08/05/2007

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
Kathleen Glynn laughs as her husband, Michael Moore, leaves after stopping by to say hello during an interview.

Film Festival Q&A

... with Kathleen Glynn

BY EMMY PARSONS

eparsons@record-eagle.com

Part way through my interview with Kathleen Glynn, her husband, Michael Moore, walked in with Kathleen's parents, Jim and Donna Glynn, to quickly say hi before they went off to their next films. But before they left, Glynn gave Moore a chance to speak.

Glynn: Is there anything you'd like to say to rebut all the things I've told Emmy about you?

Moore: (Kathleen) only speaks the truth.

Glynn: I told her I was smarter.

Moore: That part is very true. That doesn't even need to be questioned. There are many witnesses to that.

And he just may be right. Many people in the area may not recognize Glynn as she strolls down the street with her strawberry blonde hair and assorted rhinestone-studded glasses, but she is a Hollywood powerhouse. As the producer of many of Moore's films, the founder of Blue Lake Entertainment, and member of the documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Glynn knows what she's doing in the film industry.

R-E: How did you and Michael first meet?

Glynn: I was working at the Jiffy Prints in Flint. I believed I was a graphic designer. I was 17 years old, and he had his newspaper (the Flint Voice) and he came in, and he was always late. He always came in at like five to 5, and I was pretty sassy, I guess, and I thought, "What is this guy doing here? Like, doesn't he get it? We close at 5, we can't run off copies right now.” So that's kind of how I met him, and I thought, he's really nice, but you know, a bit of a slacker.

R-E: How would you describe your life today?

Glynn: I would say my life today in one word is charmed. And I consider this to be, for lack of a better word really, a very spiritual place. I have a lot of joy living here ... I have essentially fulfilled a childhood fantasy, which was to live here.

R-E: What is life like here compared to life in New York?

Glynn: Life in New York for me, my village, let's say, was essentially centered around my work. So I would go to work, and my work was my village … Here, there is an appropriate amount of distance, you know whether that's, lets say, a philosophical distance between my work and my personal life.

R-E: How have you been able to share your skills since you've moved to the area?

Glynn: One way is through speaking. That has been really good for me, because there's been a primary focus on Michael's story, because his story is right out there and it's big. But as in any kind of situation like this, we all have different perspectives, so it's been very healthy for me to say, "This is how I saw it. This is what I experienced. This was what happened to me during the process.”

R-E: What kind of effect have the negative reactions to the films you and Michael make had on you, or do you let it have an effect?

Glynn: It does have an effect at a certain point when it becomes, when people want to do illegal things to you, you know when there are threats or follow-through on threats, those kinds of things. I mean, you know, that's a hard environment to live in. But that is a very, very teensy amount compared to all of the good things that people think about the films, whether they agree or not ... Most of the stuff that we do is not highly controversial, we're not throwing out inflammatory ideas. We read it in the New York Times, we got it from the BBC, we read it in the Washington Post, and then we just kind of lined it up ... And you just kind of put it together, and then you're kind of doing this look at what happened and what led up to this, and you're reading not the stuff that's on page A1, but the stuff that's maybe in the business section on page C12 of the Times.

R-E: What is it like collaborating on these films with Michael?

Glynn: That's an interesting question. I'm very direct. And so, I'm often, "You have to do this, you have to do it now, we can't wait any longer.” ... And so I'm overlooking all these departments, and I'm trying to make all the trains run on time. He is doing things like, "I think we should get a helicopter for tomorrow,” or "I think we should cancel the shoot for tomorrow.”... So it's constantly talking, discussing, and kind of like, "OK, which way is he going with this? And I've got to go around it the other way.”