Courtesy of Netflix
SLIFF begins Nov. 4 with a showing of Procession at The Tivoli.
Director Robert Greene’s latest film, Procession, is built around a drama therapy-inspired experiment, six men coming together to work through their collective trauma as survivors of childhood sexual assault by Catholic priests and clergy from the Kansas City area. In collaboration with Greene, they create fictional scenes based on their memories and dreams to reclaim the spaces that allowed this abuse, offering them an avenue for catharsis. We sat down with Greene to talk about what drew him to working with these men, how they collaborated on the film, and what it means to receive this year’s Contemporary Cinema Award at the St. Louis International Film Festival.
What drew you to this project?
There's a couple of answers to that. The first is thinking about the process of making Bisbee 17, my last film, and thinking about what was good about that process and what was lacking a little bit. For Bisbee 17, we knew that when people played roles, that it could be very powerful for them, and it could sort of jar loose a lot of ideas. But what I didn't realize is how potentially therapeutic it could be. Someone asked me, “Hey, did you have a therapist on set?” And my answer was completely inadequate. Fast-forward to later, where, you know, I see this news clip that starts [Procession] off, and it was just sort of like a lightning bolt. The big question was: What’s the point of making movies? And if I saw this process as potentially therapeutic, who could it help? This story, abuse of children, had always been, for me, the story that I couldn't bear. I couldn't listen to it. I would turn it off on the radio. I would turn off the TV. I just couldn't handle it. The combination of where I was in thinking about myself as a filmmaker and then encountering these powerful testimonies of these men, it was almost like I couldn't not try to do this.
Why was it so important to have Monica Phinney, a drama therapist, involved in the production of Procession?
I think every documentary and every film should have a therapist on set. The truth is, while making movies can be incredibly fun, they can be incredibly cathartic – just making the films themselves, honestly. They can also open up all kinds of emotions that are sometimes tough to deal with. So having a therapist and drama therapy is very interesting. For me, it was when I was thinking, maybe I should have had a therapist on Bisbee 17. I should be working with therapists. What kind of therapist would you work with? And you know, I discovered drama therapy and I read this book, The Body Keeps The Score, which is an incredible book about how we can cope with trauma. And they talk about drama therapy in that book, which made me realize, “You know, this is what you've been doing with your work. You've been using performance and staged scenes in these ways...what you've been doing is doing drama therapy.” And you know, that's sort of a startling thing. As we were sort of processing [that], the North American Drama Therapy Association was in Kansas City for their annual conference, which was being run by Monica. So I ended up pitching a room full of very serious drama therapists my ideas. And they basically shut them down. They were just basically like, “You can't do therapy on screen. Making a film and doing therapy are not the same thing.” But being therapeutic and being helpful is a different sort of ball game. So Monica is there in the film for a lot of reasons. She's there to sort of be a backstop for us. She was there to be a safety check for us. She was there to sort of create a safe environment for us to work in. She was really important for some of the guys and less important for some of the other guys. She was really important for me. I mean, we are not doing drama therapy in the film. That's not what you're seeing. But we're doing something that is absolutely inspired by drama therapy. And Monica was an important part of sort of navigating that and making sure it was going to be safe.
What is it that interests you about the idea of catharsis through performance in your films?
To be completely honest, until this film, I didn't really understand the full scope of what we were even attempting to do. For me, it was always, when you stage things, when you perform certain elements, different levels of truth, understanding, and meaning can come out. It's taken me a long time to realize just how powerful it can be. When you imagine you're Joe [Eldred, one of the film’s main six subjects], and you don't feel good about going into a church, and then all of a sudden you're going into a church that's been transformed into a film set, and you're watching your friends who are survivors transform into these roles, it gives you this deeper understanding. But it also de-powers those symbols. Especially in this film, in effect, we're taking the symbols back from the church. I always kind of looked at it as this subversive, almost act of punk rock. A “you can't erase us” kind of thing. We're taking back the idea of belief and faith. We're taking those things back from the system that abused these guys.
From all the other films to now, it's all about transforming one thing into another so we could see it more clearly. And in this case, what we realized is that this process could have a very, very powerful psychological effect on the people who are doing the transformation. It's just not something that I could have dreamed of, honestly. Going back to the places of abuse wasn't even our idea. That came from when Ed [Gavagan, another of the film’s main subjects] took us to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and we went into this cathedral he hadn't been inside for 35 years. That was incredibly moving and powerful and helpful for him. We all saw that and said, “Oh, you know, maybe there's something that we can all do here.” It was like only with the group could these guys go back to these spaces and try to take some of the power back.
Can you explain the decision to credit the six men who are the main subjects of the film as collaborators, with “In Consultation With” and “Film By” credits in the film?
“In consultation with” is just a sort of clear way to describe their role, but really, the most important credit on screen is the “film by” credit. It's a film by me, everybody in the crew, Monica, the people who did the music, the guy who did the sound, and all six men, and Rebecca Randles [the attorney in the film representing the six subjects]. And that's not just a gimmick. I think that's a truthful credit and a truthful way of describing the way this process works. I really wanted the audience to understand, and we don't say this directly, but I think it's very much implied that they saw cuts of the film, that they were part of the editing process. We went through many, many notes, many cuts, many thoughts about how to best do this. I always retained the power of the final edit, but ultimately, I would never have wanted to make something that they couldn't put their name on. “In consultation with” is a way of saying they were a part of this entire process. They weren't just filmed; they were the chief collaborators. They had creative consent and had consent on so many levels. It's just difficult to communicate that. But I think that credit speaks to the ownership that they feel, and that we hopefully help them feel, through the process.
How do you think Procession challenges the way that audiences look at documentary and nonfiction filmmaking?
I think there's a sort of cliche that documentaries want to change the world, but the truth is we don't know if that's true. We don't know how much “impact” the documentary has, but we do know that documentaries absolutely change the lives of the people in the films. And for me, that's one of the most important things. If you are a documentary filmmaker, if you love films, I want you to watch this and say, “I see what the possibilities are of collaboration and what the possibilities are of giving up some power in order to make something more powerful.”
Something that every documentary filmmaker should understand is when you put a camera in someone's face “trying to tell their story,” you are creating a dramatic situation for that person….You're giving a platform, you're giving a stage, you're bearing witness. All these things are very important, but you can also take. It really relates to the legal process – hearing how a guy like Joe will go to Rebecca and say, “I want justice for what happened to me,” and Rebecca will fight for that justice. This is a positive thing, right? But the excruciating process of having to relive the trauma, relive what happened again and again, that is a horrifying process, and it causes more harm than good. The documentary process is very similar. You go into it with good intentions, and then you just force this pain to be relived again and again and again. And I think that we've happened upon a method that is maybe less damaging. As hard as this was, the guys never felt like they had to perform their pain. We knew, even on day one, no matter what, wherever the process goes, everything we did always had an open door. You could come in the door, or you don't have to. No one's asking you to do anything. This is what we're doing and we want you to be a part of it. You come if you can come. We knew the whole thing could fall apart at any point, but we also knew that, even after that day one, we had done good work
How does it feel having Procession at SLIFF, receiving the Contemporary Cinema Award, and playing on the same festival slate that includes films from Stacey Woelfel, co-founder of the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism, and your students?
It's a homecoming. It really is. I love the St. Louis International Film Festival, because it's such a compelling mix of international major films and local films. Stacey and I started the Murray Center together. I'm so proud of Stacey for throwing his hat in the ring of making a film, and he did a great job. Obviously, for my students, we put our souls into those films, and I'm so proud of them for being seen in this way. I just feel like I'm representing them and they're representing me. It means a lot.
