DVD Interview: “Paradise Lost” Director Joe Berlinger

Joe Berlinger (photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images North America)

Paradise Lost Trilogy—Collectors’ Edition (4 DVDs)

Available from Docurama

Although it wasn’t until celebrities like Johnny Depp and Eddie Vedder got involved that the plight of the wrongly accused “West Memphis 3”—innocent teenagers sentenced for the grisly murders of three young boys in Arkansas—became national news, it was Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s Paradise Lost films that first brought attention to the miscarriage of justice.

Now, nearly two decades after the crimes were committed and a year after the men were finally set free in a bizarre “Alford Plea” deal in which they left prison even if evidence suggested guilt, the three films—Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory—are being released in a four-disc DVD set that includes bonus materials like additional interviews with the principals, Berlinger discusses the long period of filming the ever-shifting story and advocating for the “West Memphis 3.”

Kevin Filipski: After 20 years working on three films about the same charged subject, how does it feel to have finished the trilogy?

Joe Berlinger: Three films over nearly two decades—obviously we didn’t film every day, so I managed to do other things like raise a family and work on other projects. I was 30 when we started and 50 now. The reason we did the trilogy with all the bonus material on DVD is because it’s a great way to wrap the series in a bow: but there will be no Paradise Lost 4. It’s now a crowded marketplace: Johnny Depp optioned Damien Echols’ memoir, Atom Egoyan is making a film, and there’s a new documentary, West of Memphis. It was an emotional and psychological journey to stick with this story for so long, and we felt an obligation to them until they got out of prison. I feel good about what we accomplished, and it’s time to move on.

KF: Can you explain how you felt about the case when you first began filming and how long it took for you to believe that the “West Memphis Three” were actually innocent?

JB: It’s ironic that we originally went to Arkansas thinking we were making a film about guilty teenagers: the first reports had it as “open and shut.” After months of digging into evidence and meeting the accused, we knew something was definitely wrong and were convinced of their innocence before the trial started. We were the contrarian voices: that everyone else was against them is an understatement. The press called for blood, and one story after another polluted the jury pool. But Paradise Lost didn’t come out right away—after we edited 150 hours of footage, it premiered at Sundance two years after they were put in prison in 1994. We agonized over their rotting in prison for two years—little did we know! The film created a slow spark—we won awards but felt guilty getting pats on the back knowing they were in prison. Nobody did anything until Kathy Bakken, who worked for an ad agency doing the poster for Paradise Lost, saw it and started the website wm3.org. The long editing period helped the case in the long run: the internet was becoming a useful social media tool and her site attracted worldwide attention that exploded interest in the case, and many held protests to keep the case alive.

KF: What’s your take on the deal made so they could finally be freed from prison?

JB: It’s horrifying and extremely cowardly but—in a perverse way—a fitting conclusion. This story’s about the dark side of American justice and best and worst in human behavior. There’s overwhelming evidence that some involved in the case were more interested in protecting careers than acknowledging mistakes. Jason Baldwin did not want to accept the plea but to save Damien’s life—he was on death row and in failing health—Jason went against his principles: he felt they’d be cleared but he accepted this bitter pill due to Echols’ predicament. Gross malfeasance went on in this case, along with a selfish justice system worried more about careers than the truth. Not only is it a moral injustice, it avoids prosecutorial liability and any unlawful conviction lawsuits. There’s no accountability and no financial resources were given to the men upon release, which is wrong.

KF: This case is still unsolved. How do you feel about that?

JB: One horrible result is that Arkansas is telling the victims’ families they are not finding the real killer. In the second film—the most flawed because it was advocacy in search of a story—we followed suspicions against Mark Byers (father of one of the boys), and the last film follows Terry Hobbs (stepfather of one of the boys), but we’re not saying anyone is the killer, only that authorities should investigate. I am certain, and the entire series speaks about, that these guys did not commit the crime and received a grossly unfair, imbalanced trial. The biggest lesson for me is the utter immorality of the death penalty: not the usual argument about the state taking a life, but that the justice system is run by extremely fallible human beings who are subject to prejudices that make it impossible to apply it fairly. Clearly, without our films, Echols would be dead because he ran out of appeals: but in 2001, Arkansas passed a DNA statute which allowed him another chance. But it was extremely costly, and if he hadn’t had supporters, he would not have been able to mount an appeal. If a death penalty puts one innocent person to death, you can’t have it.

