INT: The film that you were working on in and out [LAUGHS], behind the scenes while you were also doing THE NEW AMERICANS.

SJ: I was finishing… Well I, yeah, I was finishing STEVIE, yeah, I mean I had a lot of stuff overlapping, but yes. Then… [INT: How do things overlap? Tell me quickly, how do you do that? Do you run from one office to another?] No, no. [INT: Do you open one carton; do you have an office?] Well Kartemquin [Kartemquin Films] is my production home. But I’ve never really had a desk there. It’s… And that’s fine, ‘cause I don’t-- [INT: Do you have an editing room there?] Well I’ve edited there many times over the years, I’ve edited in every edit room they have there. But now I edit at home. And I work from home mostly, because it’s just… I don’t, I mean I go to Kartemquin frequently for meetings or, you know, things that I need to do, but my day in and day out, I’m at home. I love it. It’s, you know, I don’t have to drive a half-hour to Kartemquin and a half-hour home. I can just work from home. And I’m set up to edit at home, and I love editing at home, in my little hovel of a basement office.

INT: So simultaneously, you were, you started STEVIE at which point, and… [SJ: I started STEVIE in 1995.] That’s when you went back.

SJ: I went back and did an initial shoot, and this is gonna sound like a familiar refrain. I thought it was gonna be a short film. A little portrait about this kid that I was once a Big Brother to when I was going to grad school in Southern Illinois. My wife worked in social services. She worked with at-risk youth; she had encouraged me to be a Big Brother. I thought, great, this’ll be fun. And it was, it was a very tough thing to do, because Stevie [Stephen Fielding] was a very troubled kid. And so I went off, I moved to--I did that for two and a half years, I moved to Chicago, I made HOOP DREAMS. And then, because of, because the notoriety of HOOP DREAMS, the school was asking me to come back down for various functions, and I hadn’t been back in a long time, and so I decided I should see Stevie if he’s still down there, say hello. I’d lost touch with him. And so I reached out to him. And then I had, before I got down there I had this idea actually, I read an article at the barber shop about a guy that had gone back to see his Big Brother, he hadn’t seen in a long time, and I thought that’s really interesting, I’m about to do that myself. Maybe I should do a little portrait of him, like where is he now? He’s now 24; that’s a big difference than 14, when I left. And so I called him up and I said, you know, “You know I’m coming down. What if I bring Peter Gilbert, my partner from HOOP DREAMS, and Adam Singer who also did a lot of sound on HOOP DREAMS, what if I bring them along, and we’ll just do, I just wanna do this little portrait of you.” And he was like, “Okay, sure,” you know. And so I went down there, and the beginning of the movie is that first visit. And it was disturbing. You know, he started to tell me about where he’d been in the previous 10 years, and it wasn’t a pretty story. And I remember leaving there; I say this in the movie. Leaving there thinking what have I stepped back into? Do I really wanna make this film at all, this short film? Well fortunately, for the next two years I did PREFONTAINE, basically. And so I didn’t have to do it. I didn’t have a choice. But after PREFONTAINE was over, I started thinking, you know, I really should… First of all, I shouldn’t have just reconnected with him and then just disappear, that’s not right. And I thought, you know, I should, I should reconnect with him, and at least do this little portrait of him. I mean, I said I wanted to do it, just do it. So when I called back up and got his grandmother, she told me that, like two or three days earlier he had been arrested and charged with sexually molesting his niece. And I was like, what? And he was--and so I, that led to me talking to him on the phone from the jail. And that eventually led to me going down and resuming the film, but now it being a very different film.

