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| John Greyson: Fig Trees |
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| Filmmaker Interviews | |||
| Written by Dixon Christie | |||
John Greyson: Fig Trees
 MyDocumentary.ca: Hi this is Dixon Christie of mydocumentary.ca, her with John Greyson of the movie Fig Trees. How are you?
Good.
MyDocumentary.ca: So tell us about your movie, Fig Trees.
Sure. ‘Fig Trees’ is a documentary opera about AIDS activism; it’s a portrait of two activists; one Zacki Achmat of Capetown, South Africa, and Tim McKaskill of Toronto. It compares the work Tim was doing in the 1980’s and 1190’s fighting for treatment for people living with AIDS, and then Zacki’s fight within the last ten years to get pills into the bodies of South Africans. In both cases there’s very principal stands resulted in them really endangering their lives. In Zacki’s case he went on a treatment strike and refused to take pills until they were available to everyone, and so cam very close to death. It’s a story about extraordinary activists, but ones that were actually very critical of that martyr mythology that all of us as audiences are addicted to; we love stories, or documentaries or operas about heroic tragic, figures. This is a film that refuses that, it’s looking more critically at individuals versus movements, and do we really need heroic leaders on a pedestal, or do we really need to focus our eyes to the masses of people, not the names; get a way from the big names and to the people and the individuals in the group.
MyDocumentary.ca: So how did you come across this story, where did you find your story line and how did you find the characters?
They are both friends; Tim I have known since the early 1980’s, Zacki I have known since the early 1990’s. Both involved with activism and making many films in many capacities, so in some ways it was being watching from within, there lives, and watching from within them leading these extraordinary movements, become public figures, watch other people make documentaries about them. Documentaries, which were very important but also, tended to stress the heroic elements at the expense of something more critical or political. It was trying to use the form of documentary but also the form of opera; this is a documentary opera where they keep bursting into song, to make people think about these issues in a different way.
MyDocumentary.ca: Where did you get the idea to incorporate opera into your documentary, and how did you do that?
Well, when I say opera, what do you think of first? You probably think of the tragic heroin, standing at the edge of the stage, singing her high G at the end and collapsing on a bed and dying. This heroic tradition, where we all pull out our hankies and cry a little, often defines what we define as melodrama and tragic opera, and it seems to me that AIDS is often fit into to that very narrow narrative. We have to break it out of that, we have to sure that there is real lure. I cry too; there is real power to that narrative. But at what expense? Especially when you think of real people’s lives, at what expense to the truth of their lives? So this is an opera that tries to take itself apart; and in the end there is a real refusal, their not allowed their high G, they don’t collapse on their bed, they take their pills and they live. It’s using opera to turn it upside down and inside out.
MyDocumentary.ca: Do you have a background in opera?
None! I come at it from…there’s a huge audience of opera queens, which I wish I belonged to, but I’ve never loved opera that much; I’ve always been interested in it, I’ve always been interested in what it means when people burst into song; how we listen to them in a very different way. Since the beginning of AIDS, there’s always been people singing about AIDS; when you think about Dion Warwick’s ‘that’s what friends are for’, Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Philadelphia’; pop songs, charity songs, a tradition of singing about disease. Which seemed to me something we need to think a little more critically about. Particularly when it crosses the line into opera and the tragedy that calls forth or brings forth. This was something I wanted to critique. Again, it was being a true opera believer rather than being a true opera fan.
MyDocumentary.ca: Obviously, being an activist yourself you went into the movie really knowing the story, knowing the history of AIDS activism, and the act of being an AIDS activist but not really knowing the opera part of it. Kind of a paradox there going in, hey?
Well, I didn’t know anything, but the interest I had in opera was the incredible power experience watching someone sing and perform powerfully and beautifully, and that quality of voice. There’s a reason we worship Maria Callous; it’s because the voice is so extraordinary it transcends what the spoken work can do or even a pop song can do. Sorry Celine Dion! You’re nowhere close! It seemed to me I wanted to pay tribute to these and acknowledge the incredible power that has on us and at the same time try and make a critique of that. It’s a mixed message, because opera will continue to be powerful, and let’s use it for more powerful things. In some ways it was our attempt not to destroy the opera but lets do the opposite; lets tell a story that’s very different one that isn’t just about the tragic individual, the tragic lonely hero, but instead say no, this is about the triumph of collective movements and you can write narratives that have a happy ending.
