In the 2001 documentary film “LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton,” Laura Lee, a 62-year-old woman in the impoverished Mississippi Delta, struggles to take care of her 10 children, 38 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. We catch a glimpse of how the education system and the criminal justice system have both failed the family, a century and a half after slavery was abolished. Yet the movie stays grounded in one woman’s experience, providing a human view of large institutions. NationSwell Council member Xan Parker, who was an associate producer on the Academy Award–nominated film and has also helped spotlight the problem of hunger in America as a consulting producer on 2012’s “A Place at the Table,” spoke with us about unearthing the stories that resonate with viewers long after the credits roll.
How did you get interested in filmmaking?
I grew up without a television, but my parents took my sisters and me out to see a lot of independent films and documentaries. If there was something good playing in New York, my mother would sometimes drive us up from our home in Baltimore for the day. In college, I was introduced to cinema verité by an experimental filmmaker who taught contemporary art history. The films that really piqued my interest were the Maysles’s films: “Salesman,” “Gimme Shelter,” “Grey Gardens,” the films about [environmental artists] Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude. I quickly realized that, although I was an English major, storytelling in film was a more natural fit for me than writing.
What attracted you to documentaries specifically?
All cinema is like magic to me. You’re transported and taken on a journey. You feel really close to characters that you never would have met in normal life. I remember seeing “Brother’s Keeper” in a movie theater in Baltimore right after I graduated from college and thinking, “How did they do that?” It seemed impossible what the directors, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, were doing — this idea that you could take real life and present it as a feature narrative film, that it would function in scenes, cut back and forth for reaction shots, and pass over so much time. But the world does not function like it does in a film. That amazed me and intrigued me. Driven by my curiosity and my empathy, I let those guide me.
Where did you learn your approach to filmmaking?
When I came to New York City after college, I headed for the Maysles Films studio on West 54th Street, like so many aspiring documentary filmmakers before me had done. That was my film school, really. The filmmakers who were there in the 1990s taught me most of what I know. That’s when the richness and immediacy of film really captivated me, with its ability to deliver the most authentic, immediate experience of the human condition.
The Maysles were famous for their fly-on-the-wall method. I’ve heard their approach described as getting to know one’s neighbors. How would you define it?
I love getting to know people and getting to experience a bit of their lives. Albert Maysles told me that he and his brother David just wanted to show the dignity of the working man when they made “Salesman,” a seminal film in direct cinema. They really looked up to their father, who had been a postman, and they wanted to show how his life and his work had dignity. Even the vocation that some people might cast aspersions on — that ironic career of selling the Bible —included people whose lives deserve consideration. And that has always stayed in my mind when I am filming people: “This person has dignity. This person is entrusting me and my crew with that. And we are going to do right by them.”
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What has your production work taught you about what defines leadership?
I believe strongly that filmmaking is a team sport. I learned from my mentor, the director Susan Froemke, to listen to everyone around you, to hear what they have to say about the story. The more you do that — and the more everyone on the team feels responsible for the final film — the stronger it’s going to be.
Journalists are sometimes accused of fitting stories into a preconceived notion. How do you avoid that as a documentarian?
You want to tell the truth, of course. You don’t want people to lie to you. But documentary is different from journalism. In a documentary film, the truth you are telling can be the fact of someone’s emotional state, or the truth of someone’s character. You are chronicling both what happened and what it felt like. I’m less interested in making documentaries that feel like lectures, that try to teach you too much. I want to follow a journey that’s happening or get to know the characters in front of me.
How do you choose what stories to tell? In other words, what narrative qualities do you like to see before you sign on to a project?
A compelling, inviting, magnetic character is the heart of every good documentary. If you have someone who speaks with a bit of poetry, you’re in good hands. And I learned a long time ago from the Maysles brothers’ filmmaking team that you are indeed in someone else’s hands when you are making a verité documentary.
As for subjects, I do have a certain attraction to stories about work — what people do, why they do it, what its greater meaning is. Producing Ivy Meeropol’s nonfiction series “The Hill” was a chance to give audiences a peek into the under-the-radar, but very high stakes, work of the passionate young legislative aides on Capitol Hill.
Tough one: What are your favorite movies?
The documentaries I love are the ones that got into my soul: “Chronicle of a Summer,” “Gimme Shelter,” “Salesman,” “Hoop Dreams,” “Grizzly Man,” “Manda Bala,” “Harlan County, USA,” “Brother’s Keeper,” “Two Towns of Jasper,” “Fog of War,” “Bowling for Columbine.” Every single one of them has some indelible moment that will never leave me. If I can pick one I worked on: “LaLee’s Kin.” And right now two films that I am thinking about a lot are Kirsten Johnson’s touching and personal “Cameraperson,” as well as the incredibly timely “13th” by Ava DuVernay.
How do you create those indelible moments?
Trust in providence. It’s something that comes and goes, but when making a film, life provides. David Maysles said frequently, “Don’t worry if you didn’t catch that key moment on camera. Just wait and it will happen again. Or something like it will.” It’s the incredible thing about documentary film: You never get writer’s block.
What are you most proud of having accomplished?
