. But, thankfully, soon after that his situation improved in a dramatic fashion, and in a way that was fun to incorporate into the film.

I see that you worked together with another filmmaker. How did that inform your creative process?
Our House is a collaboration at every level with my co-director and friend David Teague, an immensely talented filmmaker living in Brooklyn. It’s one of the most collaborative projects I’ve ever worked on, which has been a lot of fun, and I feel I’ve learned a lot from him. David and I are both freelance film editors and cinematographers, and we approached this project with equal enthusiasm to make it entirely on our own.

We both come from a background in experimental Super 8 and 16mm films, and are inspired by the avant-garde movements in film. We therefore had a like-minded approach to the cinematography, and the desire to incorporate celluloid film with HD video (our primary format). For example, we knew right away that we would shoot the space itself as a “character” in its own right, using film to accomplish a shift in cinematic form, as the building possessed a sacred quality for the residents. Also, we knew we wanted to shoot using only available light – no artificial lights brought in from the outside – in order to match the lifestyle and ethos of the community.

Once in the edit room, I did the early assembly cuts, and then he and I would trade the film back and forth to find its structure and to fashion the story arc of Dan, our main character. Our material could have taken any number of directions, but we learned through editing and pitching the film that having a principal character arc made the most sense. I contributed a lot to individual scene content, directing the scoring process, and fashioning the artistic montages, and David contributed a lot to story and plot structure, honing the scenes and fine-tuning a lot of moments. We were in constant dialogue about all elements, so this is a generalization, but gives a sense of our process.

Lastly, I think it’s important to note that whereas I am a Christian, David is not. Although we differ on worldview, we agreed on how and why we wanted this film to be made. We are exasperated by the common conflation of social conservatism and religious belief in this country, and find the people behind Our House interesting for what they are striving to achieve on a local level. Their lifestyle choices and radical/progressive Christianity are refreshing to us.

You’ve recently begun screening the film at festivals around the country. How have audiences responded? Were there any surprising reactions?
We’ve been greatly encouraged by the response so far, given the predominance of Christian voices in the film. In an early test screening, the audience [reaction] was mixed about “all the God talk,” which was both funny to hear and yet instructive in how we wanted the film to read. We didn’t make the film to appeal to only Christian audiences, so we took this to heart, and were careful to strike a balance of illuminating our characters’ rich personalities without overwhelming the audience with Christian jargon or preachiness.

At our World and U.S. premieres, we were happy to see that the film was very well received, and that the audience was mostly inspired by its story of community and reaching out to others. We’ve had our share of odd questions, but I think the community portrayed is so unique in a way, that audiences are quite engaged, and interested in knowing more about the lives of the characters after the film was made, our filmmaking process, and what this community might represent on larger societal levels. Also, we’ve been approached by pastors and individuals interested in screening the film to support homeless ministries and progressive Christian communities, which is an encouragement, as this was a hope for the ongoing life of the film.

“OUR HOUSE” (2010), directed by Greg King & David Teague. 56 Minutes

After a busy run on the film festival circuit, a theatrical release, and the upcoming DVD release of their film William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe on April 27th, I’m grateful that Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler were able to take the time for this interview.

The sisters (producers/directors) run Off Center Media, a production company that produces documentaries exposing injustice in the criminal justice system. This award-winning film about their father is scheduled to kick off this season of PBS’s POV on June 22 at 10PM. The Kunstlers received the L’Oreal Women of Worth Vision Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

What were your goals for this film? How can film carry on the legacy of social change that was crucial to your father’s life? What are some examples?

Sarah Kunstler: We believe that creativity and art have tremendous power to spur people to action. That is why we got into filmmaking. Our first film, Tulia, Texas: Scenes from the Drug War, opened our eyes to the power of art to further social change. We went to Tulia, a small town in the Texas panhandle in 1999, after a drug sting netted almost 20% of the black population, leaving more than 50 children without one or both parents. All of the charges were based on the word of a crooked undercover cop. It was horrific. We knew immediately that we needed a way to convey the injustice of the arrests and the power of the families of the incarcerated who were fighting for their loved ones. Our film brought national attention to the injustice, helped the incarcerated get new lawyers, and led ultimately to the exoneration of those arrested.

Making that film led us to form our production company, Off Center Media. Over the past ten years, we have made a number of short films highlighting injustice in the criminal justice system – from clemency videos for death row inmates, to documentaries that have been used as part of campaigns highlighting wrongful convictions or Supreme Court cases.

Emily Kunstler: Both of our parents raised us with a deep commitment to social and racial justice, and we knew from a young age that this commitment would dictate the course of our lives. There are may ways to combat social and racial justice in society; we ended up using film as our tool. Our father principally was a storyteller. He would tell a story to the jury and he would tell the same story to the general public through his skilled use of the media. Dad would have been the first to admit that all of his major court victories were decided first in the court of public opinion and then inside the walls of a courtroom. Judges and juries are often disinclined to go out on a limb and take a risk. In this way, educating the public about particular cases of injustice was just as important to our father as what when on in a courtroom. Dad would use a press conference, we use documentary film – but essentially our tactics are the same.

As filmmakers and daughters, when did you decide you were ready to tackle such a personal story on film?

