Murderball is definitely one of the most unique documentaries you will see this year. Its about quadriplegic rugby players who slam into one another with their wheelchairs. Sounds insane but it won the Documentary Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize for Editing at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It follows a few storylines; one is the story of Mark Zupan, the craziest guy on the American team. He became a quadriplegic after his best friend drove them home drunk and got into an accident. The next is Joe Soares, a man who was a huge star on the American team but didnt make the cut one year so he went to go coach the Canadian team and Keith, a young man who just became a quadriplegic and is considering joining the team.
Check out the official site for Murderball
Daniel Robert Epstein: I read that this film first got started from a Maxim article. Who wrote that?
Dana Adam Shapiro I wrote it.
DRE: Then how did you get involved Henry?
Henry Alex Rubin: Dana called me. He had never made a movie and I had produced documentaries so we teamed up.
DRE: How do you guys know each other?
DAS: Through a mutual friend.
DRE: How did you first hear of the sport?
DAS: I was a senior editor of Spin Magazine at that time and I did the non-music features. I was constantly searching obscure websites, newspapers and magazines always looking for interesting stories to do. I just came across this sport right at that time when I was looking to make a film. After doing journalism for like eight years, I wanted to switch to documentary. I called the guys that ended up in the movie like Zupan and Joe Soares. We started talking and interviewing them about what happened to them, Whats it like to become a quadriplegic? and also What is this sport called Murderball?
My image of quadriplegics, like most people was Christopher Reeve at home under a blanket, sipping their food on a motorized wheelchair. I didnt think that they were smashing into each other in Mad Max style wheelchairs and driving in modified cars. I certainly didnt think that they were having sex with good looking girls or any girls. Even in the original article they were talking about this rivalry between this quadriplegics and paraplegics, because quadriplegics can get it up and paraplegics cant for some reason.
So all of these plots started coming up and we started thinking, Is this a short film or is this a magazine article or is this a feature film? This story that needs to be filmed visually because you cant understand what it is like until you see these guys playing.
DRE: What did you shoot the movie on?
DAS: 24 hi-def, though we started off with bunch of different kinds of cameras.
DRE: Where did the money came from?
HAR: [Producer] Jeffrey Mendel always came through with the money. We live in New York so anytime we wanted to shoot, we needed to fly, get a hotel room, rent equipment in the beginning so it was expensive to go shoot.
DRE: When did you realize that this could be a more exciting documentary than just one with talking heads?
HAR: For me it was the second we saw these guys play. Thats when I was like This has cinematic possibilities. We knew that if we could communicate the speed and the anger and the metal grinding and all that stuff it could be an amazing film. In terms of our characters in the story, when Joe went to Canada we knew that this would be great for the movie. You couldnt make up that first act.
DAS: The revenge story didnt take up much time onscreen so at the end of the day the movie isnt really about this rivalry between USA and Canada. In the same way that way Rocky isnt about the boxing. What we did for two and half years is a universal story. We documented the relationship between Joe and his son, between Zupan and his best friend and ultimately between Keith and his new life. If it was just about the sports it would have been an eight minute segment on Real Sports or something like that. We didnt want to make an essay about quadriplegia; we made a movie about these particular quadriplegics.
DRE: Did you realize that if you didnt do this backstory on Joe Soares that he would end up as the villain of the piece?
HAR: We didnt know where his life was going. We love and respect Joe but we do recognize that he is a very polarizing figure. We didnt choose to make him arrive on time and hug his son at the end of the scene. It just happened then we just had to capture it.
DRE: When I first came into this room you two were having a minor argument, what did you guys argue about when making this movie?
HAR: I think underneath it all we respect each other enormously. It was mostly little creative and aesthetic things. Should we you know focus more on Zupan or Keith or Joe or you know and oftentimes Dana would propose shoots. Dana said that we should go to Joes anniversary dinner but I thought it would be boring. But we ended up getting this beautiful moment from Joe.
DRE: What kind of stuff is going to be on DVD?
HAR: Id love it to be chockfull DVD.
