Ava DuVernay on Telling the Story of the Central Park Five in When They See Us

I'll start with a comment not a question okay it's the way you're not supposed to do key noise and just say I was really in awe of this because I felt like you really really did justice to one of the greatest and justices in the history of the country and one that I remember living through when it was happening not living through open I remember the whole you know when the press was getting all whipped up and everything was going on where were you and how are you taking it in hi folks I was a junior in high school in in LA and so on the west coast a group was born in Compton and so was an environment that nots is not dissimilar to these these boys we grew up in Harlem I'm around the same time and I remember being I remember hearing about the story I remember being struck by it only because there around my age and you know I'd heard about Harlem and kind of thought it was similar to Compton but I definitely wasn't into the details of the case I just remember the word Wilding yeah sure I remember that word I remember wondering what it was cuz you know I thought I was up on my black urban youth slang and thought what is this what's wildly so I called a cousin who lived here and I asked what it was and he said we don't know what it is we think they mean while it out and while it out just means hanging out like just chillin it doesn't mean you know attempted murder assault and and all of that and so this word Wilin out as you see here that becomes Wilding you know quickly becomes Wolfpack animals and was used to you know paint these boys as as as villains and in a story that they quickly lost control of mm-hmm yeah I mean you know the way that the Fuhrer was whipped up and that's something that you really do you know very well I I just have to ask you about how you figured out the dramatic structure because that's a lot of material to cover and you really did it in those yeah it was a lot of material to cover so it was the 25 years that we that we Chronicle you know a story that you know I knew I was gonna need multiple actors to play the parts of the of the boys as they became men but really it was for me there's a world in which you have a character that plays Donald Trump you have an actor there's a world in which you're following detectives and it's a whodunit it's a true crime thing but when I centered the story and everything I did around the boys voices giving voice to their experience their family their emotions their dreams their youth ripped from them it centered it in a way that really prioritized their perspectives and it starts to give me a framework to work on to work from and then from there I started to apply a lot of the things that I was using in 13th which was you have to give people context to understand this case so each of the parts is broken up to not only invite you into the case of the Central Park jogger in Central Park five but also educate to educate people to the criminal justice systems and all of all its nooks and crannies so the first part is all about police interaction police aggression how it feels to be black and brown and to be approached by police you know addressed by the police what they call precinct behavior all those visas that go into the beginning of processing people through the criminal justice system the second part that you saw is about the courts and bail and juries and judges and district attorneys and prosecutors and public defenders and all of these things that kind of bring you in to that space the third part of it that comes after this is about juvenile detention and how we're still incarcerated kids in some states are right around the country still in adult prisons and formerly incarcerated people yeah so we deal with that and three how people who have been incarcerated our time come out and are still treated as less than full citizens with the whole swath of rights that have been taken away from them and then the fourth we deal with incarceration particularly solitary confinement yeah so the goal is yes this very famous case that you're getting you know all of the information about in the full story about but also as you watch it I'm trying to bring you into the overall system that we're all ensnared within because our taxpayer dollars go toward you know making all this happen yeah yeah and you're quite right because you're staying within their world within there you know it's not about like the Crusaders on the outside or the reporters you know I mean that's just it was easy I mean I was tempted to do some of that but you know the goal was to honor their story and give them voice for the first time you know those confessions as you saw our core so those are not their voices yeah you didn't hear their voices at the trial yeah so at no point are there is their perspective ever Center to prioritize in this whole fiasco which in the end was all based on life yeah and it's interesting to think about what it is that actually drove somebody like Linda Fierstein to just kind of put together this what finally is really an outlandish concoction I mean there's no there was no rhyme or reason to it liars am i under stings or tweet outlandish things you know yeah that's right now I can imagine that for the for the actors that you know you cast in these roles who are absolutely amazing I mean you know uniformly you know getting them oriented with their characters and then I would imagine that they met all of their real-life