Director Adam Del Deo

Every Little Step DVD (Sony)
Available October 13, 2009

For fly-on-the-wall excitement, you can’t do much better than Every Little Step, the superb documentary that peeks behind the scenes at both the casting process for the recent Broadway revival of A Chorus Line and the creative process behind choreographer-director Michael Bennett’s smash-hit, Tony-winning classic, which premiered in 1974.

Directed by James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo, Every Little Step shows the triumphs and the tragedies that are part of every theater person’s DNA: being called back or not hearing your name called for that special part. It’s also what Bennett zeroed in on in A Chorus Line, and one of the movie’s insights is showing how Bennett created the show: by talking with friends in the business about how they first came to New York to pursue a stage career. Hearing Bennett and many of his original cast (including Donna McKechnie, who is interviewed in the movie and in one of the DVD’s bonus features) during their lengthy workshop sessions is truly revealing.

With Every Little Step now out on DVD, co-director Del Deo recently discussed the film and the legacy of Bennett and A Chorus Line.

Kevin Filipski: How did Every Little Step come about?
Adam Del Deo: John Breglio, executor of Michael Bennett’s estate, reached out to (Every Little Step co-director) Jim Stern before the auditions for the 2006 Broadway revival began. John thought that there was a good idea there about the show, and we agreed and decided to do it.

KF: Talk about the process of filming the many auditions. Did everyone agree to be filmed or were some not willing?
ADD: It took a lot of planning and logistical work to pull off. Actors Equity had never let a film crew into any auditions before, so they wanted to make sure that we were going to do it right. There was a series of conversations, and I think that Jim being a Broadway insider really helped us, since he explained that what Michael Bennett originally created was a show that brought dignity and respect to those who struggle everyday to do something they loved to do onstage. The spirit of our film was to be very similar to that, to show how dancers struggle in New York to do what they love. Every person in the film could sign or not sign a release, and once we explained our intentions to them, 99.9 percent of them signed. Luckily for us, all of those who ended up being cast in the revival had signed releases, so we were able to shoot them throughout the process. We had 10 camera crews criss-crossing the city, shooting all of those who stayed with the show.

KF: Can you discuss the film’s structure? Along with the revival auditions, there’s a lot of archival material, including Bennett’s original workshop audiotapes, vintage interviews and footage from the original Broadway cast.
ADD: We spent well over a year editing this film and we strongly debated the question of how much historical footage showing the creation of the original show would be integrated into the process of casting the revival. It took a long time, but when we finally got it right, we knew we had it. For people who had seen the original and for theater aficionados, there was enough inside information to satisfy them, but we didn’t want to cut off other potential viewers who might not have any prior knowledge of the show. The themes of sacrificing and working hard to achieve your dreams also resonate for a regular filmgoer. So in the end we were able to hit our goals.

KF: How difficult was it to secure the Bennett audiotapes and the footage from the original production of A Chorus Line?
ADD: Those were two separate issues. The audiotapes were in control by the executor of Bennett’s estate, John Breglio, which really helped smooth the way and allow us to move forward with the project. When we heard those tapes, we were blown away by them and knew they would end up in the film. We had to work with the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center for the Chorus Line footage, and several different unions had to sign off on our using it. It was tricky and touchy for awhile, but it was essential for us to have in the film, because the show is really a love letter to Broadway.

KF: How did you approach the extras for the DVD release? There are over 30 minutes of deleted scenes, interviews and an audio commentary by you, Jim Stern and Marvin Hamlisch, composer of the music for A Chorus Line.
ADD: We thought about what people would be interested in that we didn’t get into the film. Although a lot of footage was integrated into the movie, making the best film possible sometimes forces you to lose certain scenes and segments to make a stronger movie. With DVDs, you have a second chance to let people know about extra footage and why it’s missing. For us, we thought about what would engage the most people. It really wasn’t about time—it was our sense of what the film was, and how it was the strongest. I think doing commentaries is great: they’re really fun to do and it’s wonderful to add your thought processes and give interesting tidbits about creating the film. It was also great to do the commentary with Marvin Hamlisch, who’s such an iconic composer, and to be able to banter back and forth with him and with Jim was terrific.
originally posted on timessquare.com

Woodstock's Joel Rosenman

Kornfeld, Lang and Rosenman

With the current 40th anniversary release of the Oscar-winning classic Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music on DVD and BluRay—both of which includes the director's extended cut, nearly two hours of unseen musical footage and over an hour of retrospective interviews—Warners went on a publicity blitz that included bringing together many of the people responsible for that seminal weekend on a farm in Bethel, New York (two-plus hours north of New York City). Festival producers Michael Lang, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld, studio executive Fred Weintraub, director Wadleigh, film producer Dale Bell, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, sound mixer Eddie Kramer and some of the weekend's musicians were on hand to discuss the event, the film, and the new DVD.

