'Sing Sing' director Greg Kwedar breaks down a scene alongside Colman Domingo who stars as Divine G, who was wrongfully committed for a crime and finds his path in a theater group. Greg provides an elaborate explanation of the art of "taking the stage," working with cinematographer Pat Scola who shot on Super 16mm to showcase the richness of the spaces and so much more.
Director: Funmi Sunmonu
Director of Photography: AJ Young
Editor: Evan Allan
Talent: Colman Domingo and Greg Kwedar
Line Producer: Romeeka Powell
Associate Producer: Lyla Neely; Meb Beyene
Production Manager: Andresa Pelachi
Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes
Director, Talent : Lauren Mendoza
Camera Operator: Shay Eberle-Gunst
Sound : Mike Robertson
Production Assistant: Spencer Mathesen
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Archival Credits: Brent Buell
Director: Funmi Sunmonu
Director of Photography: AJ Young
Editor: Evan Allan
Talent: Colman Domingo and Greg Kwedar
Line Producer: Romeeka Powell
Associate Producer: Lyla Neely; Meb Beyene
Production Manager: Andresa Pelachi
Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes
Director, Talent : Lauren Mendoza
Camera Operator: Shay Eberle-Gunst
Sound : Mike Robertson
Production Assistant: Spencer Mathesen
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Archival Credits: Brent Buell
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00It's a very conscious thing for me to show, to support, to amplify tenderness,
00:08especially when it comes to the way we view black and brown men,
00:11because the world is set up in a different way believing that we're not tender.
00:15To sleep.
00:20To sleep.
00:23Perchance to dream high.
00:26There's the rub.
00:27Hi, I'm Coleman Domingo.
00:29And I'm Greg Cuidar, the director of Sing Sing.
00:31And this is Notes on a Scene.
00:33It sure is.
00:34The program at the center of this movie is Rehabilitation Through the Arts,
00:37a program in New York that has been putting on theater productions,
00:41started at Sing Sing in 1996, and they've been putting on theater
00:44productions inside these maximum security facilities.
00:47This scene, what did you call the scene?
00:49Taking the stage.
00:50Taking the stage.
00:51And this is when Clarence Divine-Eye Macklin, playing a version of himself,
00:55is actually taking the stage and going through a rehearsal.
00:58And he's learning sort of like how to do it,
01:00and being coached by Brent Buell, played by Paul Racey.
01:04And he's having some troubles, you know, as a newbie actor, right?
01:08Okay, you want to take that again?
01:11Why, did I do something wrong?
01:12No, no, no, we're just working at it.
01:14But I'll tell you what, let's try something here.
01:17Paul here, as Brent Buell, is trying to encourage Divine-Eye to take the stage,
01:24like to really take ownership and stepping on.
01:26And he's saying something really meaningful,
01:29but I don't think he knows how to say the deeper thing that only Coleman can as Divine-G.
01:35And this is also a point in a movie that we've seen,
01:38we've probably seen this scene before in a lot of movies,
01:40where the teacher like encourages the student.
01:43Yeah, we don't want to suffer those tropes of like, you know, white savior.
01:46And that's not what's happening here.
01:47It's like he's just the person who comes on and helps ignite and encourage as well.
01:51I want to see you come on the stage with Hamlet's, you're in Hamlet's world,
01:55and you're bringing that all the way to your mark, and then you say you're lying.
01:57Let's try it.
01:58A big part of like how we decided to frame a lot of this movie
02:02is about the power of what happens when you draw close.
02:04When you bring the camera and actually look someone in the eyes
02:08and hear their stories and like the kind of many stories that a face can tell.
02:12And a lot of our movie lives in a lot of these close-ups.
02:19To be...
02:20Hold up, did you do it?
02:21Because we all fell asleep.
02:23Oh!
02:25I've known Clarence Devine-I-Macklin for eight years.
02:29He was one of the first people Clint and I met when we started to learn about the program.