SJ: And you know, I originally thought when it was gonna be a short film [STEVIE] that I would narrate it because it was gonna be kind of a personal look at this kid, because the whole time I had been his Big Brother, I had, from time to time, I kept a journal. Not just on him, but just I kept it; I was one of those guys that kept a journal, so I had written about him. Like my frustrations, the difficulties, like who Stevie [Stephen Fielding] was and… But I’d never thought of him as a film subject, and so when I had this idea to do a film, I thought, well I’ll use the journal entries and I’ll narrate it, and it’ll be this portrait, and it’ll be this--and we shot it on Super 16. Because Peter [Peter Gilbert] and I did not wanna shoot it on ugly video. And we thought, we can afford to do this on, it’s gonna be a short, we can do it. So… So then the, but then the story changed, and the decision to do the film, continue to do the film, was a very significant decision. [INT: Why?] Well because, obviously if I was gonna do the film it wasn’t gonna be the same film, and he was in some very serious trouble, and he had confessed to the crime, and then withdrew the confession. And it, you know, there was a very serious case to be made that I should not do a film on this. I mean he was a kid that I had a history with. There was a very serious case to be made that all I should do, if I was a good person, was to try and help him. Not help him get off, if he was guilty, but help him get help, or do whatever, you know, was in his best interest, as a person, and not make a movie on him. But I made the decision that I wanted to do both; that I wanted to try to help him, but I also wanted to document it and make a film on it. And so I had a lengthy conversation with him on the phone, while he was in jail, where I explained to him why I wanted to continue to make the film. Now, the one thing I’ll say to my credit is I did not say to him what he wanted to hear, which is, We’re gonna, you say you’re innocent, we can exonerate you, you know, this’ll be the story of how they, this is all wrong, and you’re really an innocent man." I did not say that to him. In fact I told him in that conversation, “Stevie, I think you’re guilty. I mean all that you’ve been through in your life, you confessed.” [INT: Was that conversation in the film?] No. No. [INT: No.] This was, this was part of deciding whether to continue with the film. [INT: And how did you decide, how did Peter Gilbert, how did your partner feel about it?] They thought, they thought it would, could be a very, you know, powerful film. I mean who knows. I mean they were, they were willing to do it and be a part of it. And Stevie agreed to do it. Now it wasn’t a fair fight, in a sense. I mean, I can, I mean every documentary filmmaker who is successful is generally pretty persuasive, as people, it’s part of the job, right? In order to convince people to be in your movies, to convince people to let you film in this situation, convince, you know, you’re always persuading people, and institutions. So it wasn’t a fair fight. Even though I was saying to him, “It’s up to you, of course, whether we continue to do this or not.” But I was pretty confident that if I said I wanted to do it, that he would do it. And one of the things I did say to him was, is that it would, I wanted, I said to him, “I wanna show how you’ve, your life has brought you to this point. And that includes everything that happened with your mom.” And that was music to his ears, because he had such a hate for his mother, going back to the, what she had done to him when he was starting as an infant, that he liked that idea. And so we continued with the film.

SJ: But one of the things I decided is, in my, and Peter [Peter Gilbert] and Adam [Adam Singer] and later Dana Kupper, you know, Peter shot [STEVIE] for a while, then Gordon Quinn also shot on it, and Dana Kupper, who I’ve worked with on many films, shot the bulk of the film. One of the things that seemed clear to all of us is that I was part of the story, at this point, because I was trying to help him. And if I was going to put his life on film in a really candid and honest way, and the lives of his family--his girlfriend, his sister, his mom, his grandma--that I needed to hold myself to account as a person in this film too. And so I am in the film. And for the people who believe I shouldn’t have made the film, which is a legitimate position to take, ‘cause I wrestled with it myself, getting to see me in the film gives them a focus for their anger [LAUGHS]. ‘Cause I am the bad guy, for making this movie. [INT: You apologized to him [Stephen Fielding] for having deserted him for ten years. That you do on camera. And that’s heartfelt. I mean that feels real. By bringing in your wife as an expert witness, what kind of decision was that?] Well it just so happened that the crime he was charged with committing was the area of therapy that my wife works in; she works with sex offenders. You know, just a total coincidence or whatever. But she knew quite a bit about, you know, this area. And so at first she didn’t really wanna be a part of it. At first she had real misgivings about me doing the film, because she thought that it would not be in Stevie’s interest to do it. And again, I think, you know, all of it, all of it… It’s much easier to make the argument for not doing the film, than it is for doing the film, really, from a kinda moral and ethical standpoint. In other words, if I had said, “I didn’t do the film because, and I just helped Stevie, and did try to help him,” I mean no on would argue with that. They would say, “Well, you know, that’s a good thing that you did that, you know, Steve.”

INT: So then the question is why did you do the film [STEVIE]?

SJ: I think the reason I did the film was two fold. One is, is that I think, I mean, and every filmmaker thinks about these things, whether they admit it or not, is that it had the potential to be a, a very powerful story. And the truth is, is that most, most documentaries that we remember are not about happy, wonderful things that happen in the world, and to people. And so, and that’s not why people make documentaries, for the most part. I think the other part of it, which I think was also part of this, was because I also thought that I did not want to do a film that white washed Stevie [Stephen Fielding]. I also did not wanna vilify him as evil, which is the way we think of sex offenders. And I knew that in part because of the work my wife did. I was very much aware of the way in which we as society view sex offenders, as worse than murderers. And I thought that this film could in some way address that. That was the higher calling of the film, I think. And I think on some level I didn’t really acknowledge this, but I think on some level I realized that the best way for me to be in Stevie’s life, and helping Stevie, would be if I was also making a film on Stevie, because I would make the time, ‘cause it was a six hour drive down there, every time I wanted to go see him. He lived in Southern Illinois. And so, you know, we went forward with me--and it’s one of, you know making the film. And it’s, but so it’s one of the reasons why I’m in the film, and I’m not the most flattering person in the film. I mean I sometimes am well intentioned, but clueless. I sometimes do the wrong thing, clearly. You know, it’s one of the reasons why I felt like it was important that I put myself in the film, and it’s also one of the reasons why the film is, the film to me is, you know, at its heart, it is a portrait of a part of America--white, rural poor--and an individual who has been through hell, and who has grown up to become a perpetrator of a heinous crime, and the way in which, even when we’re well intentioned, people like Stevie are failed by the system, by schools, by foster homes, by mental health institutions, that they fail. So that to me is what the heart of what the movie’s about. But the film is also, by its very nature, and my involvement, and these decisions to make a film about a tragic person, and put that life out there for people to see, it’s also a film about its making. And it’s also a film, I think, that for me, and in the film, raises questions about the ethics of documentary filmmaking. And it’s interesting because the film is still seen in; I hear anecdotally that it’s a film that’s watched in university settings, in film programs. I don’t think it’s watched for that first part as much. I mean I think that’s a part of it, you know, the heart of the film that I spoke about a moment ago. I think in a lot of ways it’s watched as a springboard for a discussion, debate about documentary ethics. And for some people I am a poster child, with that film, for what you shouldn’t do. And for other people, for other people, they find the film to be a very courageous film, and I’ll say this about the film. And I, like I say, I don’t begrudge anybody’s decision about where they come down on that, with whether I should’ve made it or not. I hoped, sometimes naively, that people would decide what they thought about that but that still they would, they would get this, what I feel is a very deep and complicated portrait of a family in a certain part of America. I hoped that that would come through regardless of how you felt about me making the movie, but sometimes that just, you can’t have it both ways that way.

