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[INTERVIEWS
> Arthur Dong]
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09/01/02
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Arthur
Dong, Filmmaker
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Interview
with Arthur Dong, acclaimed independent
doc. filmmaker on his new "Family Fundamentals"
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| Winner of a George Foster Peabody Award, three
Sundance Film Festival awards, an Oscar nomination, and five
Emmy nominations, documentary filmmaker Arthur Dong is essentially
an auteur icon of independent filmmaking. He has produced and
distributed all of his productions from theatrical to video
release through his company Deep Focus Productions. His past
feature documentaries include "Licensed To Kill,"
"Coming Out Under Fire," "Sewing Woman"
and "Forbidden City U.S.A." His newest film, "Family
Fundamentals," is a continuation of his quest to understand
American contempt for homosexuality and its effects on family,
culture and the nation's political landscape. Armed with a digital
camera, Dong takes us into the private lives of three conservative
Christian families with gay and lesbian children. He asks: "What
happens when parents believe that their own kids represent the
very element that will lead to the destruction of the human
race?" |
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Kathleen
Bremner, bottom: David and Susan Jester in Arthur Dong's
"Family Fundamentals"
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| iR:
What's your approach and the spiel on "Family Fundamentals"? |
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| Having worked for the past decade on films
dealing with gay issues, I've found that homosexuality
is one of the most polarizing topics in contemporary discourse.
Debates about it still spark "culture wars" over whether
homosexuality should be condemned, tolerated, or celebrated.
Proponents of gay civil rights are confronted with the
challenge of being stereotyped by their opponents as unruly,
dangerous, and immoral. Conversely, those who oppose gay
causes have been regarded by advocates as fundamentally
hateful and ignorant. With each skirmish, it has become
increasingly harder for differing groups to work together
toward a common sense of justice. |
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| "Family Fundamentals" was motivated
by a desire to address this deep divide. My idea was to
use the most universal of social institutions, the family,
to explore interpersonal and ideological differences.
I saw the families in the film as microcosms of larger
social and political debates and I'm hoping their personal
stories will offer a more compassionate perspective on
an issue that continues to tear apart not only families,
but also communities and our nation. |
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| iR:
How do"Licensed to Kill" and "Coming Out Under Fire,"
both gay-themed, relate to "Family Fundamentals"? |
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| With each of these films, the focus has
become clearer in regard to my quest to understand American
contempt for homosexuality. In "Coming Out Under
Fire," I documented the U.S. military's World War
II policies against gays in the military which were officially
based on a belief that homosexuals were sexual psychopaths
and mentally ill. For "Licensed to Kill," I
studied the lives of convicted murderers whose victims
were gay men. Their motivations were varied: educational
background, alleged child abuse, the media, homosexual
panic, and most often, religious conditioning. It was
these stories of church-taught disdain for homosexuality
that I found most intriguing, partly because they were
so prevailing, and also because of the influential role
organized religion plays in American culture and politics,
despite the fact that our constitution calls for the separation
of church and state. |
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| Needless to say, organized religion is a
complicated topic and not to be dealt with casually; my
goal wasn't to produce a documentary about religion, but
rather a look at the conflicts that result from the intersection
of sexuality, politics, and religion. The work and research
I conducted on my earlier films served as a foundation
to begin an examination of fundamentalism and its relation
to the construction of anti-gay attitudes in our society. |
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| Over the years, I've been intrigued by family
situations where parents have a history of actively opposing
gay civil rights, despite having gay kids themselves.
I read about people like Sonny and Cher's daughter, Chastity,
whose father served in Congress and fought against gay
marriages; and conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly
whose son came out as gay in 1992; and Mary Cheney, daughter
of Vice-President Dick Cheney. As I researched other families,
the Bible often came up as a point of reference—this
reminded me of my work on "Licensed to Kill."
So I decided to focus "Family Fundamentals"
on stories that all had one thing in common: a fundamentalist
Christian foundation that condemns homosexuality. |
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| iR:
How did you go about finding the subjects for "Family
Fundamentals," who could probably be pretty difficult
and conservative? |
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| "Family Fundamentals" deals with
families where parents are leaders in their communities
and feel they must uphold a certain public persona. For
the film to succeed, I knew I had to gain the participants'
wholehearted trust since I was delving into private matters
and personal stories. In terms of the conservative parents,
I felt that my particular background could very well have
been interpreted by them as liberal and unsupportive of
their views. I thought, "Why would they even want to meet
with me at all?" |
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| My strategy included forming a diverse panel
of advisors that included people these parents might respect.