02:33And he's one of those people you, you know, you feel almost before they walk in the room.
02:38He has this immense presence.
02:40And part of that is like charisma.
02:43And he also has a light, you know, that emanates from him.
02:46But he's also, he's a very deep human as well.
02:49He's very intelligent.
02:50He's constantly curious.
02:52Like, you know, he's out of his comfort zone in many ways doing his first film.
02:56But he was learning every single time and watching and figuring it out.
03:00And by the time he got here, his subtlety just shone so much
03:04to know that he didn't have to play to the balcony because he was used to the theater.
03:09So he was able to distill and learn all the relationships of camera.
03:14I think he's always had that as a performer.
03:16He's a sponge.
03:17I saw you walk out here like a man who's asking this audience for permission to be here.
03:21This is the theater rehearsal space.
03:24And I wish you could just see like above this.
03:26There are these vaulted sort of wood ceilings.
03:29And when you walk into this room, it takes your breath away.
03:32And contrasted with the actual prison environment that's surrounded by like miles of razor wire.
03:37This space here was safe.
03:40And it was a place that you could really express yourself.
03:42Who's this guy?
03:44That is James Biggie Williams.
03:46That's Mosey Eagle.
03:48Why don't you say who that is?
03:49This is my best friend, Sean San Jose, who's a phenomenal actor.
03:52We've known each other for 30 years.
03:54And I knew he needed to go on this journey with us.
03:56Who's this gorgeous, stunning gentleman?
04:00King.
04:01King Coleman.
04:02King Coleman Dominguez.
04:03He needs a bow tie as well.
04:06And who's that?
04:07This is Sean Dino Johnson.
04:08Gosh, that guy has so much heart.
04:10Take the stage and say, hey, it's time to start paying attention to me.
04:15You have to show.
04:16Brent.
04:16Yes, chief.
04:17Do you mind if I?
04:18Please.
04:19The process of doing this work is transformative on almost every level.
04:24And the proof is really in the pudding.
04:26Like in the recidivism rate of people going back to prison within five years of their release is over 60%.
04:32And graduates of this program, three here in front of us, less than 3% ever go back inside.
04:403% recidivism rate, which is astounding compared to the 60%.
04:46Mm-hmm.
04:46That's the norm.
04:49So this program is a program that works.
04:51The world expects brothers like you and I, all these brothers to walk in with our heads held down,
04:56you know, apologizing for being there.
04:58Nah, what you got to walk in is like a motherfucking king.
05:02Like you own all this shit.
05:04Everything is yours.
05:06In November of 2021, I was sitting with a notebook and finally had this clarity to center
05:11the story of putting on this play between a friendship between the real Divine G and Divine I.
05:15And this treatment just kind of fell out in about 10 minutes.
05:18And at the very end of it, I just wrote Colman Domingo as Divine G.
05:23What did you say?
05:24Am I working Zola?
05:25And you thought that and I'm talking to you.
05:26I own this fucking theater.
05:28This is my fucking theater.
05:29I own this bitch.
05:30I own all this shit.
05:32That's it.
05:32Yeah, yeah.
05:33Now give him some love, give him some love.
05:35All right, all right, that's it.
05:36All right, now what's your emotional state?
05:38What's underneath?
05:39My character had to meet Divine I's character where he lives,
05:45like he lives in this other very sort of raw place.
05:47And so I had to make it more accessible and make him understand,
05:50oh, this is still your experience.
05:52You can take what your life experience is and apply it to Shakespeare.
05:56At the center for me, I think that this film ultimately is about brotherhood
05:59because they're looking after each other in every single way
06:02and making sure that they're helping each other find access to
06:05whether it's their emotions, to feelings, to advocating for their own liberation.
06:10They're in this place doing the work.
06:12And because the system is not set up for that to happen,
06:16but they're taking ownership and really just like, you know,
06:19finding the light in their lives.