SJ: But I’ll say this about the film [STEVIE]. It is without question, the hardest film I’ve ever made. And it’s without question the most honest film I’ve ever made. And I--all my films are honest, I believe. All my documentaries are honest. But there are always levels of honesty, in every film you make. And with STEVIE, I feel like I reached a level of honesty in their portrayal, in the portrayal of me, in the portrayal of the process of making a movie, and what goes in, and what you do, and how you manipulate at times, that I, that I don’t expect to reach ever again. And if I don’t, it’ll be just fine by me. I’m very proud of the film. But I also have not forgotten the wrestling, the ethical and moral wrestling that I went through.

INT: You also did something technically, which is European, which I hadn’t seen in American movies. [SJ: I like that.] Which is a kind of under, a soft-spoken narration, that isn’t quite a narration, but that is a commentary. [SJ: Yeah.] That slips in without being intrusive, or manip--you know. That is very unfamiliar in America. I mean European filmmakers use it all the time. [SJ: Yeah yeah. Right, right, right.] They use it features. They use it in documentaries… [SJ: Yes. That’s true.] They use it all the time. And I always wondered what it was, and you got it in that. And that was quite something.

INT: You also had that amazing little girl [in STEVIE]. [SJ: Yeah.] His girlfriend.

SJ: Yeah, Tonya [Tonya Gregory]. Yeah. Her friend, Patricia, who--that scene when they go to Chicago, she’s cerebral palsy, that’s in the bed, that scene. [INT: Ah yes, who’s in the, who’s in the…] But Tonya, Tonya had a speech impediment, but she… I mean she is, to me, she was, she is a remarkable--when I met her, okay, my first impression, and I think it’s your impression when you watch the movie, for a lot of people, which I think is actually a good thing, in a way. I mean, “good thing”, I put that in quotes. [INT: Which is an innocent--] Which is, you think, “Oh, she’s not all there. There’s something wrong with her.” And I thought when I met her, well, Stevie’s [Stephen Fielding], this, of course, I mean this is terrible to say, but it went through my mind. Well of course this would be Stevie’s girlfriend, someone who’s not all there. And then after I got to know her a little bit, and as the months and then years went on, I thought, she is an extraordinary person--and not extraordinary, she’s incredibly bright and insightful and beautiful; she is an angel on Earth. And she loves him, despite it all, and she’s not naïve about it all. I just, she was just, she’s a remarkable person. And one of the things that happens in that film, I think, at least I tried to do it this way, and it’s something, it’s particularly pronounced in that film, but it’s true of every film I’ve done. I’ve kind of come to this realization. Is in that film, while we were making it, I was very religious about writing in my journal about how I was reacting to things as they happened. And I used that as the basis for the narration, because I thought it was really important that the narration reflect where I was at in the moment, not looking back in the edit suite, and having that point of view from the future of what has all happened and looking back. I wanted in the moment, so that when Stevie goes to the church for his mom, and you’re--I was hopeful, well maybe this is gonna be something for him. Well, it didn’t end up being that, but I wanted that to be reflected in the moment in what I said in the narration. And it’s true of the whole movie. It’s like you start out thinking that grandma is, has been Stevie’s savior, which is true. What you find out, and which I did not know until I made the movie and spent more time, is that she had also been the one who had helped instill this terrible hatred for his mother, and fueled it, and kept it alive. And so, what happens in this movie when you watch it is what happened to me as I made it. And I really believe that in the documentaries that I’ve done, at least the better ones, is that the journey I go on as a filmmaker, and sometimes it takes years. STEVIE, we shot over the course of four and a half years. The journey I go on as a filmmaker, and the revelations to me about Tonya, like oh, she’s not, she’s amazing. Or grandma, oh wait, there’s more to it than that. Those revelations for you as a viewer get distilled down, and I want you essentially to go through that same experience, but just in a much more distilled fashion. Shorter. It’s a long film, but it didn’t take you four and a half years to watch it. It’s like, it really is kinda like I want that, I want the viewer to kinda go through that same emotional experience that I go through as making the film, but as a viewer. [INT: That’s making art. You’re giving form to a mass.] But I mean I don’t want… [INT: It’s very good.] I want it to unfold in a way so that the same surprises that I encountered, you encounter. I don’t, I don’t want you ahead of the story--[INT: But that may be what I meant by the narration working--] Yeah, I don’t want you ahead of the story. [INT: --in that funny European way.] Yeah. [INT: That that’s what, they don’t tell you what to think, they go, you’re in it with them.] Yeah. [INT: And that’s what you did, you achieved that. I didn’t realize that it was your diary, but I mean, you did that.] Yeah.

