Wholphin

AMERICAN OUTRAGE (excerpt from the documentary)
Directed by Beth Gage & George Gage

In the last few years, while we’ve all been busy “Freeing Tibetâ€? and dutifully monitoring human rights abuses against indigenous peoples half way around the world, filmmakers George and Beth Gage have been documenting equally infuriating human rights abuses taking place right in our own back yard. In a nutshell, for the past 30 years the U.S. government has been quietly, illegally, re-claiming land it had previously ceded to Shoshone Indians and then selling it off to various mining interests. Did you know about this? Neither did we. Despite the fact that the United Nations has passed a resolution condemning our government’s action’s against the Shoshone, actions which at times have involved physically roughing up 70-year-old Shoshone grandmothers, most of us have never even heard of this crisis. But after seeing the film, excerpted on Wholphin No. 5, it is hard to deny that it is a crisis of constitutional proportions, and one that, at the very least, deserves it’s own bumper sticker and the most celebrity-packed summer concert tour our nation’s celebritarian actorvists can muster. The following interview was conducted with George and Beth for the issue.

Filmmakers Beth and George Gage.

Q:Watching your film, I kept wondering why it takes an
independently produced documentary film for us to find out about the Dann
sisters?

Beth Gage: We’ve had a similar reaction from most of our audiences. People are amazed that this is going on today, in the United States, and they’re completely unaware of it. This is not by accident. Ed Bradley from 60 Minutes covered the story of the Dann sisters about ten years ago, but the episode never ran. It was deemed too “political.� This country is only too anxious to expose human rights offenses in other countries while ignoring the same abuses going on right under our collective noses.

Q: Did you experience any pressure or unwanted attention during filming from any people in dark sunglasses? Are your phones tapped? Will mine now be?

George Gage: One of the security men that very rudely escorted me off the Barrick gold mine property was the first “policeman� on the scene when Carrie Dann’s car mysteriously blew up later that afternoon. Luckily a young volunteer was driving it, on her way to pick up Carrie, and her fast reflexes saved her that day. A few months earlier there was an unexplained fire in the Western Shoshone Defense Project office. Also, Mary Dann’s death has never really been explained. Probably the most dangerous thing we’ve done is told you.

Q: Can you explain the role that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid played in this drama?

GG: We were told by key legislative staffers that Reid pushed the money bill for the Bush administration —he had at least one meeting with Karl Rove during that time. We didn’t feel it would be dangerous to bring this up in an election year, but it would raise very serious issues regarding collusion between industry and both parties. Reid’s not up for reelection this year so we could not be accused of trying to be political—just telling the story of what is happening. Regardless, neither political party is innocent of the abuses perpetrated on the American Indians.

Q: Do you consider yourselves filmmakers who document activists, or activists who make documentaries?

BG: I’m a storyteller drawn to accounts that inspire or infuriate, of indomitable spirit or gross injustice. George is drawn to powerful stories that offer dramatic visuals. The reporting about the Dann sisters in the New York Times really attracted our curiosity. We just couldn’t understand why the U.S. government was harassing two elderly ranching sisters in the middle of what appeared to be Nevada’s desolate desert.

Q: A friend of mine who saw the film thought the mention of Mary Dann’s death from a fencing accident seemed a little odd. He wondered if there might have been more to that story. Any comment?

GG & BG: We agree with your friend.

Q: When Carrie Dann spoke at the Native American Film Festival, her speech was an admonition against using a lot of toilet paper when going to the bathroom. What other important advice has she imparted to you?

GG: She’s brought so many things to our attention, but particularly the ongoing neglect and destruction of Mother Earth. Carrie and Mary try not to waste anything. When we went “pine nutting� with them, they counted the pinecones as they knocked them off the tree, and when they gathered them up, they counted again, making sure they found every single cone.

BG: Another thing they talk about a lot is “not taking all.� Whether it’s pine nuts that you leave for animals or water for the next seven generations, sharing is an important aspect of the Native philosophy. Their sharing was at the root of their problems with the European pioneers hungry for land. Also, Carrie talks a lot about gold and the damage that’s done to the earth to extract it. When you realize that 90 percent of gold is used for jewelry, you can’t help questioning the rape of the land that takes place in order to extract it.

Q: Do you ever have creative disagreements? If so, as a couple, how do you separate your creative disagreements from your personal relationship and vice versa?

GG: Sure, like when I don’t know an important answer is being delivered in an interview and I’m focusing on someone’s nose hair. You don’t want to be in the editing room when those moments suddenly appear on-screen.

