Director's Cut

>>"He who have ears to hear, let them hear. Have you not seen things--" >> I don't view poetry as something that I enjoy, to be quite frank with you. I look at poetry from a utilitarian point of view. If you are able to read poetry, you're going to be able to fill out a job application, you're going to be able to express yourself. If you're can imagine a person in a room 24 hours a day, eventually they're going to get frustrated being in that room. Literature is a light at the end of the tunnel. >> Hi, welcome to Director's Cut. I'm Pete Schwaba. That was a clip from Dostoevsky Behind Bars, a documentary that explores what happens when University of Wisconsin grad students use their talents to teach literature to inmates at a Wisconsin Prison. We're joined today by the film's director and Director's Cut alum, Marc Kornblatt. Marc, welcome back. >> Thanks. >> You're an old pro here now. >> Oh, well-- >> You've made a fair amount of documentaries. What was it about this story that you thought, and at what point did you think, this is my next movie? >> I actually came to it as a teacher and a writer, not as a documentary filmmaker. I had taken the year off from teaching elementary school. And my wife, who at the time was a professor of Russian literature, knew about this program at Oakhill Correctional Facility which is a minimum security prison in Wisconsin. She said, you know, some of my grad students are involved in this program teaching literature to inmates. As an aside, it is not just Slavic language and literature grad students. There are comparative literature grad students, there are writing students, there are English students. But I happened to have an in because I knew the people who were doing Slavic language and literature. I was off, and even though I'm a teacher, on a bus men's holiday, I asked if I could just go in. I thought it was interesting. >> Yeah. >> The first night I sat in on a class. The discussion of the text, I don't remember, I think it might have been Turgenev. The pieces that the guys were reading! One guy talked faster than I did. Drug addict, con man. He has this tome, this memoir, that's this thick, hand-written, pencil, single-spaced, and he reads a section of it in a bar with a prostitute. And then another guy reads this short, short piece, like a page long, of a study. The contrast of those two! I said, wow, I want to volunteer. You have to go through some kind of security training to be a volunteer in the prison. Then I just started accompanying these two grad students every Thursday night. And because I'm a writer/teacher, I was more than just sitting there. I would read the text and I would give my comments on the text. Would they would read their pieces back I'd tell them, you know-- To the guy who wrote the memoir I said, you know, you're really good when you're describing how you were hanging out with the women, but when you start talking about you and drugs and drinking and all, it sounds a little Hallmark card-like. He liked that! They like that honesty. I was hooked. I volunteered for about five months. And I would say about a month into it I said, this is my next documentary. >> Well, with that said, let's see another clip from Dostoevsky Behind Bars. >> The Department of Corrections primary goal is to get an education for everybody so that they can walk outta here being able to read and write and have a high school diploma. We are quite, quite successful in doing that. We do have two vocational programs as well in construction and in horticulture. They are 15 week programs through Madison College. I have a staff of five teachers, which isn't a whole lot of teachers. Three of them are academic and two of them are vocational. So there's a number of things that we can't do, and that's kind of where UW programs fit in. We try to make the programing educational, but what we're really trying to do is to get them to think, get them to realize where they're at, and maybe how to correct their ways and how to become better citizens. And to read! >> The first time I went to Oak Hill I was very nervous, as a woman in an all-male minimum security setting. I felt there was a lot of attention on me, and it was sort of nerve-wracking. At that point I hadn't had a whole lot of teaching experience, so I felt very nervous about establishing myself as a credible and a valuable presence in the classroom. In the university setting sometimes you can fake it a little bit, you know? The students are willing to accept you as an authority figure because they're sort of trained to do so. But in a prison setting there's a very low threshold for any sort of pretense or artificiality. So going in there I knew that I had to be myself, and I had to be very genuine in order to establish myself as a credible instructor, and also as someone who the participants could trust. I was nervous because I didn't know what I was doing. And they were very patient with me and respectful. And they really gave me the benefit of the doubt. >> So correct me if I'm wrong but you never really say University of Wisconsin in this movie do you? Even that chyron there just said, "university grad student." As an independent film maker were there clearance issues with the university or was that a choice? >> I am one of those writers-- I was a playwright and I've written novels. I'm less into direct exposition. This is visual. There are enough places in the film that you're going to see Wisconsin. You even see Wisconsin on one of the shirts in a Russian class that says it in Russian. No, I had absolutely no issues. The students opened up, the facility, the Discovery Center where those two women are walking. There was someone representing the Discovery Center at the time. I had absolutely no red tape. >> That's great. >> I mean, it's a supporting film about the humanities and the university. If they had given me trouble I would have had a real question about what they're doing. >> So okay, so the university was okay with it. I just remember when I worked on movies, insurance is a big thing. You have to buy insurance. Or maybe you found a way that, but what did that do to