Writer/Director Ava DuVernay talks to The Inside Reel about structure, approach, voice, perspective and perception in regards to her new film from NEON: “Origin” based on the book “Caste:: The Origins Of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson.
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:10 You go and write your stories.
00:13 Folks need to know about this.
00:15 You're trying to make sense of racism, but your thesis is flawed.
00:21 It was all lies. They knew we weren't inferior.
00:28 You don't escape trauma by ignoring it.
00:31 You escape trauma by confronting it.
00:37 I don't write questions.
00:42 I write answers.
00:47 And I think we talked about this back in the day about structure.
00:53 What structure means and how a film can sort of encapsulate that.
00:58 With something like Origin, especially working with Isabel,
01:01 it's a very specific approach and yet it has to feel organic
01:05 in the way that she travels through it.
01:07 Could you talk about talking with her, building sort of the story,
01:11 but making sure to integrate all these different pillars
01:15 that were essential to the story?
01:18 Yes, well the screenplay is a hybrid of information from the book
01:26 that really jumped off the pages to me,
01:29 and two years of research to elongate and expand some of the ideas
01:38 and facts from the book, as well as to interview Isabel Wilkerson,
01:42 the author, about her experience in writing the book.
01:45 That's why I don't call the film "Cast,"
01:48 because it really is about writing "Cast."
01:50 It really is about the personal life and the professional life
01:54 during the time of the creation of the book.
01:57 And that is kind of this side-by-side journey braided together.
02:03 Historical elements from the book, historical elements that I research
02:07 beyond the book, and then Isabel Wilkerson's personal journey
02:11 all weave together, and that was the goal of the writing.
02:15 Mom made me promise I'd come by today. It's my birthday.
02:19 Wait, today is your birthday?
02:22 Yeah.
02:23 Happy birthday.
02:25 It's Brett.
02:27 I'm Isabel.
02:29 Yeah, I know.
02:30 Most relationships end.
02:39 Friendships, romances...
02:41 they break.
02:45 You okay?
02:52 If you look closely, you'll find something tragic is happening.
03:01 But the experience of actually making it, and obviously when you made it,
03:05 is so key, obviously starting with Trayvon Martin,
03:09 but the aspect of the Dulles, and the Davis and the Gardners,
03:13 and obviously Nazi Germany, all these things.
03:15 I mean, you see the parallels, the ironies, but the reality
03:19 of what it's showing.
03:21 How did you want to sort of meld that with the cinematic superlative
03:25 versus the actual information being created?
03:29 Well, you know, if I just was going to convey information,
03:32 I would have made a documentary.
03:34 What I'm interested in doing is evoking empathy and stirring feelings
03:38 of intimacy within history.
03:41 And so we use the narrative cinematic form for that.
03:45 And so certainly using that allows me to render images that are historical,
03:50 contemporary, surreal.
03:52 In one moment you're in the modern day, and the next moment you're
04:00 in feudal India, and the next moment you're in a room
04:02 and there are leaves falling inside of it.
04:04 Whatever tools that felt appropriate to convey the emotion of the part
04:14 of the story that I was in, I freed myself to get out of boxes
04:19 and experiment with the form and give it a try.
04:23 On this day, he folded his arms rather than salute a regime
04:31 that deemed that love illegal.
04:36 On this day, he was brave.
04:42 He couldn't have been the only one who felt something tragic was happening.
04:49 So why was he the only one among the men to not go along that day?
04:56 Perhaps we can reflect on what it would mean to be him today.
05:02 I'll leave you with that.
05:08 Thank you.
05:10 [Applause]
05:19 I mean, with the different pillars, where it'd be like purity and pollution,
05:22 endogamy, all these things, I mean, it requires a certain sort of
05:27 deft touch to sort of know what stories to tell within it.
05:31 Could you talk about that?
05:33 And then what actors to play, because I like the fact that you take
05:36 certain elements of that and yet you place small intimate moments
05:39 in her life, like the scene with Nick Offerman, or the scene with
05:43 the different scenes with Nisi, or John.
05:46 They're very specific to sort of balance the idea of what she's trying
05:50 to pursue and how trauma and family builds into that beyond the element of history.
05:56 Absolutely.
05:57 Yes, well, there are a number of pillars in the book.
06:00 I pulled out the ones that I felt we had visual representations that were
06:07 striking enough to entice people to want to study more.
06:12 You see her in her act of writing, really pulling out the two pillars
06:15 that you spoke about.
06:17 Throughout the screenplay and throughout the film, there are different scenes
06:23 that speak to different pillars just without the you're learning
06:27 about a pillar.
06:29 You have Miss Hale, the scene with Audra McDonald.
06:33 You have Nick Offerman, the scene with the plumber.
06:37 You have engagement with her family and allows us to really understand
06:45 the fingerprints, the bruises that cast leaves on the individual
06:50 and in terms of historical legacy, what's been stripped of people,
06:55 what they've been denied because of cast.
06:58 All of this went into the stew.
07:00 As I'm reading the book and I'm researching further some of the ideas
07:04 in the book and I'm talking to her about her personal life,
07:07 in the two-year process of writing it, about nine months in, I realized
07:11 the only way this is going to work is if I free myself of the traditional form
07:17 and there won't be a traditional antagonist.
07:21 There's no villain following her around the world in a black hat or whatever.
07:27 There will need to be new ways to convey this information and this emotion
07:31 and that's what I tried.