I invited people like Forest Montgomery, the now-retired
attorney of governmental affairs for the National Association
of Evangelicals, and Philip Yancey, the editor-at-large
of Christianity Today, the nation's largest Christian
Protestant magazine which was started by Billy Graham
in the 1950s. To provide balance, I also invited liberal
religious leaders, such as Soulforce founder Mel White,
as well as scholars in the fields of constitutional law
and theology. Not only did this panel serve as my entree
to obtaining initial meetings with potential interviewees,
but equally important, I also relied on their advise throughout
the production and post-production. |
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| After nearly half a year of research, I narrowed
down the type of families I wanted into three areas: politics,
reparative therapy for homosexuality, and a family where
at least one parent was a church leader. I was able to
identify three such families after going over thirty possibilities.
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Former
U.S. Congressman Bob Dornan (R. California) &
Brian Bennett. 1984 Republican National Convention,
Dallas
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| I have to mention that it wasn't always the
parents that were apprehensive, but it was also the children.
Take for example Brian Bennett; he asked to see every
one of my films before he agreed. He's smart and very
aware of the power of the media—after all, he was
taught by one of the "best": Bob Dornan. |
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| I looked for stories with conflict as a way
to bring out the complexities of the debate over homosexuality.
And the people I wanted were still, in different degrees,
going through the painful process of dealing with their
families; they were not always willing to bear their feelings
until I made clear my intent on producing a film that
could possibly point towards a dialogue for reconciliation.
I think they too saw the film as a vehicle to communicate
with their estranged families. |
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| iR:
How does "Family Fundamentals" differ aesthetically from
your previous work? |
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| New digital technology enabled me to make
"Family Fundamentals" as a virtual one-man-band.
At the time I began this project, a new camera, the Sony
PD-150, was just released and the image and audio possibilities
were astounding. I was able to serve not only as the producer,
director, and writer, but was also as the cinematographer,
location sound recordist, and editor. I had never made
a film this way and it was liberating to not have a crew,
particularly when I "dropped in" on people. For example,
when Brett told me about his grandmother's wedding literally
a few days before it was to happen, I had no team, let
alone money to hire one. But since I handled all the technical
roles myself, it was merely an administrative decision
to go ahead. It was a no-brainer. |
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| More importantly was the intimacy I was able
to capture for the film. When I first thought about "Family
Fundamentals," a film genre called video diaries
was popular. Part of that process asked subjects in films
to shoot their own footage, including setting a camera
in front of themselves and to say and do what they wanted.
Some of the more successful video diaries offered unadulterated
moments that were exhilarating, but others were a bit
self-indulgent and tedious. |
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| I wondered, "Would it be possible to produce
a video diary type of film, bursting with spontaneity,
but with a director at the helm?" This notion was key
in my approach to Family Fundamentals. I let myself loose
and discarded many of the self-imposed and learned filmmaking
rules that I had acquired through the years. No longer
was I overly-concerned with lighting, sound, and other
technical requirements; what became primary was the reality
of the moment. As a result, some of the sequences in "Family
Fundamentals" are the most telling and emotional
I've every filmed, and I let them guide me in the editing
room to shape the film's final form. |
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| iR:
So what's next for you? |
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| For me, finishing a film is just half the
work, now comes the creation of an audience. I'm making
sure Family Fundamentals does its job and to get it out
there in the real world. I don't produce a film every
year—that's because I'm distributing the film I've
just completed. This includes developing target audiences,
theatrical bookings, festival presentations, community
events, and finally a national television broadcast and
educational video distribution. My plans also include
a comprehensive study and discussion guide so that the
film can be used as a tool for social change in a wide
range of settings. |
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Outreach and distribution is a commitment I make to
my work from the outset and it's kept me going in several
ways: as validation that my films contribute to the
discourse on issues I'm passionate about; as a source
of income to help me survive during lean times—yes,
I still receive (small) royalty checks from my 1982
film, "Sewing Woman;" and as a way to get
out of the editing room to remind me that films are
not made in a vacuum. .jpg)
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"Family Fundamentals" opens nationside
in the U.S. on National Coming Out Day, October 11,
2002
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| Check out Athur Dong's official website: |
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