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Life
and Debt Stephanie
Black's new documentary, Life and Debt, explores the economic and
political fallout of globalization in Jamaica. Premiering at New York's twelfth
Annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival in June 2001, the documentary continues
to open in selected theaters (see the schedule openings on the website,
www.lifeanddebt.org). Like Black's first documentary on exploited sugar cane
workers, 1990's H2 Worker, this one comes at its subject matter
aggressively. It's been nearly ten years in the making: she began work on the
film in 1991, inspired in part by her encounters with Jamaica during the making
of the first film. For several years, she found ways to stay in Jamaica,
directing Sesame Street segments and reggae music videos, in order to
support and develop her larger project. Black
has experience in long hauls: she has an undergraduate degree in environmental
science, pursued in part to please her parents, who worried that filmmaking was
an impractical college major. From there she went to SUNY-Binghamton, where she
met film teacher Ken Jacobs, whom she calls "a critical influence on my
life, a mentor who spoke to my gut, my heart, and my mind." Later, at NYU
Film school, she began H2 Worker, and dropped out of school when the film
became the focus of her energies: "At a certain point," she recalls,
"I was doing what I went to school to learn," so it was time to
move on. Black's films are all about movement and passion. We began our
conversation by talking about Life and Debt's structure. Cynthia
Fuchs: How are you using tourism as an organizing metaphor in Life
and Debt? Stephanie
Black: It's twofold. The genesis of the film came in the 1990s, when I
spent time in Jamaica. Every day in the Jamaican Gleaner, the national
newspaper, there were front page stories about some payment that wasn't being
released because Jamaica didn't devalue rapidly enough or privatize quickly
enough, or do drug-trafficking to the satisfaction of the United States. And
these stories were repeated again and again. I was in shock because I had
thought the IMF was something like the Red Cross. I didn't think they were that
controlling, that they would have that kind of impact on the day-to-day running
of the country. So I wondered how much autonomy the country had, if the outside
forces had such influence on the really important policy-making. As I began to
speak to people, and as is articulated in the film, everyone knows what's
going on, in all classes, and yet, I, as a decently educated American, had no
idea that this was going on. And that's how the tourist came to be -- I wanted
to ask why I had no idea what was happening. The tourist is a metaphor for
privilege and lack of understanding. Jamaica needs to reinvent itself to meet
the needs of the visitors. Consider the case of dance lessons: it could be that
once, you visited a country and would go to a little bar and see people dance,
and try out the new moves yourself; now, it's all contained in a little area,
and spoon-fed in a soulless way. But
at the same time, [the use of the tourists] is not just a criticism; I'm not
just making fun of the Americans. I identify with them. I felt that there's a
certain victimization in lack of knowledge, that I myself am part of. So the
tourists are a metaphor for the lack of understanding, of our own policies,
imposed in our name. I spoke to Jamaicans who work in hotels about the most
absurd questions they get. And there were people would come to the island and
not even know they were in a foreign country. Very often, the first
question they would get is, "Where's the McDonald's?" And along with
that, there's the adaptation of the Jamaica Kincaid text (A Small Place,
written in 1987 about Kincaid's own home, Antigua), and she uses a very
militant, passionate voice to describe a postcolonial consciousness. I was
interested, now that we've all accepted that colonization is wrong, to apply her
postcolonial text to a neocolonial situation, and see how accurate it remains. CF:
How do you understand the race classifications and racism that appear in
the film? SB:
I've been asked, "How come there are no black tourists in the
film?" But the days we filmed, we just filmed; there was no intention to
shoot only white tourists. And Jamaicans comprise a range -- black, brown,
white. I'm not unaware [of how the film looks], but in a documentary situation,
you shoot what's there. And this situation is definitely set so that the
majority of tourists are white and the developing service industry is populated
by black Jamaicans. There are certain sociological, economic truths underlying
that, but I wasn't taking that on in a way that I was trying to decipher. I was
just trying to offer a representation of reality. For myself, I have spent a lot
of time in Jamaica, and have many Jamaican friends, so I move easily there. When
I first arrived, it was startling to be a minority in a black country; it was
almost like being famous, because everyone was watching me. But so many years
have passed and it's no longer like that. And the people in the film were very
willing and even anxious to talk. They understood it as a way to speak to the
American people. The farmers identify with American farmers who have also been
put out of business by global agri-business, so they saw the film as a chance
for dialogue. Because of that imperative, race issues were really on the
backburner. CF:
You also chose not to include yourself as an interviewer in the film. SB:
That's an aesthetic and stylistic choice. I didn't include myself in H2
Worker either. That's not my style of filmmaking. If the story was about me
in a more real way, then I would include myself. It doesn't interest me, that
problematic, the relation of the filmmaker to the subject. CF:
What were your strategies for distilling the complicated issues of
"globalization" for the lay viewer? SB:
It was hard work! I'm still exhausted from it. A lot of times during the
making of it, I thought, "What have I gotten myself into? What kind of ego
am I?" But what I think is brilliant about the film, personally, is the way
it defies stereotypes. People don't expect the banana farmers, onion farmers, or
dairy farmers to know what the policies are. And that confronts us, because in
this country, we're taught to believe that it's too complicated for us to
understand, and that the language that the policymakers use is a barrier --
"devaluation," "privatization." My goal was to take the
viewer on the same journey I had gone on, [to show] what I learned from the
people I interviewed. So I begin with the news on television, the passive
watching as your country goes down the drain, and you're hit with a sense of
powerlessness. Unless t
