THE POPCORN REEL POLITICAL FILMS IN OCTOBER FOCUS
The seasoned documentary
filmmakers on their latest venture, "al franken: god spoke"
Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus at the 49th San Francisco Film Festival during a Q&A
in April 2006. (Photo: San Francisco Film Festival)
October 2006
by Omar P.L. Moore/The Popcorn Reel
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They've sat for many, many interviews.
Lately, documentary filmmakers Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus have criss-crossed
the country to promote their latest documentary. They squeezed in some
valuable time to sit down with Omar P.L. Moore of The Popcorn Reel to discuss
"Al Franken: God Spoke", a documentary that has had U.S. audiences laughing
uproariously. The film follows the comedian-turned-political
satirist-turned possible candidate for U.S. senate in Minnesota around for a
year and a half, as Franken does a nationwide book tour for his highly
successful 2003 book "Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them." Currently
making its way around the United States, "God Spoke" is a film that will make
you think, reflect and laugh.
Nick Doob has been making films for three decades and he has shot such films as
"Elaine Stritch: At Libery" and "The War Room", which Chris Hegedus directed
with her filmmaker husband D.A. Pennebaker. Hegedus also directed "Startup.com"
(with Jehane Noujaim), and "Elaine Stritch". The road to chronicling Al
Franken took a diversion. Originally, Doob and Hegedus had been training
their cameras on the Reverend Al Sharpton during his run for U.S. president in
2004. "Somebody else within his campaign wanted to do the same film, and
it had been somebody who had been documenting a lot of the stuff that the
National Action Network [Sharpton's organization] was doing . . . he just felt
that he should be doing it," Hegedus said. Companies like United Artists
had great interest in Sharpton's story. "In the end we thought it was
better [that Sharpton's friend did the film]", although Hegedus admitted that
"we were very disappointed. Reverend Sharpton was a very interesting
person to follow around and hang out with, incredibly intelligent, very witty."
"Al Franken: God Spoke" began filming in October
2003, and at that time existed a strong feeling about Senator John Kerry winning
the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Similarly, Doob sensed something
about the rapidly-moving and energetic subject of his documentary: "It was clear
that Al was in the middle of Democratic politics and all the candidates who were
running at that time for the democratic nomination knew him well and called on
him for help. He seemed to be kind of the court jester of the Democratic
party, a wise one at that." To the degree that challenges presented
themselves to Doob and Hegedus in making "Al Franken: God Spoke", any challenge
that existed was born out of maintaining a flow of energy. The "challenge
really was to keep up with Al, because Al didn't help us make this film in any
way-- and I don't mean that he was antagonistic to it -- he was quite the
opposite. He trusted us." The filmmakers were also weary of making
the documentary a political cheerleading campaign commercial for Democratic
politicians, and understood that Franken was in search of something to shake the
gravitas of a politically polarized but increasingly frustrated American public.
"He let us free. He didn't get involved in the editing [which took five
months] . . . but that also meant that he wouldn't tell us things that were
coming up the next day . . . so we always had to keep on our toes and keep our
ears open," Doob said. Despite the spontaneity and improvisation needed to
keep the film moving as its subject did, Doob seems to concede that it was a bit
of a mixed blessing: "That [technique] was good for the film in the end,
but it sort of meant extra work for us."
The two Als: Sharpton and Franken at "Fahrenheit
9/11"'s New York premiere in 2004; in "Al Franken: God Spoke"; in a shot for Air
America Radio. (Photos: Wire Image; Balcony Releasing)
There were other challenges, such as the debate that featured Ann Coulter, the
conservative personality who draws the ire of many in the liberal camp of
American politics for her incendiary and many say insensitive and callous
reactionary rhetoric. Coulter and Franken debated each other in
Connecticut and the filmmakers Doob and Hegedus had cameras in place to capture
the event. The holders of the debate said that any video of the debate
could be shown only if both participants granted permission. "Ann said
no," Hegedus said. Even so, Coulter's declining of assent only made the
filmmakers' push for a good filmmaking effort stronger. "In the end we
found other material that we probably wouldn't have even thought of." In
line with that, Hegedus observes: "you have to be adaptable I think, if you're
filmmakers. There's always something that happens and I think that every
film I've done in the past six years, I've had to take out music or something
like that . . . because it's a very litigious world right now. You just
have to be careful." To illustrate just how adaptable Doob and Hegedus had
to be for "Al Franken: God Spoke", Doob explained that they were literally
"gathering stuff until about a month ago" because of the Coulter sequence
adjustment.
For this project just like in numerous others when people make films, stood one
or two key foot soldiers who did some of the things that help make a documentary
a key success. For instance, Doob gave praise to the film's associate
producer Walker Lamond, saying he was "fantastic" at gathering the endless hours
of archival footage from places like C-SPAN and the Fox News Channel.