BG: We usually only have disagreements in editing. George can’t stand an unaesthetic shot in the film, and I feel that sometimes it’s necessary for the story to work. Mostly we work together well; our strengths complement each other. We’ve been together so long, we can’t separate anything.

Carson Mell has not been stewing yams. His email said “Coming soon” and it contained this teaser:

Well, we are well teased. If there was an emoticon for when your beans sprout flowers and fill the sky with the virile anticipation of the salad days to come we would have used it here. In any event, we are excited to see the latest chapter in the continuing saga of Bobby Bird. “Chonto” is coming!

In 2000, seeking new markets for their products, western pharmaceutical companies began a massive campaign to introduce a new concept to the good people of Japan; the concept of depression. Before 2000, the good people of Japan apparently did not even have a word to describe sadness as a biological illness. So the companies had to coin a new word, “Utsu,� and create a catchy ad slogan, “Does Your Soul Have A Cold?� Suffice it to say the marketing campaign was a success and anti-depressant sales have quintupled.

Mike Mills, director of Thumbsucker, has made an incredibly intimate film documenting the human effects of America’s latest cultural export to Japan.

“Does Your Soul Have A Cold� will air on IFC Monday October 29th at 9 PM EDT. Watch the trailer here.

Until then, here is an interview with Mike to get you in the mood.

INTERVIEW WITH MIKE MILLS, DIRECTOR of DOES YOUR SOUL HAVE A COLD?

1. How did you feel after making this film?

Mike Mills: After the first trip I got pretty depressed. Or, it became clear to me that part of my attraction to this subject was a desire to face the depression I’m susceptible to and that’s been around me since my childhood. It turned out to be quite therapeutic in the long run. I learned to separate my experience, my spirits, from other people’s depression. But after my first splash of hanging out with these people I got sort of a vertigo about being sad - I became terrified of falling as far as some of them have. By the time the film was really done I was mostly grateful to the subjects of the film (my rule was that I could only interview people who were taking anti-depressants), because they were so honest and willing to share the hardest parts of their life with me. Especially in a culture like Japan, which rewards harmony and avoids complaining, this was quite a generous gift to me, essentially a stranger.

2. You know, the stereotype is that Japanese are particularly adept at adopting foreign trends and turning them into cultural lifestyle obsessions. Is that what this is? Did they really not know about depression before we began marketing anti-depressants to them? And if so, what can we do to make amends for convincing they aren’t as happy as they thought they were?

MM: It’s fair to say that the concept of depression was only known to professionals and people who were really suffering from it, and even then it seems to have been shrouded in the shame and mystery which surrounds all mental illness in Japan. It seems that the difference between depression and schizophrenia was blurry to many people, both just were just as taboo and scary. From what I learned from the subjects we interviewed, depression did get a little trendy. After these campaigns, books, websites, and magazine articles about depression shot up. The ads did create a sort of new class of people suffering from light depression who began asking for anti-depressants. I heard people in my film call this “Petit Utsu” -”little depression”. I often heard people say something like, yeah, that’s what women who work at magazines get. Truth is, with a suicide rate around 32,000 per year (about the same as America but with half the population), light and heavy depression has been in Japan for a long time. Most of the people I interviewed were very happy to see these campaigns because they “outed” depression. Just to see anybody on mainstream TV talk about depression, in a culture that historically erased it’s presence, was radical and helpful to them. They had little inclination to critique western corporate influence on their brain chemistry. In general, all things western, especially in the terrain of mental health, are perceived as being more progressive than in Japan.

3. How many people did you interview for the film and how did you find them?

MM: The bulk of the research was done online by my Japanese producer, Takuo Yasuda, and his team. Everything in Japan, from leiderhosen to BMX, has a huge online community with blogs and chat rooms etc. So the depression community has many sites that we announced our project on. We interviewed about 40 people from that and word of mouth was spread from there. I went to Tokyo and met about 15 of these people, and narrowed it down to 8. We actually began shooting 8 people, but then worked it down to the 5 that are in the film. The three that were cut were either because we couldn’t see enough of their lives- they had kids and didn’t want to expose them to the film so we were limited with the stuff we could shoot- or they had more than just depression so their stories got too complicated.

4. The fact that that we are actively exporting depression to other countries seems seriously chikusho, (which I think is Japanese for “not cool.�) You’d think congress would have to approve something like that first. I mean they do make all our cars and electronics. Anyway, what countries could/should we sell bummer to next?

