Out of all the documentaries that have come out in the past couple of years none of them have the raw power of Liz Garbus Girlhood.
After showing the day to day life of male prisoners in Angola Prison in the film The Farm: Angola USA, Garbus discovered a slice of life that hasnt been looked at hard enough, female juvenile offenders. Girlhood follows two female inmates who are both victims of horrific violence and tragedy and are now serving time in a Maryland juvenile detention center.
Check out the website for Girlhood
Daniel Robert Epstein: I know you did the documentary, The Farm, so did this seem like the other side to that story?
Liz Garbus: Thats how the whole thing came about in my mind. When I was spending all that time at the Louisiana State Penitentiary so many of the guys there who were serving life sentences talked about spending time in the juvenile justice system where they learned to be better criminals. It occurred to me in a very nave emotional way that here are all these people coming into contact with the system at a very young age. America was missing out on a great opportunity to turn peoples lives around and stop them from creating victims and becoming victims themselves.
I started off in Maryland where I made a TV documentary on some of the boys there. While I was doing that I wandered over into this one cottage where the girls were and I was immediately struck by the different energy there and this one young girl who approached me, named Shanae. She came right up to me and asked when I was going to do something on the girls. That was the real genesis of the film.
DRE: How did you pick Megan?
LG: At first we were talking to a lot of girls, did some interviews and Megan was one of them. She just came across so powerfully on film. She was so charismatic, articulate, beautiful and outspoken which are all the things you look for in a character. Then of course her story was very typical and heartbreaking. There were some other people we talked to also but Megan and Shanae ended up being the two that came through.
DRE: Hoop Dreams also ended up with someone who made it and someone who didnt. How does that happen?
LG: Its dumb luck. Its not a grand scheme because we care very much for our subjects. Megan is still very much in my life and I am rooting for her to come through. People complain about there not being happy endings in my films. For this one I would much rather have had a happy ending for both.
A lot of it is having intuition for people. With Shanae you dont know whats going to happen to her but you know she has a good shot at overcoming the odds but with Megan it was always a battle. Much of it is taking the journey with them.
DRE: Did you find anything in common about all the girls?
LG: The thing that struck me when I walked into the girls cottage that was different than the boys, is that immediately upon entering the juvenile justice system they began to mimic adult criminal behavior but the girls were very much like teenagers. They were interrelating with each other and the staff. I thought that was interesting that the girls continued to behave like young girls whereas the boys mimicked adult convicts, probably because there are so many models for them in the media.
Certainly those who are incarcerated are coming from all kinds of backgrounds but mostly from poorer families. But when someone who has a lot of money has a kid that is doing what Shanae was doing, there are treatments available, but when you have no money it usually ends up in disaster. Also with girls often they have been abused. Something like one out of five of them has been raped and a greater number has been sexually or physically abused.
DRE: What kind of consent did you have to get from their parents?
LG: You have to get the parents to sign off and work with the system to get the kind of access we had.
DRE: What was it like taping the scene where Megan meets with her mother at the park?
LG: The thing about that scene is that stuff like that had happened before but we hadnt been there to film it. That was the way Megan and her mothers relationship was and it was almost ordinary to them. Megan was just coming to terns with her anger and now it was coming out.
DRE: How much does a camera change a situation?
LG: I think it definitely changes things. Thats one of those questions we always ponder as documentary filmmakers. Certainly being there with a camera crew affects their lives but we try to keep that effect in control. I dont think it affected the outcome of their lives. I think they both would be where they are regardless. I think it was subtler than that in terms of how they feel about themselves.
The system lost track of Megan when she was released and I thought since we did a documentary about her they would have tried to keep up with what she was doing. That was odd how we didnt affect that.
DRE: You grew up on the Upper East Side. Did criminals always fascinate you?
LG: My father was a civil liberties lawyer and his clients included Lenny Bruce and Timothy Leary. I think that discussions of the law were always something that influenced my mind.
DRE: Just in the past couple of years documentaries have gotten a bit flashier. Did you make a conscious decision to not do that?
LG: Well its a raw gritty subject matter and the style mimics that. Part of it is also dictated by budget. I would love to shoot it on film but we did it on DV because thats what we could afford.
DRE: What have you thought of recent documentaries?
LG: I love films like Spellbound and Capturing the Friedmans. Also the documentary To Be and to Have is one of the best films I have ever seen. Im happy people are going to see these films.
DRE: Do you have any interest in fiction films?
