THE FILMMAKING PARTNERSHIP BEHIND "BUTTERCUP BILL"
Love has often been likened to a drug, addicting and putting us into a blissed-out stupor. It can also be as harmful and debilitating as any narcotic. Buttercup Bill, the story of two soulmates struggling to come to terms with their past, premiered at Marfa Film Festival this past July and now comes to the New Orleans Film Festival, explores a love soured by tragic secrets.
The genesis of the film began with something as innocuous as childhood imagination. “Buttercup Bill was my imaginary friend as a kid,” says Émilie Richard-Froozan, who co-wrote and co-directed the film with its star Remy Bennett. “I have no recollection [of him], but I have cousins who would make fun of me for it.” While staying in New Orleans four years ago, she spent time at a house dubbed “End of the Line,” which struck her as magical and an ideal place to shoot a film. Returning to her home in New York, she told Remy about her desire to make a film in New Orleans and the two of them “got cracking.”
The two collaborators met at a filmmaking course at the age of 16, making a short together and bonding over a fondness for directors like David Lynch and John Waters. By the time they got together to make their first feature together, they had established a shorthand with one another that did not require verbal communication. They spent an exhaustive amount of time mapping out “Buttercup Bill” together, resulting in them being entirely in sync throughout shooting. Émilie explains that “We basically just look at each other and know when it isn’t working,” explaining that “we knew exactly what we wanted. We had the same vision.”
“Buttercup Bill” tells the story of soulmates reuniting, their bond unspoken but palpably deep, filled with longing as well as despair. Devastated by the tragic passing of a friend, Pernilla (Remy Bennett) begins to spiral into a depression, haunted by an unresolved history and the spectre of a childhood figment dubbed Buttercup Bill. Reaching an existential crisis from her grief, she takes an exodus to the home of her childhood friend, Patrick (Evan Louison). The two have not spoken in years but regard each other as surrogate siblings, the nature of their intimacy ranging across the full gamut of familial, platonic to the erotic.
The film begins at an erratic pace, Pernilla’s state of mind fragmented by anxiety. The film is cut with an almost Lynchian stream-of-consciousness as the heroine wanders around frenzied, technicolor-lit city streets. Memories overlap and seep into each other, the narrative reality of the film uncertain until Pernilla makes her pilgrimage to Patrick, after which the film settles into a dreamlike groove. The directors describe the contrast as a way of depicting the two worlds that Pernilla inhabits, the nightmarish city where she feels alone and the lovely dream state of when she is with Patrick.
Shot in New Orleans, the production is imbued with the directing pairs’ impression and fondness for the Big Easy. They spent time developing the screenplay here, using the location to inform the texture of the story. The result is a film that serves up a lot of Louisiana style, filled with soulful songs of the region from the 60’s and 70’s. “We had a playlist while writing the script, and it became integral to parts of the film,” Émile says. “When we got down to editing, there were scenes where we had to have the song that we wrote it to. The music was a huge part.” The two directors wanted a score that would contrast with the soul music of the soundtrack as well, delivered by their friend Will Bates’ throbbing and eerie composition.
Another aspect of Buttercup Bill that is distinctly New Orleans is the set design, surreal tableaus populating the picture. A club singer bathed in blue light is flanked by lopsided lampshades to achieve an unsettling romanticism. The home of Patrick’s good friend Joey (Paulie Ligerfelt) is bedecked in Catholic ornaments, like a compact cathedral. A long sprawl of acres is strewn with ominous crosses and signs scrawled with warnings of damnation such as “You Do Nothing To Go To Hell.” For the set design of the film, Remy explains that “It was very important to have everything be very deliberate.” They worked closely with production designer Akin McKenzie to ensure that the surroundings reflected the inner lives of the characters.
The two directors report their time filming in New Orleans was a refreshing departure from filmmaking worlds of New York or L.A. “It was amazing how locals just helped us out of true altruism,” says Remy, noting how their local collaborators were eager to help achieve their vision without needing to be incentivized. “People helped us out in finding locations and were always very gracious.”
The directing duo are currently writing their own separate projects but don’t plan on fully going their separate ways. “We aren’t going to be in the same city, and she’s working on something and I’m working on my own thing, but Remy and I will probably always be working on stuff together,” says Émilie. “We’ll see what happens.”
Buttercup Bill plays Saturday, October 18, 2014, 7:30 p.m. at the Prytania Theatre and Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 9:45 p.m. at the Theatres at Canal Place. For more info and tickets, visit the New Orleans Film Festival website. For more information on the film, visit the official site.
