Garrett Bradley, welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
Thanks so much for having me here, man.
I really appreciate it.
Um, you have been on quite the journey with your film.
I mean, you-you're one of America's most documented
and-and celebrated filmmakers.
You-you have a-a specific style and a touch
when you create a documentary.
People feel through-through the message
that you create in your films.
And your new documentary film, Time, is no different,
um, from winning you Best Director at Sundance
to getting you nominated at the Oscars,
which would make you, if you won,
the first Black woman ever to win an Oscar for directing.
Um, it's a truly powerful story
that I think crosses all boundaries
of age and time and love
and-and prison and-and punishment
and forgiveness, et cetera.
Let's-let's go to the inception of the idea.
Time, a story of Sibil Fox Richardson,
a woman who is just trying to be reunited with her husband.
Take me through the story and why you thought
this would make a documentary that people should watch.
Well, you know, to be honest with you, I wasn't, um...
I wasn't, like, going after a specific story.
I made a short film called Alone,
which is a 13-minute Op-Doc.
And there was a real absence in talking about incarceration
from a woman's point of view, from a family's point of view,
from the point of view of the human experience.
And I met Fox in the process of making that film.
Um, I-I, uh... I actually called this organization called FFLIC,
Friends and Families
of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children,
and Gina Womack, who's the cofounder
and director of that organization, picked up
and said, "Lauren has to speak to Fox."
And so, Fox is briefly in this short film
and makes a really vivid connection
between slavery and the prison-industrial complex.
And, um, we developed a natural relationship, you know?
And I felt like when Alone came out into the world,
it-it only further illuminated the absence of-of, um, of images
and experiences that-that people could understand
that were around, again, the-the effects of that,
the effects of incarceration.
What really struck me with this film is,
it didn't follow the narrative that I thought it would.
You know, so many of the stories I watch these days are generally
about people who are wrongly incarcerated,
or-or people, you know, who-who got framed,
or something happened or...
But-but this was an interesting story
that I feel is a lot more nuanced, because
you take us through the journey
of a couple who resorted to robbery.
They were going through tough times,
but they did commit a crime.
And then, Sibil, who we see in the film,
is, um, sentenced to three years in prison.
Her husband, meanwhile, is sentenced to 60 years in prison.
And that's an interesting subject to follow
because, for one thing I've learned in America--
and there are many countries in the world who follow that idea--
is they go, "Well, if you commit a crime, you get punished,
and we punish you as much as possible."
But here it feels like you're not trying to get over the fact
that people committed the crime.
You're asking us as the viewers to ask ourselves
what our intention with the punishment should be.
Why-why did you want that-that framing?
Why did you want to question that?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
I mean, I think, um, you know, people can look at anything
from a political perspective, you know.
But I think that when you are forced to understand things
from a human perspective,
from a perspective that requires imagination--
meaning one has to imagine themselves in a situation
beyond one which they are already in--
it becomes, um, very obvious to me
that the system needs to change and that the value...
You know, if we think about human life having value, then...
And actually, you know, I was speaking
with somebody this morning,
and they made this really poignant connection
to the pandemic.
And that we've all experienced one year, right, of-of solitude,
and one year of real change,
and not being with those that we love.
And so if someone can imagine six decades of that,
a sentence of six decades of that, is it worth it? You know?
How do we really value each other as human beings?
And how do we think about the structure
by which society is built, you know, almost globally, um,
as one that now needs to be based in forgiveness,
based in-in the reality of humanity, you know?
Um, that's the future, I hope.
And I think that, you know, I'm entering...
I'm entering this conversation from that human perspective
because I am a human,
and that is how I connected with it, you know.
Yeah, there's no denying, when you...
when you look at criminal justice,
that one of the biggest things you have to hope for,
if you're ever ensnared in...
within the criminal justice system,
is you have to pray and hope that the person
who is sentencing you sees some potential in you
as a human being, because then, that could determine
whether or not you have a second chance.
What makes this documentary particularly gripping is,
you're not just telling a story. You're showing us the story.
We get to live the life of a woman who is waiting decades
for her husband to come home to be a father.
And what's really interesting is you have this footage--
something that you would never normally have is,
she was basically documenting her life.
And you put this all together,
and then created the story around it.
I mean, that must have been a gold mine for you,
discovering a subject
where they'd been filming themselves for decades.
Yeah, it was a gold mine. I mean, I think...
I think-- I want to be totally honest with you--
having shot this film without any awareness of its existence
until our last day of filming...
You know, I'll never forget, I said to Fox,
"I'll be back in a few months, and I'll, um...
I'll share a cut with you."
And she handed me this little black bag
-that ended up being 100 hours of her own home archive. -Wow.
And so, you know, in that moment,
it's like your worst nightmare,
and it's your dream come true all at the same time, you know?
And I think that, you know, you don't...
Even though you understand in that moment that, um...
that the structure, right,
the length of it is likely going to change...
Like, I knew right away,
it's probably not going to be a 13-minute documentary anymore.
-Right. -So we knew those things were going to change.
Gabe Rhodes, who cut the film.
We knew those things were going to be required.
But the intention, the reason
for why I wanted to make the film,
the reason by which myself and Fox and the family agreed
to come together in an effort
to make this was not going to change.
You know? And-and I feel like that is really important,
especially when you're making documentaries,
when you don't really have...
You know, it's a real honoring of the present moment.
It almost becomes unethical to try to anticipate an ending,
-to try to control anything. -Mm-hmm.
So the only thing that's guiding you is your intention.
Your intention is the thing that tells you
what to shoot and how to shoot it.
You know, and I don't think that changes,
even... even in the edit.
This is not your first documentary film
about love and prison.
And I wonder if you choose this particularly
because it's such a difficult subject,
or if you feel that it's a subject
that isn't understood enough.
Because oftentimes, you know, as society,
we're conditioned to believe
that once a person is a prisoner or imprisoned,
they're no longer a human,
and they are... they're ostracized from society.
That is their punishment.
But you make films that make us see them as human beings
who have either made a mistake,
or have committed a crime, you know, willingly and willfully,
but we are still forced to see them as human beings.
Why are you trying to do that?
Like, what are you trying to invoke in us
as the viewers who are watching, you know, a movie like this?
Are you trying to make us feel sad?
Are you trying to make us rethink prison as a concept?
Are you...? Like, because it is a complicated thing
to-to... to observe as a viewer.
I mean, I think filmmaking is, at its heart,
the purpose of it is for human beings
to better understand themselves,
-for us to understand ourselves. -Right.
For to us understand the world that we're living in.
Um, it's kind of as simple as that.
You know, and of course, all these other layers have, uh,
have grown since... since its inception,
but it's still a relatively, um, young medium.
And I think the spirit of that is part
of what drew me to it at a young age.
You know, I-I was curious.
I've always been a curious person.
I've always been really interested, um, in people.
And, um... and it's a... it's a... it's a tool
for being able to-to do that.
Empathy and being able to understand each other is...
-Right. -...fundamentally what motivates everything that I do.
And it's an integral part of-of making films, you know?
Well, it's-it's something that I feel like
you master time and time again.
And just seeing this story being told,
I think, will touch everybody.
Um, congratulations on... on your...
on your victories thus far.
And, um, good luck for the Oscars.
I hope you take it.
And I hope you make history in the process.
Thank you so much for joining us on the show.
Thank you, Trevor. Appreciate it, man.
Appreciate you.