The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

116 Steve James
out there, which was “I’m going to focus on this particular community of
miners and family.” And women! I think the other thing that the film . . . this
is something I think, for Barbara, is important to her as a filmmaker. She’s
never been, in my view, a knee-jerk feminist filmmaker, but she’s very attentive
to the role that the wives of these miners played in this struggle.
Right. If there is a central character, it’s the one female organizer, who
in my favorite scene, pulls a revolver out of her bra.
James: That’s right. That’s a great scene. She says, “I used to have a switch,
and now I have a gun.”
Part of what she did was also, quite literally, to put her life on the line
and the lives of her crew. They were shot at. At one point, they were
knocked down with the equipment. Have you ever encountered that
while shooting?
James: I’ve never been shot at, no. Thank God. Might happen on this current
project [The Interrupters, a film with There Are No Children Here author Alex
Kotlowitz], but I hope not. I’ve shot in neighborhoods where you have to be
careful, but I’ve never had any real altercation like what she went through.
But that’s the thing about Barbara. She’s a fearless person. She was very young
when she made this movie. I’m sure that quality was in abundance then, just
like it is now.
In the middle of the film, there’s a death. In my mind, there’s a series of
documentaries where something happens in the middle that threatens
to shut down the documentary. One that comes up is that Metallica doc,
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. [The band nearly broke up during the
shoot.] Gimme Shelter is another one. In the middle of it, someone is
stabbed to death. How do you navigate such drama, as a documentarian?
James: Oftentimes, especially when you’re telling a dramatic or desperate
story over time where events can cause the subjects to sit back and ask: “Wait,
what am I doing here? What am I consenting to be a part of? How is this going
to look? How am I going to look?” I think that when it doesn’t derail the film,
it’s usually because there’s been a level of trust built between the filmmaker
and the subjects. Sometimes those moments deepen the connection.