MM: I think we have covered it by now. There was a New York Times article about how the Cambodian government has subsidized the prescription of Prozac to Khmer-Rouge refugees. I’ve also read things about vets giving anti-depressants to animals with depressive symptoms- parakeets that habitually pluck all their feathers out, baboons that have become reclusive. I keep thinking about all the mental disorders that have yet to be identified that will come with their own new medical cures. In the future pharmacology may be much more like taking vitamins today - a little of this, a little of that.

5. We organized a crying competition once for a film and the first attempt was a disaster because none of the guys could cry. (SEE BELOW) We think it was because they were all taking anti-depressants. Do you, like President Bush, “do tears?�

MM: Oh yes. More and more as I get older.

6. I remember my friend telling me about a Japanese company that sells Kidsbeer, a non-alcoholic “beer” geared specifically to children. It’s like a soda but they remove the sugar, color it dark brown, make it frothy, and put it in beer bottles. And it is apparently a huge seller. Their slogan? “Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink.” Did you see that? While you were making the film did you come across any other Utsu-themed and
marketed products?

MM: I didn’t see that beer stuff, but that sounds true. I didn’t bump into any other Utsu products. I think only because the market return doesn’t seem that big yet.

7. One of my favorite moments from DYSHAC is that long slow pan from the living room to Ken, the masochist’s, bedroom where he is sleeping. Wong Kar Wai and his DP Christopher Doyle would have spent an entire day getting shot that set up. It’s amazing. Did you pre-plan that or do these visual metaphors just sort of happen for you?

MM: The film is a series of portraits. We wanted to capture as much of their life as we could, and not just portray these people as depression victims. So we basically went where we were allowed to go, and caught what we could catch. I don’t know if it’s because we have all internalized the stories we share as a culture, all the arcs and metaphors that we learn through fiction and then project them back out onto everything we see, but it seems easy to find poetic meaning and metaphors and story arcs in “real” peoples lives. The best part of making a documentary for me is that I get to write on the spot, with what’s in front of me, with a camera and not words. The funny thing about narrative filmmaking is that you do spend a lot of time and energy trying to re-create a sense of surprise, serendipity, and the accidental which is happening every second with natural light, non-actors, non-controlled settings.

8. Have you screened DYSHAC in Japan? What was the reaction?

MM: I haven’t yet, and I’m very nervous about that. Especially for the people in the film, they gave so much, you gotta hope they like it.

Do you know what a “terrorism enhancement� is? It’s when a guy at the justice department decides that a crime you have been charged with was meant to influence or coerce the government into changing a particular policy and thus warrants an additional punitive sentence far in excess of murder or any other violent crime on the books.

Basically by adding a terrorism enhancement, the Justice Department is saying, as inexplicable as it sounds, that burning a hummer because you have a creepy fire fetish is simple arson, but burning a Hummer to protest our government’s inaction regarding global warming is a worse crime than either murder or child rape.

On May 15, 2007, government prosecutors successfully convinced a judge to add a “terrorism enhancement� to arson charges against several environmental activists in Portland, Oregon who had pled guilty to destroying research facilities and other buildings. The government insisted that they qualified for the additionally punitive label, which comes with a mandatory 30-year minimum sentence, because “at least one of the fires each of them set was intended to change or retaliate against government policy.� It was the beginning of what is now being called “The Green Scare.� The Green Scare is the same thing as the Red Scare only with environmental and animal activists as the primary targets.

The fact that our government has come to see the Aristotelian concept of praxis- public action with the intention of changing the world- as not the constitutional duty of every good American, but an evil to be squashed in a Guantanamo prison, is the gasping canary in our collective civil rights coalmine. So, while we still can, we offer:

The Likelihood That Someone At Some Point Will Accuse You Of Terrorism Based On Recent Events Quiz.

1. November 20, 2006
A US Airways pilot orders six Muslim imams off his Phoenix-bound flight after their praying, conversation and behavior alarms flight attendants and several passengers. Some witnesses report the men were making “anti-American statements involving the Iraq war.â€? “These guys were up to no good,” passenger Pat Snelson said.

What is the likelihood of this happening to you? Check the most appropriate answer below:

A) I never fly US Airways because they have had 9 fatal events since 1970 according to airsafe.com, have declared bankruptcy twice, their CEO was just arrested for drunk driving, and only 56% of their flights arrived on time according to a recent study.