MyDocumentary.ca: Go past the stereotypical opera messages; even go past the stereotypical AIDS activism message perhaps.
What we have with AIDS activism is a tradition of activist documentary, which is extraordinary. For me and in my life have been the most important films out there. Wonderful people have been making them and are making them; Zacki’s roommate in South Africa, Jack Lewis has been responsible for putting the entire experience of the South African pandemic on screen in the most amazing ways. I have nothing but respect for that. It also takes the burden off me; because those great documentaries are made, I’m allowed to do something weird and different and musical.
MyDocumentary.ca: Did you know going in what the story would be; what the story arc would be? Or did you sort of let that be revealed to you slowly?
We knew the story arc from the beginning because the story arc was Zacki’s treatment strike. He started his treatment strike very quietly, the mass media didn’t know anything about it, he just said, I’m not taking my pills until they are available to everyone; how can I lead a movement when I can take pills and others can’t/when I can afford them and they cant’. Then the media got a hold of the story and suddenly became national news, and then international news, and then he was nominated for the Nobel Prize. I was visiting back and forth for several years in the early 2000’s, and we stared to tease saying, ‘you gotta watch it Zacki, before you know it they are gonna start calling you “St.Zacki” , and before you know it someone is going to write an opera about you because that’s what they do to Saints and martyrs. Then I thought; what a very good idea. It emerged rather organically out of Zacki’s story. The idea of adding Tim came later; and it came out of the idea of thinking globally, thinking ‘what have we done around our global responsibility. We fought in the 1980’s the national fight, we fought our government for access to drugs here in Canada, and we won those fights. We still have things to fight for, but we have access to those drugs, that work and are saving peoples lives, like Tim’s life, like my partner’s life, Steven. What I think we slipped up on is what’s next; the global stage. The responsibility we have as Canadians, as citizens, to fighting internationally. If pharmaceutical companies operate internationally, then we have to as well. A great example is in the film; the added pharmaceutical sequence where it shows Tim leading a demonstration here in Toronto but there were other demonstrations all over the world, held simultaneously coordinated to put pressure on APID pharmaceuticals around the release of drugs in Thailand. Very specific, focused issue around a particular country, but using international pressure to achieve something. It seems to me that maybe it’s that kind of work that we’ve fallen down on a bit, and need to rediscover. That’s the work that we gotta do today, we can’t rest on our laurels, be complacent, simply go shopping and buy red products for Bono, and think that’s going to save the world. We’ve got to step up to the plate, together collectively and keep fighting.
MyDocumentary.ca: We like to ask our filmmakers the amount of footage they shot, and the final cut of the movie?
God! I don’t think we ever dared to add it up because I’m putting in footage I’ve shot over two decades, footage friends and fellow actors and other filmmakers have shot, borrowing clips from all kinds of Hollywood sources, etc. It’s a real collage; a split screen ‘collage-a-thon’. To tell the story in very different ways. We also shot on HVX camera, the Z-1; we shot on everything. 16mil; there’s shots filmed on the first 16mm ever I ever made. It was a film on the apartheid in South Africa. 105 minutes.
MyDocumentary.ca: Was there anything profound you learned about yourself in the telling of the story?
The most profound thing was artistic. Embracing this very strange story, very strange form, and seeing it through. Freeing myself from the pressures of distributors and broadcasters; all those people who love to tell you how to make your film, water it down, mediocratize it. The huge pleasure of being able to make the film I wanted to make, and I owe big debt to the Art’s Council for supporting that type of filmmaking which is about freedom.
Mydocumentary.ca: we do like to ask about budget; if you care to divulge…
Sure. Almost as hard to add up as the footage count; but I think it comes in somewhere around 150-160,000
MyDocumentary.ca: Did you cut the movie on final cut or Abbot?
Final Cut. Love it love it, love it, and then we up-res'd to HD cam. The finished film is extraordinary. We cut in the DVC pro-timeline, up-res'd to HD cam and man, and it looks amazing. The premiere was in Berlin where we won an award, we walked into the theater, and the screen was the width of a city block, it was so frightening. I thought it was going to be grainy, but it was just the opposite; it was so breathtakingly beautiful, the sound was amazing, Berlin. Sadly our Blur theater was not quite up to speed, so we had some technical struggles, on Friday when it premiered here, but still a wonderful audience and wonderful to see it large.
MyDocumentary.ca: Where can people learn more about the movie Fig Trees?
YorkU.ca/greyzone/figtrees.
-Thank you.
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