DAS: I dont know I have never brought a DVD because of the extras. There is a food fight that happened between the players that is hilarious. Theres a great scene in a hospital, late at night and these two black nurses with this one black quadriplegic who fancied himself to be a singer and they all did a doo-wop song.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official site for Murderball
Daniel Robert Epstein: I read that this film first got started from a Maxim article. Who wrote that?
Dana Adam Shapiro I wrote it.
DRE: Then how did you get involved Henry?
Henry Alex Rubin: Dana called me. He had never made a movie and I had produced documentaries so we teamed up.
DRE: How do you guys know each other?
DAS: Through a mutual friend.
DRE: How did you first hear of the sport?
DAS: I was a senior editor of Spin Magazine at that time and I did the non-music features. I was constantly searching obscure websites, newspapers and magazines always looking for interesting stories to do. I just came across this sport right at that time when I was looking to make a film. After doing journalism for like eight years, I wanted to switch to documentary. I called the guys that ended up in the movie like Zupan and Joe Soares. We started talking and interviewing them about what happened to them, Whats it like to become a quadriplegic? and also What is this sport called Murderball?
My image of quadriplegics, like most people was Christopher Reeve at home under a blanket, sipping their food on a motorized wheelchair. I didnt think that they were smashing into each other in Mad Max style wheelchairs and driving in modified cars. I certainly didnt think that they were having sex with good looking girls or any girls. Even in the original article they were talking about this rivalry between this quadriplegics and paraplegics, because quadriplegics can get it up and paraplegics cant for some reason.
So all of these plots started coming up and we started thinking, Is this a short film or is this a magazine article or is this a feature film? This story that needs to be filmed visually because you cant understand what it is like until you see these guys playing.
DRE: What did you shoot the movie on?
DAS: 24 hi-def, though we started off with bunch of different kinds of cameras.
DRE: Where did the money came from?
HAR: [Producer] Jeffrey Mendel always came through with the money. We live in New York so anytime we wanted to shoot, we needed to fly, get a hotel room, rent equipment in the beginning so it was expensive to go shoot.
DRE: When did you realize that this could be a more exciting documentary than just one with talking heads?
HAR: For me it was the second we saw these guys play. Thats when I was like This has cinematic possibilities. We knew that if we could communicate the speed and the anger and the metal grinding and all that stuff it could be an amazing film. In terms of our characters in the story, when Joe went to Canada we knew that this would be great for the movie. You couldnt make up that first act.
DAS: The revenge story didnt take up much time onscreen so at the end of the day the movie isnt really about this rivalry between USA and Canada. In the same way that way Rocky isnt about the boxing. What we did for two and half years is a universal story. We documented the relationship between Joe and his son, between Zupan and his best friend and ultimately between Keith and his new life. If it was just about the sports it would have been an eight minute segment on Real Sports or something like that. We didnt want to make an essay about quadriplegia; we made a movie about these particular quadriplegics.
DRE: Did you realize that if you didnt do this backstory on Joe Soares that he would end up as the villain of the piece?
HAR: We didnt know where his life was going. We love and respect Joe but we do recognize that he is a very polarizing figure. We didnt choose to make him arrive on time and hug his son at the end of the scene. It just happened then we just had to capture it.
DRE: When I first came into this room you two were having a minor argument, what did you guys argue about when making this movie?
HAR: I think underneath it all we respect each other enormously. It was mostly little creative and aesthetic things. Should we you know focus more on Zupan or Keith or Joe or you know and oftentimes Dana would propose shoots. Dana said that we should go to Joes anniversary dinner but I thought it would be boring. But we ended up getting this beautiful moment from Joe.
DRE: What kind of stuff is going to be on DVD?
HAR: Id love it to be chockfull DVD.
DAS: I dont know I have never brought a DVD because of the extras. There is a food fight that happened between the players that is hilarious. Theres a great scene in a hospital, late at night and these two black nurses with this one black quadriplegic who fancied himself to be a singer and they all did a doo-wop song.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 11 of 11 COMMENTS
Zupan's girlfriend looks like an indie rock girl. He should check out SG.