NPR's WEEKEND ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

July 1, 2001

INTERVIEW:
BILL LICHTENSTEIN AND JUNE PEOPLES
DISCUSS THEIR DOCUMENTARY FILM
"WEST 47TH STREET"

LISA SIMEONE, host: We see them on the streets almost every day, people pushing shopping carts full of their belongings, sleeping under blankets or mumbling to themselves in doorways. We call them simply homeless, and we have very little idea how they got there. At least some of them are mentally ill and became homeless when large institutions started closing their doors in the 1960s. Some people in New York City are served by Fountain House, a treatment facility that's been around for 50 years. It offers people recovering from mental illness a place to live together, work together and contribute to their neighborhood. A new documentary called "West 47th Street" follows the residents of Fountain House. The film premiered earlier this year at the Cinéma du Réel Festival in Paris. Producers Bill Lichtenstein and June Peoples made "West 47th Street" in a cinéma vérité style, without interviews or narration. Lichtenstein says the subject touched him for very personal reasons. In 1986, he was diagnosed with manic depression and later treated. The filmmakers wrestled with 350 hours of footage to tell, in less than two hours, the stories of some Fountain House residents. One of them is Fitzroy Frederick who, Bill Lichtenstein says, is schizophrenic.

Mr. BILL LICHTENSTEIN (Co-producer, "West 47th Street"): Fitzroy represents, I think, in the film the aspect of mental illness which is the--I think people who treat people with mental illness will tell you it's the toughest part of these diseases, and that is people who don't want to accept treatment.

SOUNDBITE OF "WEST 47TH STREET":
Mr. FITZROY FREDERICK: Why should I be around there with two messed-up directors and one disrespectful doctor? And you got some members going off for no reason. Why should I be around that?

Mr. LICHTENSTEIN: Throughout the film, we would say, you know, the problem with Fitzroy is he can't grab the life ring. And it becomes excruciatingly dramatic in the film because people are desperately trying to help him and really all he has to do is reach out and grab that life ring. And because of the illness that he has, because of the schizophrenia, he just can't. And you really see sort of a window onto this illness that I think is an important part of it.

Ms. JUNE PEOPLES (Co-producer, "West 47th Street"): Fitzroy brings up some very interesting issues about the difference between illness and character, if you will, too, because you know, Fitzroy clearly has a substance abuse problem. And so you start to wonder, you know, wouldn't things be better if he could just pull himself together and stop using, you know, drugs and drinking a lot of beer and wouldn't that make a difference? And what you come to find out over the period of the film, at least during the period that we were with him, is really that, you know, the two things, the substance abuse and the mental illness, are so linked together that it's really hard to kind of tease out where to start when you're trying to help somebody with that kind of problem.

SIMEONE: He's from Trinidad. He's a tall guy. He's got these dreadlocks, very long, and he has these intense eyes. And he's a real talker. There's something, though--he's not such a good listener, though.

Ms. PEOPLES: No, he seems like he's always sort of hearing something off to the side, doesn't it?

SOUNDBITE FROM "WEST 47TH STREET":
Mr. FREDERICK: Fountain House was good one time. It's not good as it used to be anymore. ...(Unintelligible) think I'm just using anger to be using anger. It's strictly natural.

Mr. LICHTENSTEIN: He comes across as a very dangerous person. But when you really deconstruct what Fitzroy's about, he yells a lot, he threatens to sue people.

Ms. PEOPLES He's very middle-class.

Mr. LICHTENSTEIN: He's very middle-class. He says, `I'm gonna lawsuit them if they don't'--you know, I think it forces the viewer to confront what should be done with the Fitzroys of this world, and do they need more care, do they need to be locked up, do they need--you know, I would find it hard to think that anybody would see the film and think the answer for people like Fitzroy is `lock 'em up' and that there isn't some need for increased treatment and care for people like Fitzroy.

Ms. PEOPLES: There's been kind of an interesting phenomena that people will see the film and then we'll hear back from them right then that they're moved by it or touched by it or they'll be walking out with tears in their eyes. But then we'll get calls or e-mails two weeks later from people who say, `You know, I've been thinking about it. I just can't stop thinking about the people in the film. And you know, I saw somebody the other day in the subway and I thought differently about them. I really wondered, you know, what is his story.'

