Focusing on Franken

MJ: How much access did he give you when filming his life?

CH: Al was great. He just left us on our own. He didn’t want any control over the film, which was good and bad. Bad because if we did not keep up on things, he would not tell us what was going on. We had to be on our toes which I think is really a fair trade when you make these kinds of films. At the same time he was incredibly sharing with us of his life, which is a real privilege when you are doing these films.
The only restriction that he put on us was that he was not going to make entrees into every situation he did with a lot of powerful people. We were lucky a lot of times to sneak in on his coat-tails. One example is when he goes to a Newsweek party at the Republican National Convention and confronts Henry Kissinger and does his imitation of Henry Kissinger to his face, things like that, but he didn’t really care what we did.

MJ: What was it like being a fly on the wall at events with so many high profile people?

ND: You know the one thing we try not to do is be a fly on the wall, because what happens when you try to do that is that you become this sort of sneaky surveillance camera off in the distance. At the Newsweek party, it was important to be close just so we could get sound, so the camera was never more than two feet away from him or anybody who he was talking to. The thing is to be upfront about what you are doing. I think both of us as camera people try to keep contact with the person we are shooting, not just shooting but trying to keep eye contact so you are a person in the room, and not some surveillance person. This allows other people to see you as a person instead of as a mechanical recording object and it is less threatening.

MJ: There is a lot of overlap in your filmographies. What allows for the ease of your collaboration? Is it a sense of shared film style or shared politics?

CH: I think we have a shared style. We have both been interested, since the ’70s, in making films about people who are very passionate about something and going through something in their lives where they are taking a risk, where they are kind of jumping off the bridge, because of the way that action creates characters. And I think that if these films are made well and really follow something through a situation, they can be just as compelling and dramatic as fiction films. They don’t tell you what to think. Al Franken: God Spoke doesn’t tell you how to think about an issue or even about Al. You come to it by yourself by watching what he does and how he acts towards people and how he stands up for what he believes in.

MJ: It sounds as if you prefer vérité filmmaking to investigative documentary exposés. Politically, why is it that you have made so many films like this?

CH: I think ultimately these films are history and they become a part of history. You see them differently as the years go by. I mean, when you watch The War Room now it starts out with Clinton denying that he had an affair with Gennifer Flowers. As the years have gone by we see that footage in a different way. I think our film about Al already has a historical context. I think Al has been part of a movement that has defined this last election in an interesting way. I mean there was Moveon.org, there was Jon Stewart, and Michael Moore, and unlikely candidates like Al Sharpton, and Al [Franken] was part of this push to fight back and take back the presidency.

MJ: Looking back at this last year’s election why do you think it is that liberals are so good at winning the war of satire but not necessarily so good at winning elections?

ND: Oh boy. That’s a big question because there are a lot of other things going on. You have to admit that Karl Rove has been very effective at organizing people’s thinking and the left really doesn’t seem motivated that way. There is something so effective about the way the Republicans run a campaign, and I don’t think that Democrats really want to emulate that in their heart of hearts. They want to run on issues, on the ways to improve what’s going on in this country. Rove is amazing in the Kerry Swift Boat business. I assume Rove was involved, and even if he wasn’t it was sort of a Rove way of thinking to go after somebody’s strength. And I don’t think it occurs to Democrats to use those sort of tactics. And the war of satire: the Republicans are ripe for it. They are such good targets for satire, but I don’t think that wins elections. I think Al is effective in motivating people’s political energy but I don’t think he converts people. I don’t think satire converts people.