EK: We had been making films for about seven years by the time the idea occurred to us. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner. I think you have to be well into your adult life before you can entertain the idea of looking backwards. Sarah and I were both approaching 30 when we began making this film. When you are young, you really want to strike out on your own. We wanted to do our own thing and not necessary be associated with our parents. I don’t think this something unique to Sarah and my experience. I think most young people feel the same way, though it may have been exacerbated by our father’s celebrity. We didn’t want to be known as our father’s daughters; we wanted to make our own mark. So in choosing to make this film, we had to not only actively embrace our past but consciously choose to identify ourselves with our father, and I don’t think that is a choice either of us would have been prepared to make sooner. But in short, we decided to make the film over a margarita lunch at a small Mexican restaurant in the Fort Greene, the Brooklyn neighborhood that is home to our production office, and we never looked back.

In light of it being such a personal film, what was the greatest challenge in making Disturbing The Universe?

SK: The greatest challenge was making the choice to tell the film from our perspectives. Our father always seemed larger than life, and during his lifetime he was the center of our world, so it was hard to find room for ourselves in the telling of his story – to figure out where we fit. But it was important to us that the film be from our perspective. Emily and I could never have made an emotionally removed straightforward bio-pic, but I think more importantly we hoped that our perspective might be a window for our generation and younger viewers into the stories of some of the most important social movements of the 20th century. Many people our age have never heard of the rebellion and massacre at Attica or the murder of Fred Hampton. It was important for us to have outside perspectives. We worked with terrific producers who helped us get enough distance to find room for our voices.

There were so many interesting characters in your father’s life. Who among them surprised you most?

EK: I think we were most surprised to find and interview Jean Fritz. Jean was one of the jurors during the Chicago Conspiracy Trial, and when we interviewed her almost forty years later, she still maintained a collection of all of the newspaper reports as well as her daily accounts of what transpired in the courtroom from a journal she kept at the time. What surprised us most about Jean was the transformation she went through during the seven-month trial. When the trial commenced, she considered herself to be a conservative Republican. She lived in the very conservative suburb of Des Plaines and ran an auto supply store with her husband. By the close of the trial, after seeing Bobby Seale bound and gagged in the courtroom and the clear bias of the judge toward the defense, she had come full circle. She no longer trusted or had faith in her government.

Jean’s transformation goes to the heart of our father’s belief in the jury system. He thought that if you could reach twelve random people, connect to them, take them out of their comfort zone, and show them the truth, that they wouldn’t be able to ignore it and and their thinking would be altered. Dad believed that we are all capable of transformations, large and small.

One of the things that stands out in the film is your deep respect and admiration for your father, even as you doubted many of his choices. Considering the demands of his work and his many obligations, what do you think your father did as a father, not just an attorney, that inspired such devotion from his daughters?

SK: I think he valued our opinions. Even when we were small children, he made a point of talking to us about what mattered to him – racism, the importance of standing up to and combating injustice. He involved us in what he was doing. He made us want to be a part of it. Dad loved it when we showed any interest in his work and would encourage us to challenge him. Whenever possible, he took us with him – to court, to protests, to places like Wounded Knee that were important to him. And he loved us without measure. Emily and I definitely felt that growing up.

But I also think that choosing to be the kind of lawyer, to live the kind of life that our father did requires compromises. You can’t be the kind of Dad who is there all the time. You can’t make your children your first priority. And I think our mother deserves recognition and praise in this regard, because Emily and I never would have made it without her. We had great childhoods. We were protected, we were nurtured, we thrived. And we have her to thank for that.

At the conclusion of the film, you seem to recognize the value of your father’s choices in a new way. I wonder, who do you see taking up that torch? Who do people in distress around the country ask for representation since William Kunstler is no longer here?

SK: This is a hard question – and one that is often asked of us at Q&As following our film. I don’t think there will ever be another William Kunstler. But I don’t think there should be, either. He was a person of his generation – he belonged to the time he lived in. There are a lot of dedicated lawyers out there doing good work, most of them doing it anonymously.

EK: I think, ultimately, that the world we hope to see is a world where you don’t need a Bill Kunstler to stand next to you in order to get attention for the cause you are fighting for or the injustice you are fighting against, a world where lawyers stand in solidarity with movements and where the activists do the talking.

——-

The DVD of Disturbing the Universe released on April 27, 2010 and are available through Amazon and directly from the filmmakers. The DVD can also be rented from Netflix and streamed from iTunes. The film also opens this season of PBS’s POV on June 22 at 10PM.

Anna Kendrick and George Clooney in Up in the Air.

Upon leaving the theater, I was discouraged. It’s a great film, with some very entertaining dialogue and sensitive performances, but the overarching portrait of American culture is disheartening. Up In The Air gets so many of our modern conundrums right that it’s hard not to classify it as a tragedy, even with some great laughs. The film explores themes of corporate greed, alienation, infidelity, and much more, but the dilemmas that really triggered further reflection were the film’s portrayal of certain dichotomies: family versus career, love versus romance, and freedom versus commitment.

Family vs. Career
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) has found his true vocation as a career transition counselor, carrying out face-to-face firings for companies that would prefer to hire out this dirty work. Ryan seems perfectly suited for the role; a perceptive and observant man, he’s good at shattering people’s lives with a balance of detachment and sensitivity that most people couldn’t muster. He enjoys the constant traveling and comes to see himself as a master of his domain: airport terminals and hotels across America. When a romance with fellow business traveler Alex (Vera Farmiga) blossoms, Bingham begins to question the primacy of career in his life.

I was never carried away with the thrills Bingham seemed to find in his jet setting lifestyle; airport hotel bars just don’t have much charm for me. But, I could relate to the idea of placing career pursuits above family. We have all faced this choice. After years of education and plenty of student loan debt, most of us would like to reap the benefits of the efforts we’ve extended towards our areas of expertise.

However, just when you’re climbing the career ladder in your early thirties, you are also faced with the importance of family. Whether it’s your biological clock or aging parents in need of your help, being the person you’ve always wanted to be usually means more than excelling at your job. But how can we balance it all? Many of us fail in some way or another. If you don’t put in the extra hours at the office, you may get looked over for a promotion, and if you don’t actually spend waking hours with your children, you may miss out on one of life’s greatest intimacies.

Love vs. Romance (spoiler!)
When Ryan finally takes a chance on building intimacy with Alex, it’s a bit of a fairy tale. He’s been avoiding relationships for so long – and then his perfect match appears out of thin air. She’s beautiful, independent, and witty. They have immediate conversational and sexual chemistry. Her “take it or leave it” attitude is exactly what draws him in. It’s that cliché that so many single women hear over and over about how men love the chase, how playing hard to get is the ultimate draw. Alex was everything that a man like Ryan would be drawn to. Indeed, she is playing that part so well – because she is playing.

Like Ryan, Alex is a perceptive person who can read people with ease. She’s sized up this cocky business traveler and knows just what to say to draw him in. Never betraying a desire for commitment, always hinting at sex, and keeping the intellectual stimulation high, she is Ryan’s perfect match. But I couldn’t believe her as a middle-aged woman with so much charm and talent who would settle for occasional rendevous and never require true intimacy.

George Clooney and Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air.

Of course, she didn’t. It’s all icing on the cake for a woman that already has it all. For Alex, marriage, family, and career isn’t enough; she wants the extra thrill of romance that, we can assume, she no longer finds with her husband. The affair does seem fun. It has all the thrills of falling in love: the flirting and flattery, the adventures and risks. And we all know that domestic life can run short on these delights.

That Alex is the first woman to challenge Ryan’s desire for independence is highly ironic. In the end, he doesn’t so much learn about love as about his own vulnerability. Having played God on the job for so many years, he’s come to think of himself as impenetrable to the lures of intimacy. But being played by Alex reveals a weakness he’s long suppressed: his own desire for companionship.

While we’d like to think only true love could break Ryan’s steely exterior, Alex wasn’t a real woman after all – just the embodiment of his fantasy. The portrait of love that unfolds is disheartening, one in which our virtual selves, the parts of us that perform and project based upon vanity and insecurity, come to dominate the genuine and sensitive parts of us that would otherwise unlock to love in the most meaningful ways.

Freedom vs. Commitment
From the beginning of the film, Ryan extols the virtues of his independent lifestyle. He’s free from relationships and weightlessly untethered in a world that seeks to hold him down. Meanwhile, after an impersonal text message break-up, his young co-worker Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) is seeking love and commitment in her personal life. Ryan and Natalie are opposites when it comes to their approach to relationships; however, they are both aggressive go-getters in the business world who end up learning from one another. Ryan shows the Natalie that there is a place for heart and emotion on the job, and Natalie’s contributions to the career transition industry reveal how feeble Ryan’s job security is as well. In the end, we see that Ryan only saw himself as free. In fact, his relentless avoidance of personal connections only masked the larger devotion in his life, his disproportionate emphasis on his job.

There is always something that takes hold of us and controls us, something we feel we cannot live without. For Ryan, it was his concept of freedom; for Natalie, it is the mental image of the powerful businesswoman who has it all; and for Alex, it may simply have been the vain thrill of male attention. All of it seems like an illusion in the end.

The film leaves us wondering how much these individuals have really changed. What stayed with me were the quick interviews of newly unemployed characters, and what they claimed mattered in their lives. Their emphasis on family and companionship as the most important validation, even at their most rejected moment, reminds us what a tenuous state our culture is in.

The success of Up in the Air lies in the timeliness of its underlying subtext: As the economy falters, while our livelihoods and homes can slip through our fingers in a moment, we are forced to confront what is really important to us. And we often find it wasn’t what we thought.

Gabourey Sidibe as Precious

I recently ventured past the holiday bargain-hunters to see two very different blockbuster films. Both movies centered around African-American teenagers who are up against the odds but destined to overcome, yet their approaches were strikingly different.

Of course, these movies serve two different purposes. One entertains and affirms, while the other challenges and transports. You may prefer to see a film that encourages a more passive escape into fantasy, andThe Blind Side won’t disappoint.Precious takes some effort, a willingness to confront the most revolting sides of humanity and the energy to think through how it relates to your own life.

Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire, contrasts a world full of severe human depravity with a handful of individuals – predominantly the title character – who hold on to hope when all seems lost. Precious’s successes seem miraculous, and we wonder at her strength to overcome the worst obstacles of abuse, neglect, illiteracy, illness, poverty, and isolation.

The Blind Side is about a homeless African-American high schooler with extraordinary athletic ability who is taken under the wing of an affluent white family. The film emphasizes the impact of single acts of charity and the rare person who ventures beyond their comfort zone to help someone else. But here, it is the latent talent of the young man that is his ticket out of strife.

The Blind Side is based on a true story, and Michael Oher’s (Quinton Aaron) achievements are that much more powerful to watch because we know the suffering he endures is real. One of a dozen children born to a crack-addicted mother, Michael spends his childhood in and out of foster homes, repeatedly running away to search for his mother and siblings, for whom he has undying devotion. The loyalty he feels towards his family shapes the protective instincts credited with giving him an extra edge as a left tackle on the football field.