INT: How about what promised to be a much safer, easier film that turned out perhaps to be trickier [REEL PARADISE]?

SJ: That’s right. When STEVIE premiered at Sundance [Sundance Film Festival]… Or it didn’t premiere at Sundance; it premiered at Toronto [Toronto International Film Festival]. But when STEVIE played at Sundance, I got an email from John Pierson, saying, "Congrats on the film getting into Sundance, and all that. Hey..." I knew he was in Fiji, you know, with his family. He said, “Hey, I think I can get the money together for you, if you would want to come and do a film on our adventure that we’re presently in, in Fiji. What do you think?” And I was like, “I’d love to do that.” I mean, and I really saw it as, like, you know, it was gonna be my film comedy. It was gonna be my AMERICAN MOVIE, you know, Chris Smith's fabulous movie. It was gonna be this is my version, you know. Love that move. Chris, you know, it’s just such an amazing movie. You know, it’s about movies, and it’s about this family in Fiji, running this remote movie theater, I mean god, this could be really fun and hilarious. And John’s a funny guy, and I knew Janet [Janet Pierson], his wife, a bit. I knew John better. Didn’t really know the kids at all. So he did. He got the money together. Chris, I mean Kevin Smith actually got the money, ‘cause he was big buddies with John from John having sold CLERKS and been involved in some of his other films.

SJ: And so, the conceit [for REEL PARADISE] became, we’re gonna go to Fiji for the last month that the family is there. They had been there for a year, and we’re going for the last month and John [John Pierson] is having the 10-movie marathon spectacular finish. And we got there, and all hell broke loose. John got dengue fever. Georgia [Georgia Pierson], his daughter, ran off in a huff. They had a big fight, and ran off and was gone for days, and they didn’t know where she was, and she was angry at them. Their, the house they were renting and living in, the computers, they got robbed. And John held the drunk landlord that he hated responsible, so there’s some really juicy, funny scenes. But you know, so all this stuff happened, befell them, literally, in the last month. And then it was all compounded by what I felt was a kind of observation of, you know, sort of, really some of the inescapable, in my view, the kind of inescapable contradictions that you have if you are from an upper middle class American background, and you’re living among, you know, very different people in Fiji. Some of those contradictions are inescapable no matter who you are or how sensitive you think you are, okay. Some of them are inescapable. And some of those clearly are in the movie. And you know, it was just, it was, it was just, it became a different film. And then John and Janet’s parenting style with their kids was very different from mine and very different from a lot of people’s. But it wasn’t, it was a choice they made very consciously as parents. They had a kind of philosophy about how they wanted to be parents to Georgia and Wyatt [Wyatt Pierson], that’s different from a lot of people’s, you know. And you know what, they have two great kids, okay. But and they’re doing great, you know what I mean? So, but it, but that, that was surprising to me. I was more, like, compelled and entertained by it. And you know, and just thought it was really interesting. I didn’t, I don’t think I really judged it as a person, because as a parent, I know how hard it is to rai--you know at that point, I knew how hard it is to be a parent. So I don’t think I looked at it in any kinda judgment, but the portrayal of it in the movie, when the movie came out, a lot of people, you know, a lot of people reacted negatively to that, and you know, felt like, you know, John and Janet, you know, they don’t know how to be parents. I can’t believe they let their kid say, “Fuck you,” you know and all this stuff. And it’s like yeah, a lot of parents would not, that would not fly. But I don’t know. I think the--look, I don’t wanna sit here and say the film, the film was, I think, both an affectionate and a critical look at them and their adventure in Fiji. [INT: They were like American nightmares. I mean if you look at it from the point of view of the--] Well nightmares is a little harsh. [INT: --of the Fiji pe--of the Fijians. Of the people who were, into whose home they’d walked.] Yes. But they were also beloved by many Fijians. I mean that’s, and I felt like that’s in the movie too. They loved the movies. I mean you see a movie in Fiji, you know, you see, you go to that theater, that is the most amazing movie experience you will ever have in your life, is to go and watch JACKASS or BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE. I mean, it was, it was, I mean, I guess what I’m saying is, the film does take a critical, it’s a critical look. I don’t, I hoped it wasn’t… [INT: Well you didn’t go in there to be critical, you don’t have the feeling that you went in there to be critical.] No. But it is critical in ways. I hope it’s affectionate in ways, and it’s funny in ways. [INT: It felt affectionate to me.] But it, but it, I felt like it was real. But you know, the thing you can’t account for when you make a movie, when you make a documentary, you can’t, you can’t always predict how people will watch the movie once it’s done, and all that they will bring of their own values and judgments to that.