The title "God Spoke" seems like a satirical take on Pat Robertson's statement a
couple of years ago that God told him that George W. Bush was going to be
president. In addition, a few years ago the president himself was asked in
an interview whether he consults his father, who was U.S. president from
1989-1992, in times of crisis. He revealed that he instead consulted a
"higher power". Hegedus intimated that some people in places like New York
City, a place not known for a work-week drive-time culture, weren't
necessarily aware of the proliferation of conservative voices on talk radio
(such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly) who say things that aren't shall we
say, accurate. Some people don't know "how much they just distort the
truth constantly and how they pretend they're news people, and they're not.
I think that's an eye opener to a lot of people, so we felt it was important to
put [the episodes of right-wing talk radio hosts] in the film." The
opportunity to include O'Reilly's verbal feud with Franken at the Book Expo in
Los Angeles in early 2003, was too good to pass up. Fox News had sued
Franken for using "fair and balanced" in his "Lies and the Lying Liars" book's
subtitle: "a Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." The suit, recalled in a
recent Popcorn Reel interview with Al Franken, was
literally laughed out of a New York court.
Documentary filmmaking is, Doob reveals "always a process of exploration and
discovery"and posited that what he and Hegedus do is "try to find meaning in
day-to-day events." Doob describes Al Franken as a "fantastic character to
follow" as he soldiers his way around different political circles seamlessly and
effortlessly, with a wit and charm that some in the Republican/conservative camp
warm to, and find disarming. "We are doing a cross between observation and
detective work where we kind of follow a story around and try to figure out
where it's going and where its character is leading," Hegedus said. She
added they do the same thing in the editing room. "We show the film to our
subjects as we always do, not to edit the film, but just to make sure that it's
accurate," Hegedus said. "It's their film too." Hegedus always makes
a point she says, of filming people who are trying to do some good and "then
show that to the world." "I think that's what Al's trying to
do, he's trying to get out the truth." Hegedus could just as well have
been talking not about Franken, but about a third Al -- former
vice-president Al Gore -- who is also featured in "God Spoke" in an amusing
segment with Franken's Saturday Night Live sketch character Stuart Smalley.
Gore was a foot soldier of sorts on the big screen in North America this past
summer in the hit film "An Inconvenient Truth", in which we traveled the world
to implore and inform people about the need to heed the dangers of global
climate change by changing their ways and resisting fuel consumption.
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"We shot something like 500 tapes" of digital video
footage, which amounted to over 20,000 hours of taped footage, Doob said.
"When you're doing this type of editing, you're kind of trying to smell out a
film as you go along." Doob and Hegedus were also raising money to make
the documentary film as they went along. "We would make a trailer, which
kind of informed us of what we had and where the direction the film was going,"
Doob continued. "In some ways editing is shaping a story and in other ways
it's like sort of weeding a garden." The things that remain from the
editing process suddenly become more important and have a shine to them, Doob
reflected. To that extent, Hegedus added, what "really emerged in this
film was watching Al kind of turn corners in his life . . . from starting in
comedy, and writing books that are starting to really affect people, and then
going on to Air America and then trying to make a really big jump in his life
into politics."
One scene that stands out to Nick Doob as he is asked about the film is when
Franken's confidence in a Kerry victory is at an exuberant state. "There's
a scene where he starts gloating before the end of the [2004 U.S. presidential]
election, and you feel for him, you want to say to him, 'Al, stop it.' And
then the karma police sort of get him. He gets his knapsack trapped in a
chair . . . it's one of the funniest scenes in the movie." Hegedus, when
asked about what Al Franken himself thinks of "Al Franken: God Spoke", said: "I
think he really likes the film a lot, and I think there are certain parts that
are very moving to him. I know he always gets very moved by the one scene
where he goes to a high school in Boston, and explains using math on the board
to them the distortion that Brit Hume [of Fox News] did" in reference to how
many U.S. troops were dying in Iraq and how many were being murdered in
California. "He makes it seem like the Iraq war is nothing and his math is
totally off, and it's a big lie, and he proves it to the students." Even
so, Hegedus points to the much more compelling side that comes out of the funny
and ridiculous parts of the comparison of a nation and a large populous American
state. "It's a very serious moment because of the kids dying in Iraq . . .
and you see these faces of these kids [in the Boston high school] . . . and I
know that moves him each time he sees that scene."
Whether you like him or not, "he's really a fun person to be with," Chris
Hegedus says of Franken. She has spent time with other highly entertaining
and fun people she says, such as James Carville (the Democratic political
strategist and campaign manager for former president Bill Clinton), whom Hegedus
chronicled in her 1993 film "The War Room", and Elaine Stritch, the Tony-winning
entertainer Hegedus documented in "Elaine Stritch At Liberty". "Al's
commitment is something I'll always take with me," she says as she speaks of his
boundless energy he displays as he works hard at what he believes in.
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"Al Franken: God Spoke" is making its way around
North America in selected cities right now. Enormous thanks to Karen
Larsen of Larsen Associates for her tireless efforts in making this interview
possible.