Sandra Bullock and Quinton Aaron in The Blind Side

The film is based on a book by Michael Lewis, which explores more about Michael’s childhood and personality. This retelling of the story focuses on his rescuer, the rich white woman who takes him in, played by Sandra Bullock. She is a stereotype of white Southern affluence, dripping in gold with every hair in place, her unwavering confidence and convictions affirmed by her homogenous Christian community. Isolated in country clubs and sororities, Mrs. Tuohy’s ideas about gender and race have been passed down from one bigoted generation to the next. And while she never lets go of her dreams of a picture-perfect cheerleading daughter, she does come to see one African-American young man as family. Her willingness to shelter and love a boy who had lost everything is inspiring, but it is also nothing new; it emphasizes the fairy tale ideas we’ve all grown up with.

Precious doesn’t have the benefit of a rich family who takes her out of her horrible circumstances – not to diminish the value of an encouraging presence in our lives. There are some people who take an interest in her well-being. A handsome male nurse played by Lenny Kravitz shines some needed light her way and Precious’s unrelenting teacher, Ms. Rain, won’t allow her to sink into the background. By holding Precious to a higher standard, Ms. Rain ignites her inner motivation to succeed – but Precious must jump the hurdles herself. She must learn to read, give birth, confront her abusive mother, and seek a safe home for herself and children. No one can do these things for her. Director Lee Daniels artfully imagines Precious’s inner world and fantasies where she does dream of attention and recognition, the flashbulbs and red carpet. Like everyone, she wants the world to find value in her, but somehow she conquers on her own even without it.

While The Blind Side is an inspiring story – especially because it is true – it perpetuates the stifling ideas we see all around us: because of some hidden talent, a privileged outsider will swoop in to rescue us from our dingy circumstances (think Sleeping Beauty or Harry Potter). But eventually we realize that there is no fairy godmother, and that we aren’t misplaced princesses or princes within frog bodies. No; we are who we are, and most of us won’t be NFL stars. We may be gifted in many ways, but we may also be average and never get to experience the splendor of being center stage. Without that outside admiration, where do we belong? The question of where we get our value, how we measure our success, is what Precious takes on so artfully.

The Baader Meinhof Complex is an unrelenting portrait of the West German terrorist group which both polarized and preyed upon German society in the 1970s. All 150 minutes are riveting; director Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn and Downfall) stays as true to actual events as possible while developing a suspenseful narrative with multifaceted characters.

The film begins with Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck), the mother of twin daughters and a radical writer, in the comfortable and chic world of late sixties West Germany. But she begins to challenge her easy existence when student protests turn violent and an innocent bystander is killed by the brutal police force. Galvanized by these events, Meinhof’s life takes a radical turn. Before long, she teams up with the charismatic and militant Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu), and they go on to found the communist-inspired Red Army Faction, RAF, committed to armed resistance against the German state, which they deemed both fascist and compromised by capitalism’s corrupting influence.

The film’s emphasis on fact over fantasy is its great strength. Director Edel rigorously recounts the chronology of the RAF’s early years, including training camps in Jordan, bomb operations throughout Germany, bank robberies, arms trading, and their final months in prison. Edel does not spend much time speculating about the interior motivations of the individuals involved; rather, he paints a broad picture of social unrest combined with misguided idealism that results in the deaths of more than 30 people.

One could claim that the film idealizes these characters. The handsome movie stars portraying Baader and Meinhof are surely pleasant to look at and the fast paced music of the 1970s adds a rock-star mystique. As viewers, we’re accustomed to empathizing with the main characters of fiction films, and Meinhof is easy to identify with. Her early life is a norm with which we’re all familiar, and her disillusionment is also easy to relate to as family relationships are tested and the political powers seem intolerable and corrupt.

Though her desire to break free from the contradictions of her life is worthy, Meinhof becomes impossible to figure out after her leap into violence, after which it becomes difficult to engage with her; while Baader and his young comrades revel in their outlaw lifestyle, the cause has a price in Meinhof’s life – the relationship to her children. Her trials and demise do not elicit sympathy – instead one marvels at how a bright and otherwise normal individual could become so possessed with propaganda and hatred.

The Baader Meinhof Complex may not be entertaining – in the conventional sense of escapism and distraction – but it is a film worth grappling with. Each person’s motivation for conversion to extremism is inexplicable and nuanced, but even more challenging is our tendency to glamorize the renegade outsider. The RAF lived on long after the deaths of Baader and Meinhof, inspiring future generations to terrorist tactics, because of the mystique surrounding their subversive ways. People admired their willingness to risk everything for what they believed in. While most people would never condone their methods, it seemed their sentiments resonated with many. This film doesn’t provide answers for the powerlessness so many people feel in the face of overshadowing and oppressive governments or cultures corrupted by industries that favor profits over human rights, but it does show the limits and ultimate failure of violent political extremism.

Filmmaker Sophie Barthes was born in France and grew up in the Middle East and South America. A Columbia University graduate, Barthes has made short films that garnered numerous awards. She completed residencies at the Nantucket Screenwriters Colony and the 2007 Sundance Directors Lab. Her new film, Cold Souls, is in selected theaters now.

The Curator: The film begins with a quote from French philosopher René Descartes: “The soul has its principal seat in the small gland located in the middle of the brain.” How do you interpret this statement? What does it lend the film?

Sophie Barthes: The idea was to be ironic. We had to read a lot of Descartes in French school. This quote is from “The Passions of the Soul.” I find it very funny and absurd. I’ve always been suspicious of dualism in philosophy (the idea that mind and body are two ontologically separate categories). I feel that the relationship between the psyche and the body is more mysterious and complex and more integrated and intertwined than we think.