INT: So do you recommend making films about your friends? I mean that’s the, that’s the fundamental question here.

SJ: I don’t think it’s a good idea to make films about friends. I mean I think, it was a… I have a philosophy, and it’s one that’s shared by other filmmakers at Kartemquin [Kartemquin Films], which is is that, on every film I do, and I tell the subjects this at a certain point. Sometimes near the beginning, sometimes later, it’s just whenever it feels right to say it. I tell the subjects that before this film is done, you’re gonna get a chance to see it. But--and it’s gonna be near completion enough that I can say, like this is kinda the movie, like, so that if… ‘cause I want you to see it near completion, but it will not be complete meaning, that whatever comes out of that conversation with you, if there are things in there that you don’t like, and we talk about, and I agree that you make, you know, I agree with the point you make, I have time to change it. There will be things you may not like that I will say, I don’t agree, and they will stay in the movie. But I will have that conversation with you, because I’m not hiding anything here. You’re not gonna show up at the premiere and see the movie, unless that’s the way you want it to be, and all good has come of that process, in every film I’ve done. It’s not always been easy. And probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest, was with that [REEL PARADISE] movie. Because Gene, I mean because John [John Pierson] and Janet [Janet Pierson] were film people. Janet now runs South by Southwest [SXSW], she came up in movies, she was, she worked at Film Forum. John was a programmer. I mean they’re film people, and they’re brilliant film people. And so they were looking at this film, when I showed it to them, as a combination of, they were looking at it critically as film people, and they were also looking at it as this is about me, and our family, and it’s very raw in a lot of ways. And it’s not what we expected… when we called up Steve. [INT: So let me ask you this question...]

INT: Does that mean that somehow, either instinctively or not, one chooses to make films about people, about naïve, you know, one chooses naïve people to make portraits of? I mean, in this case…

SJ: I, oh I knew I wasn’t choosing a naïve person here. [INT: No, no I know that, but that’s why I’m saying, you got caught here in a…] Well… [INT: But I mean, but I mean…] I didn’t think all that through, it’s true, but… [INT: I don’t think Reverent Pickett [Carroll Pickett], from AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR is naïve, but he knows nothing about film.] Right. No, most of the people I’ve made films about--there are two major exceptions: Roger Ebert, and Chaz, by extension, ‘cause she’s anything but naïve about film. And this film [REEL PARADISE]. I think when I went into this film, I didn’t think about, worry about any of that. I… not because I didn’t think like, oh well, he, you know, I’m not gonna show him the film or what his opinion. I mainly didn’t think about it because I thought it was gonna be a light, comedic documentary, honestly. And it wasn’t until I got there, and it, that it changed, and it changed in part because a lot of crap fell on them. And it changed in part because their relationship, you know, things were different than, I had no idea. I didn’t know what I was walking into. And so, you know, I made the film, I tried to make as honest a film as I could, but I also tried to, I tried, and I think for a lot of people I failed, to make them as sympathetic as maybe I wanted them to be along with being honest. Because here’s the thing, it’s like, when you make a narrative film, and people don’t like your main subject, or they react negatively, sometimes that’s what you want, right, clearly you want that, ‘cause they’re, you know, interesting bad guy or something. You know. Or you wanna walk that line. You know, but people sitting back in judgment of Tony Soprano in THE SOPRANOS because he sleeps around on Carmela, is interesting. If you’re making a documentary on him and he sleeps around, people view that much more harshly, because he’s a real person sleeping around on a real person, and you-- [INT: And you’re squealing.] And you’re squealing, and you’re showing it, and you feel for her, and it’s like, he’s an asshole, he’s a jerk. And so the stakes are much higher in documentary, in the way in which you portray people. They’re higher. And so one of my goals, I’ve come to realize over the years. It started with STEVIE. And I don’t think I quite succeeded on REEL PARADISE, in this way, frankly. But one of my goals over the years is to make the films as honest as I can, but also to subvert the audience’s propensity to sit in judgment. Because we all wanna sit in judgment. And in a documentary, when you’re sitting in these chairs, in the dark, and you’re watching those stories unfold on the screen, it’s a, it’s a natural to sit here and sit in judgment of them. It’s safe to sit here and sit in judgment. [INT: Then what’s your trick? How do you, how do you subvert?] I think, what I’ve tried is, I feel like if you can, if you can embrace people’s complexity in a full way, so that the ways in which they surprise me, when I’m making the movie, I can convey to the audience, then those surprises help make people think, oh wait a second. View them differently. And people who are capable of cruelty, like Stevie [Stephen Fielding], are also capable of kindness. And you see that in the movie too. And so, if all I did was string together the really powerful cruel moments of Stevie or things that he did that were wrongheaded and bad, then you would have one impression of him. But if I can offset those with the legitimately tender moments and giving moments that he does, in the movie, like when he goes to see his mom in the church and she doesn’t expect him to show up and he shaves, and he’s prepared. Those, that’s the way you subvert people’s propensity to sit in judgment of people that we very much wanna judge.