B) I only pray when I’m hungover, but I do have a beard, a big trendy Kazinsky. I grew it after the New York Times published this paragraph:“Do beards that call to mind Charles Manson suggest dissatisfaction with “the system”? Are broody beards, like the dark and somber mood of the fall fashion collections, physical manifestations of a melancholia in the air? Are they a reflection of the stylistic impact on mainstream fashion of the subculture of gay men known as bears, who embrace natural body hair?â€?

C) I never pray because I stopped believing in God the moment Tony Bennett thanked Target during his acceptance speech with Stevie Wonder at this year’s Grammy’s, and despite the New York Time’s informative article pondering the subconscious motivations driving the grooming habits of “10 out of 15� Vice Magazine employees, I find beards itchy and a little gay in that order.

(Answers: A, 35% chance. B, 64% chance. C, 8% chance.)

2. April 2004
The FBI’s Latent Fingerprint Unit makes a 100% positive identification that a partial print that investigators pulled from a plastic bag found at the scene of the Madrid train bombings belongs to Brandon Mayfield, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Ignoring Spanish investigators who seriously question the match, U.S. officials conclude that since Mayfield had once represented a man in a Portland child-custody case who was later suspected of terrorism, he should be investigated and detained under the Patriot Act. Mayfield was imprisoned for weeks as a material witness before a judge finally threw out his case suggesting the FBI re-evaluate their understanding of the term “100% positive.�

A) I have fingers.

B) I have no fingers… but I am a defense lawyer who believes every American deserves legal representation.

C) I refuse to go to Spain until their government acknowledges that the Basques are one of the planet’s oldest living bloodlines- over 35% have type 0 Rh-Neg blood, the blood from which all other human bloodlines reportedly developed- and thus deserve all the autonomy they want.

(Answers: A, 50% chance. B, 50% chance. C, 20% chance.)

3. March 2, 2007
While hosting a May Day Rock concert, an Italian comedian, Andrea Rivera, jokes “The Pope says he doesn’t believe in evolution. I agree, in fact the Church has never evolved.” The following day L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, accuse him of “terrorism.” “It’s terrorism to launch attacks on the Church,” it said. “It’s terrorism to stoke blind and irrational rage against someone who always speaks in the name of love, love for life and love for man.”

A) I too sometimes make jokes about the pope. In fact I’ve got a joke for you; The Pope, Mr. “Love For Life and Man� gets on stage in Rio in May and starts explaining that his church wasn’t brutally colonizing the Indians during the bloody conquistador wars, it was purifying them. Purifying them. Nice. Then he told all of Brazil to stop having premarital sex. Brazil! Comedy or terrorism? You decide.

B) I just realized that Googling “Pope Palpatine� gets 3,710 image results.

C) Anyone who says “the Catholic church has never evolved� has never heard Sister Wendy say the words “pubic hair.�

(Answers: A, 100% chance. B, 666% chance. C, 40% chance.)

4. September 2006
A Wisconsin man who wrote “Kip Hawley is an Idiot” on a plastic bag containing toiletries was detained for hours by airport security.

A) Kip is no idiot, He’s a genius. As the director of the TSA his “3 ounces or less� policy for all toiletries while still refusing to screen all baggage for explosives is a perfectly intelligent way to trick the terrorists into thinking we are a nation run by complete morons. Plus, I bet he’s confiscated enough hair product to last himself a lifetime. Clever bastard.

B) I am a young man of, I guess you could say, “dark complexion.�

C) I like graffiti.

(Answers: A, 50% chance. B, 70% chance. C, 75% chance.)

5. April 2006
A taxi driver reported Harraj Mann to British authorities for listening to a Clash record in his cab on the way to the airport. The driver was apparently “so frightened by some of the lyrics that he took them as a rallying call for a terrorist attack.�

A) A brother was able to get a taxi out of Lester Square? Right. Not bloody likely.

B) I once asked a friend to punch me as hard as he could in the face so I could replicate Joe Strummer’s captivating smile but since the economy’s tanking I can barely afford a bag of chips much less cab fare to the airport.

C) The Clash? They sound like The Strokes right?

(Answers: A, 90% chance. B, 40% chance. C, 2% chance of being accused of terrorism, 90% chance of being a Chav)

At screenings, I sometimes mention our disastrous first attempt at making “The Crying Competition” film. We called it “The Crying Game” and you can see every painful moment of it now in the Wholphin screening room, with commentary by our insightful-if-emotionally-constipated participants. My favorite part is the surprise humiliating ending for all mankind compliments of Wholphin’s own Emily Doe.