In the film I’m trying to show that soul extraction (and the idea that the soul is just a little gland that could be removed), although made possible by what Dr. Flintstein proudly refers to as “the progress and triumph of the mind,” is not sustainable: Nina, the soul mule, gets worn out and her system often rejects the souls she carries like an incompatible transplanted organ; soul donors cannot bear the feeling of emptiness; and Paul, after an initial moment of bliss, experiences a complete sense of loss.

Cold Souls is the story of a famous American actor, Paul Giamatti, who hits a wall with his performance in Chekov’s “Uncle Vanya.” Weighed down by his own issues and desperate to regain his creative abilities, he undergoes a new procedure that promises to clear some needed space within him: soul extraction and storage. However, soullessness doesn’t meet his expectations, and soon his life is derailed. Traveling deep into the bizarre world of underground Russian soul trading, Giamatti’s struggle to be reunited with his soul is both humorous and unsettling.

The concept of being separate from one’s soul is a peculiar one – how did you come up with the idea?

The idea came in a strange and funny dream I had three years ago. In the dream I’m waiting in line in a doctor’s office, holding a box, like everybody else in line. A doctor comes and tells us that our souls have been extracted and a doctor will examine it and assess its problems. Woody Allen is also in line, in front of me. When his turn comes, he opens his box and discovers that his soul is a just a little chickpea! He is furious and fidgety and says there is no way, that it must be a mistake. At this point, I feel extremely anxious. I look down at my container but the dream ends. I never saw the shape of my soul!

What makes it something we might all relate to?

When I had this dream, I was reading Carl Jung’s Modern Man in Search of a Soul. The dream and the screenplay are infused with many Jungian themes. Jung believed in the existence of a collective unconscious made of shared symbols and myths.

As a child, my favorite tale was “The Princess and the Pea.” I never fully understood the meaning of this tale. But now in retrospect, I realize that the pea has a strong symbolic meaning. How can such a small thing disturb the Princess’s sensibility so much? And in Cold Souls, or in my dream, how can such a tiny soul, a simple chickpea, create so much turmoil? I was doing some research on the Internet while writing Cold Souls and I discovered a Sufi poem about a “chickpea soul.” It’s definitively a shared symbol.

Jung also explains that one of the biggest fears in primitive societies was the “loss of the soul,” where the soul could escape from the body and find refuge in a tree or an animal. He saw a correlation between that fear and modern neurosis or depression. I believe that the desire to be artificially released from the troubles of the soul (from Prozac to, maybe one day, soul extraction) is part of an obsessive quest for well-being, particularly in this country. A depression or breakdown could be an opportunity for introspection, a rite of passage for the soul to grow and expand. But it’s perceived as a disease and must be treated immediately. Maybe the soul is a strange muscle, and it is possible to develop it or let it shrink . . .

One of the more striking things about the film is how it contrasts styles – humor with tragedy, sci-fi with very convincing present-day reality. This is an unconventional technique; were you concerned with how viewers would respond?

Yes, the tone is definitely tricky. I intentionally blended comedy and tragedy, but I’m conscious that this combination requires a lot from the audience. Some people can’t deal with the shift of emotions or tone. They need a unity of tone. But for me, this is closer to how life is. In a given day, I can go from a profound melancholic state to euphoria or lightness. Also, I love the Chekhovian tone. Most people sees his plays as tragedies, but I think they are very comic, too – especially “Uncle Vanya.” Chekhov knew how to blend comedy and tragedy so perfectly.

In filmmaking there is a lot of collaboration, yet this film has your individual mark. How did you maintain your vision throughout the process?

I couldn’t imagine making this film without cinematographer Andrij Parekh. He is my life and creative partner. He brought so much to the film – his sensibility, his style, his craft. I guess the writing and choice of actors has an individual mark, but in the process of making the film it got so intertwined with Andrij’s style that by the end of the process it’s difficult to say what comes from whom. That’s the beauty of cinema as a medium – it’s very collaborative.

How would you describe the creative process in making Cold Souls?

I use my dreams a lot in the creative process. I’ve been keeping a dream journal for years and used many of them for Cold Souls, particularly in the “soul sequences,” when characters look at their souls or someone else’s soul. I also like to put together a visual treatment with paintings, photos, and drawings that inspire me visually. For Cold Souls, I gathered hundreds of pictures and paintings from artists such as Francis Bacon, James Turrell, Deborah Turbeville, and Bill Henson.

Andrij and I would always go back to those images to immerse ourselves in the visual world we wanted to create. We decided that we didn’t want any primary colors in the film but a very soft, pastel palette. We thought that, unconsciously, it could affect the viewers and put them in a strange dreamlike mood. The cinema industry tends to forget that their medium is visual, and relies solely on the screenplay. I would always have people read the screenplay and look at the visual treatment.

This film is one of the greatest creative ventures you’ve embarked upon. How has it changed you?

It changes you the way time and life change you. I remain faithful to my ideals, but I’ve learned a lot in the process. I’m always very critical, so I can see all the things I would do differently today. You can only learn cinema by making it. A first film is full of imperfections, and sometimes that’s what is charming about it, but I think the objective is to develop and grow as a filmmaker and try to master the craft a little bit better every time you get the chance to work.

Early this year, some friends from church approached me about organizing a monthly film night. They had just finished remodeling their single-family home in Brooklyn, and they were feeling generous towards their neighbors, and maybe a little thankful to God for the good fortune of a beautiful new home. So, armed with a video projector, fresh popcorn, and an unpainted sheetrock wall, we set about creating a little living room cinema.

