--STARRING --
DIRECTOR and co-producer
OF THE NEW DOCUMENTARY FILM
"GIULIANI TIME"
NOW PLAYING IN NEW YORK CITY
NOW PLAYING in BOSTON and in WASHINGTON, D.C.
OPENS THIS FRIDAY in CHICAGO, LOS ANGELES and SAN FRANCISCO
"GIULIANI TIME" ASKS THE $64,000 POLITICAL QUESTION: IS RUDOLPH GIULIANI AMERICA'S MAYOR OR NEW YORK CITY'S NIGHTMARE?
"Time" to set the record straight:
Williams Cole (producer), Peter Tooke (editor) and producer/director Kevin
Keating (standing), collaborated on "Giuliani Time".
Photo: Rossa Cole
THE POPCORN REEL ON THE PHONE WITH KEVIN KEATING
The lively and gregarious Kevin
Keating has just been contacted. In New York City, where he has picked up
the phone, he is raring to go, bursting at the seams to talk about the subject
of his new documentary "Giuliani Time". The subject in question is the
former mayor of New York City Rudolph Giuliani, who by many press accounts was
credited with demonstrating exceptional leadership during the traumatic events
of September 11, 2001. The question posed by "Giuliani Time" however, is
whether Mr. Giuliani was as good a leader in his two terms as mayor as he was
characterized as being on one horrible day in American history. The film
makes a very strong case that leaves the viewer to answer the $64,000 political
question posed above, in the negative.
Numerous critics have compared
"Giuliani Time" with "Fahrenheit 9/11", saying that the film will do to Mr.
Giuliani what Michael Moore's film did to current U.S. president George W. Bush:
identify him as a less than competent, less than credible leader whose
aspirations to be president do not merit a serious run at the office, and
whose political record withers under heavy scrutiny.
Lest anyone confuse Kevin Keating with Mr. Moore however, Mr. Keating, who respects Michael Moore's work, said that with "Giuliani Time", which opens on May 12 in New York City and elsewhere soon after, "there isn't a conscious attempt to [make a subjective] film, to make it a Kevin Keating film, or my co-producer, Williams Cole film." Without missing a beat, Mr. Keating adds that "our effort here is of historical impulse -- in a way it's a very traditional documentary in that there was an enormous amount of research that we did. Books that had to be read, essays that had to be read. We shot 300 hours of film, we had 300 hours of archival material, both network news stuff and historical material that went all the way back to the '30's." He mentioned that the one thing he shares with Mr. Moore in terms of approach is that "Giuliani Time" is seeking the same audience. "We're trying to get out to everybody who thinks, everybody who is concerned with society and social change." The director said that "my personality is absent" from "Giuliani Time". The sound of concern in Mr. Keating's voice rises when he mentions that Giuliani tried to "destroy the social democratic impulses of our city."
Although "Giuliani Time" spends a lot of time (with the help of investigative
journalist Wayne Barrett) working to uncover and dismantle the "Prince of the
City" image that had been given to the former mayor by the press, the filmmaker
cautioned that "Giuliani Time" was focusing on greater political and historical
contexts than Mr. Giuliani. "This film is not just about Giuliani, but
Giuliani is an instrument of undoing the progressive work of the New Deal and
Roosevelt, and La Guardia, and what made New York City a great city during the
progressive era."
Left photo: Rudolph Giuliani at the podium
with then-Texas governor George W. Bush; Mr. Giuliani in drag, with New York
City billionaire businessman Donald Trump in a video skit shown at an Inner
Circle Press dinner in 2000; a homeless man receiving change from a passer-by.
Photos: Conus Archives, Victory Associates, K Video Productions, respectively.
Mr. Keating's in-depth two hour documentary is filled with revelations and anecdotes about Rudolph Giuliani and the prior-seven and three-quarter years of his eight year reign as the Big Apple's top official -- revelations which have heretofore been unknown to the vast majority of those living outside New York City. For example, his order to cut funding to The Brooklyn Museum because in one of its exhibits it contained a piece of art work (The Virgin Mary covered in cow dung and photographs of female buttocks) that Mr. Giuliani personally disliked, even though he had not seen it. The courts in New York ruled that Mr. Giuliani could not withdraw the city's funding of The Brooklyn Museum, ordering the mayor to immediately re-instate funding of the highly popular museum. The film shows a sea of protesters decrying Mr. Giuliani's initial order. Other things that Kevin Keating puts in his film include Mr. Giuliani's staunch defense of the New York City Police Department in the wake of the shooting death of an unarmed man named Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant who was holding his wallet when he was shot 41 times in 1999. The police officers who shot him and were later acquitted, said that they thought Mr. Diallo had a gun in his hand. The mayor had defended the officers' actions as justifiable.