INT: What about the possibility of asking the person himself how he feels he’s being seen? I don’t know that you could do that with STEVIE [Steven Fielding]. But you kind of knew what you were getting with Pierson [John Pierson in REEL PARADISE]. And I don’t find, I mean I’m, I don’t find it an ugly portrait, I find it amusing and incredibly American. [SJ: Right.] New York. [SJ: Right.] More than American, New York. I mean they’d be as alien perhaps to your family in Hampton [Hampton, Virginia] as they are to Fiji. [SJ: Right, yeah.] You know. So I found that amusing. But you knew what you were getting. Did you ever… I mean would there have been any way for you to have pulled Pierson into it, and said, “Listen, this is what…” [SJ: “Listen this is, you’re not lookin’ so good here”? Is that what you mean?] "Well listen, look at what…" [SJ: Maybe.] I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean I’m just...

SJ: Maybe. You know what, maybe that would’ve been a good strategy to do. I don’t think I did it. I think that I-- [INT: Oh no, you were, but I don’t think--] It’s not, it’s not in the movie, but I don’t think… [INT: No, but I don’t think you were awful with him either, so…] Yeah, but I, but I mean, no. I mean I think that’s an interesting idea would be, but I… But you know, here’s the thing. In general, you know, with Pierson it might have been okay because I had a prior relationship-- [INT: ‘Cause he’s so much a movi--] And I had a prior relationship with him that was a friendship, you know what I mean. But with most of your subjects, I mean that’s one of the, that’s one of the rubs of doing documentary, especially over a stretch of time, is that when someone emerges as a more negative person in your movie, in terms of actions and things they do, even though they may think, because you’ve spent so much time with them, that you’re kind of their friend, you’re not. I mean you are and you aren’t. And like, you know, like Pingatore [Gene Pingatore], Coach Pingatore… [INT: Exactly what I was thinking.] Yeah, Coach Pingatore in HOOP DREAMS, it’s like we had very friendly relations, and there was a lot about Gene Pingatore that I really, really liked, and even admired, that you know, there was. But he had a blind spot in my view, about his own ambition, and the way in which he treated William [William Gates] in particular, and then what happened to Arthur [Arthur Agee]. Was I gonna go and point that out to him in the course of making the movie, no, of course not. I wasn’t gonna do that because then immediately we wouldn’t have a movie anymore, we wouldn’t have a film, and that would be that. But I have to say, there are times when that bothers me, as a filmmaker, because you… I pride myself, I think one of the keys for me as a filmmaker to getting people to open up and be honest and share intimate moments, and hard moments with me has been to build a real relationship based on trust, and candor, and genuine curiosity. And there are times--and that has mostly served me extremely well in my films. I’ve managed to do that with, I think, the great majority of my subjects, but there are sometimes people in the film who are very important to the film, that you’re not gonna have that relationship with. [INT: You can’t protect, yeah.] You’re not gonna have that relationship with. And sometimes you feel like you’re deceiving them--even though they’re doing what they do. It’s not a deception as the film, but you feel that you’re deceiving them in the relationship. [INT: Well, there’s also a point where what they’re being is central to who they are and you can’t embroid--you can’t--] And I’m not trying to change them. [INT: You can’t embroider it out, no.] Yeah, and I’m not gonna go to them and say, “I really think you should rethink this behavior,” you know. [INT: And what I saw again and again--] You hope the film does that. [INT: I know. I know.] Makes them do that.

INT: What I saw again and again in your films was enormous compassion. And not sentiment. Just grace. You had grace with them. And that… that’s rare. It was really, I thought, it was very moving and it made me want to see your films. I mean… [SJ: Well thank you.] You had, you just, you respected the people you were dealing with, and it was very evident. It was…

