This year’s Environmental Film Festival in Turin, Italy delivered a banquet of viewing for both environmental activists and cinema buffs. The Grand Prize winner of the International Documentary section at the ninth annual event (27-31 October) was the American film,
The Real Dirt on Farmer John.
I understand you made your first short documentary about John in 1982. How have you dealt with the changes in documentary-making over the years?
Taggart Siegel: That’s a good question because in 1982, there were not many documentaries around. Our references were not that grand. So I was pretty much on my own at film school, with professors kind of guiding me. In ’82, I was studying such masters as Hitchcock, Fellini, and Bunuel. I also studied anthropology, so I had this interest in ethnology and storytelling in filmmaking. [When I went] to do a film about a farmer, my best friend, it suddenly hit home: “Wow, documentary is a medium that can be looked at seriously.”
At first, [the film] was very unstructured. The chairman of the film department made me edit it down to a very tight 12-minute film. He taught me all about vulnerability, how to tell a powerful story and not get into seeing film as either news-related or journalism. I wasn’t a journalist. Between 1982 and 1996, I made a number of other documentaries, so my filmmaking evolved into making social documentaries for filmmakers, libraries, distributors out of New York, and distribution companies that would sell them to universities for classroom use or to PBS. That was all there seemed to be as a market for documentaries. Then in ’91, I did a feature film, and that dragged on for a few of years.
Was that a direction in which you wanted to go?
Siegel: I thought so while we were making it. We filmed in Mexico. I co-directed and co-wrote and I really thought that I was heading for Hollywood. But then I got knocked down on the distribution end, because I don’t think I was really “suave” as a promoter. I felt more like a victim. And then I thought, “That world is really not for me.” I was feeling sort of lost for a bit and I thought, “God, I have to get back to my roots.” So I picked up the VX1000, which is the little Sony camera. It’s broadcast quality, a consumer camera, and you can be a one-man show. So I picked that camera up and I started making two films, one about a Hmong Shaman. Originally I shot that one in ’84 and it was called Between Two Worlds. That became an ITVS film. They funded it and it was shown on national PBS. I completed that film first. It was a mix of old and new footage.
So you have two films that you revisited.
Siegel: Exactly. That was about the time that Sherman’s March was being talked about. It seemed like a new time for documentary. I was excited about it, working for PBS again and I had the money. I was still in the midst of filming John’s story and then, I finished filming the new Hmong documentary, called Split Horn: The Life of a Hmong Shaman in America. Theaters were showing documentaries and these big dreams about getting one’s documentary into theaters seemed more tangible. In the edit, we really thought “feature length.” We had to really come up against PBS, who wanted us to keep it short, a one-hour version.
The PBS version is shorter than what was screened here in Turin last night, right?
Siegel: Yes. We hated that we had to compress it to 53 minutes, but they gave us permission so we could still do the feature. They recognized that films get out there in the world theatrically as well as on TV. At the Slamdance Festival, we received our first award, the Audience Award. Mad Hot Ballroom was there that year and it didn’t win anything. However, that film sold for $2 million, because the makers of Mad Hot Ballroom had a whole series of producers and reps, a whole machine behind them. Since we sold our film to TV, it’s a lot more difficult to sell it for a theatrical release. But we got a big distribution deal, and that’s where we’re at now. We’ve already had a theatrical release, but the distributors didn’t do such a good job, a new investor came in and we’re getting a release in New York and L.A. in the spring, and then hopefully in another 20 or 30 cities.
Was it your original idea for this film to have John write and narrate?
Siegel: In ’96, no. I didn’t want him to be too involved. We had decided never to work together again because we had worked together in ’87 on a fiction film and we parted saying, “Never again.” Then, in ’96 I said, “Okay John, I’d love to do a documentary.” As we continued to shoot over the years, John got more and more involved. We’d send him a cut. In 2003, we started editing and he was even more a part of things. We began asking him to help write the narration. It built up gradually until he was truly writing and narrating.
John Peterson (Farmer John): I always say this: there was a big block of work that was already prepared and written. It wasn’t like saying, “Oh, Gee, we’re going to have to fatten up the whole story of John’s life.” There’s certainly a lot that was added, but a big part of the reason why I got involved is because I had already done a big part of the writing. I had done a lot of readings about my life so I was very used to the process of sharing my life. [He turns to Taggart.] Do you agree?
Siegel: Yes, but when you are making a film, it is very different from a literary treatment. When you shoot many hours, there are steps that are not in the book. It becomes a massive undertaking to work with the literary stuff, to work with all the film material, all the home movies. Everything becomes the crafting of the film.
Taggart, did you try to not appear in Real Dirt? In many documentaries nowadays, the filmmakers appear or are heard asking questions. Did you make a conscious effort to be out of the film?
Siegel: Some people suggested that I narrate parts of the film seeing as it is about 25 years of my life as well, but it’s just too complicated. Besides, I like being behind the camera.
John, you faced many obstacles and persevered. It seems that you had two opposing models. On the one hand, there was your mom, the schoolteacher, a strong, constantly positive and forward-looking person. In contrast, there was your uncle, a farmer [who committed suicide] lingering constantly in your thoughts.
Peterson: You know, it’s very difficult to say. One never knows if it’s cultural or genetic. I know I have great tenacity. But do I take responsibility for it or does it just happen? Who knows?
What kind of message do you see in the film? You are showing it at an Environmental Festival in Italy, a place that has a high regard for food and farm fresh fruit and vegetables. I wonder what you feel this audience could get from Real Dirt?
Siegel: For both of us, it is a message of hope, especially at a time when most documentaries are pretty dismal. This film shows man’s struggle. Everyone can identify with pain and suffering and also with John’s tenacity. I think audiences recognize the beauty of it, because it’s a strong story and almost a saga of John’s life.
I find the film argues against bigotry.
Real Dirt is a story about being isolated, then working your way back, not only as a farmer but as a human being and community member. Now being a Community Supported Agricultural (CSA) farm, the place has taken on a new life. The farm is now based on sharing, exchanging with other people.
Siegel: Yes. We want people to question their prejudices and how they view others.
I am interested in the music you used in the film. I read that one group is from Melbourne, Australia.
Siegel: Dirty Three is from Melbourne and they did most of the soundtrack, but the compositions and the new songs were by Mark Orton, an American, from the group Tin Hat Trio. All of the moody music that was so essential was by the Australian group. I was given a bunch of CDs to listen to and I thought from the very beginning that they were geniuses. They conveyed the mood I was after. We decided to use their already composed music from their CDs. Then Orton did the other music and we actually worked together with him.
Tell us what you are working on now.
Siegel: It’s still this project. It’s so big because now there are theatrical possibilities everywhere, so it’s become something else. There is so much involvement on a grassroots level. So my commitment is still to getting Real Dirt out into the world, because we see the incredible receptivity of all these different countries. Greece’s EcoFilm Festival Curator (where we won a Special Mention award from the jury) is here in Turin. He said this film should be shown to all the Greek people to give a sense of hope to the younger generations to continue on. I guess with this whole Euro movement, farming is not being passed on. They’re even paying farmers to not farm.
Here in Italy too, farming families are dying out. Younger generations are abandoning the family farms and migrating to the cities.
Siegel: This is really creating a serious problem everywhere. In Ireland, also, there is much more money now so that people are buying second homes. Where the countryside was once so beautiful, now it’s full of these ugly new houses. The farmers are ending up selling the most beautiful farmland.