Initially, I wondered what the purpose of such a “movie night” would be. We live in New York City and can attend any number of awesome film and culture events – so why bother? What hooked me was the chance to see people with whom I always intend to socialize but never actually do. I see these people in church every week, but our lives only rarely connect beyond that pew (or folding chair in a lunchroom, as is the case at my church).

And even though I live in New York, I don’t like paying New York prices and dealing with New York crowds. Movie theaters on a Friday night can be such a source of tension. Did you remember to buy tickets ahead of time online? Did you fill your pockets with affordable snacks from the bodega? If not, you’ll be paying twenty-five cents per kernel at the concession stand and can end up seeing a Hollywood action sequel when your quirky indie pick is sold out.

Maybe a movie in a friend’s living room wouldn’t be so bad after all.

There is also the issue of my Netflix queue, which is filled with the films I actually want and the films I feel I should watch. There are dozens of titles to which I never get: those old foreign dramas I heard about in film school, the slow paced but worthwhile documentaries that will make me a better person. They hover down at the bottom of the queue.

I have had two Holocaust-themed documentaries on my shelf for six weeks, but what I really want on a boring weeknight is another mindless and entertaining episode of Mad Men. Good movies have become like salad – I know I should eat it, but is there any chocolate, instead? In the face of these weaknesses, my church’s Indie Movie Night always ensures some edifying viewing.

But watching good films isn’t all work either. Our Indie Movie Night has been a success, drawing different people each month and helping us get to know one another beyond small talk. So, if you are considering starting up your own, here are some guidelines:

Challenge. People want to engage more with their movies. Maybe they suffer through my picks because they’re free, and movie tickets in New York cost more than $10, but I get the feeling people value movies that get them thinking. We’ve watched a lot of documentaries for that reason; we can immediately begin discussing the topic at hand. Which brings me to the next point.

Talk. People want to talk about movies. In fact, some people are movie viewing experts with way more opinions than you’d expect. Because I choose the films, I am the one who gets the conversation going. But when we are sitting around with a group after watching a movie, it doesn’t take long for others to share their (often strong) points of view.

Most of us are media experts just because we consume enormous quantities of media. But most of us consume that media in isolation, with no one to share those thoughts with in person (though there are no shortage of places to voice your opinions online, of course). When conditions are right, the opinions overflow. Oddly, in church we feel like one body, but here we get to see the viewpoints that make us individuals.

I’m not just describing a difference in tastes for romances verses comedies; I’m talking about the moment you realize that a woman who has served coffee to you at church for ages is actually an expert on ocean acidification, and you never knew! We have so much to offer one another, but it requires getting to know each other – which brings me to my final revelation.

The right conditions (or, food and drink). Our hosts are big on popcorn, and not the kind that comes out of the microwave – real popcorn, with melted butter and salt. A weaker person than myself might be tempted to come along just for the snacks, and they would be satisfied. No one is doing any elaborate baking, piping, or pairing cheeses with preserves; it’s all simple, but there is plenty of it, and drinks, too. We stand around snacking and chatting for a half hour before the film. By the time the movie starts, our stomachs are full and we’ve left behind the busy week.

If you are looking for some film recommendations, you can email me at sarah@curatormagazine.com!

Brent Renaud is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has shown at numerous festivals, and broadcast on HBO, PBS, CBS, the Discovery Channel, the Discovery Times Channel, and ESPN. Since 1995, he has been working alongside his brother, Craig, on films that have taken them both around the world, and deep within American culture.

Tell us a little bit about your creative process, both in working within the documentary format, and in teaming up with your brother.

With our films – whether the subjects are drug addicts, soldiers at war, politicians, or athletes – the process is the same. We spend a tremendous amount of time integrating into the subjects’ lives. We hope that in doing this before the cameras begin to roll, the audience will experience the story on a deeper level, because in effect, we are taking them closer than they have ever been to the story. Obviously, the small-format cameras and the ability to film in a discreet way with natural light is important, but I think the relationship we build with the subjects is much more valuable.

Your film, Dope Sick Love, in which you followed the lives of two drug-addicted couples on the streets of New York City for 18 months, is profoundly disturbing for the viewer. What was it like to film? Does it still affect you today?

Dope Sick Love is a film we made for HBO in 2004. Critics have called it disturbing, as you mentioned, for the graphic nature in which we documented the drug use, prostitution, domestic abuse, and crime that dominates the subjects’ lives. We spent over a year on the streets of Manhattan telling this story. Because of the difficulty in locating the subjects, we often filmed with them up to a week straight without going home. This kind of severe drug addiction means that the user is consumed by a 24-hour-a-day need to acquire drugs. They are not able to hold a job, or keep an apartment, and they rarely eat or sleep. It was a grueling shoot, but ultimately, I believe it tells an important story about the unglamorous and devastating effects of drug abuse.

Similarly, your award-winning series, Off to War, about the Arkansas National Guard in Iraq, is a rare glimpse into a world about which many people know very little. What draws you to subjects that require your own personal peril? Have the experiences of filming these charged situations changed you in the process?

I don’t think we are adrenaline junkies like some of the war correspondents who we know. We don’t seek out the dangerous assignments.

But once we are committed to a story, we are willing to do whatever it takes to tell that story. In the case of Off to War, we made a commitment to the soldiers and their families that we were going to follow this unit of soldiers from the beginning of a deployment at war, all the way to the end. This had never been done on television before, and it was truly a historic moment when as a country, we were activating tens of thousands of citizen soldiers from small towns around the country to go fight in a foreign war. The families understood the importance of it and they opened up their lives and homes to us.

