Doug Whyte breaks down his favorite scenes in his new documentary Silver Spurs
By Matthew Halverson
Photograph by Mike DeFilippo
As a general rule, group homes for adults with mental illness don’t make for your average everyday blockbuster material, but with Silver Spurs, St. Louis director and documentarian Doug Whyte wasn’t exactly out to make your average everyday popcorn flick. (His last project was a doc about funeral directors, appropriately titled Pushing Up Daisies.) Initially drawn to the home at the center of Spurs by its quirky concept—the place is tricked out like a saloon straight from Gunsmoke and run by a guy in a cowpoke getup who calls himself Sheriff Joe—Whyte quickly realized that the lives of its residents and their desire to reenter society made for a compelling narrative. “They’re just like everyone else,” he says. “They want to be happy, they want to have a home, they want friends—they just have a bigger challenge to overcome than the rest of us.”
After nearly three years of filming and two years of editing, Whyte will finally screen the finished product May 17 at the Tivoli. In lieu of a sneak peek, we asked him for his three favorite scenes.
The joy of socks. The storyline begins at Christmas, when nurses pose a lighthearted question to the residents: “If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?” One after another, they respond with the same modest request—socks and pants—that puts everyday materialism in perspective and underscores the importance of the simple things. “Here are these people with nothing—they just have a bed at a group home—and all they want is socks,” Whyte says.
Flower girl. While pruning a rosebush, the always fragile and sometimes prickly resident Sandy opens up about her bipolar disorder, which ultimately cost her her family. Her candid admissions about the past and hopeful plans for the future run the emotional gamut—and provide a poignant accompaniment to her gardening. “That juxtaposition of her picking all of these dead flowers and talking about trying to reenter the world—it just worked really well together,” Whyte says.
Want a sip? One of the doc’s subplots follows Martin and Michelle, who become an item despite their considerable differences: He’s an autistic white guy who frequents Hooters; she’s a gregarious African-American woman who likes to buy food for her roommates. This scene—Michelle offers Martin a sip of her water and watches incredulously as he proceeds to drain her cup—sums up their innocent, awkward brand of puppy love. “I didn’t even say a word, I didn’t move the camera, and I just sat there and recorded,” Whyte says. “It’s just so genuine.”