There are so many points of manipulation in film. You choose the story you want to tell, then you “cast” by choosing who’s going to be at the heart of that story. You choose when you’re going to film them and what questions you’re going to ask, then you choose what footage you’re going to use and evoke a mood through editing, music or graphics. Hands down, the greatest moment in making a film is when you show it to the subject and they say, “That’s it. You got it. You got everything right.”
Tag: NationSwell Council profile
How Encouraging People to Move on Sparks Innovation
As the host of the “TED Radio Hour” on NPR, Guy Raz examines what it means to be a human being (or “an upright, advanced primate,” as he puts it): how we love, grieve, judge, create, imagine, and empathize. The approach stems from his experience as a journalist, during which he served as a foreign correspondent covering political conflicts across the globe, a defense correspondent reporting on the Pentagon and as host of “All Things Considered.” After witnessing an intense focus on differentiating people, Raz uses his radio show to create a community of individuals who believe in possibility and the desire to do better. He spoke with NationSwell at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of NPR.
What is the best advice that you’ve received on being a leader?
When you’re starting out as a journalist, it’s really hard. There’s a lot of failure and a lot of uncertainty because no one takes you seriously and most of your work gets rejected. There were moments when I was starting my career when I would write something and somebody here at NPR would see it. Maybe they wouldn’t read it, but they would see my byline, and they would say “Hey, great job. You’re doing great work.” And that meant the world to me. I really think about that a lot as somebody who’s been doing this for 18 years. When I see people starting out, I make an effort to acknowledge and recognize their work — to help them and to give them advice. Leadership is about passing it on — it’s as simple as that.
What do you wish someone would’ve told you when you first started your career that they didn’t?
I wish that someone would’ve told me that there’s so much uncertainty and combining it with being young and feeling vulnerable will mean that you will have some very tough times. Your whole life there’s a safety net, and everyone is encouraging you. Then you go out into the world and no one gives a shit because they don’t know anything about you. You’re just another 20-something in the city. The combination of that and the uncertainty of your future often causes periods of depression and anxiety.
When I was younger, I experienced anxiety and depression like I had never experienced in my life. I had gone from thinking I was relatively emotionally stable to being in a spiral in my early 20s. I wish I knew to expect that because it was so disorienting when it happened. It was a long time before I sought help. I think we do a disservice to young people, even more so now, because we don’t prepare them. We encourage them, and then that day is over and we send them out in the world. I don’t know what the answer is, but one step would be to have a conversation about it and understand that we set a lot of people up for a period of difficulty and disappointment.
How do you as a leader inspire others?
By helping people to realize their potential and what they want to do. I’ve always tried to be the kind of leader that encourages people to move on. Very rarely have I worked with the same people for more than three years. When the best, best, best people that work with me come and say that they want to try something new, of course, my first instinct is “I can’t lose this person,” but I’ve got to do it. So I always say, “let’s figure out how we can make that happen.”
What is your idea of a perfect day?
A day spent with my children and my wife. I know it’s a lame and clichéd answer, but I love being around them. I love watching my boys interact. They fight. They get along. They play. They hit each other. I just love being together with them. There’s nothing more meaningful than being around family.
What’s on your nightstand right now?
“Originals” by Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg, which is about original thinkers and how ideas form. “Presence” by Amy Cuddy; she’s a friend of mine and I love her TED talk about faking it ’til you become it. I’m reading “Napoleon” by Andrew Roberts, which is really great. [Napoleon was] an amazing guy. He created an apparatus that’s still in place in all of Europe — the school systems, the civil justice system, the criminal court system, the bureaucracy, the progressive nature of Europe. You could call him a dictator or an authoritarian. But by our standards, even today, he was incredibly progressive.
What is your all-time favorite book?
As a journalist, the most important book has been “Homage to Catalonia” by George Orwell. The reason why it’s so important isn’t because of the story, but because of what it represents. Orwell was a young communist and he went to Spain to fight with the communists. He grew to be incredibly disillusioned with them…and was still sympathetic to the ideals, but while most communists would’ve hid those feelings, he wrote in a very transparent way about the flaws of the movement that he believed in. And that, to me, is the mark of a great journalist — a person who is able to fight against their own biases and write something that is real and meaningful and truthful. He represents integrity as a writer that is unmatched.
The novel that’s really stuck with me is “Atonement” by Ian McEwan. It’s beautifully written. In recent years, I haven’t kept up with novels as best as I should, but I still think Ian McEwan is one of the greatest living writers.
What’s your proudest accomplishment?
To create two human beings. I always say that I’ve been really lucky. NPR has sent me to report from more than 45 countries. I’ve seen incredible things. I’ve been in remote villages of Afghanistan where I’m the first foreigner they’ve ever seen and a goat is slaughtered in my honor. [I’ve visited] tiny villages in Kosovo and places in Pakistan. I’ve been all over Iraq, and I’ve met incredible people, but there hasn’t been anything more interesting than watching my kids grow up. You see elements of yourself in them, and you try to correct it because you don’t want them to have your craziness. They’re the 2.0 version of you. You know your own flaws, but then you see your kids, and they’re just better at dealing with things. They’re more advanced versions of you, and it’s just cool.