We spent six months with the families of the soldiers prior to the employment, and then the year in Iraq with the soldiers in the Sunni Triangle. We went along on missions with the soldiers every single day. This was a dangerous time in Iraq, and the Arkansas National Guard lost 33 soldiers during the deployment. We witnessed naive young kids age decades as their friends died and they were forced to do things they never imagined. There was a point near the end of the deployment, after another couple of deaths had occurred, when one of the leaders of the unit took us aside and essentially said, “Look, guys, you have been here eight months and you have more footage than you can possibly use for this series. Maybe you should consider going home.”

It wasn’t a consideration for us – the danger was not an issue, and the story was not complete. In retrospect, I think what we did was worth it. Off to War is a nearly day-to-day chronicle of one of the most important periods in modern American history. We are just lucky that the families and the soldiers believed in it and allowed us to tell their story.

At the heart of The Curator is the idea that art makes for a better world; how do you hope a viewer will be impacted by your films?

We wouldn’t take the risks we take, or spend the amount of time we do on these stories, if we didn’t think it was important. With both Off to War and our latest HBO film, Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later, we held screenings around the country after the broadcast in town hall-like settings. The discussions they sparked were amazing and important to those who attended. With Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later, a film about school segregation, we produced a study guide with Columbia University and helped to distribute it with DVDs to schoolteachers around the country. Dope Sick Love is used widely in drug rehabilitation centers and juvenile facilities around the country.

We hope that the time we put into the films translates to the viewer having a more complex understanding of a particular subject or issue. We don’t make political films, or activist films, but we do want our work to make a difference, which is why we work so hard to keep our films out there, even after the broadcast.

This is also one of the reasons we founded the Little Rock Film Festival. It’s another way for us to help important work reach an audience.

Why was it important for there to be a film festival in Little Rock? How have the community and filmmakers benefited from the festival?

We started the LRFF for a number of reasons. First, Little Rock, where we grew up, didn’t have one. We have been fortunate enough to show our work at some of the best film festivals in the country, and when done right, they do great things for their communities. Little Rock and North Little Rock are revitalizing their downtowns and historic areas. We felt a film festival could draw from that energy and help guide some of that energy in creative directions. New lofts and bars are great, but you need soul as well, and that’s where we thought we could contribute. Now in its third year, the festival has amazed us by how fast it has grown and how the community has embraced the concept.

There is a talented group of filmmakers in Arkansas, but there was no real cohesive community, and almost nowhere for them to show their work. We show the best in narrative and documentary films from around the world, but we also have a fully developed Made in Arkansas program, featuring workshops, special events, and a juried film competition. In our first year, we received two feature film submissions from Arkansas filmmakers; in our third year, we received almost twenty. Filmmakers are now collaborating on projects, sharing ideas and equipment, and building their production schedules around the festival. And we are only getting started. We hope to begin having fellowship and grant opportunities for local filmmakers soon.

Since we started the LRFF in 2007, numerous film series have been started around central Arkansas. The city of Little Rock has appointed a film commissioner, and just this week, the state legislature passed new film incentives where before, Arkansas had none. We are proud to have been an integral part of the groundswell that helped make this happen.

Warning: some spoilers below.

Revolutionary Road is a beautifully made film, boasting magnificent performances in the perfectly orchestrated backdrop of 1950s America. Director Sam Mendes takes on issues and struggles of a heft usually reserved for literature (and in fact, this is an adaptation of the book by Richard Yates). The film depicts the ruin of a marriage and the constricting bonds of a culture that values conformity over personal happiness.

The film centers on April and Frank Wheeler, living in suburban Connecticut and tending to the responsibilities at hand. Frank trudges into the crowded city each day, punching the clock at a joyless office job while April minds the house and children in an idealized yet lonesome world. While Frank is satisfied with the thrills of lunchtime infidelities, April is bent on a better future for the whole family, one in which romance and adventure trump conformity and security. Her desire manifests in a plan to move to Paris; the couple’s discontent dissolves as they pack their belongings and book tickets aboard a steamer. April’s idea, to support the family as a secretary while Frank takes a sabbatical to find his true purpose, seems far-fetched from the start, but we are swept away in their enthusiasm, hoping that their love will overcome the strictures of a chauvinistic culture.

One of Mendes’s great successes is the mood he captures, in which we see doom but continue to hope for these characters. Kate Winslet’s April is that fragile balance of strength and whim so rarely achieved without overdoing it. The world around her closes in, and yet she continues to believe that things can change. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Frank for the coward he is; his youthful good looks and charm allow him to coast in a world where people are pleased to accept the easiest answers and deflect personal responsibility. Frank has a gift in April. She sees the potential within him as no one else does, a vision she received as she fell in love with him years ago, but rather than harnessing the strength of his wife to propel him forward, Frank accepts mediocrity.

This is where the film takes an unfortunate turn. April discovers she is pregnant with their third child and designs for their escape to Paris crumble. While she still holds out hope for their future abroad, Frank is getting comfortable with the possibility of promotion at work and staying on in suburbia. The ease with which he accepts the dissolution of their dreams devastates April, and her image of Frank is shattered. Without the idol of her husband April’s strength and conviction disappear and blame shifts to the child with her. Wouldn’t things have gone according to plan if she were never pregnant?