your budget? You're shooting at a prison and you're filming university students teaching. Was that an insurance issue? What did that do to your budget? >> I'm a real low budget filmmaker. I have insurance coverage for me for my LLC, my corporation, Refuge Films. I did not buy any extra film coverage. The prison, they're covered there. I had to get security clearance and all those things. The university students are covered, as they will be at the university. I had two people working, except for one sequence when I had a second camera person. They are independent filmmakers and technicians. They're under their own insurance. When you're that low budget you can get under the radar without having any problems. And fortunately I also didn't have any problems. >> Yeah, I saw another Kornblatt in this film. Was that Mrs. Kornblatt? >> Yeah. You wouldn't call her Mrs. Kornblatt. >> What role-- Ms. Kornblatt? >> Professor. >> Oh, sorry. >> Dean. >> Dr. Kornblatt. >> Yeah, well-- That's a little pretentious. At the time she was the chairperson of the Slavic language and literature. This was her last year. So in a way-- You know, one of the motivations for doing this film was not really about the prison system. It was about the humanities. My wife had been teaching at the university for more than two decades. Grad students, and humanities in general, have to justify themselves. If they're not in economics or the hard sciences and math, people say, what's the purpose? >> Yeah. >> So for me this was always an homage to my wife. Judith, if you're watching-- >> I hope she'd be watching. >> Yeah. She was the spokesperson for the university. So yes, she in it, and she plays an important role articulating what the program is for the students who are going into the prison, and also talking about the role of humanities. >> What kind of crew do you lug around for a film like this? What are your numbers? I saw the credits, you had the basics. >> I've done narrative, like you have. The biggest narrative crew I ever had, and it was for a short film, I had about six. I had a camera, a system camera, two sound people, kind of a production assistant. And I was working with children so I actually had one of my student teachers who I hired for that period to look after the children. She even gets a credit. >> Okay. >> For documentaries, the kind that I make-- I'm not a Michael Moore. I want to be as invisible as possible. So in my last one, Street Pulse, I had one camera person and a sound person. This time I had the same, but I had a different camera person. Which is an interesting question. Bill Roach, who works as a cameraman for ESPN and National Geographic, he had seen me give a talk at a professionals' organization about Street Pulse and he just came up to me afterwards. He said, well, I've won six or seven Emmeys and this and this, and you know, I'm not always working. My wife says I need a hobby. I want to give back to the community. If you have a project, I'll film with you. I said, I actually have a project. So it was just him and a sound man I'd worked with before, who did all the audio. He also did my data entry stuff. So again, it was just me and those two guys. The thing is that Bill Roach used a humongous camera compared to what I'd used before, these small DSLRs. He'd work with a Sony which felt like a bazooka compared to a little stiletto. It distanced me sometimes from the interviewees, but got beautiful shots of the prison. And we had such access that it was a blessing that I had someone with his expertise and his camera rig. >> It looked excellent, yeah. Let's see another clip form Dostoevsky Behind Bars. >> I actually got in the class by mistake. I was trying to sign up for Tuesday and Thursday creative writing. But when I ended up in fictional reading it was cool. For me it's like a round table or a group discussion, which makes me want to bring my A game to the table. 'Cause we sitting in a circle and I was always taught that a circle is like a symbol of importance. >> See? >> I'm having a hard time accepting the fact that I'm incarcerated for this particular case even though I'm guilty of it. But I guess my motives, I felt, was kind of like a protection of my dignity or something like that. But, you know, you're wrong, you accept the fact you done wrong, and you move on. Again, I'm going to use that Alexander Alexandrovich for an example. His character is well balanced. When he found out that Anna was having an affair he didn't get angry and just make a decision just based on emotion. He balanced out his position in life. He balanced on him having a family. He though about villainizing his self, considering he was a statesman for Russia. He was a caretaker for their child. He put all that into perspective before making his decision to go about trying to work his way through the marriage. And that's something that I learned. I'm actually dealing with it. That kept my wheels turning since, because it taught me to value the people around me. And I didn't used to do that. I used to be like really emotional, I was strung tight. Considering where I'm from, I am from the west side of Chicago, where it can get quite stressful. You know, it's poverty-stricken. It's kind of like a bunch of rats fighin' for cheese. >> This guy was great every time he was on screen. I love listening to him talk. Talk a little bit about some of these guys. I mean, they come from, as we just heard, very tough backgrounds. Where they're staying now seems like a sanctuary almost. Do some of them not want to go back or leave? >> You've asked about three questions there and each one of them deserves a lot of time. I know how much I talk, so let me just talk about him first, and then the second question. >> Okay. >> I did not know this gentleman very much at all. He was in the other Friday night class with Colleen, who you will interview on this program. But we were bleeding inmates from my class because the nature of a minimum security prison is that the men are moved out. Yes, they've worked their way down, as the film will show. This is, in addition to it being a beautiful place because it used to be a young