"BIG CHARITY" CAPTURES THE LEGACY OF COMPASSION AT AN ICONIC HOSPITAL
New Orleans lost many things in the wake of Katrina. Submerged in water and awaiting a rescue response that idled for too long, the city had many of its greatest treasures wiped away. However, it was not only the storm that stripped it of its finest institutions, but the decisions made by the government and corporations during reconstruction. While at its most vulnerable, The Big Easy underwent large swaths of privatization. “Out with the old, in with the new,” observes Alexander Glustrom, director of the anticipated documentary Big Charity.
Premiering on October 21st and playing on the 22nd as well, the film documents the ill-fated Charity Hospital, a beloved and iconic piece of New Orleans owned by the Louisiana State University System that was shut down in the wake of Katrina. Was the hospital, which had endured for nearly 300 years, undone by the most infamous storm of the century, or was something more cynical afoot? Interviewing a wide array of subjects ranging from Charity’s staff to superstar brain surgeon Sanjay Gupta, director Glustrom probes the confusion and sorrow felt by a community that saw a great beacon of hope extinguished.
The documentary shows the struggles faced by the staff during Katrina, Charity itself crippled by the flood that was unleashed once the levees broke. Understaffed, possessing limited resources and with help taking far too long to materialize, the doctors and nurses of Charity struggled to keep their patients alive, relying on instincts and tenacity. Once FEMA finally arrived to airlift patients to safety, it was already too late for some. However, the staff’s response to storm would prove to be a highlight in the hospital’s history, showing outstanding commitment and bravery in the most dire of situations. The satisfaction of a job well done would be soured shortly after when the hospital was closed for ambiguous reasons, despite having undergone an extensive restoration after the storm.
What happened to Charity is a sad reminder of the things New Orleans lost post-Katrina. For Alexander Gustrom, that state of confusion and loss was palpable. "I was aware of changes happening in New Orleans and was fascinated by the decisions that were made post-Katrina. I was filming every community meeting that decided what direction New Orleans was going to go,” he says. The filmmaker admits that, in the beginning, Charity was not the focus. “I thought I was making a documentary about the umbrella of privatization of New Orleans from public housing, school systems to the hospitals. I was just shooting things that were happening."
After years of filming, he began to realize that Charity’s fate encapsulated all of the changes in New Orleans he was trying to capture. It did not hurt that the director had an infatuation with abandoned buildings. “That's something I've been fascinated with ever since I was a kid,” he says, referencing a childhood spent exploring derelict structures. “I grew up in inner-city Atlanta, and this urban landscape had always been kind of like my playground.” New Orleans itself had a bevy of emptied buildings, but it was the lonely hospital left to rot that captured Alex’s imagination. “I think that was the thing got me to focus on Charity. The building itself had me fascinated.”
Getting the doctors, nurses and those touched by Charity to open up about the hospital’s untimely demise was not an easy task. "Some people did not want to talk about it,” Alex says. Charity remains an extremely sensitive issue, especially for those who still practice medicine within the Louisiana State University System. Witnesses fearing for their job safety was an evident factor. “You could tell that there had been some intimidation right off the bat,” Alex says. However, the director would earn the trust of his subjects, thanks in part to the intimate and earnest nature of his interviews, which largely consisted of him alone or with his producing partner, Ben Johnson. Once they would ingratiate themselves with an interview subject, they would be pointed in the right direction, “leading to another person, leading to another person.”
While Big Charity inhabits the perspective of those loyal to the now-expired institution, Alex himself admits to embracing the new hospital being built in its stead. “My personal opinion is that the new hospital is going to be great thing for New Orleans economically,” he says. “I think that Charity as a building was old and decrepit and needed to be changed. Whether you were going to renovate it or a have a new building, something needed to be changed.” However, he describes the process between Charity’s closure and the building of the new facility as ethically dubious at best. “It's not whether or not the new hospital is better than Charity, the question is was the process done in an ethical and transparent way? And I think the answer to that is no.”
Alex hopes that his film will serve as an reminder of Charity’s legacy and its mission to help those who needed care regardless of whether or not they could afford it. He also hopes that it will remind those running the new hospital to heed that mission. “Everyone’s worry is that the new hospital is going to be more focused on people who can pay for care or procedures,” he says. “My hope is that that is not the case, that the new hospital will maintain the spirit of compassion that Charity had. One of the greatest things this movie could accomplish is to urge the people running and working at the new hospital to not lose sight of the mission to take care of those who are most in need. I really hope that this film could help keep the spirit of Charity alive.”