06:20So I thought, what a beautiful message.
06:22And I want to be a part of messages like that
06:23and these complex representations of black and brown men.
06:28Mad as a motherfucker.
06:29Okay, no, no, no, okay.
06:31Anger is the easiest thing to play.
06:33Am I right, Brett?
06:35Too easy.
06:36What's more complicated is to play hurt.
06:39I think this is a tool for life, actually, what's being said right here.
06:43The fact that you're saying anger is easy, but to play hurt is more complicated.
06:48Again, I think the thing that I learned and we all learned from
06:51even studying RTA and the purpose of how theater plays in this
06:56is you're giving people life tools as well.
06:58You're saying, oh, okay, wait, I'm not angry.
07:00Actually, I feel more complicated emotions than that.
07:03People who are learning this stuff in these theater games, rehearsals,
07:07it's very unconscious that they're actually applying this to their own lives
07:11and making them think differently about their own feelings.
07:14That's why I think a program like RTA is so important
07:16and how it works and how theater works, period.
07:19That helps you name the thing.
07:21All right, let's try that.
07:23You know, we also shot this movie,
07:25Beautifully Lens by Pat Skola on Super 16 film.
07:28There's a very conscious choice for that
07:30because this is a movie about all the richness that comes from the earth,
07:35from being grounded in the earth,
07:36and to shoot on an actual physical medium like film,
07:38I think really helped us sing.
07:41We shot our movie in two halves.
07:43The first half were in more formal incarcerated spaces,
07:48like the yard, the cell block.
07:50We were shooting in a decommissioned prison
07:52that closed a month before we went in there.
07:54We were only in there for 10 hours a day.
07:55It wasn't active anymore, but you still feel the oppression.
08:00The heat, the lack of ventilation, the ghosts in the walls,
08:03how it's just a constant maze,
08:05like to go down one stairwell to only go up another,
08:07and then you have no idea where you are.
08:09When we finally kind of left that in our rear view
08:12and came into the theater, we were just flying.
08:14Yeah.
08:15From the top.
08:15There you go, Brent.
08:20There's little moments like this to see one hand going out
08:23and seeing this big strapping man grab his hand as well,
08:28applauding what's happening with this brother,
08:30that, okay, good, he got the lesson.
08:34Those small moments and gestures of camaraderie,
08:36I think, are very important.
08:37Yeah, man, a big key word that you helped us find was tender.
08:42I mean, that's a simple gesture of that,
08:44but the fingerprints of that are all over this film.
08:48It's a very conscious thing for me to show,
08:52to support, to amplify tenderness,
08:56especially when it comes to the way we view black and brown men,
09:00because the world is set up in a different way,
09:02believing that we're not tender,
09:03to deconstruct and smash tropes of hypermasculinity
09:08and to show that, hey, these brothers,
09:10because it's what I witnessed.
09:11I have friends, we call each other,
09:12hey, beautiful king, how you doing?
09:14Because we need to hear that,
09:16because the world is telling us we're something else.
09:18So I think in a space like this,
09:21where these men have sought tenderness out with each other,
09:25because it is tender to do theater,
09:27to express yourself, to express your,
09:29to be vulnerable with each other,
09:31especially in a place that is set up to be dangerous, actually.
09:35Like the yard, but bigger.
09:40I'm divine, fucking not.
09:42Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:44I hope people recognize the human potential behind these walls.
09:49There's a line that Paul Racey says,
09:52who would have thought that the healing of the world
09:55will begin right here behind these walls of Sing Sing?
09:58It's one of the most potent lines to me,
10:01because it says a lot.
10:02It says that, could you even imagine
10:04that the healing we're doing here
10:06with all obstacles against us,
10:08this radical love that's happening for self,
10:12for healing, for rehabilitation is happening here.
10:15Just imagine what we take out into the world.
10:18If we can do it, the rest of the world surely can.