SJ: Well I, I think that making documentaries has made me a more compassionate person. And I think that, you know, when I started out… when I moved to Chicago, I had really only recently kind of turned a corner on a depression that had come and gone since I was like 16 years old, okay. And so that was a long time, 14 years. And I think the wonderful thing about doing documentaries for me, one of the wonderful things about it was, is that it’s one of the best ways I know to get out of yourself and into the world, and focus your attention on other people, and trying to understand them, and feel for them, and understand what they’re going through, and especially when you’re following people whose lives have been difficult in various ways. I mean those are great remedies for navel gazing, and worrying about your own problems. And it’s one of the reasons why my wife loves the work she does. She still works with sex offenders. She works with the hardest group of guys you can imagine, but she loves the work. And part of it, what she loves about it is, is that it’s so, takes her out. And she’s doing so--and I love that about, I just love that about documentaries. And it makes me a better filmmaker, and it makes me a better person, I think for it. You know, Bill Butler, who shot those two cable movies, is a remarkable guy. When we were, we, I remember one time we were driving around, you know, on, on I think it was on JOE AND MAX. And you know, he kept… I mean here’s a guy, you know, he’s been shooting films for a long time at that point. And he would always be like, “Hey, look at that. Hey. Isn’t that something? Look, look how that person’s doing that.” And I said to him, I was like, “Bill, you’re, you’re so observant.” He goes, “I’ve trained myself to never take for granted the world around me. Like, because it’s not only what I do, I need to be alive visually.” He says, “But I do, I try to do it at home too,” he says, “because it’s so easy.” And I’m guilty of it; we’re all guilty of it. It’s like you get into a routine, you stop looking, you stop seeing. You stop really looking at the world. So one of the things I love about documentary is it’s… [INT: You can’t stop.] You can’t. It’s like it’s what forces you to get out there. You have a job to do, and it’s the best job in the world, which is to really be alive, and aware, and observant, and hopefully compassionate, you know, about the world out there. [INT: And also what’s wonderful and exciting, I realized as you were describing it, is that what you do in the editing room is you make connections. You make the connections between what happened over there, and what you shot four years later. And you can make those connections. And that’s what happens in the editing room.] Well editing’s fun.

INT: Should we do Allen Iverson [NO CROSSOVER: THE TRIAL OF ALLEN IVERSON]? You went back home, the place you left. Did you go to do that story?

SJ: Well what happened was, ESPN had this great idea to do this series called 30 FOR 30 where they wanted to recruit a bunch of independent filmmakers, and the sort of marching orders were, we want, these will be your films. We want you to tell stories that have not really been told properly or at all, that had happened within the last 30 years, ‘cause they’d been around for 30 years. It was kind of a celebration of 30 years of ESPN. And that you have a particular personal passion to wanna tell. It doesn’t--you, connection, passion, but personally, this really speaks to you. Of course you want that to be true of every film, but… So I thought of, pretty quickly I thought of this story about Allen Iverson, because when I was finishing HOOP DREAMS back in ’93 [1993] is when this was all happening, and Allen or Allen Iverson, this, you know, great basketball player, at that time was in high school, and he was considered the top high school basketball player in the nation and one of the top football players in the nation. And he was in, he got involved in a bowling alley brawl that was a racial brawl. And it was cleaving my hometown. And I was hearing about it from my dad, and then eventually reading about it. He would send me clippings. And then it was, then it was actually a national story; it was featured on national news magazine stories and stuff. If the Internet age had been around it would’ve been monstrous, but… But anyway, I remember it all happening back then, and I was editing HOOP DREAMS, and I remember thinking very distinctly, god, this is a, I should be making a film about this. But I said, “You know what, I’ve already got my hands full, and it’s already a basketball film. Just not gonna happen.” So when this opportunity came along, I immediately thought, well maybe I could tell that story. Now it would be very different now telling it than it would’ve been then. Then it would’ve been a verite-ish kind of documentary, kind of in the HOOP DREAMS vein. I would have gone back and lived in the community, and captured it all unfolding. But now it’s different. It was 17 years later. And so what was I going to do? What story did I want--how did I want to tell this story? And so I went in and I talked to the ESPN guys, and I told them about it, and they said, “Well, you know, we had done…” When that all happened, ESPN kinda covered it pretty extensively, when that brawl happened. And I was like, “Well, that’s good.” They go, “So what are you, what do you wanna do that’s different from--” [INT: Did he ever get back to playing? Iverson?] Oh yeah, he became a… [INT: He became a…] He’s a hall of fame, he’ll be a hall of-- [INT: He became a legend after that, okay, I wasn’t--] He’ll be a hall of fame player. [INT: Okay. All right.] When he becomes eligible, he’ll be in the basketball hall of fame. But, Allen Iverson, the professional, was a highly controversial player. He had his detractors, and he had people that loved him. He was the first guy to wear cornrows. He was viewed as, and tattoos, and really, I mean he was viewed as like, for the people that disliked him as a pro, he was viewed as a thug. And for the people that loved him as a player, he was viewed as a great player, and for some of them, that kinda bravado, and posture, and being true to who he was was one of his virtues, right, so he was a very divisive basketball player. Well it all started in high school, with this brawl, basically, was my view. And so I wanted to go back. And I told the ESPN guys, “I wanna go back, and I don’t… I wanna understand why--I’m gonna tell Allen’s story, but it’s really, I wanna tell the story of what happened to my community, my town. And why it was so divided over a high school basketball legend, when I know from having grown up there, that the greatest high school players were revered in my home town, because there was no professional team or major college team. It was high school sports was everything.” And I said, “And because I’m from there, I think maybe I will be in it in some modest ways as a guide,” and they said, “Oh, we love that idea.” And so they, they agreed, and so I went back.