here's a revolution, the country will be like Grenada. CF:
That opening image of people watching a crisis unfold on TV is so
resonant now, for U.S. viewers, though of course, it's business as usual for so
many others. SB:
It is, and I'm too close to both right now, to be able to speak to the
connection now. I live just nine blocks from the World Trade Center, so I'm
geographically too close, and I'm too close to the film. I was using the TV as a
means to show how stories repeat themselves. They just keep getting worse: more
free zone factories, more dairy factories are shut down: "The IMF visits
again." More McDonald's are built, so it looks more and more like Miami. So
there's a passivity but also a flow of information, and no movement within the
country to change any of this. Until the last riots you see in the film, the TV
spots are local news; then, when the tourists are getting on the plane, the
riots are broadcast by NBC News. So it's a commentary, that most of the time,
when you see violence from another country, the violence is what reaches our
news. But we don't know the reasons why this is happening; the causality is not
"newsworthy." So I was conscious of wanting to bring the "local
news" here. And of course, the TV news is a helpful tool to get information
across without a narrator. CF:
The spokespeople for the IMF and World Bank tend to use language that is
passive, removing them from responsibility for what's happening. SB:
Yes, because it's an economic ideology. CF:
And given the IMF's obvious wish to avoid argument, the argument the
film makes -- especially in juxtaposing interviewees like [the IMF's] Stanley
Fischer and [former Jamaican Prime Minister] Michael Manley -- was that designed
in the editing? SB:
That imaginary conversation came in the editing but also a lot of it was
pre-thought. When I made H2 Worker 10 years ago, I had a narrative
structure in my mind. This film was a challenge, to film "policy" and
its effects. It was hard to make that which is invisible visible, so I had to do
a lot of thinking in advance,
and it took a long time to raise the money, so I was thinking all the time. I
worked with a good editor, John Mullen, who also cut H2 Worker.
Everything in film works in a context, and if you know the context when you're
shooting it, the better you'll be able to force its meaning. We knew how things
would be used. I never knew if it would work, the integration of Jamaica
Kincaid, the tourists, the Rastas. It took a little time to communicate my ideas
to the people I was working with, like the cinematographers. I spent a lot of
time in Jamaica over the past six years, so it was a cumulative project: every
conversation I had found its way in there. So it's a personal film, but it's not
personal subject matter. CF:
You shoot film specifically, as opposed to video or digital video, which some
filmmakers are turning to now. SB:
Video doesn't excite me. The image doesn't excite me. When I'm shooting
film, the photographic image is so different, not if you're watching on
television, but in theaters. For film, I don't think the technology has reached
that degree yet, when you blow up video to film. That look is a different look. CF:
You worked with four different cinematographers: was that by intention? SB:
No, it was the way it worked out. Like, one cinematographer never wanted
to go back to Jamaica. Another left halfway through and the Jamaican gaffer was
promoted to DP. And the person I really wanted, Malik Sayeed, wasn't available
until my last shoot. So there were those funny dramas that characterize any
film. CF:
How did that affect your thinking about the film? SB:
It made me more isolated. For H2 Worker, I worked very closely
with my cinematographer, so that every time we had to leave, we could pick up
where we left off. This film was so fragmented -- like, today we're gonna film
tourists, and tomorrow, we're gonna film banana farmers -- it was difficult. But
Malik Sayeed, I was really lucky to work with him, even for the final week of
shooting, and he filmed the women workers coming out of the "free
zone" factories, in a way that made the light so striking. His sensitivity
is so profound, I thank God that he was finally able to come on, because I think
the film wouldn't be able to reach as broad an audience without his help. He's
the most talented person I've ever worked with. CF:
The "free zone" footage does bring much of what's come before
to a kind of climax. SB:
Everything that was chosen had a direct relation to policy, loans being
borrowed and what they were ostensibly supposed to achieve and whom they were
ostensibly supposed to aid, and then what they actually achieved and whom they
actually benefited. CF:
How did you arrange for the soundtrack choices? SB:
I can tell you some exciting news, which is that we have a soundtrack
cd, which will be in stores on February 5th, the day before Bob Marley's
birthday. All the proceeds from the sale of the CD go to an organization called
URGE (Unlimited Resources Giving Enlightenment), started by Ziggy Marley and the
Melody Makers and other good people. They pay salaries for teachers of homeless
kids, build toilets, do environmental awareness, all good work without
bureaucracy. I've directed a lot of reggae music videos, so I am indebted and
grateful to the artists who allowed their music to be used. They inspire me continually.
I like to think of the film in the tradition of a Bob Marley song. I think
reggae music doesn't occupy the place in American culture that I think it could,
given what it says and how it says it. Someone has said to me, what's happening
in Jamaica is happening everywhere -- it could have been filmed in Thailand
or Haiti, Argentina or Ghana. And I say yes, but then it wouldn't have the great
reggae soundtrack. CF:
The music has such an acute politics, and then it is commercialized. SO
when you hear "Day-O" now, post-Beetlejuice, or post-a dozen
other contexts, it has a different resonance than it once did, or than it does
in other places. Or "One Love." SB:
Yes, and we had fun with that. We used four versions of "One
Love," one after the other. I'm sick of the way it's used in commercials.
For the documentary, though, the music is important. And the fact that this film
has been doing so well shows that in this country, there is a market for
documentary film, maybe more than is allowed theatrically. A friend of mine said
to me, "Stephanie, you worked really hard, you made a good film, and the
world embraced you." It doesn't necessarily happen like that. People work
really hard and do good work, and the world doesn't necessarily embrace it. As
he said to me, you have to realize how great that is. And I do. Read Cynthia Fuchs' review. |
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