Doc/Fest Blog
Blood Trail preimere at Toronto Int. Film Festival. Interview with director, Richard Parry
By Hussain Currimbhoy 06 September, 2008
Richard Parry’s BLOOD TRAIL chronicles the formative period of American war photographer, Robert King, through 15 years and three war zones. Starting out as a young and rather idealistic college graduate in the Yugoslavian conflict, he's obsessed with being the youngest person to win a Pulitzer prize for photography. Not staying alive. It initially feels like King doesn’t stand a chance in a war zone and who’s only chance at recognition lives in the possibility that he will join a small league of war correspondents who record their own death.
But sticking with the same subject for nearly two decades pays off and King’s instincts and his success grow as he delves in and out of war situations that most of us would have the good sense to avoid in the first place. Creating some incredible imagery out of the horrors of Bosnia, Chechnya, and most recently Iraq, King is clearly not the usual war photographer. Needless to say, BLOOD TRAIL is not your usual war documentary. Surviving the war zone is one thing. But surviving yourself can be just as difficult sometimes.
On the eve of his premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, director Richard Parry found a few minutes to talk to me despite having a spot of root canal not long after arriving Canada.
Hussain Currimbhoy: How is the vibe there at the Toronto FF? Are you feeling confident about the screening?
Richard Parry: It’s massive. I’ve never been to Toronto before but there’s people just everywhere and the catalogue looks like telephone book!
HC: Tomorrow is the actual screening in Toronto. How do you feel? This is your first screening after Britdoc.
RP: I’m looking forward to it, I mean, Britdoc is industry people and industry people are very tight lipped. It’s difficult to know. I mean it wasn’t the best site in the world and it wasn’t the best slot at Britdoc. I really hope here it’s going to be a better litmus test. Hopefully the buyers will be here and the distributors. Americans are much more vocal audience than Brits can be.
HC: Americans can really get into it! And this is the kind of story you just get into from the start. I mean, this kid (Robert King) is so hapless and so much like the average American in some ways. And yet there is something about him that is so honest, he’s just a guy looking for answers in the world. Because he’s so naïve in the beginning, what made you want to follow this guy around for 15 years?
RP: I’ve always made character lead documentaries. I’ve made all kinds of other documentaries before but character lead ones are my favorites. And I really took to Robert. I’ve always hand on heart believed that he’s a great character for documentary. I took the earlier version of the film to everybody and I got rejects from virtually everybody. It was extraordinary. I’m like what is it? Am I just wrong here? Have I just chosen the wrong horse?
HC: You’ve put a lot of eggs into one basket here that’s for sure. The one thing that I like about your attitude film is that you just shoot shoot shoot – but why did you stop after 15 years? Why didn’t you just keep going?
RP:
HC: I say do it. He’s not someone you can get tired of too quick. I can see myself hanging out with him in a bar.
RP: Its like 7 Up!
HC: Exactly! But the fact that you did shoot so much and unlike most documentaries you didn’t really shoot from a script, made me wonder if there was anything that was off limits with him?
RP: Not much. We have a relationship now after 15 years and we’re quite good friends and I really hope he trusts me. He is in some ways jaded about the business and he can get cynical and he’s like, ‘You’re going to stitch me up.’ And I’m like, Robert, its not like that. I don’t know if you’re going to 100% like this film but I think you’ll agree that it’s an honest portrait. And he actually loves the film. Though he doesn’t like the banana scene.
HC: You were in fact in his shoes for a long time as a war correspondent.
RP: I worked for Frontline News where we shot and produced our own stories, then came back and sold them. That was mostly in the 90s. I do have a bit of a name for doing documentaries in difficult situations. But I got out of the business in the late 90s because it was just too crazy, too dangerous and I lost my nerve. You do need to have total self-confidence and after a bit you see too many bad things. I backed out of it whereas Robert seemed pretty comfortable under fire.
HC: Robert seems to love being in the thick of the mess.
RP: He does love it. He’s got a family life now which has changed him and in some ways he’s a little bit isolationist. He’s pulled back into his family. He’s less gregarious than he was in the 90s.
HC: How do you think the fact that you were also a war correspondent effects your approach to the subject and the topic.
RP: I think it’s an insiders view. I really hope it comes across that way. I know a lot of people who still work in that business and I feel like it is a large part of my history. I spent time in Yugoslavia
HC: The approach you had to this film was really unusual. You shoot until you can’t shoot any more and yet I believe you had test screenings for BLOOD TRAIL. Is a very unusual way to make a documentary.
RP: I think if people had picked that film up earlier on, and it never got a UK screening but it did get a few European screenings, if people had picked that film up they would have just put it on the shelf. I felt it never found its feet properly. But I really believed there was a great story in it.
HC: Were any of the scenes ever re-shot as result of audience screenings?
RP: No, no. We didn’t re-shoot anything. We did two test screenings where we had 30 people and 50 people in the second one. It was only for the edit. In a film that is somewhat sporadic, that covers three different periods over 15 years its a bit of a jig saw puzzle to put together.
HC: Some people have a screening with the commissioning editor for example but its rare do a test screening like this.
RP: It’s a real American concept. In some ways we were lacking in any editorial input from a commissioning editor which is good and bad. Bad in the form of not having a good creative eye of a good commissioning editor or a good exec producer to keep a distance from certain scenes.
HC: You had shown an earlier version of BLOOD TRAIL at Doc/Fest called HOLIDAY IN SARAJEVO a few year ago didn’t you?
RP: It was about 10 or12 years ago. It was a 20 minute cut of the Bosnia stuff so you can imagine what it must have been like.
HC: Is any of that in BLOOD TRAIL?
RP: Yes – there’s a lot of footage of that in this film.
HC: That was a long time ago and things have really changed with on-line distribution models and the rise of the Internet. You can have the vibe and the fun of a film festival around you and your film, but how do you feel about the role of the film festival now when trying to launch or sell a film?
RP: The internet still definitely changes things but its still a very social business. I mean I’m sitting here in a lobby and I look around me and there are sales agents and distributors everywhere - they look like old friends who haven’t seen each other since the last festival. But of course the other end of the argument is how much of the money from DVDs or broadcast really reaches the filmmaker’s pocket? And as you know its not very much.
We considered the on-line sales option but we’ve gone for a much more traditional route. We’ve got a US sales agent on board who will be selling the film here hopefully. I was worried though with this film because there is a back lash against Iraq films and it seems the industry is only interested in uplifting films. For documentary its tough times in cinemas. We have had incredible feedback with this film. I mean, Nick Broomfield said it was an amazing film and that it was the best war film he’d ever seen by far. But the industry is very conservative.
HC: It seems like Robert King isn’t the usual war character. You don’t see him as being the typical war photographer. That’s what makes the film is so distinctive.
RP: It’s a coming of age film. It’s a character study. We’ve designed the poster so that it’s not like a macho war film!
HC: So what’s your pick at Toronto his year? What are you dying to see?
RP: Hussain, I haven’t even had a chance to look in the catalogue! So I really can’t make a recommendation. Though I think BLOOD TRAIL looks pretty good.