Big Charity plays Tuesday, October 21, 2014, 6:30 p.m. and Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 6:30 p.m. at the Joy Theater. For more information on the film, visit the official website. For tickets, visit the New Orleans Film Festival website.
Rob Cameron Fowler is a writer, filmmaker and aspiring barber currently residing in New Orleans, LA. Raised in both the United States and the Middle East, he is a self-professed political junkie, cinema fanatic and purveyor of useless trivia. Follow him on Twitter.
GIDEON’S ARMY: PUBLIC DEFENDER DOCUMENTARY PORTRAYS AN UPHILL BATTLE FOR JUSTICE
When we envision a public defender, what we see is not impressive or admirable. In the public conscious, public defenders are the bumbling incompetents in courtroom dramas or the lazy do-nothings in comedies. We think of them as morally bankrupt, only defending bad guys and not doing a very good job of it. Our assumption is that if you’re in legal trouble and you’re paired with a public defender, then you are basically screwed. Gideon’s Army, the Sundance 2013 hit that has aired on HBO, provides a counterbalance to this perception. While no one is pretending that bad public defenders exist, the film gives viewers the chance to see that there are many who are fighting an uphill battle for justice and embark on careers that can only be described as altruistic.
Gideon’s Army tells the story of three idealistic pupils of Jonathan Rapping, head of the Southern Public Defender Training Center. Their names are Travis Williams, Brandy Alexander and June Hardwick, and we watch them struggle to do good in the justice system while combating the same pressures that drive many public defenders out of the game. The documentary’s investigation into why being a public defender is so difficult is like pulling on a ball of twine, unraveling a myriad of financial and institutional failures that plague our courts.
Director/producer Dawn Porter comes from a background in news reporting, having worked as in Ethics and Standards for NBC News. The experience would prove itself to be an unlikely but invaluable training ground for her as a storyteller. "When you do that job, you read a lot of scripts,” she says. “Eventually I thought 'Oh, I get it,' and figured out how to put together a story." She admits that even she once viewed public defenders with the same dismissal as the rest of us. "I am a lawyer, but I was not a criminal defense lawyer,” she says. “Like most people, I had no idea what you do in that job.”
Her assumptions would be turned on their head when she was invited to Birmingham, Alabama, for a training session for brand new public defense lawyers. This is where she would meet Jonathan Rapping and her entire cast of subjects. Dawn was stunned to see the amount of passion for the law Rapping and his students had, how they talked about the constitution, justice and standing up for the poor. “This is why people go to law school,” she thought to herself.
Dawn realized that there was a stereotype of public defenders that was shockingly wrong. “We don't have a lot exposure to them,” she explains. “When you don't have another example in your head, you have nothing to challenge that stereotype." She became determined to show people a different side of the story. Her film, Gideon’s Army, is a resounding rebuttal to the perception that public defenders are lazy and indifferent, instead showing us passionate lawyers who go through financial struggle while being constantly rebuffed by the system. "If you're the newest player in that game, you think that you're only dealing with one problem, being an excellent lawyer, but you're actually dealing with many challenges."
Those challenges include student debt that young lawyers incur, the low wages in public defending as well as a justice system that makes it near impossible for low-income citizens to actually have a fair hearing. “80% of people who are arrested qualify for a public defender, meaning they can’t afford a lawyer,” Dawn explains. “95% plea bargain. The rational thing to when you're facing ten-to-life when they offer you five years is to just take the deal.”
While Gideon’s Army is set in the South, Dawn stresses that the problem is endemic across the country. "It's happening all over. I could go to an office in North Dakota and hear the same story, over and over. Some places are a little bit better, but no place is where we want it to be." However, for Louisiana the problem is particularly prescient. John Rapping himself became motivated to train public defenders after his time in a Post-Katrina New Orleans. "New Orleans is definitely one of the most challenging places,” Dawn laments. “The courts are very hostile to strong defense lawyers. The prisons are too overcrowded, there are too many kids there and there's not enough money. Public defenders here are working against monumental odds."
I asked Dawn what she thought would be the most important steps in lessening the burden on those who are grinded away by the justice system. She cited two necessary changes: putting an end to mandatory sentences and bail reform. “We're not allowing judges to judge,” she says of the mandatory sentences. “When you tell a judge you have to sentence this person to this many years, then why even have a judge? We can just give it to a computer to spit out of sentencing.”
As for bail reform, she says that the high bail states such as Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia result in people who can’t afford it to spend their time in jail while awaiting trial, putting further pressure on them to seek a plea deal to a crime they may not have committed. In her mind, this leads to a system where “Your rights are being determined by how much money you have.”