07:33 [laughter]
07:38 So cute.
07:39 So cute.
07:42 Look at mama.
07:46 She's cute.
07:47 So fine.
07:48 Yeah.
07:49 How much is it?
07:53 All four estimates are over $10,000.
07:57 Damn.
07:58 Yeah.
08:02 You can sell a roofless house.
08:05 I'll have to wait until I get back.
08:07 You'll leave when again?
08:09 Next month.
08:11 I have so much research to do here and I have to start a new draft soon.
08:17 Do you even know anybody in India?
08:19 Mary, he's uncle.
08:21 What's the point of traveling?
08:23 Meeting new people.
08:26 Traveling to places where you are warmly welcomed by familiar faces.
08:32 It's underrated.
08:33 I know we've talked about this before on many different movies back in the day,
08:37 is the aspect of perspective and perception.
08:40 Because understanding doesn't mean acceptance.
08:42 Acceptance doesn't mean understanding in many ways.
08:45 But that's why some of those discussions, like the ones with Connie,
08:48 with Connie's character and all that, about, oh, it's not the same thing.
08:52 Well, it is, but it depends on your perspective.
08:56 It's very interesting to see how that sort of moves back and forth.
09:00 Could you sort of talk about that and also using your perspective and your
09:04 perception as a director and as a writer to sort of place your imprint on it
09:09 beyond what Isabel had?
09:11 Yeah.
09:12 I think it's just so important to show, Tim,
09:14 that you can be in conversation with someone and it doesn't necessarily need
09:19 to end in agreement.
09:22 But it also doesn't need to end in a lack of civility.
09:27 Like, can we not be at a dinner, have a difference of opinion,
09:31 and not the end of it isn't slamming doors and screaming at each other
09:35 across the way?
09:36 To be able to actually sit in these scenes,
09:39 to be in the scene with Nick Offerman, to be in the scene with Connie,
09:42 to be able to hear things that are different from your own opinion.
09:45 But at this point, we don't even want to know people.
09:51 We will just take them off our social media feed and pretend like they don't
09:54 exist if they don't exactly agree with us.
09:57 And we are in a world that really promotes that kind of bifurcation and
10:01 separation of people with different ideas.
10:03 And so I just thought it was important to render those images in this film,
10:07 to be able to show people, adults, being in conversation,
10:11 having a difference of opinion.
10:13 And certainly it even exists within my film.
10:15 There are parts of the book that I may not disagree,
10:20 I may not agree with totally, but I still engage with the book.
10:23 I still read it again. I still try to understand.
10:26 So it's exactly what you're talking about.
10:28 And I don't see that enough in films.
10:30 And I really was pleased that we were able to kind of show some examples of
10:36 what I hope we can get to.
10:38 [Music]
10:43 Millennia ago, Dalits were called the untouchables of India.
10:48 [Music]
10:51 Enforced into the degrading work of manual scavenging.
10:56 The practice of cleaning excrement from toilets and open drains by hand in
11:02 exchange for leftover food.
11:05 [Music]
11:11 The only thing that they have to protect their bodies is oil.
11:17 Each other and their prayers.
11:21 [Music]
11:25 To refuse is to invite severe punishment or death.
11:31 This persists to this day.
11:33 And that's why everything like in New Delhi with the Dalits,
11:36 actually using real Dalits in the film sort of talks about that sort of blend
11:40 between what reality is and what cinema can be.
11:44 And that's transforming now too.
11:46 Could you talk about doing that and finding those sort of moments in the film
11:51 that are those quiet moments?
11:53 Like even when Anjana is looking at the cage and she sees somebody in cage
11:59 and other people see it protected.
12:01 Is there sort of a weird sort of dichotomy there?
12:05 Yeah. I mean, I think there – it's what you're talking about in perspective.
12:10 We're two different people and we can look at the same thing and that same
12:14 thing will mean different things to us.
12:16 And so as we traveled the world, as we spoke with Dalit scholars and activists
12:22 and lay people and religious people and all students,
12:28 we found a shocking thing.
12:34 Dalits are not a monolith.
12:36 They are like any other people in the world.
12:39 They have their own opinions as an individual.
12:42 And so I think that's such a big part of our examination of caste.
12:46 The dehumanization of people is what allows caste to fester.
12:51 But when you look at a person and you're able to speak with them individually
12:54 and understand, well, just because you're Dalit doesn't mean you mean this
12:57 or that you've had this experience just because you're African American
12:59 doesn't mean this, just because you're of a certain age or you live in this state
13:03 doesn't mean you believe this.
13:05 And so these are the kinds of things that we hope the film challenges,
13:09 hope the film promotes, that idea of individualism in its best form,
13:14 which is I am me, regard me as a human being just as you regard yourself.
13:18 [Music]
13:21 Are you interested in writing something for us?
13:23 I don't do assignments anymore.
13:25 You're a better writer than most people do anything.
13:27 Have you heard the tapes?
13:29 No. Of what?
13:31 [Radio chatter]
13:34 Hey, we've had some break-ins in my neighborhood and there's a real suspicious guy.
13:39 Looks like he's up to no good or something.
13:42 [Music]
13:46 I want to be in the story.
13:49 [Music]
13:51 Really inside the story.
13:54 [Music]
13:56 And build a thesis that shows how all of this is linked.
14:00 [Music]
14:10 (gunshot)
14:12 [WHOOSH]