women's school, they're doing easier time here. They have more flexibility. So during the course of my volunteer work, these two of three guys I really wanted to be in the film, they were gone. So I asked Colleen if I could sit in on her class and see. She had more people in that class. I just wanted to have more variety. I also wanted to have more African Americans. My class was only had two white guys at that point. That would have skewed the whole film. Almost half of the inmates here, and in the whole prison system, they are over-represented. This man was in a class and they were talking about Anna Karenina. I just liked the way he responded in the class. I went up to him afterwards, I said, you know, would you be interested in being in this film. He was flattered. He said, I'm honored to be in it. He didn't know me. I mean, I had a reputation because I'd been there for a certain number of months but-- He was interested. Then everything I threw him a question when we finally did interview him, he ran with it. If I said, can you do a riff on you and Anna Karenina? He gave me that. These are all one-take- Charlies. I did not write anything for any of these guys. This man, he has subsequently been released. I know nothing about him. As a volunteer I'm not supposed to follow these people. >> That was a follow-up question I actually had was, as a filmmaker do you ever want to continue? Do a documentary on the guy that got out and what he's doing now? But you have no contact. >> One of the guys asked me if I would in a couple of years from now. One of the guys contacted me. He's in the film. He's the artist. He is from Mississippi as a matter of fact. He went back down there after he was released. He contacted me through Refuge Films. He said, what's the story? I said, well, we've got into the Wisconsin Film Festival, it's gotten an award. Could you come up? And he was going to. We were back and forth and he was really enthusiastic. I'd sent him a link so he could watch it on his phone with his-- He's gotten married, he had gotten a job. It was just a great story. Weeks before, I e-mailed him and I said, this is when it's showing. And I haven't heard from him. >> Humm-- >> That's the nature of these people who leave. Even someone who might have everything going for him. Once you've come out of the system, to make it a keep out-- A lot of them want to get out, oh yeah. Make no mistake. This is not easy, easy time. They still are behind bars. I go home at night and have a beer. >> Yeah. >> They've got a fence and they've got a schedule. >> Let's see another clip from Dostoevsky Behind Bars. >> I don't know why I wrote this down, separate himself. Sorta put people in classes. "They're just light-hearted prattle of a pretty woman, agreed with her--" Before my incarceration I had a third or fourth grade reading level. Schooling wasn't something that I really appreciated. My mother is from the South, so she really didn't experience school as well, 'cause she had to work in the fields and that sort of thing. Once she moved to Milwaukee and brought her kids to Milwaukee, it wasn't something that was emphasized for us to do as well. So I decided to drop outta school at a early age, hang out in the streets. I didn't think that education would be something that I would need for the things that I was doing at that particular time. When I was in Green Bay there's a term that the staff and institution used, and even us inmates, use when a person was returned back to seg. or the hold on a regular basis. We'd call them a seg. rat. What that is is that they're usually troublemakers. I spent the first five years of my incarceration in seg. for doing not mature things. So when I while in seg. I'd try writing my mother a letter, but I didn't know that I had to put my name on the place where I was supposed to put my mother's name at. And instead of the letter going to my mother, it returned back to me. I was too ashamed to ask anybody why my letters kept returning. I thought that my mother had moved and she didn't want anything to do with me anymore. So one day I built up the confidence to ask the staff. I said, man, why is my letter keep returning back to me. So they looked at it and they was like, this is the problem, right here. Your name is to the sender. By your name being in the sender, that's why the letter keep coming back to you. From that point on I decided that now is the time for me to start the process of learning to read, to become a better communicator, just overall to better myself. While in seg. one of the first books I decided to read was the dictionary. I learned to break the words down to the point where I fell in love with the English language. Eventually when I got outta seg. I took a test. It basically let you know where your level is. After the five years of being in the seg. I came out and I was reading at a post-high school level. >> Welcome back. We're joined now by Colleen Lucey, one of our grad students from Dostoevsky Behind Bars. Welcome to Director's Cut, Colleen. >> Thanks for having me. >> It's great to have you here. What-- Okay, you're teaching lit. to prisoners and you're doing Dostoevsky. >> Um-hm. >> Not exactly easy stuff. What was the choice there? Or did you ever think, you know, maybe we'll ease them into it, some Judy Bloom, and then we'll see where we get? What was the thinking behind that? >> That's a good question. It brings up a lot of points about the programs at Oakhill, and the capabilities and the perceptions that we have of inmates and what they're willing and what they're ready to read and respond to. Dostoevsky-- Actually in my class we never taught Dostoevsky, but we taught other Russian writers. We've taught Tolstoy as you saw, Anna Karenina, and Dostoevsky. We did teach The Brothers Karamazov at one point. I think from the men, as you saw from the clip with Alphonso, they're really hungry readers and they feel acutely that they have a lack of knowledge in their own background. They want the real stuff. They want rich, they want something that is going to inform their reading not only of future works, but something that reflects back on