counterparts and spent time with them but I wonder in the case of this particular project what that was for them yes is the young boys anthems yeah on both sides of this yeah yeah I think for the young boys it was important for me to make sure that they had context that they knew what they were doing that they weren't just in scenes and just knowing their lines but it was important for them to understand what their part you know how their part fitted to the overall puzzle so they had homework they had packets they really almost had tests they went through that criminal justice school but also about this case they really understood their guy before they even met their guy and for the younger the young boys the young actors meaning their real-life counterpart wasn't as transformative as it was for adult actors meeting the adult they will play because they're looking in the eyes of the person that they're going to play for the young guys as I would talk to them they're like it wasn't you know you can't play an adult you're playing you're trying to think of who that person is as a kid and that God has tripped up a little I said don't think about him as a kid yeah just try to really the meeting of the men was all about stakes you are playing a real person don't try to be him cuz you're not gonna be him because he's not that anymore right but his story resides in you now the part of his story he can never tell that was never told is your responsibility and that seemed to give the boys a lift and they approached it all the boys you see with such a serious kind of their objective was to define these men yeah in ways that they had never been defined and never been allowed to explain for themselves and so that responsibility I think you can see the performances lift a little bit yeah I actually saw a change in working with them yeah once they understood what was at stake yeah I mean can you talk about that unbelievable performance but and I'm not gonna remember his name but the boy who plays Kevin yes wait please Kevin is the one with the black eye I could see by the helmet early on is the only boy out of the five who has absolutely no acting experience so he somebody saw him in a school play in Baltimore and sent me a tape and Skype auditioning for with him he's in Baltimore and I'm in LA and I said I don't want to fly this kids away for a real audition and because he's never done anything and let me talk to with him first let me see him first so we Skyped and he was great I flew him out he was better and every time I saw him he just he just he desperately wants to be an actor he walked into his audition with the Buddha hoggin book in the [Laughter] yes and he was fantastic but on you know that on one hand on the other hand not you know the blocking the usual terminology that we use on set some of that escaped him early but by the end he I mean he added he's a force hmm and I really hope that the industry all these boys I hope the industry rises to their talent you know I think of I always forget his name he's the sweetest young man Timothy Shalimar seems each element yeah he is such a sweetie pie I mean I see him out and he is a gentleman but you know he had one you know gorgeous performance and a couple gorgeous performances and then another and another and the industry rose for him we seek your talent young man we will give you all of these projects and that doesn't happen for our boys yeah you know and so I I am hopeful but also a little fearful I look at them and say what what could be next for them what do they get next and and I think that's the the bittersweet part of creating something like this you create a world for department heads of color and women department heads and actors who usually don't get a shot to have material this dense and and and you know I talked to them we had our big premiere at the Apollo last night I asked a lot of them what are you doing and and so you know every actor has their trials and tribulations but there's another layer there for the actors of color especially the young boys so yeah I'll keep a good thought for them you know cast them in whatever I make yeah we can also just say by the way you mentioned that there are in the case of the boys through the younger actors and then the actors who played them as adults in one case though there's an actor played place Corey why so the actor who plays Corey wise who's the one who takes the stand at the end actually plays plays the character all the way into adulthood yeah stunningly yes really yeah because he has a lotta you all are quiet this with the New York route Lincoln Center crowd we can do some because that was the Apollo last night it's a high no that's different it's great yeah I mean you know before we take questions from the audience I do want to ask you about production design and the you know apartments places because everything looks like you know it's researched down to them it's a tough city to capture 1989 New York City if any of you were here just through our extensive research and you were here extensive research and talking to folks and watching the tape and looking at literally pictures of every block there's a website that will show you you can put in a date yeah it's great exists many questions about where these files came from but a production designer found a site that you can actually bring up put in an address and see the block the whole block and the space 30 years ago yes and it was dirty dirty just a little rapid it was scary it was you know