SOUNDBITE FROM "WEST 47TH STREET":
Mr. FRANCES OLIVERO: I had manic depression, and I had--What's that word?--gender dysfunction. As much as I was dressing feminine, I was very much within myself. And when you come to Fountain House, it's very almost near impossible to stay locked within yourself, and you feel more like a person because you're being treated as a person. SIMEONE: There's another character, Frances, whom I would call sort of the star of the film. When we meet him, he looks about as wacky as it gets. I mean, this is a man who is clearly a man, who's dressed in women's clothes with this terrible wig. I mean, he really looks ridiculous. But when he starts to talk, this guy, he is saner than a lot of people you and I interact with every day, you know? This...

Ms. PEOPLES: Most of them, yeah.

SIMEONE: He says such sensible things, but he just looks so off-putting.

Mr. LICHTENSTEIN: You know, Frances, I think, for us was really the reason we made the film, which was we wanted to let people know that people with mental illness, even those who seem on the surface to be strange or, as you say, off-putting, that they have an illness that, if given treatment, that they can recover and do miraculous things. And really, the opportunity to witness that as it happened, not through interviews, not through narration, but to see it happen over three years in the life of Frances Olivero for us, you know, was an amazing experience as filmmakers. And I think that was really at the heart of, I think, when we set out to make the film, the story we wanted to tell.

SIMEONE: He says something very moving right at the beginning of the film when we meet him the first time. He says, `I'm just trying to be a person on this planet, just living my life the way I want to. That's all.' Just a very simple thing.

Ms. PEOPLES: Frances is sort of an oracle. We really found that the more time that we spent with him, we were just endlessly intrigued and touched by the things that sort of came out of his mouth. You kind of got that with your first question. He did have a way of sort of opening his mouth and saying in very simple terms very deep truths. And I think that really comes through in the film. You get to see that, you know, past the sickness, there's a person who's more than worthwhile, a person who's even very deep and very philosophical about how he approaches life and all the various issues and challenges he faces.

SOUNDBITE FROM "WEST 47TH STREET"
Mr. OLIVERO: And I had seven stepfathers, and out of those seven stepfathers, they knew how to take off their belt and hit me, but they didn't know how to hug me, kiss me or take me to a ball game. So I really resented men in a very strong way. I'm just trying to be accepted as one more person on the planet trying to live their life the way they choose.

SIMEONE: You feel, as a viewer as, if you're right there in with these people in Fountain House. But you know, there's an unavoidable intrusiveness when you have a camera and a microphone. I don't care how long you're sitting around and people get used to you; there's that intrusiveness. How do you get beyond that?

Ms. PEOPLES: Well, we got beyond it really by working very hard at the outset to gain the trust and confidence of the people who are part of Fountain House. And we really became a part of the community. We worked side by side with the people at Fountain House for a good three months before we even set foot in the place with a camera. I mean, you don't take a person who's recently been psychotic and delusional and, you know, put a camera of any kind in their face without them knowing who you are and what you're doing. In our case, we went in and we peeled potatoes in the kitchen dining room; we licked envelopes in the clerical unit; we answered telephones. And all the while, over that period of three months, we were telling people who we were and what we were doing and kind of explaining, you know, what the goal of the film was, and really became a part of the community.

Mr. LICHTENSTEIN: What you see in the film is part of the magic of cinéma vérité . Cinéma vérité, which really was pioneered in the 1960s and sort of went out of style for a long time, is getting a lot of attention. The people who developed it like Pennebaker and Fred Wiseman and the Maysles brothers, Al Maysles, who's still alive, are speaking, you know, a lot these days about it, and there are festivals of their work. But I think people are shooting it less and less because it's very time-intensive, you have to shoot a lot of footage, it's very expensive and it really runs against the grain of filmmaking these days, which is, you know, faster, shoot digital, edit on your desktop. And one of the things about cinéma vérité that's so interesting is that if you're willing to commit a year or two or three years, as we did, that, you know, after you get past a certain point, they really stop thinking about the camera, and so you're there in the middle of these extraordinary situations that are going on in front of the camera without any regard being paid to the camera.

SIMEONE: Filmmakers Bill Lichtenstein and June Peoples joined us from our New York bureau. Their documentary film, "West 47th Street," is on the festival circuit. Theatrical distribution is planned for later this year, with a national television broadcast to follow in 2002.

And for this evening, that's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Our director Fred Wasser produced our conversation of the documentary "West 47th Street." Copyright ©2001 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved.