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08/05/2007
Film Festival Q&A... with D.A. PennebakerTRAVERSE CITY — D.A. Pennebaker has filmed some of rock and roll's biggest legends — like Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie — and makes movies with wife Chris Hegedus. His classic 1967 documentary of Dylan, "Don't Look Back,” is featured at this year's Traverse City Film Festival, as is "Al Franken: God Spoke,” which Pennebaker produced and Hegedus co-directed. Pennebaker has made movies for more than 50 years and is regarded as a pioneer of cinema verite or "cinema of truth.” The festival is paying tribute this year to him and Hegedus. Pennebaker sat down with the Record-Eagle on Friday to answer questions. RE: When you film people we're familiar with, how do you take it beyond what we know about them? PENNEBAKER: I'm looking through a camera and I don't direct them in any way. I don't try to make anything happen because I don't have any agenda. I try to be with them so that when they go into situations that confront them, they don't worry about me. RE: Who have been the most interesting people you've filmed? PENNEBAKER: They're all interesting. People who know something are always interesting to watch. That's the way we learn. I had been here once driving in the winter. I saw all the boats out there and they're all pulled up on frames because the water's so shallow. I'd never seen that before and I thought, well, somebody did that once and now everybody does it because they watched him do it. That's all I'm doing with the camera: watching somebody who knows something do it and then people can figure out whether they want to do it or not. RE: A lot of people you've filmed are musicians. What draws you to them? PENNEBAKER: They live in a different world. I think it's a better world because they don't want to kill people or shoot people or have violent confrontations. I was brought up a Quaker so that seems a better world. So I kind of like them in general. But what they produce is easily filmed, whereas what a novelist does is very hard to film. And I just like the music. RE: How is it making films with your wife? PENNEBAKER: The best. If you have a partner, you should share everything. I don't think there's any better life than to share your work with somebody who's just as good as you are. I'm not sure what it is, but it makes a good marriage. RE: When you film people, how do you assure they're not playing for the camera? PENNEBAKER: That's their problem. I don't care. They know what a camera does as well as I do. Why I'm filming them is to find out what they know. RE: Is filming celebrities different from filming ordinary people? PENNEBAKER: Celebrities don't think of themselves as celebrities. All the celebrities I've been around are excited to go see some celebrity somewhere. Most of them are just like anybody else. When we first met Bowie, we had him babysit once because we had to do something. RE: He babysat your children? How did that go? PENNEBAKER: He just had to be there. He didn't have to do anything. He has a child himself that one of my children used to play with. He's not a celebrity all the time. If he was sitting here, you could sit and talk to him. The thing he loves is South American music. If you talk to him about South American music, he could talk to you all day. I never thought of Dylan as a celebrity because he hates publicity. He goes into retreat when he can. RE: How do you feel about the current climate for documentaries? PENNEBAKER: The documentary has always been a useful thing in that if it told you how to assemble a barbecue stove you just bought, that's a documentary. It's showing you how something works. I think Michael's (Michael Moore, founder of the festival) films are true documentaries. And I've always liked them for that. He goes out into the world and sees what's going on and he shows you where it's going wrong and how to fix it. That's what documentaries should do.
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