Director's Cut

>> We love our summer visitors, says a Detroit native to me somewhat disparagingly. People in the city know that when the Super Bowl, and the Detroit Tigers' season is over, the ones who are left are abandoned for the long term. Most visitors come to take pictures of abandoned skyscrapers and then leave, as if Detroit, like other cities in America, has reinvented itself into a theme park. >> Hi, and welcome to Director's Cut. I'm your host, Charles Monroe-Kane. That was a clip from the documentary, I Have Always Been A Dreamer. The film contrasts two cities, one in boom and one in bust, Detroit and Dubai. We're joined today by the documentary's director, Sabine Gruffat. Sabine, thank you for joining us today. >> Thanks for having me. >> What got you to this point in your life, where you're going to make a documentary film, a full-length film, to compare Dubai and Detroit. >> That's a good question. I lived in downtown Detroit for a year because I was teaching at a university there. I was in a Mies van der Rohe building, which is sort of unheard of, to live in a Mies van der Rohe building in another city for a cheap as I was paying for it. It was supposed to be this luxury building, but because it was in downtown Detroit it was kind of a cheap place to live. >> Because it's empty, downtown Detroit. >> Right. Everyone was saying, why do you want to live there? Why do you want to live there? I was on the seventh floor and I started getting the New York Times. The doorman said, "Oh, this is the first time in 20 years that we've had the New York Times delivered in this building." I was reading the New York Times and it just seemed like the reality that I was living and the reality I was seeing in the paper were so different. This was during the boom year, this was 2007, so everything was doing really well and all over the world people were doing really well economically. The Middle East in particular. Dubai was just, you know, exploding. I was looking at, you know, pictures of those Palm Islands and I was looking out my window, and thinking, what's going on here? This is crazy? Why is my life so opposite this? It just kind of dawned on me. How can I live in this place that's in America and it feels like I'm miles and miles away from the rest of the world. >> So you picked up your camera. >> Yeah. >> Which is a good response. Artists need to respond. I want to show a clip real quick before we come back and talk more. This one I'm going to show is a great clip from Dubai and Detroit that shows, kind of, how your film feels. Then we can talk a little bit about why you wanted to do the comparisons. We're going to role that clip and come back and talk some more. So let's roll that tape. >> On the campus of the University of Sharjah, Professor Kerry Atitas shares with me his thoughts on Dubai's urban planning and architecture. I mention that his on-line articles are censored by Etisalat, the government owned Dubai Internet provider. Though surprised, he affirms that on the university campus, the Internet is not censored. He tells me that Dubai is a version of Utopia, and I immediately start laughing. Later I wonder what version of Utopia he's referring to. >> We have to remember that this is a desert, or was a desert, what we call a tabula rasa. There was nothing to start with. Master developers come in, they subdivide the land into smaller plots, they establish infrastructure. Sometimes they overdo the infrastructure through highways. And then they invite smaller investors, with their design teams, to build high rises and other types of buildings. It's a purely real estate planning. There is not much concern about public spaces because the spaces are privately owned. Also, from a different point of view, almost 90% of the population of Dubai, they are not UAE citizens. So the issue of citizenship doesn't exist. We're all visitors. >> I don't even know what to say after all those facts and information we just heard. 90% of people aren't from Dubai. It's just an amazing amount of information there. But I want to ask you a different question. Is your film a cautionary tale? Because it seems like a lot of what you're doing is saying, hey guys, a guy named Henry Ford built Detroit and there's this guy now in Dubai building Dubai. Hey, Dubai, here's what's coming around the corner. Is that what the film is about? Or are you trying to say, hey, cities, this is just how cities work, bust and boom. >> Well, it's interesting what you're saying about cities because I think that-- The film is kind of about, like, what is a city? These are two example of cities. One that is developing still, even though it had some hard times during the economic recession. Current economic recession. Then the other city, which is a city that we've seen rise and fall, Detroit. I think that that is kind of the question that I have. Sort of, you know, what do we want these cities to do? What are they built for? What are they built for now, what were they built for then? And how are they serving the people who there? I think that it's interesting to contrast these two cities that in some whys have similarities. They are very dependant on one kind of economy. >> Which is always a bad