it was you know it was eighties eighties look but then also a lot of graffiti a lot of trash just when I look at Central Park at that point like the current Central Park people were like we've clean this up we're not gonna let you come in here I was like I need trash here I need graffiti here you know I'm walking with my clipboard the guy from the park is like a lady never gonna happen so you know we really had to try to just you know work the angles visual-effects yeah whatever we could bring in but literally the park was so strict they wouldn't even let us change lights like these let's let me change the light bulb it didn't even look like that at a time remember the guy the parks like like you know are people gonna notice yeah yes so they were lovely though thank you Park people they were really loved really lovely but but it speaks to we've done a lot of work here because it was really wild at that point so so yes and even though it's Netflix we they didn't just open the vault doors for us even though they do have a vault as a lot of money in it so but we had to be very strict on what we were changing and you know we did our best yeah what was wildin by the way what did it was it just like some kind of crazy it was a distortion of taking down we've tracked it as just being they heard the boy saying Wilin and someone who didn't know what it was roll it down is wildin and then you have press that are not asking the second question at that point that's right just they're just reporting it aspect yeah let's do some questions from the audience anybody would say yeah there's somebody right there and there's a microphone and I think yeah that again into the microphone it is extraordinary not just on the personal level of each boy in New York City at that time we still suffer from this did the New York P that there are 12 New York PD policemen who are suing the New York PD in federal court because of the quota system which I think you exposed but didn't discuss did they contact you are you and what do you think about this 12 New York City policemen suing in federal court the New York PD because of the quota system I think that's fascinating I'm not aware of the case I'm gonna Google tonight it sounds interesting maybe I'll make their movie next what if I made a movie about the police Wow that would be interesting but but no I'm not familiar with that case but I'll look into it yeah there's a microphone coming your way there you go yeah that microphone is not happening first of all well thank you so much for having us here and just being in our presence and being able to show this appreciate that a lot very much respect you as a Harlem I myself I I just I think just talking about the production value on this I think I it was just wonderful to see basically you know harm streets and I feel like I haven't really seen that a nice high quality in a while so that was that was really fascinating to see what I was going to ask about that boys what was your process I mean honestly I'm curious about how you were able to kind of get this off the ground and just running in general yeah this whole production the project in general yeah just how it started for you and yeah sure thank you for the compliment it started with a tweet so believe it or not Raymond Santana so this is the the Latino boy tweeted me in 2015 after he saw Selma which is a film I made about dr. King and he said what's your next movie after Selma questionmark Central Park five hash tag fingers crossed and his the name on the account was Raymond Santana but the but the user handle said Central Park flies I was like wow this this is one sent reporting live so I slid into his diems and I and I asked him does no one have your story and he said no and I said I might be coming to New York in the next couple months maybe I'll buy you a coffee be honored to meet you just as a student of history and someone interested in in the in the criminal justice system and so we met and he's so charismatic in real life he's a real just a born leader and he told me to start he looked into my eyes and I heard things about the story that I didn't know the nuances that the the family familial relationships the the internal pieces of it that that I just don't think we've heard enough of and so he one-by-one introduced me to each of the other men and by the time I met them all I was like can I please tell your story they started asking me and by the time I met them all I was asking them and we set out on this journey it was 2015 and I was around this time so it's around the four-year anniversary of it and then from there at one point I thought it's gonna be a film just a one this is a a two-hour film or something when I got in and started doing that research looking at all the court transcripts started to get slipped things by people that I probably shouldn't have had or seen starting to talk to people some people on the other side of the case who were afraid to speak freely you know and publicly but what will call me and give me information and then talking to the families talking to the men looking at all the press coverage looking at the trial transcripts you know and I said this is it's not it's too much for two hours what other form and lucky for me this new limited series thing really just started around the same time and I'm a big fan of Cary Fukunaga and he was like he directed all the true detectives I was like I wanna if he can do it I can do it remind me never to do this again okay it's very difficult