Being a public defender is an uphill struggle, but their struggle to endure through crushing odds is life-affirming in Dawn’s eyes. She praises anyone in the practice for their resilience. “It's such a major sacrifice for people to do this job well,” she says. “When you have 24-year-olds who choose this job instead of one where they would make money and have a comfortable life. That's what patriotism is."
THE BIG BEAT: A LABOR OF LOVE FIFTEEN YEARS IN THE MAKING
Premiering this past Thursday, October 23rd, “The Big Beat” was the closing film of the New Orleans Film Festival 2014. The selection of the documentary was a fitting one, the film providing an intimate perspective on the legendary musician Fats Domino and his collaborator Dave Bartholomew. The two men, now in their twilight years, are revered figures in the history of 20th century music and the city of New Orleans. For director Joe Lauro, encapsulating their legacy was a labor of love, the film taking fifteen years to complete from its inception.
Having produced several documentaries covering music icons such as Howlin’ Wolf and The Four Tops, Lauro professes a deep love for his subjects. “You could make a film every day about a contributor to musical arts,” he says. “That was my ambition all along: to grab onto these people who had not gotten the proper attention.” The documentarian professes a deep love for musicians and stresses that that admiration is what powers his work. “I'm not going to spend a year of my life making a film about someone I don't enjoy as an artist. When you make a film that's a labor of love, you gotta really like the subject in terms of their contributions."
He describes The Big Beat as comprised of four parts: Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew, recording engineer Cosimo Matassa, and the city of New Orleans. Despite describing himself as “A Northern boy,” Lauro is smitten with Louisiana culture. “I’ve been enjoying [New Orleans] for many years, and I want to do my part in helping it along,” he says. His film is as much an exploration of the effect New Orleans has had on American music as it is an approximation of Domino’s career. The amount of attention paid to recording pioneer Cosimo Matassa is due to the studio head’s invaluable contribution to the preservation and clarity of Louisiana sound. “Cosimo was the guy at the studio who knew how to record it right,” Lauro explains. “He knew how to put it all down. Otherwise, it would have been lost to the ages."
The journey to make The Big Beat began in 1999 when Lauro was personally introduced to Fats Domino through a friend. He knew immediately that there was a great opportunity to make a film about the musician with an intimacy that had not been captured before. "There's been several films on Fats, but they've mostly just been recent performances with a little bit of biographical stuff,” Lauro says. “That's a testament to Fats, because up until recently he was always on his game. If you went to a 2006 Fats concert, it was going to be rewarding. But what was lacking was an in-depth look at his career and his relationship with Dave and their relationship with New Orleans."
Fats was initially not very warm to the idea. He has always been a private man and resisted interviews for most of his career. However, Lauro always harbored a hope to change his mind. “I felt like if I didn't do it, then no was else was going to," he says. "Especially while these gentlemen were still walking the Earth." Fats is 86 and Bartholomew will soon be 94, and their encroaching mortality spurred Lauro’s urgency to document them while they were still alive. It was the filmmaker’s persistence that eventually won the reluctant legend over. “I went the route of just getting to know him better, and I just never really went away. I just kept plugging at it."
The process of bringing the project to fruition was further complicated by attaining the necessary documentary materials. Lauro wanted footage of Fats that originated from France, which the owner was not willing to grant permission to use. “"That took another seven or eight years, to get this 85-year-old filmmaker to let me use his cherished footage,” Lauro reflects.
All of the drawn out, push-and-pull of pre-production would leave the filmmaker burnt out by the time the elements came together. It was reviewing what he had assembled that recharged his enthusiasm for the project, powering him through the year it would take to actually make the film, which was still in the process of being completed days before its premiere. “It’s just me and my editor trying to get everything licensed and finished,” he says, describing the exhausting process of applying the final touches. Indeed, even compiling all of the people to thank is an arduous task in the realm documentary film. “You look at Kevin Burns' recent documentary on the Roosevelts, and there's twenty minutes of credits,” Lauro jokes.
Now, after fifteen long years, Lauro’s passion project has been realized. When he reflects on The Big Beat, he admits that the thing that surprised him the most during the film’s journey was how different Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew proved to be, describing the as a volatile mixture of different personalities. “They are two men that are just two completely different beings. But they shared the drive to do the best they could with their music and create and respected one another’s contributions.” Both attended the film’s premiere Thursday, and it will be their opinion of The Big Beat that Lauro most values. "I don't care if 99% of the audience boos the film,” he told me, “as long as I please Fats and Dave and their families."
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