In addition, Mr. Giuliani, who had
first lost, then won, in separate New York City mayoral elections against David
Dinkins in 1989 and 1993 respectively, appeared at a September 1992 rally on the
steps of City Hall of more than 10,000 New York City police officers, some of
whom had reportedly been drinking and vandalizing cars in the area and using
racial slurs against the incumbent mayor. It is during his speech to the
officers that he yells an expletive. Furthermore, Mr. Giuliani's
get-tough-on-the homeless and on-quality-of-life-crime offenders, resulted in
increased arrests, including those of artists selling their work on sidewalks.
These are just a few of the things over eight years of rule that Mr. Keating
places in his film, and it is these things among other things that Mr. Keating
argues in his film, raised the ire of a large contingent of New York City
residents despite the re-election of Mr. Giuliani in 1997, with a small
percentage of the city's voters.
Aside from the political
incidents during the Giuliani administration in New York City, Mr. Keating's
documentary also gives attention to the former mayor's not-so-positive personal
moments, including his public announcement at a press conference of his
intention to divorce wife Donna Hanover, a former news anchor for a local New
York City television station. The one problem was, Mr. Giuliani had not
discussed his intentions with Ms. Hanover. ("Today's turn of events brings
me great sadness," Ms. Hanover said in a tearful press conference outside Gracie
Mansion in New York in 2000.) The documentary also details Mr. Giuliani's
bout with prostate cancer, and his very public affair with his "very good
friend" (now wife) Judith Nathan.
As the release of "Giuliani Time" -- which is being distributed by Cinema Libre, a Southern California-based company that almost exclusively distributes politically-themed independent films and documentaries -- draws near, so has a mushrooming of press surrounding the film in New York City. Responding to the question of whether the "Giuliani-friendly" press in New York City made things difficult for Mr. Keating and his researchers when gathering footage and information for the documentary, Mr. Keating's response is upbeat. "One of the wonderful things that's happened since this film has come into being released is the New York press has basically stood up on its hind legs and it's shouting. . .there was a front page article in The New York Times Arts section. . .and since then there has been an avalanche of interest. The Daily News -- huge articles, all news pieces, about Giuliani's problem with this film, and reconsidering what happened [in New York City] before 9-11. So I think in a way that the press was rolled over somewhat for Giuliani while he was in power, but that's not the journalists per se, that was more, I think, the editors and the management of the newspapers." Mr. Keating cited that The New York Times, dubbed "the paper of record" in the U.S., and thought of by many people in America as a liberal publication, endorsed Mr. Giuliani for mayor of New York City in both 1993 and 1997. "All of them, all the newspapers invariably endorsed Giuliani." Mr. Keating conceded, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that "I can't say that anybody from The New York Post [a conservative tabloid] would have talked to us, but I can't say that we actively cultivated that kind of thing -- we had so much to do."
Precisely the problem Mr. Giuliani had with Mr. Keating's film was recalled by
the director. There has been wide speculation in political circles that
Mr. Giuliani is considering a run for president of the United States in 2008.
A Republican, Mr. Giuliani has been bolstered by a group called "Draft Rudy
Giuliani for President", which is aggressively persuading the former mayor and
prosecutor to run. The group has come out swinging at Mr. Keating's film,
and have urged people to avoid it like the plague. One of its press
releases states, "[t]his film attempts to smear [Giuliani's] image at a time
when he is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination."
The idea for "Giuliani Time" originated with Michael Ratner, the director of the New York City-based Center For Constitutional Rights, who first came to Mr. Keating with the idea in 1998. Originally conceived as a half-hour short film, the film was initially researched for about eight weeks, starting with the history of New York City and the mayors and then Mr. Giuliani specifically. Then all of a sudden, things began to happen that commanded Mr. Keating's attention. "About less than a week after we started shooting ["Giuliani Time"] in 1999, [Amadou Diallo was killed]. . .and it short-circuited a fuller, penetrating historical [examination of the mayoralty]. Almost weekly there was another enormous event happening. . .that's why it took five years to make."