SJ: And for me, the real motivation for doing this [NO CROSSOVER: THE TRIAL OF ALLEN IVERSON] film was two things. One was to really try to understand this pivotal moment in the history of my hometown, where it was all about race, and other things, but race was at the center of it. And so to do a film that is very overtly dig in on race in America. And the other piece of it, of why I wanted to do it, was because I had left Hampton [Hampton, Virginia] after college, good riddance. I really knew nothing about my hometown, really. And I saw this as a chance to really try to understand for myself something about the place I came from, especially as it related to this issue of race, which my fascination began when I lived there, and continued, and continues to this day. So this was a chance for me to do that.

INT: And why didn’t Iverson [Allen Iverson] participate [in NO CROSSOVER: THE TRIAL OF ALLEN IVERSON]?

SJ: Well it’s funny. ESPN said, “We really need to get Allen to participate.” And I said, “If that’s essential, then we’re probably not gonna make it.” And I said, “Because he’s not gonna want to go back and talk about this." He’s been trying to escape this, in some ways, and escape everything that came in its wake in terms of the way people look at him, his whole life in a way. Now, he’s not been his best, own best friend with that, ‘cause he has from time to time, gotten involved in things that, that perpetuate that view of him. You know, he’s a complicated guy, he always has been. You know, he’s, he’s not completely at fault for the way the world looks at him, but he’s not innocent either. And you know, and I said, “So,” I said, “he’s not gonna wanna do this. I don’t even have to talk to him.” I said, “I’ll try.” I said, “But you should make the decision to do this whether he participates or not, for two reasons. One is, ultimately it’s not a film about Allen Iverson. And two, the best chance of getting Allen Iverson to be in this movie is if we go to him and say, ‘We’re doing it whether you’re in it or not.’” And he decided not to do it. And it’s fine. I think the film is perfectly fine without him, and in some ways, if he had consented to be in it, the questions I wanted to ask him wasn’t what happened in the bowling alley, because to this day, there’s all these conflicting feelings about what went on there, and views, and strident positions. What I wanted to ask him was, how did what happened in the bowling alley, whatever it was, change the way you looked at your hometown, change the way you looked at white people, change the way you looked at race? I wanted to know what he feels about race in America, based on his own, sort of very significant experience of it. That’s what I wanted to talk to Allen Iverson about. And, but he never agreed to be in it, and we made the film anyway. And he’s in the movie. I mean there’s all kinds of… He’s in the movie, and even his feelings about some of this are in the movie because he did get interviewed over the time, over years about it, so it’s not like he’s absent from the movie. [INT: So he was a presence in the movie.] Yes.

INT: I was surprised by the difference between the young man [Allen Iverson, in NO CROSSOVER: THE TRIAL OF ALLEN IVERSON], the young, innocent, beautiful young man…[SJ: That’s right. He was a beautiful…] ...and...

SJ: Yeah. Life has taken its toll on him. And you know, he’s lived a hard life, and he’s, and he’s lived with a lot. I mean you know, he’s lived with a lot too. I mean he came from a very, very, very hard background. I mean a lot of guys who play pro ball, football, basketball, whatever, come from tough backgrounds. He came from one of the tougher ones. You know, it was, it was not easy for him, and… But it was a, you know, that was a film where, when I was interviewing white people who thought, who I thought were very critical of Allen, I went down with an all white crew. And because I did not want them to feel the least bit reticent to express themselves. And when I was interviewing people who were more liberal minded or from the African American community, I went with Keith Walker, as the shooter, who was the primary shooter on the film. But I went with him. And the great thing about Keith is, is that Keith is not some kind of knee jerk liberal guy at all. He’s a, and so when he would ask tough questions of some of the black subjects, ‘cause I always include like my crew, like I, you know, I do most of the questions, but it’s like hey, what am I missing, what, jump in. He would ask some tough questions. And he asked some tough questions of me, which became part of the movie. You know, when I told--when I tell this story about how my dad had this guy that worked for him, this white guy who was a profound racist, and would use the N word repeatedly, all the time, except when a black customer came in, and then he was very sweet and friendly. And then they’d leave and he’d say something really awful about them. I’m telling this story in the film, and Keith who’s shooting it says, “Did you ever tell him to stop using the N word?” And I was like, “No. No, I never did.” And you know, he--so there are moments where he asserts himself as cameraman, and I love that for the movie, because the movie is about race in every respect, including, you know, how, you know, my own part in that. [INT: He also asked you if you ever wanted to be black.] Yeah. ‘Cause at one point in the movie, I’m talking about I had all these black teammates, and a number of them were more talented than me and I wish I, you know, I could play, you know. And he says, you know, “Did you ever wish you were black?” And I said well, you know it caught me off guard, and I said, stumbled around and I go, “Well, I don’t think I ever wished I was black, I wished I could play like some of the black players I played with.” And then I say to him, I say, “Did you ever wish you were white?” And without hesitation he goes, “Absolutely.” And it’s so revealing, because it’s like, of course for him. Yes of course he did.