their own life. I order to do that you need literature of substance. Since then we've read-- We do graphic novels, we've done contemporary literature. The Friday class is a world literature course. We try to make it as broad as possible, and also to illicit suggestions from the men. >> Talk about-- You're a grad student and it's got to be tough enough going into teach some pretty hardened criminals. That must have been intimidating. We saw in one of the clips that it was. Talk about what it's like having a film crew there. Now you're doing that and you're being filmed. Was that intimidating in any way? >> First, I would say Marc was very good at the beginning and really conscientious about making sure that the men would be filmed in a respectful way. Incarcerated individuals have been abused or other-- They're victims in their own right. You don't want to further that victimization in any way. Of course the men wanted to know what the film would be about and how they would be presented. Thanks to the fact that Marc was a volunteer there for several months, they knew him, there was a rapport there. For myself, as a grad student teaching experience, I would say that the men are very receptive to honesty, one on one human communication. As soon as you go into the classroom you realize that there's nothing there to necessarily be afraid of. I mean, it's like a university setting in some ways, but it's also like a reading group in others. As you saw, the men are ready and willing to participate and conversation. >> Do any of them have real talent as far as being published one day? Were you blown away by the results when they started writing stuff? Talk a little bit about that. >> Absolutely. My training is in literary analysis. When I began work at Oakhill I was with a Thursday class, which is team-taught. All the courses are team-taught. I remember distinctly having the impression from the men that this is outstanding work. Marc knows it too. What hits you is that these men are behind bars and they have so much to contribute to society. Once they leave that prison, if they do leave, if they do get out, they're marked. They're marked forever. They're re-entry into society is blocked by so many obstacles that the power that they're writing could have on individuals is prevented from being accessible. >> Let's see another clip from Dostoevsky Behind Bars. >> 'Well, son, I'm afraid I can't help you with that one. She's got a mind of her own. But I'll tell you what, if you can beat me next time we shoot, I'll let you marry her. She probably still won't give up that recipe, but at least you'll know you'll always get some on holidays.'"

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>> Comments? >> I can see how you made a couple of revisions. I say, that's beautiful. >> You got a lot of great suspense going, but then you kind of under-cut it a bit. "He did not like guns." And then you go into the story about his brother, right? But there's a sentence in between, there's like, "He did not like guns, in fact, he was terrified of them." I would just get rid of "in fact he was terrified of them." Because you show that. >> I've been in the particular institution for about a year and a quarter. I'm looking at getting out in roughly another year and a half. I try to stay focused on whatever it is I'm doing in the present moment. It's easier to get through my time like that. Naturally, the mind's going to go off and start musing on, you know, the past or the future. There's absolutely nothing I can do to change any of the past, and you know, the future is not here so I can't really do anything much about it. I can make tentative plans, but how many times do you want to plan the same thing. It gets kind of pointless, you know? I'm going to get out. I'm going to go to collage. I'm going to get a job. My actions are mine alone. It brought me where I am. I'm not going to sit here blaming other people for me problems. It doesn't do any good. Even if I wanted to harbor some sort of resentment that would only hurt me. >> These guys are all so honest about themselves. None of them are making excuses. It must have been really enriching. We only have a little bit of time left. What did each of you came away with from this experience? >> One thing, to put into context, this fellow who was just playing the flute, Dan. He's a very smart guy. He was taking advanced calculus during the time I was volunteering as an Extension course. He took critique really well. The short story that appears, he went through several rewrites, and then I edited even further. So he was working with a professional writer to come up with that. What I really came up with-- It kind of radicalized me. I think the grad students may have had more of a political slant, but at the end-- I don't know what this guy was exactly in for. I looked him up. Of all the people I interviewed his is one of the lowest of the incarceration reasons. But you wonder why some of these people are in prison. Violent people, and others like that, who do dastardly crimes, I don't have a problem with, but there's so many people who are in prison. We eclipse China and Russia for the number of people we incarcerate per 100,000. American leads the world in incarceration rates. That's what I took away form it. There's something that needs to be done with the system to change how we incarcerate people. >> Speaking of crime, you've both stolen my heart. >> Oh, come on. >> Thank you so much, you guys, for being here to day. You were excellent guests and the film was great. We really appreciate it. >> Thank you for having us. >> You're welcome. And thank you for watching Director's Cut. For more information on Dostoevsky Behind Bars please go to wpt.org and click on Director's Cut. I'm Pete Schwaba, and I'm just glad I wasn't asked to spell Dostoevsky.

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We'll see you next time on Director's Cut. >> As you progress down through the security ratings, you get to a place like this, hope is alive again. What happens now is that you do not want to disturb that hope in any way. You want to just let it keep flowing.