Former New York City Mayor David Dinkins. Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Dinkins faced off in two bitterly divisive, closely-fought mayoral elections. Right: Judith Nathan, now Mrs. Giuliani. Photos: Newsday
The former mayor did not speak with the filmmaker on camera for the documentary, but it wasn't for the lack of Mr. Keating trying to get Mr. Giuliani to do so. Mr. Keating's team wrote no fewer than "12 to 15 official letterhead requests for interviews" with the mayor. "I was summoned down to [the office of] Sunny Mindel [Mr. Giuliani's press officer]. She basically said, 'we know who you are. . .and we'll pass this on to the mayor.'" Mr. Keating, who was born in New York City within a month or two of the former mayor -- who himself was born and raised in Brooklyn -- suggested to Ms. Mindel the idea of spending a day riding around with Mr. Giuliani in his SUV for a couple of hours to talk about things non-political. "And of course that's the last thing we ever heard [from Ms. Mindel]."
Later on Mr. Keating says, "what I'd really like to do is get Giuliani in a
discussion somewhere. Maybe he and I can meet on Tim Russert's show."
He then interrupts himself with a question. "Do you realize that they
didn't ask him any questions in front of the 9/11 Commission about what happened
[on September 11th]? They all told him what a great job he did." He
then raises a few other questions. "Why did Giuliani place the Emergency
Management Center in the target? Did you know that the Emergency
Management System was in Seven World Trade Center?" As the world knows,
that particular building collapsed, some seven hours after the Twin Towers did.
The silence from Mr. Giuliani regarding the film
however, only seems to have worked to Mr. Keating's and his production team's
advantage, where the film is concerned, as the director enthusiastically notes.
"They've got a big problem. . .[in one week recently] there were 15,000 hits [on
the "Giuliani Time" website], and the film hasn't been reviewed yet." His
glee increases. "This is great, it's just, it's really wild, it's so
fantastic."
The exhilaration that Mr. Keating
expresses however, is not without the acknowledgment of personal challenges faced during
the making of "Giuliani Time".
"Bankruptcy. I bankrupted myself and my company. We're hanging
on by our fingernails." He also cited the difficulties endured by his
filmmaking collaborators. "Williams Cole, the co-producer, Peter Tooke,
the editor, who could barely find work and held on for all these years, you
know, they weren't paid fully. . .we all had financial duress. . ."
Despite the economic hardships, from his comments Mr. Keating seems to think
that it was all worth it, given his background in filmmaking. Mentioning
that he came up in film with the documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple (for whom
he was the cinematographer on "Harlan County, U.S.A." ), he said that "social
change documentaries. . .direct cinema -- that has been my schooling, my
apprenticeship, my entire lifelong career has been in one way or another" molded
by non-fiction films. "This film is a manifestation of an adherence to
truth and not fiction, and the idea of using film as a weapon in the culture
wars. . .using cinema for positive social change."
The director encouraged other filmmakers to step forward and present the realities that surround them. "You can look at your. . .world, examine it on film, and it is possible, possible to do something coherent and serious, and lovely, and it can have an impact. I think this film is having an impact on Giuliani's run for the president." Repeatedly emphasizing that the film at the time of this interview is yet to be released, Mr. Keating continued, ". . .we have realized a dream, which is to call attention to Giuliani post-9/11. . .I think the film is doing its own work."
However tough the monetary situation has been for Mr. Keating and his film
partners, Mr. Keating immediately knows what he will be working on for his next
documentary. "Torture." After stating that it will be an examination
of "how the U.S. has taken the lead in being the torture regime," he declared
that "my gut tells me it needs to be [made]. "
"Maybe I can find a way of doing it uniquely and comprehensively and seriously",
Mr. Keating said.
The interview is interrupted by a phone call. "That's another call from
ABC News. It comes in, I mean, it just doesn't stop. . .it's not about the
artistry of the film, it is about the proposition of the film which is, to
examine carefully the pre-9/11 history of Giuliani in New York City and what
happened when he was here."
No matter what happens between the film's release date and the next U.S.
presidential election in 2008, one thing is for sure: for filmmaker Kevin
Keating, his film "Giuliani Time", and for the former mayor, the clock continues
to tick. Where Mr. Giuliani is concerned, Kevin Keating hopes that the
clock strikes midnight on the former mayor's presidential aspirations.
Reported by Omar P.L. Moore
Resume
Kevin Keating's directing debut was "Hell's Angels Forever" in the 1970's. He shot footage of Muhammad Ali for director Leon Gast in Gast's 1996 Ali documentary "When We Were Kings". Mr. Keating was the cinematographer on two of Barbara Kopple's films ("Harlan County, U.S.A." and American Dream".)
Click here for the transcript of interview with Kevin Keating For more information on "Giuliani Time", visit www.giulianitime.com