right oh I did it once I was talking to Barry Jenkins who's about to do it for you know change your socks at lunch make sure you have like just giving him all my tips to survive it it's tough but I went to my friends at Netflix who I've done 13 with I said that I wanted to do this piece they immediately said yes what do you need they opened the vault just a little just slightly I reached as much as like and took it out and ran so that's basically how many shooting days did you have 66 days to shoot a five-hour film yep which is really crazy thank you for someone Leslie thank you for acknowledging the craziness for that there's somebody over here yeah yeah right there got you hi Ava I just first I wanted to thank you for being such a strong and clear voice during a time that is scary and difficult and frightening so not just for your incredible films but for the leader that you are when you talk about when you talk about doing research for the film it makes me think about how painful it must have been for you to not only because of what you felt for these boys that became men but because things seem to have gotten worse not better in all of these years so I also think about how President Obama had said right before he left office he was very clear when he talked to young people he would say don't be cynical this is not the time to be cynical so as an artist and as a human being I just wanted to know how do you balance cynicism which we kind of naturally have with hope because I feel like as a maker what I see in your films is there's so much truth which is painful I found it very painful to watch what you put together but there's also hope so I wanted you to talk about that thank you for the question very lovely I'm a student of history so I know that there's precedent everything's happened before you know what I mean I can look at it and say Oh things haven't changed much but the fact that we were all sitting here you know 50 years ago we would not have all been sitting here in this place you wouldn't have been asking that question that brother wouldn't have been even sitting next to him the beautiful man who's sitting next to him so comfortably we would not be in the space like this and that that is in the lifetimes of many of the people here so there has been some change and yet I can also say very likely that there are five black and brown boys getting harassed by the police right now brought in for something that they didn't do very likely that they're you know going to trial without proper representation very likely that you know many of the 2.2 million people behind bars and we know 90% of them have never seen a trial it was if you saw 13th that's one thing I think that's how I got you to make it a premiere at New York Film Festival he saw that quote good people 90% of the people behind bars at this moment in this country have never gone to trial they've pled out because they didn't have the money didn't have the wherewithal thought it was a better deal to take and so while I can say there's precedent for there being changed and I know that to be true we also know that it's not changing fast enough and yet I believe in the power of film that's my weapon I believe in it I know how I've been changed by film I know how seeing Philadelphia changed the way that I thought about AIDS and HIV as a young you know kid in on the west coast who didn't know didn't know what it was and was scared and was afraid to catch it and did I know what that was Oh Denzel oh it's okay yeah he seems like a nice guy you know I know what what how my own view has changed about trans people in this country five short years you know so many people have just literally radically changed their minds about you know trans people you know being people being able to address them properly being able to know and acknowledge you know who they are as human beings a lot of that has come through storytelling and so I believe in this and I feel like if I just keep doing it and other people keep doing and we keep watching it and we keep talking about it our attitudes towards prison caging people and large numbers in this country will change I believe it can so I'm just gonna keep knockin my head against the wall until it happens but um I have a lot of hope yeah and I also want to point out that the experience you know what you were just saying about your your vision of trans and you know LGD LGBTQ community that's something that you deal with so there's a section in the last episode that's incredibly powerful it's in the fourth part and it's that part yeah me too I want to ask you about the interrogation techniques and where the New York City police force is with that whether it was I know that it was officially you know dropped but then it's like you know these things come back like the fish'll on paper and official in a dark room we're two different things exactly who knows what who knows what they're doing and we're seeing on videotapes we're hearing about cases like this woman is telling us about is a lot going on that's unofficial yeah yeah yep anyone else ten for a couple more yeah right here Oh is the Central Park jogger is still alive yeah yes she's still alive mm-hmm still alive she wrote a book 20 years ago now yeah her name is Tricia Miley yeah hi my name is Nicola first of all this is an incredible honor so thank you so much for being here with us and this film I was literally bawling at the end as a young person of color who is trying to break into the entertainment industry