idea. >> Yeah, right. You want to diversify. The greatest cities in the world know to do that. Right? London has changed over time. New York has changed over time. >> Right. Because Dubai could go down for one reason, and one reason only. It's a tourist city. It's Vegas. >> It's a tourist city, yeah, and it's trade. >> It's interesting when I watched your movie. You were comparing two cities, and you were doing it in a much more artistic way than a lot of films I've seen. It's really a lot of blending, very little narrative, even a little music. You're just, kind of, blending the two together. There's this amazing moment in the film, which I'm sure you did on purpose, but it didn't dawn on me until half way in the moment. There's a boat house and there's some people coming up in row boats to this house. It's really stark. There's hardly anything around it. Then there's these arches. To me, they look very Middle Eastern, these arches. Then it dawns on me as I'm looking at the boat, I notice the people getting off the boat, that we're in Detroit. I see Detroit off in the distance, but I thought we were in Dubai, because of the way I saw the water. I was like, of my god, these cities are completely interchangeable, even though one's in boom and one's in bust. They're still just the same thing. >> Yeah, and actually what you're saying about the waterfront is really interesting. Because there's a part in Dubai where he says, you know, "Waterfront properties are luxury properties anywhere in the world." Right? That they're the most expensive and that Dubai is building extra waterfront by building these fake islands. But then in Detroit there's all this riverfront and huge tracts of land that aren't built on. It's a funny comparison. >> It seems so strange to me because, again back to these two men, Henry Ford and-- Is it the Sultan? >> The sheik. >> The sheik. Sorry. Oh, even better. >> I hope he's not watching. >> He's probably not. If he is, hey, shout out to the sheik of the United Arab Emirates These are men with vision who come in and say, "I'm going to build and entire city." Not some small thing like, you know, a huge city! "In a way that I see that vision to work." It's very domineering, kind of fascist, intense way. They have the control to do that. What does that mean for the people who live in it? Not the people who come to visit it, but like the normal people who do real jobs. >> Yeah, well-- >> What did you find? >> I don't think that either city was really built, or is, built for the people in it. You know, Detroit's layout is really about the auto factories, and getting the steel to the factories, and then back out as quickly as possible. It's all railways going into the city. >> It's not for parks for the workers' families? >> No, it's not. Dubai is just-- I don't even know-- I don't think they have a concept of city planning. It's completely unplanned. It's based on profit, right? Actually, the sheik calls himself the CEO of the Emirates >> He calls himself the CEO? Really? >> He's the CEO, yeah. He's not-- >> He's the CEO of the United Arab Emirates? >> Yeah, CEO. That's how it's sort of his company. >> Wow, that's telling, isn't it? That is really telling. I hope his returns aren't too effecting for other shareholders. We're going to see another clip, and we're going to come back. This clip just-- I've probably quoted this clip to at least ten people since I saw this film. So let's role that clip. >> In 1990 economist Andrew Lawrence created the skyscraper index to show that the building of the tallest skyscrapers coincides with business cycles, and that the construction of the world's tallest building is a good indicator for the onset of a major economic downturn, proving there are correlations between construction booms and financial busts. This is an image of the Burj Khalifa during my visit at the peak of the boom in 2007, when it was still under construction and before Dubai was bailed out by Abu Dhabi. In 2010, 825 or the 900 apartments were vacant. >> That is a striking, striking image. Tell me, the skyscraper index-- I feel like a know a few things in the world. I've never heard that before but as soon as I heard it, I was like, bam! That's true. You can hear truth sometimes. Tell me more about that and how you found out about that. >> Well, I did a lot of research when I made the film. I read a lot of different sources. Actually, the skyscraper index was references recently in The Guardian, talking about China. Because they're building a really tall skyscraper there. >> Uh-oh. >> They were saying, this is the, you know, signal, for the downturn. I guess it's still used by economists who predict downturn. >> It's a hubris scale, right? >> Yeah. >> And hubris tends to mean downfall economically, right? >> Yeah, and we built tall skyscrapers in New York right before the depression. It's something that seems to happen. >> I know that you've done a lot of research to make this film, but as we see from the last clip with the workers carrying up the wood, you also let the film happen. There's hardly any talking in the film. You really let it lay back and go. How do you resist the urge as a filmmaker to not be like, "I'm going to make this like a Michael Moore