I was able to sit in on the reminiscences of Rosenman, who doesn't look like he's old enough to have been one of the guiding lights of Woodstock in 1969! In addition to telling many terrific stories about that momentous weekend, he also talked about what's coming from the partnership he is still helping to guide, Woodstock Ventures.

Question: How was it re-watching the film Woodstock 40 years later?
Joel Rosenman: While watching Woodstock again on the brilliant DVD that (director) Michael Wadleigh has assembled, I realized that memory is such an odd thing. When you try to remember what happened 40 years ago, it’s inevitably colored by what’s happened since, and it all blends together. Not only that, but Wadleigh didn’t “do” the festival on film as it occurred, but instead did his own interpretation of it. So the movie is not a strict chronological procession from the opening number to the final encore, it’s what he assembled in order to convey in four hours what happened over three days. That is what is so brilliant about the film: he chooses this and chooses that and puts them together, and maybe they happened a day apart, but when you see them together, you say, “Ah, that’s where that was coming from.” So you’ve got the audience coming from one side, the artists coming from another, and the establishment and counterculture coming together: the film is a masterpiece of subtle and laidback manipulation that’s the difference between a true work of art and a mere documentary.

Q: Are there any particular "hiccups" during that weekend that you'd like to discuss?
JR: We had several emergencies throughout that weekend, and one in particular stands out. We were responsible for paying the Who, and I was personally responsible for finding cash for the Who at the last minute. They got paid upon signing 50% and the other 50% upon performance. The managers of the Who and the Grateful Dead looked around and saw that we were probably in trouble financially, and that was not one of our miracles at Woodstock, and made sure that their bands would get paid, because that’s their job. We called to see if they would play double-sets since our goal was to have entertainment onstage constantly as long as we possibly could, far longer than scheduled to give the kids something to enjoy, but I got a reply from them that not only were they not going to play extra long sets but they were not going to play at all because they thought we were broke and didn’t think our check was any good. So that put me in an interesting predicament at 11 at night on Saturday in the Catskills Mountains when there was no cash lying around. I solved it by waking up our banker, who remembered that one of the cashiers’ drawers was not locked in the vault and might have certified checks that were blank. We helicoptered him from his house to the bank at midnight and, sure enough, he found these checks, and a half hour later, I was on my way with these checks in my backpack on my motorcycle and I was so happy to be threading through the crowd toward backstage with Janis Joplin singing and it wasn’t raining—there was a whole lot of things going on and it was just a peak moment for me. I felt that if I worked hard, these problems would get resolved. It didn’t occur to me that weekend that we would fail—that happened the following week, when we looked at the financial numbers!

Q: So this was more a labor of love at first than a successful business venture.
JR: It was clear that we were going to be in debt afterwards: when the smoke cleared, we were about $15 million in debt, using today’s dollars. For our first business venture, it was alarming: it was not the way we planned our business life. Why was I laughing and crying at the same time? But thanks to Fred Weintraub and Artie Kornfeld, at the last minute we got a movie deal, and it turned out that the movie and the record helped us dig out of a deep financial hole over the next 11 years.

Q: Did you feel that you had hired enough security people?
JR: We had enough security for 25,000 people—if that security had shown up.

Q: What else is planned for the 40th anniversary aside from the DVD and BluRay sets of the movie?
JR: There’s a lot of Woodstock going on this summer and this year—in fact, every year. It’s my responsibility to run the partnership, Woodstock Ventures, and I can tell you that rarely a week goes by without some proposal coming in for a concert or another festival, or a movie or a book. There are a lot of books this year, and some movies coming out—there’s Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, and Barbra Kopple is also working on one. There will be a number of tribute concerts also. Through woodstock.com, which we launched recently, we’re having a very large event that’s on the drawing boards, part internet and part live, and it will involve a lot more than just music. Luckily for us and the planet, the opportunity for Woodstock is to bring to the kids and adults of the 21st century the same opportunities we brought to the counterculture in 1969. Back then, it was shocking, since it was the first time such a thing happened, but these days, people know about everything, except for the danger to the planet—there’s no sense of immediacy about the environment today. It’s not like being drafted and having your leg blown off in Vietnam. People’s grandchildren might not have clean water in the future, so it’s not a clear and present danger. We have an opportunity to mix entertainment and information, generate a sense of urgency and do something useful for the planet.