What is something that people should know about you but don’t?
A few things. My wife and I did not have a wedding. We got married alone. I am really into making stuff at home. I make Kombucha. It’s very NPR of me. And I make a lot of plant milk. Today, I brought a bottle of Kombucha, a jar of vanilla hemp milk and a jar of vanilla oat milk to work. I do a kids news show every Friday, which is one the most fun things I do.
To learn more about the NationSwell Council, click here.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Why One Step Backwards Can Be Necessary for Progress to Occur
Shaiza Rizavi sees the world — American culture, politics and economics — from an outsider’s perspective. Raised in Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, her family moved to Illinois when she was a girl. Rizavi now works as a partner at Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co., a growth equity brokerage firm where she seeks out companies with “disruptive, innovative approaches.” She also serves on the board of Acumen, which invests in strategies to end world poverty. NationSwell met up with her at a cafe in Midtown Manhattan, near the southern edge of Central Park.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given on leadership?
I think it’s important to be able to give yourself permission to take a lot of risk and make mistakes as you go along. I learn that in my business constantly. There’s a lot of risk-taking in the stocks that I invest in and pain that goes along with that. It’s a teeter-totter that’s only in balance for a nanosecond — or not at all. Understanding that it’s going to be up and down at all moments, and it’s important to feel those moments, to live in that, to steep yourself in it, accept it and not try to avoid it.
What books are currently on your nightstand?
I was actually re-reading right now “Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World,” a book that’s written by Jacqueline Novogratz, the founder of Acumen. I am also reading “Superforecasting” [co-written by Phil Tetlock]. It’s a study done over a long period of time to get a sense of who the best forecasters have been and what it takes.
I’m also reading Ron Chernow’s “Hamilton” again because I just took my kids to see the Broadway show. I think I first checked it out in 2005, but it’s been interesting to revisit, especially with this election and what’s going on in the world. It’s made me think about how sometimes we have to go backwards in order to go forward to understand that these moments of tension lead to greatness over time. It’s the same idea as having to steep in the uncomfortable sometimes — looking back we may see that this election moment is one that the country has seen many times. It’s not new; it’s part of the process.
What do you wish someone had told you when you started this job?
I suppose, in a job or in life or anything, how you approach the unknown has to be done in partnerships. In looking at stocks or nonprofits or assessing whether something’s going to be successful or not, it’s always important to step out of your shell. It’s really about connecting people and trying to figure it out together. It’s a powerful way of looking at it, to see all of us being in it together. I think it helps see what the real issues are, as opposed to what your perceptions are.
What inspires you?
Well, at 4 o’clock each morning, I get a quote emailed to me. I go to a Unitarian church, All Souls, on the Upper East Side [of Manhattan], and the minister sends out a part of a poem or a quote to people who sign up. So, I have a little ritual surrounding it.
On the flip side, how do you try to inspire others?
Be true to your beliefs. Knowing what you stand for and standing by it, people actually see that’s your truth. And I also think it’s really important to be a cheerleader and not a de-constructor constantly. There’s so much dart throwing, as opposed to actually wanting to help. So many people are taking critical chances in this country. There’s so much progress, but what we hear about is the lack of it. I think it’s important to remind people — that’s one narrative, but not the only narrative.
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What innovations in your field are you most excited about right now?
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about software and faster processing speeds. I got my first computer in 1984. My mother was studying at the University of Chicago, where they had computers available for a greatly reduced price, and she brought one home. It was just such an immediate increase in productivity through technology. All my friends were using typewriters, and all of a sudden, I was writing on a word-processing machine. In college, I didn’t have to go to the computer lab like most of my friends. Eventually my machine connected to the Internet, and there was an incredible unleashing of ideas. By delivering software to so many different devices today, we’re at an inflection point. We saw the number of people connected to the Internet double since 2008. We now have over 3 billion people connected, but that’s only 40 percent of the world. Over the next five years, we may see well over 2 billion additional people come online. As a growth investor, I see this and think growth happens during the most difficult times. We don’t know what new services or inventions will be created that will benefit us all.
What’s your proudest accomplishment?
I think probably, in my life, I’ve been interested in understanding different perspectives, particularly of an outsider entering the country. I think we’re having a lot of that discussion on refugees: we versus them. I moved from Karachi to America, to just outside of Chicago. My family and I arrived in the middle of winter in the middle of nowhere. I experience the world around me as an outsider with fresh eyes, but I always felt like that was an opportunity, to see new perspectives in a new land that I’d never been to.
When I worked in Thailand, I tried to provide that too. I worked on a project where I asked Kodak and Fujifilm to give cameras to street children and then put on a big photo show. The perspective that gave me was really powerful. They were able to show me what they see, instead of me trying to understand from far away. I think that’s very important to me — that commitment to understand the complexities of a person or place from several sides — and I work on it as a personal accomplishment, as a way to live life. It’s fluid. It’s not something that will ever end. You hope that you continue that accomplishment on an hourly, daily basis.
To learn more about the NationSwell Council, click here.