documentary!" To put so much information in and just let it also happen? It's almost too much information. I like that you let it happen. How do you, like, chill out and just let it be? >> I know. Well, that was actually a very hard decision. The way I did it was that I actually said, okay, I'm going to say everything I want to say. I laid it out on a recording. I recorded the whole thing. Say the things you're kind of nervous to say. Say them anyway. So I just said everything, and then as I was editing the film I was like, you know, I'm not really adding much to this image. The image kind of tells it all. I feel like that's what film is to me. It's less talking and more about the visual and the auditory. So a lot of the sounds are recorded on site and I really wanted the images to speak the story. I think images, you know, they're less clear than text. You can have more interpretations of them. >> Images are grayer. They're always grayer. Text, you've made a decision. You're saying what you're saying. With an image-- What do you say about those workers lifting that wood? >> Yeah. >> I don't know. You could guess a lot of things. They're not all positive. >> Yeah. >> You hear the wind. At least it's gray. >> Honestly, I'm not that interested in what I have to say. I mean, on some level, I think I'm saying it with the way the film is put together. But I was really conscience about letting the people who were in the film, kind of, speak their text, what their answers were, and then just letting moments of silence, you know. >> Well, they're not silent. We're going to see another clip here. They're not silent. To see a clip of row after row, house after house after house, of urban blight. That's not silent. What else could you say? >> Right. >> You're an American. You know what Detroit is going through. You see broken down houses. There's nothing more really to say. We're going to see a clip that I think does an amazing, is an amazing juxtaposition of Dubai with Detroit. Then we'll come back and a little bit more. So let's roll that clip. There is one area being dubbed "Las Vegas in the desert" which is, I think, 58 hotels going up on a huge strip. Including the world's biggest hotel which will have 6,500 rooms. That in itself will be a destination. There is a dinosaur park being built. I believe Disney is involved, certainly the British Museum is, with dinomatronic, life-size dinosaurs walking around. The British Museum has said the dinosaurs will smell like dinosaurs. These are going to be real animals walking around. We have a snow dome. The biggest glass dome in the world under construction. Inside will be snow and ice. They'll make snow every night as a ski slope does. These will pull in millions of tourists on their own. Beachfront property is prime real estate anywhere in the world. Dubai has 40 or 50 kilometers of beachfront. It's building over 800 kilometers of new beachfront with these tacky islands. It actually is hard-nosed business behind all the stuff that's going on. To watch these things going up is interesting and exciting. There's a downside, which is congestion, pollution, cement dust in the air all the time, the noise of construction and so on. But you can't have one without the other. We have MotorCity being built, which is half built now, which will have all sorts of motor racing events going on. >> That looks like a horrible, just a horrible, place to live, but people live there. I see that and it looks so depressing. Dubai to me looks amazingly depressing. I look at Detroit, which is probably one of the last places I'd ever want to live, but people live there and thrive there! There's artists there and communities there. In some ways the people that were left behind by the success and didn't have anywhere to go. I have to ask you this question, is there hope? Did you make this film-- I'm not saying you made a film about hope of not hope, but you've been to both places, is there hope? Or are we just audacious and hubris filled grown-ups who are just going to continue to do this? >> Well, I think the film has a little hope at the end. But me, as an individual, I'm pretty pessimistic. I think the film sort of has hope in the people that live there making it there own place to live, in a way. >> In either place? >> It's sort of like, you kind of have to depend on yourself and not hope that someone higher up is going to do something for you. >> You don't hope the CEO of the United Arab Emirates will do something for you? >> Well, I don't know how I feel about the people who live in the Emirates. The few citizens that are there, I mean, it's a hard decision for me to make for them. >> 10% of the population, right? Only 10% of the population are citizens. It's crazy. >> I think it's like 20%. >> Oh, 20%, it's crazy. >> So there's few people living there, so most of the people are just visiting, you know. >> As I was watching your film, I said, okay, Dubai, Detroit, Dubai, Detroit. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. I'm looking at the clicker and we're getting near the end of the film. How is this film going to end? What's the climax of this film? I was picturing some really audacious stuff. I thought we were really going go to really serious blight and really serious audacity, but no. It ends with a story of two trees. Which is very narrative actually, as well as visual. Tell me about the two trees, and then we're going to see a little clip and look at those. >> Well, these are two trees that are in either place. There's the "ghetto palm" or the Ailianthus, in Detroit. And there's the ghaf tree in the Emirates, which is the iconic tree, the national icon for the Emirates It became that. The sheik named it that and said that he was going to preserve it. We have these two people talking about these two different trees. I just wanted to have something specific that kind of becomes like a metaphor for what these cities are becoming. Right? The ghetto palm, the Detroit tree, is a tree that grows in abandoned auto factories and places that are abandoned in general, or urban areas. In urban blighted areas. I think that that was a good way to end the film, was sort of talking very specifically about these two trees. >> We're going to go to a clip to see the tree from the United Arab Emirates, but I want to add in because I think it's very wild. In your film people talk about how long has a neighborhood or of a home area in Detroit been abandoned. You can tell by the height of the ghetto palm. People would know, that's been abandoned for ten years, twenty years, five years, by the height of the trees that have gone through the abandoned buildings or the factories. Oh, my god, how telling is that? I couldn't believe it. Let's see a clip about one of the trees, and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more about them. Let's roll that clip. >> I'm half Egyptian and half Lebanese and I've been living in Dubai for the past six years. I'm a photographer. I have my own company. >> Toufie takes pictures of the ghaf, a tree indigenous to the Emirates and revered for it's capacity to survive harsh desert conditions. Although the roots of mature ghafs can penetrate as deep as 100 feet to reach underground water reservoirs, the trees prove unable to survive the region's urbanization. >> What's happening? These trees are protected, okay? We find them in very rare areas around the UAE. But the sand and the area around these trees is very good for construction, because they use the sand in making construction material. So you find these areas around Dubai and Abu Dhabi, in the desert, the middle of the desert, that have been dug everywhere in the desert. Then just this tree is on about two meter high hill. That's it, only the tree standing on that thing. They can't touch it. What I've heard, I'm not sure, is that He protected them Himself. >> Amazing. I don't even know what to say after I see that. You see the tree on that little hill and you're like, what the heck? When you think about this film, you say to yourself, what is this film about? Not why you made it, but what is it about? >> That's a good question. You know, I'm in the movie, so-- >> What were you trying to discover? >> I mean, I went into the film with a lot of questions. That's why I made the movie. Right? For me, the process of making the film is what makes it interesting. I'm researching as I'm making the film. I don't know what the story's going to be until I finish the film almost. The film started out being about something, you know, I had preconceived ideas about. But once I started shooting, it sort of became about something else. Then once we had the recession then it changed. I was making the film throughout this whole time. My view of what was happening was changing. Some of the shots from Dubai where shot during the boom time. Right? So when I'm looking back at it and thinking a year after this they had a crash. My view of that shot changes. The film has changed for me over time. Some people tell me, oh, it's about workers' right. Some people tell me, of, it's about city planning. I kind of think it's interesting how other people have they're own interpretation of what it is about. >> It's a good film then. Where does the title come from? I Have Always Been A Dreamer. >> Well, there's a Ford re-enactor in the film, a Henry Ford re-enactor. The title is from something he says, which is, "I've always been a dreamer." That he is a visionary man, right? I saw an interview with the sheik of Dubai and he also says that. He says, "I am a man of vision." So it occurred to me that these cities, you know, are built as dreams. They're sort of pre-imagined. That's interesting to me. I also feel like, because I was in the film, there's also something about me. The film is not about me but I can't help but feel some sort of personal tie to it. Right? Because I'm in it. I made it. I shoot it. >> Well, thank you very much. I was very impressed with it. I really enjoyed watching it. It made me think about a lot of things. I'm not sure what I think the film was about. But I think they are good things that I'm thinking about. Thank you for joining us today. >> Thanks. >> And thank you all very much for joining us at Director's Cut here. For more information on I Have Always Been A Dreamer please go to our website at wpt.org and click on Director's Cut. I'm your host Charles Monroe-Kane. Check the gate.

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