John Campbell is eating calamari in one of Portland’s Pearl District restaurants, three blocks North of where James Chasse was accosted by police in September 2006. This is a neighborhood Campbell knows well, but one he has seen change enormously over the years since he first came to the city from Berkeley, California, in 1974.
“I shot Mala Noche [with director Gus Van Sant] right here in this neighborhood,” he says. “When we needed an extra we’d go and grab one off the street, pay them $10. It was that easy. There aren’t many people like that around now.”
“This part of town was Portland’s skid road,” he continues. “There were lots and lots of hardcore alcoholics, street people and migrant workers. Also, lots of gypsies. It was the backdrop, it lent a setting to those films about people living very close to the street. You can always find those worlds, maybe not in this neighborhood any more, but cities evolve.”
Campbell, who is the director of photography for Alien Boy, has just finished shooting 19 interviews over a week, and he’s excited about the project.
“I was really knocked out,” he says. “It was extraordinary on all different levels. When you think of the punk movement, you think of something fresh, wild, angry, beautiful, raw, and brilliant. You don’t necessarily think of middle-aged people being misty and looking back at the good old days. Somehow the punk movement stays alive in a really raw way, and now to be taking a look at it in almost a nostalgic way, it’s odd for me. I’m having to adjust my time reference.”
“The eyewitnesses were very impressive because of how shocked they were by the event,” he continues. “That’s not to say anything but for the first time in their lives, they were witnessing the aftermath of violence, which is possible. Nevertheless they were blown away but not only that, they seemed to really want the truth to be told, as they saw it. And that makes you perk up.”
It’s important to Campbell to be as objective as possible while making the film. Drawing inspiration from a documentary canon that includes such filmmakers as Ricky Leecock, D.A Pennebaker, and The Maysels Brothers, he says he “loves the principles of documentary.”
“The life of the average person is fascinating,” he says. “Every life is incredible. In every life, all the elements of great literature are there, you just have to scrape the surface. And beyond that, there are extraordinary lives. If you can bring a camera into that, and develop a trusting relationship with your subject, and come away with that story, it’s usually pretty doggone amazing.”
“When Brian and I talked about how to visualize this film, we agreed to approach it very open-minded,” he continues. “I thought it was very unfortunate when the city attorneys assumed we were going to be adversarial, because that’s the opposite of what we were going to try to do. If you go in assuming the police are a bunch of murderers, you’re going to miss a lot. So I’d love it if they would give us a chance.”
Although Campbell admits that documentary is “kind of a wide open world,” now. There was a time when purists might call bullshit on your film for not adhering to certain principles, but no longer. And in the spirit of experimentation, Campbell has been working on several devices with Lindstrom to make the film come alive for the viewer. “Nobody wants a documentary to switch between talking heads and b-roll,” he laughs. These include using Super 8 to visualize Chasse’s experience, and an old 35mm Arriflex camera converted into a hand-crank device.
Asked about what questions the film raises in his mind, Campbell cites an interview he heard with American radio broadcaster Studs Terkel, towards the end of his life.
“He said, ‘you know, something has changed in this country’,” Campbell says. “And you can see it, just in the speech. Our speech has gotten so mean, things like ‘I’m gonna take him out,’ all the violence that’s gotten absorbed into our speech. And I agree with Terkel, that there’s a meanness that’s been absorbed into American culture. And I want to believe that only as a worst case scenario, is what happened to James Chasse the result of quotidian violence, that it wasn’t the result of people whose meanness was practiced day in and day out, every day. But I’m worried. Because of a shift to a slightly meaner tone in this country.”
June 4, 2008 at 10:23 pm |
I think there’s always been violence in the language, not sure it’s really more now. There’s also always been spirit and joy in the language and they’re still there, thankfully.
I look forward to seeing your finished work.