Q: What do you see as the legacy of Woodstock?
JR: Our legacy is complicated—it used to be just great music, a large crowd and a beautiful setting, then I had to add in a sense of urgency because there was a tension in that crowd that could have been more aggressive instead of a time of camaraderie. I thought about it, and for me now, our legacy is that this was an insight into the fundamentals of human nature. It really showed me how our species is capable of great things under difficult circumstances.

originally posted on timessquare.com

Overlooked World Cinema Releases

Ian Stimler, KimStim Video

KimStim, an enterprising DVD company based in Brooklyn, is a "niche" label specializing in releasing films that founders Ian Stimler and Mika Kimoto themselves want to see on DVD. KimStim have already released two films from Austrian bad boy Ulrich Seidl, Chantal Akerman's adaptation of Proust's La Captive, and talented French director Laurent Cantet's debut feature, Human Resources.

Its first batch of DVDs were distributed by Image Entertainment; now aligned with Kino on Video, KimStim looks to corner the niche market for French DVDs, as their first 2005 releases show: Akerman's Tomorrow We Move, and a quintet of Claude Chabrol films (Cop au Vin, Inspector Lavardin, Betty, L'Enfer and The Color of Lies). KimStim's Stimler spoke about releases past, present and future.

Kevin Filipski: Why did you jump from Image to Kino for distribution?
Ian Stimler: When Image handled our distribution, they told us they were eliminating smaller lines since the DVD market had grown too much. After they warned us about this, I decided to look for a new home. Working in New York City and knowing Kino, it seemed to us like a good fit to work with them. The covers say KimStim, and their press releases say KimStim, which help keep us separate from (Kino's) own DVDs.

KF: Tomorrow We Move is the second Chantal Akerman film you've released. Are you a fan?
IS: Yes, I am a fan. It's a minor Akerman film, but a minor film for her is a major film for most other directors. It's a wacky screwball comedy, which is different for her. Her films are difficult. If you don't appreciate her, then watching one of her screwball comedies will be very tough for non-initiates. We also released her version of Proust's La Captive. That's one of the great things about video and DVD now: you can offer these great pieces of cinema that no one would ever see otherwise. (Neither Akerman film was ever distributed theatrically in America.) They're hard to sell, too, since-unless you have a really good genre film or a real prestige item-most films don't age well.

KF: How did you secure the rights for these five Chabrol films on DVD?
IS: Chabrol has such a huge output and there are so many films available, but he makes films of varying quality: he makes A, B and C films. I know people complained about some of the DVD releases from other distributors. (Vanguard Cinema released several Chabrol titles in 2003 that were substandard in image quality.) We worked with MK2 in France: Marin Karmitz is the producer of all these films so he has a personal investment in them on DVD. When we were working with MK2, there was a lot of haggling over making sure they're done properly with lots of extra features. Some of the movies may be considered B-level Chabrol, but seeing them again and watching the short critical introductions (by French critic Joel Magny) may cause people to re-evaluate them. L'Enfer was out on DVD before (from Fox Lorber), but the quality was bad and we've done a good job thanks to MK2. Actually, right now I don't have the Canadian rights for The Color of Lies, but once I get those in a few months, I can release a boxed set across North America.

KF: The MK2 versions released on DVD in France have many extras. Are they also available on your releases?
IS: I licensed all of the extras for all of the films, but we decided that some titles deserve the trouble and expense of having all the extra features-like L'Enfer-but for some of the others, we just picked and chose to make it worthwhile. We would like to work with MK2 again, they're a very prestigious and established French film company, and we hope our relationship will continue. Marin is a big-time producer and these are his babies, it's like dealing with the filmmakers directly. A lot of their stuff has already been pretty carved up by other companies, unfortunately, but it hasn't come out yet. MK2 understands the archival nature of DVD and they do it with an eye towards licensing their extra features for other markets, which is the biggest challenge besides making the films look good.

KF: What's in the pipeline for KimStim?
IS: We've got some titles coming up from director Seijun Suzuki. He had a falling-out with the major Japanese studios some years ago, and we picked up several of his films that we're planning to put out in a boxed set. He made three films from 1980-1991 which came to be known as the Taisho trilogy. Zigeunerweisen is considered his masterpiece, and it's a visually stunning film. But all three from the trilogy have been overlooked, and we were fortunate enough to find the company that owns the rights, and which put them out in Japan recently as a boxed set. We're going to look at them over the summer, and we want to bring these out in the beginning of 2006. I'm going to Japan soon and we'll start collecting materials for the set. We want to lay a lot of groundwork for these titles before we release them, because we feel they're very important films.
originally posted on staticmultimedia.com

Not So Ordinary

Safe Conduct (Laisez-Passer)

Directed by Bertrand Tavernier

Koch Lorber DVD

For three decades, French director Bertrand Tavernier has made highly personal, extremely sophisticated films that defy easy categorization.