LG: Yeah, one thing weve been talking about is trying to interpret some of the themes in Girlhood into a narrative.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
After showing the day to day life of male prisoners in Angola Prison in the film The Farm: Angola USA, Garbus discovered a slice of life that hasnt been looked at hard enough, female juvenile offenders. Girlhood follows two female inmates who are both victims of horrific violence and tragedy and are now serving time in a Maryland juvenile detention center.
Check out the website for Girlhood
Daniel Robert Epstein: I know you did the documentary, The Farm, so did this seem like the other side to that story?
Liz Garbus: Thats how the whole thing came about in my mind. When I was spending all that time at the Louisiana State Penitentiary so many of the guys there who were serving life sentences talked about spending time in the juvenile justice system where they learned to be better criminals. It occurred to me in a very nave emotional way that here are all these people coming into contact with the system at a very young age. America was missing out on a great opportunity to turn peoples lives around and stop them from creating victims and becoming victims themselves.
I started off in Maryland where I made a TV documentary on some of the boys there. While I was doing that I wandered over into this one cottage where the girls were and I was immediately struck by the different energy there and this one young girl who approached me, named Shanae. She came right up to me and asked when I was going to do something on the girls. That was the real genesis of the film.
DRE: How did you pick Megan?
LG: At first we were talking to a lot of girls, did some interviews and Megan was one of them. She just came across so powerfully on film. She was so charismatic, articulate, beautiful and outspoken which are all the things you look for in a character. Then of course her story was very typical and heartbreaking. There were some other people we talked to also but Megan and Shanae ended up being the two that came through.
DRE: Hoop Dreams also ended up with someone who made it and someone who didnt. How does that happen?
LG: Its dumb luck. Its not a grand scheme because we care very much for our subjects. Megan is still very much in my life and I am rooting for her to come through. People complain about there not being happy endings in my films. For this one I would much rather have had a happy ending for both.
A lot of it is having intuition for people. With Shanae you dont know whats going to happen to her but you know she has a good shot at overcoming the odds but with Megan it was always a battle. Much of it is taking the journey with them.
DRE: Did you find anything in common about all the girls?
LG: The thing that struck me when I walked into the girls cottage that was different than the boys, is that immediately upon entering the juvenile justice system they began to mimic adult criminal behavior but the girls were very much like teenagers. They were interrelating with each other and the staff. I thought that was interesting that the girls continued to behave like young girls whereas the boys mimicked adult convicts, probably because there are so many models for them in the media.
Certainly those who are incarcerated are coming from all kinds of backgrounds but mostly from poorer families. But when someone who has a lot of money has a kid that is doing what Shanae was doing, there are treatments available, but when you have no money it usually ends up in disaster. Also with girls often they have been abused. Something like one out of five of them has been raped and a greater number has been sexually or physically abused.
DRE: What kind of consent did you have to get from their parents?
LG: You have to get the parents to sign off and work with the system to get the kind of access we had.
DRE: What was it like taping the scene where Megan meets with her mother at the park?
LG: The thing about that scene is that stuff like that had happened before but we hadnt been there to film it. That was the way Megan and her mothers relationship was and it was almost ordinary to them. Megan was just coming to terns with her anger and now it was coming out.
DRE: How much does a camera change a situation?
LG: I think it definitely changes things. Thats one of those questions we always ponder as documentary filmmakers. Certainly being there with a camera crew affects their lives but we try to keep that effect in control. I dont think it affected the outcome of their lives. I think they both would be where they are regardless. I think it was subtler than that in terms of how they feel about themselves.
The system lost track of Megan when she was released and I thought since we did a documentary about her they would have tried to keep up with what she was doing. That was odd how we didnt affect that.
DRE: You grew up on the Upper East Side. Did criminals always fascinate you?
LG: My father was a civil liberties lawyer and his clients included Lenny Bruce and Timothy Leary. I think that discussions of the law were always something that influenced my mind.
DRE: Just in the past couple of years documentaries have gotten a bit flashier. Did you make a conscious decision to not do that?
LG: Well its a raw gritty subject matter and the style mimics that. Part of it is also dictated by budget. I would love to shoot it on film but we did it on DV because thats what we could afford.
DRE: What have you thought of recent documentaries?
LG: I love films like Spellbound and Capturing the Friedmans. Also the documentary To Be and to Have is one of the best films I have ever seen. Im happy people are going to see these films.
DRE: Do you have any interest in fiction films?
LG: Yeah, one thing weve been talking about is trying to interpret some of the themes in Girlhood into a narrative.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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