While the book may have succeeded in tackling this issue, the film falls short. I simply didn’t believe that April would have confronted the dilemma as she did. Perhaps Winslet’s performance lent too much strength to the character, but the onscreen April was too resilient to let herself die this way. She would have left for Paris on her own, gone through illegal means, or simply moved back to thriving, culture-filled Manhattan. The only way I could justify her solution was to see it as a suicide attempt. And until this point the film concentrates on the unsaid, mundane and normal aspects of working out a marriage – but April’s choice devastates that sophistication.

If only the film had ended sooner, when the outcome was implied, when our own intelligence as viewers was still respected. We knew after their explosive argument that their marriage was fractured beyond repair. We saw at breakfast that April was broken, her spirit crushed under the realization that this dead end was to be her life. We witnessed Frank’s despicable cowardice when he accepted April’s half-hearted performance of a happy housewife and walked out the door towards work rather than confront the gaping wounds in front of him. If only the credits had rolled then. We could have imagined the end: would April continue her charade until old age? Would they sink into the common culture they had once abhorred? Would April abandon Frank and her children? Would she go through with her threat? Would you?

But the ending on screen doesn’t allow for such weighty wondering. The theatrical twist of events makes it easy to turn the scrutiny away from one’s self and back on the characters whose desperate behavior becomes altogether dramatic and distant. Where once I put myself in her shoes, now I looked in judgment; where once I empathized with Frank, now I looked on at his suffering with disdain and dismissed him. A film centered on what is implicit and unspoken would have benefited from leaving some things unseen.

Usually, I am loathe to write about a big Hollywood blockbuster here, where you’d hope to find news of an artful cinematic accomplishment, but when I saw Seven Pounds over my holiday vacation, the need to break form was self-evident.

What was I doing spending my valuable free time at a megaplex? I was away in the Rust Belt, enjoying a leisurely time with family, and there wasn’t much to do. On the most cold and snowy days I made a point of going to the movies every afternoon. (Wouldn’t you?) But I exhausted the area art house cinema’s lineup by day three, leaving me with a scarcity of choices midweek. I’ll confess from the start I chose the film for one idle reason: it was playing at a convenient hour.

I’ll begin with some praise; the film achieves an adequate amount of suspense, although I did catch on rather quickly to the direction of the storyline, it wasn’t obvious how we’d get there. Will Smith and Rosario Dawson create a convincing chemistry between them and, to my surprise, I actually forgot it was Will Smith in a few scenes. That was a welcome escape from what I had grown to expect from his typical action-packed roles.

It could be an acceptable movie if the message at its core weren’t so poisonous.

(From here on I spoil the film’s suspenseful narrative. If you’re inclined to see it, don’t read on!)

What is so toxic? It is the central theme of a man, Ben Thomas (Will Smith), who accidentally kills seven people in a careless car wreck, including his own wife, and attempts to make amends for their deaths by committing suicide and donating his organs to needy individuals post-mortem. In order to discern the character and worthiness of these sick individuals to whom he will give his organs and earthly possessions, Ben impersonates an IRS worker who has the authority to ask probing questions, examine a person’s motives, and leaf through their medical files.

While a person responsible for so many deaths is likely to experience tremendous grief of the sort that makes you question your existence, it doesn’t seem right that that person would go through the trouble of finding all these people in need and researching their value as human beings. If you feel worthless enough to want your own death, wouldn’t you consider anyone more valuable than you, eliminating the entire need for this twisted quest? Of course, I’d go further and say that suicide does not actually atone for a person’s wrongdoing, but that it is a self-centered escape from the culpability that haunts the individual.

I did actually get absorbed in Ben’s suffering and the thrill of new love that blooms with Emily (Rosario Dawson), but I am revulsed at the idea that suicide would be an acceptable end to that suffering. And beyond that, Ben is depicted as a hero for his choice because his organs and gifted possessions improve the lives of others. I am troubled with this representation of an ideal that ultimately degrades the value of life. I have no doubt that Ben’s character could have done far more to mitigate the pain he caused in those deaths had he been alive. He still could have given away his earthy possessions and devoted himself to saving the lost and doomed. The thesis that he gave most because he gave his life is a dangerous one.

I also take issue with characters who benefit from his suicide. Ezra Turner (Woody Harrelson) is a lonesome blind pianist who passes Ben’s character test when he refuses to respond in anger to Ben’s cruel tirade. When he receives the gift of eyes after Ben’s death, Ezra is pictured at a children’s musical recital, leading the joyful song. The celebratory moment is undermined by the fact that Ezra could have been doing the same thing with, or without, his newfound sight. Was Ben’s death really necessary for Ezra’s life to improve? Similarly, we are left wondering if there is lasting change for the battered woman (Elpidia Carrillo) and her two children who receive Ben’s gorgeous beach house. Thrown into the isolated word of wealth and lacking any community, I doubt she will be adequately transformed by home ownership to make the needed changes to herself that will heal her past and prevent future dangerous relationships. Are people really changed by new scenery?

What transforms people is relationship. If Ben had wanted to help these people, he should have stayed alive and loved them. If helping sick people were his ultimate goal, he could have continually given blood and bone marrow – but that wasn’t his aim at all. Ben wanted to die, and he didn’t want to be remembered for that selfish act of taking his own life. He hoped that by donating his organs someone would recognize the value of his life, even if he did not.

Seven Pounds illustrates the power of cinema, in which a filmmaker can manipulate a willing audience to the point where, against their better judgment, cowardice becomes heroism. However, it also takes the viewer down a dangerous road, one where selfishness equals generosity, and wrong becomes right.