Tavernier usually favors fractured narratives that rarely provide the sort of closure most audiences expect, and - most important - an affection for his flawed, ordinary, all too human characters. Both of these characteristics are in abundance in Safe Conduct (2002), a breathless three-hour ride through the lives of two movie men who were part of the Resistance during the Nazi Occupation of France: assistant director Jean Devaivre and screenwriter Jean Aurenche, the latter of whom Tavernier collaborated with on the scripts of his first three extraordinary feature films (The Clockmaker, Let Joy Reign Supreme, The Judge and the Assassin).

Tavernier sat down for a conversation on a visit to New York City for the premiere of Safe Conduct at the New York Film Festival.

Kevin Filipski: In the very first sentence of the review of Safe Conduct in The New York Times, (critic Elvis Mitchell) says that your films are not known for their passion, which is totally inaccurate. All your films are passionate about their characters.
Bertrand Tavernier: I was very surprised. It was as if someone said, "Kurosawa is not Japanese." For example, 'Round Midnight needed a passionate director. Apart from producer Irwin Winkler, no one wanted to do it. So when Warner Brothers accepted the film, we fought for a year and I had to put my salary as a guarantee against going over budget, so I wasn't paid for two years. You have to be passionate to accept working in those conditions. I gambled two years of my life because I really believed in it, and that's happened a lot. When I make films, I do only what I want to do and I invest myself passionately. So it's bizarre, I don't know what he's talking about, "not passionate."

KF: Is Safe Conduct something you've thought about making for awhile?
BT: Yes. Back when I was working with Aurenche, I was starting to work on a screenplay. I wrote down his story. I should have asked him to write it himself, but I don't know if he would have done that. Everything in his life during that time was incredible. I always had the idea for Aurenche's story but never thought I'd use him as the main character. I felt I was missing something, and it wasn't until I met Devaivre, and he started telling me what happened to him, that I realized I had another story that would enable me to use Aurenche also. The problem with the film was showing the great French stars of the time, because you cannot find people who look like that. You can find people who can play the writers and directors because nobody knows their faces! When I had those two characters, the film had shape, and also had a link between them: the spirit of the Resistance. What fascinated me was that they never meet. It was a challenge: we tried to make them meet, but each attempt wasn't original, and we couldn't find anything for them to say to each other. There are scenes when they're together and you think they're going to talk, but they don't.

KF: You're a big film buff, but this is your first feature about filmmaking.
BT: I didn't want to make just any film about movies. Even if you don't know anybody in Safe Conduct, you'll understand the feeling, the emotions of the characters. Someone wrote that you must understand French film history to understand this movie, but that's not true. I've met many young people in France who know nothing about these characters, but they understand when a director's wife has been arrested - they understand the emotion when he is hurt by this horrible news and cannot go on making a film. The same way, when I made 'Round Midnight, I didn't make a jazz buff's film. I tried to be true - most films about shooting films get it wrong, it's only the director yelling "Action" and "Cut," you never see the amount of collective work and how much needs to be coordinated. I wanted to do a film not about cinema but about the emotion of making films at that time - what were the reasons, what was the danger, what would I have done if I was making films at that time? The more I was working on the film, the more admiring I became of those people, who did an extraordinary job under horrible conditions.

KF: Explain the film's title.
BT: I was never happy with the title, but I never found anything better. I wanted a title that included the two main characters. The French distributor loved Laissez-Passer, so I kept it. It works in English, too, because it has two meanings; Safe Conduct actually works better than the French title.

KF: How involved are you in the release of your films of DVD?
BT: I try to work on them. It's easier in France, where they've released two boxed sets of my films: I worked very hard on those, and the prints are incredible. I try to get involved as much as I can. I think it's good seeing some films again, and some commentaries and interviews are useful. Of course, some studios are incredibly lazy: they don't do any kind of work, and sometimes don't even bother to find out if the director is still alive! It doesn't cost a fortune to shoot an interview or have someone talk over the film. For 'Round Midnight, I supervised the transfer in France, because the first American laserdisc was terrible. I still have another hour and 25 minutes' worth of music from 'Round Midnight, and I asked (Warner Brothers) to put it on the DVD. We started re-mixing, then they decided they only wanted an audio commentary. So I said, 'Go to hell!'

originally posted on staticmultimedia.com