myself when it comes to these stories and us being storytellers and we're vessels that are telling these these truths do you ever find it difficult to remove your personal opinion or your personal feelings or do you ever feel like there were moments where you felt like you were almost too close and had to take a step back in order to give the story the justification that it needed to be told unbiased this is completely slanted to what I believed was never told and never said and never seen even 13th you know I try to show as much as I could to give context but I wasn't necessarily interested in balance I was interested in telling the story that I wanted to tell which was one about the ways in which I feel criminalization and that study the criminalization had come to be so rampant in this country criminalization of black and brown people and so I don't I'm not you know there's some documentarians and some people who are I mean I can't think of any top but that um that you know try to have that unbiased view that's news it's supposed to be news yeah it's supposed to be fair and balanced yeah right it's supposed to be news but filmmaking storytelling is yeah an artist perspective so I never you know fear that I'm getting too close I think the closer I get the more deeply felt the material is for me the more deeply felt it will be for you thank you thank you so much what's really interesting I just want to ask you in that regard about Vera Farmiga z' character it's a really interesting character and really interesting great performance so great yeah I really want to work with Vera Farmiga for so long Vera Farmiga played Elisabeth letterer who is the prosecutor during the trial and I really went to work with her and you know as a director there's some people you really want to work with it's just like anything you want to meet someone and then you kind of don't want to because then you'll be disappointed because you thought they were great and then you meet him and they're kind of rude or something she meets some people and they just expand and they get better that was very for me she's fantastic and and but her character is really one of the few characters and the other side of the case that I spoke to the real person so I had the occasion to speak with Elizabeth letter or a couple of times and she didn't tell me much really those conversations were trying to negotiate a sit down there she would talk with me and she didn't ever end up doing it she didn't feel comfortable doing it without some stipulations that she had asked me to make which I refused to do and but in those conversations you know I was taking everything in the way that she spoke the things that she had said she cared about you know I slipped in I got a couple things in that gave me just a little a little bit of C a few seeds and then I took those and I started to talk to people around her people that knew her now then people that know her now people that she touched throughout her life to try to build her and through that building of the character because I didn't have it directly if I took great pains to try to figure it out as best I could without her I heard about a little bit of doubt a little bit of doubt in there and I wanted to honor that it would've been easy to just paint on as a villain but when I heard it I felt okay it's my duty to at least share this part that I thought I heard from up for more than one person and so there's that one scene in the second part of it where she goes to Linda fairs scene and she expresses the stout and um and I'm glad that that's in there because these are human beings you know I think they made a grave error I think it's horrific that they do not admit their error they've never apologized he's been fully exonerated they're innocent yeah they were tried arrested tried and convicted on no evidence there was never DNA never anything you saw the trial it was never you just saw the whole trial it was never never anything physically on them on her and never anything from her on them they were brought in immediately out of the park three of them immediately has a park their clothes that they had that night were brought in not even a grass stain a match one bit of blood DNA nothing and yet they are you know sent away to prison on the propaganda of the case on on confessions that were clearly coerced and so the idea that within that and I feel so strongly about these boys but within the research I heard a little bit of doubt on our part I feel like I can't bury that you know I have to have it in and you know I don't know if it's better or worse to have had doubt and not followed it yeah you know and not stayed true to what you thought for a minute could be true or to have never had it at all but that was a case with that character one last question yeah not my sister she's not my sister I heard somebody saying is that her sister no you never know I mean you know thank you so much for your work thank you so much for inspiring us as women of color filmmakers we honestly I mean words cannot express so thank you so much for all that you do I want to access directorial question how do you work with the actors are you kind of a hands-off director or you are more kind of hands-on director what's your process with getting those performances because Koree wises mother delivers such a powerful performance how do you work to get those types of performances well thank you for the question I appreciate the question believe I'm a director but believe it or not I rarely get directorial questions I appreciate you asking me about how we change the city but for me and when I sit down with Kent I usually will get you know because he's a filmmaker I'll get questions about craft but 99% of the time when I sit down I'm being asked about race and gender and I'm not asked the same questions as my white male counterparts are about how they made the thing so I appreciate it thank you how do you direct the act that's me see um you know my directorial style I was a publicist before I was a filmmaker and I loved that job it was a lot about you know nurturing and helping and protecting the people that I was working with it's taking care of them I always felt like I'm gonna take care of this I got this I'll take care of before you and I and I took that over into my filmmaking but while I was a director and I said while I was a publicist i publicize films for over a hundred directors 98% of them were men 79 of them were white men so I saw the way they directed and I would be looking technically at how they moved the camera but I always was like Kylie this is I would do it differently I'd move the camera there and I'd also say to the actor you know good job how about this a little bit more maternal my mother's here raised me with just a soft warm heart and that's how I try to be to people but also you know it's iron fist in a velvet glove kind of thing she's gonna give you a soft warm heart button so heart until she's not okay hi mom and so and so it is that kind of iron glove velvet glove iron fist and most of it is trying to nurture the the safest most warm environment that I can for the work that I want from them I used to be a UH when I was trying to first direct I used to hear that a lot safe space create a safe environment I remember I read books an article like what what do I need combs why don't you safety tape what is this safe space what is the safe space me teddy bears yeah it just means comfortable you just making people feel comfortable when you're comfortable like I am here you'll talk a little bit more you'll give a little bit more you'll try a little bit different so in order to do that I do it my way which is a very big sisterly for these boys kind of motherly odds kind of environment you can do it how do you feel what do you think I liked it did you I didn't like it did you kind of you know just really making it more conversational and I take that all the way up through all of my actors and Selma I was working with actors white actors who just tell a story before I go in the script you know I don't I don't I don't like the in word like as most people don't like the n-word I don't like the n-word and so in my script I typed get out of here in word write in the script and so the actor came up to me and said go aside so in the script use it says get out of here in word I said yeah that's the line do you want me to say in word or do you want me to say the I said mmm so ya know the in word you know so not get out of here in word and I said no no you're gonna have to say the word hole say the word say the word and in that moment I'm like what am i doing like I'm a black woman from Compton gut you know like shivering separating this person trying to get them to say a word that I detest and despise I put my hand on the shoulder and said I know this is difficult for you you know it's difficult for me to hear but we need you to do this so that we have context to tell a story of Justice you are worrying for justice right now can you do it yes I can do it and I remember you walked away from me and be like all that is is my mom like this chocolate you know whatever you can do you know I'm gonna need you to just you know and and so it's just that nurturing piece would have been easy to say yeah it's the n-word go say but it's just a little bit of sweetness and so I think that's what I bring that I don't I don't see a lot of male directors anyway doing it some directors use humor you know it's better it takes right huh use whatever it takes but I think at least exactly people can tell I'm not funny yeah you know and I'm and I'm and I'm not sarcastic but I do know from my days as a publicist and talking to lots of actors and you know that treat others the way I want to be treated that's another thing that my mom always told me so that's my directorial style be nice until you can't yeah then you drop the hammer that's nice but I just want to say is in relation to that before we go that what you said there's something that you said before about the mission that the actors had of representing this story that you said lifted them and that's where craft and you know the spirit that drove you to make this movie in the first place me that's the meeting ground right I guess I think so I'm so proud of the cast it was a huge cast 117 speaking parts right and it's been 25 years and it really needed everyone to be invested and they were I think their investment in it they're real embrace of the stakes their desire to honor the story and these men you know we all got together to create something that we're all very proud of May 31st on Netflix thank you thank you Netflix also and can we also say happy birthday to your mom thanks everybody have a good one you

Channel: Film at Lincoln Center

Views: 166,418

Rating: 4.8715291 out of 5

Keywords: Film Society of Lincoln Center, Ava DuVernay, Central Park Five, When They See Us

Id: GxxM0TzXwtE

Length: 37min 52sec (2272 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2019