WEBVTT
00:00:36.679 --> 00:00:50.579
Before we jump into today's interview, I'm so excited to extend a special invitation to all of you to join me and today's guest, Beth Harrington, for a special screening of her film, Our Mr. Matsura.
00:00:51.560 --> 00:01:00.400
We talk about this film on the episode today, and it will be a special screening at the Kiggins Theatre on October 18th.
00:01:00.969 --> 00:01:09.370
00 PM and will be followed by a panel discussion that I will lead with Beth Harrington herself.
00:01:09.750 --> 00:01:19.569
So this will be a chance for you all to come and see Beth, her film, and then I'm into this place in action on stage at the Kiggins live.
00:01:20.299 --> 00:01:22.299
I really hope that you're able to join us.
00:01:22.319 --> 00:01:25.789
I absolutely love this film, and I know you will, too.
00:01:26.389 --> 00:01:40.969
The screening is also a benefit to help Beth and her team with distribution efforts for this film, including a trip to Japan, where they intend to screen it in Mr. Matsura's own backyard.
00:01:41.558 --> 00:01:47.310
So please click the link in the show notes to find out more about that, and we hope to see you
00:01:47.310 --> 00:01:49.219
00 PM
00:01:51.665 --> 00:02:00.975
Recently, I was sorting through my parents' record collection that I inherited years ago, and one of the records I found was an old Johnny Cash album.
00:02:01.195 --> 00:02:04.355
Right next to it was an album from The Carter family.
00:02:04.875 --> 00:02:08.665
And it made me think of this cool documentary called The Winding
00:02:08.665 --> 00:02:12.516
The Carters, the Cashes, and the Course of Country Music.
00:02:12.665 --> 00:02:22.805
This film, which premiered at South by Southwest, was directed and created by one of our local documentary filmmakers, Beth Harrington.
00:02:22.965 --> 00:02:27.156
She has won an Emmy Award for her work.
00:02:27.415 --> 00:02:33.506
She's been Grammy nominated for Welcome to the Club: The Women of Rockabilly.
00:02:33.975 --> 00:02:51.795
And she also has a brand-new documentary called Our Mr. Matsura, and that documentary opened my eyes to the incredible body of work of this long ago, relatively under-the-radar documentary photographer.
00:02:52.004 --> 00:03:21.016
And it's so interesting that Beth Harrington decided to do a film about Frank Matsura because she is a documentarian, and she's been with it for a couple of decades now and is really looking at what's about to happen or what is happening with independent documentary filmmaking now that many of the funding streams for making that work happen are dried up or being taken away.
00:03:22.024 --> 00:03:34.355
I find Beth to be, um, just a perfect example of her art form because she's so good at telling her own story, and she also is an incredible storyteller.
00:03:34.634 --> 00:03:44.396
Uh, we were together for almost two hours, but of course I try to keep these episodes short for you so you can listen while you're driving from point A to point B.
00:03:44.644 --> 00:03:48.956
So today you'll hear our short but deep conversation.
00:03:49.185 --> 00:03:57.865
She, s- she has a breadth that is really inspiring and a depth that makes you wanna sit down and learn more about her.
00:03:58.134 --> 00:04:03.096
So I hope you enjoy stepping into the world of documentary filmmaker Beth Harrington.
00:04:04.815 --> 00:04:13.305
Welcome to I'm Into This Place, your deep dive into the local arts, culture, and heritage of Clark County.
00:04:14.906 --> 00:04:23.855
From fabulous new restaurants to quirky art installations, to the historical sites you never even knew to look for, we're inviting you along.
00:04:25.035 --> 00:04:33.656
Whether you're a Clark County connoisseur or just starting to get to know her, get ready to fall head over heels for this place we call home.
00:04:34.545 --> 00:04:38.185
I'm your host, Adriana Baer, and I'm into this place.
00:04:38.615 --> 00:04:39.274
Let's go.
00:04:42.088 --> 00:04:47.728
Beth, I'm here in your studio, your home office studio, and it's really lovely in here.
00:04:47.757 --> 00:04:53.408
I'm seeing all kinds of cool film equipment and posters and scripts.
00:04:53.628 --> 00:04:56.708
Thank you so much for welcoming me into your space.
00:04:56.718 --> 00:04:57.057
Thank you.
00:04:57.347 --> 00:04:58.518
I'm glad you're here.
00:04:58.598 --> 00:05:00.877
So you are a documentary filmmaker.
00:05:00.927 --> 00:05:01.287
Mm-hmm.
00:05:01.977 --> 00:05:08.516
And that is a very unique and wonderful genre within the film world in general.
00:05:08.857 --> 00:05:17.807
And so today we're gonna talk about what got you there, and also some of the amazing projects that you've worked on and directed and created.
00:05:18.277 --> 00:05:20.817
And we're gonna talk about your newest project.
00:05:21.108 --> 00:05:24.067
How did you catch the film bug back in the day?
00:05:24.167 --> 00:05:39.728
You know, it, it was a long time coming, because when I was coming up as a young person, and even into my early 20s, there really wasn't such a thing as independent filmmaking on the level that it exists now.
00:05:40.076 --> 00:05:56.968
Documentary filmmaking at the time was really the domain of news organizations, you know, doing these social issues documentaries or public television was kind of in its infancy and was starting to do this stuff.
00:05:56.997 --> 00:05:58.277
I mean, the, I'm old.
00:05:58.367 --> 00:06:00.648
So the, this stuff didn't really exist.
00:06:00.648 --> 00:06:13.008
And I remember the first time I saw a documentary that really blew my mind, it was on public television, and I was in my teens, and it was a show called An American Family, which was really groundbreaking.
00:06:13.198 --> 00:06:17.824
It's not as- choreographed as reality shows are now.
00:06:18.004 --> 00:06:22.646
It was very much fly on the wall, and I was just kinda mesmerized by that.
00:06:22.646 --> 00:06:24.855
I thought that was really cool.
00:06:24.865 --> 00:06:26.146
I got out of college.
00:06:26.146 --> 00:06:30.055
I was a media communications major in college, and then I got out of school.
00:06:30.314 --> 00:06:39.355
It still took me m- a number of years to find my footing and figure out what I was gonna do with the creativity I felt and the desire to tell stories.
00:06:40.225 --> 00:06:54.765
And really, uh, eventually I fell in with o- other documentary filmmakers and went, "Yeah, this is my happy place." And so I started chipping away at it, and eventually started making documentaries probably in my late 20s.
00:06:55.275 --> 00:06:59.134
And I contend that truth is stranger than fiction.
00:06:59.216 --> 00:07:02.295
There's just so much cool stuff out there that's real.
00:07:02.545 --> 00:07:05.336
I don't need to make anything up, you know?
00:07:05.336 --> 00:07:05.646
Yeah.
00:07:05.646 --> 00:07:07.646
So that, I, I love meeting people.
00:07:07.646 --> 00:07:09.545
I love being in other people's worlds.
00:07:09.955 --> 00:07:14.276
So that kinda jazzes me about documentary filmmaking, and still does, you know?
00:07:14.276 --> 00:07:15.715
That's still what motivates me.
00:07:15.715 --> 00:07:17.155
Like, where can we go?
00:07:17.175 --> 00:07:17.884
Who can we meet?
00:07:17.955 --> 00:07:19.564
Ooh, cool, you know?
00:07:19.634 --> 00:07:24.566
What is it that draws you to a certain subject or a certain character, then?
00:07:25.045 --> 00:07:36.925
My happy place is making films about culture and history, and, um, and that includes art and music and, you know, all of the manifestations of the humanities.
00:07:37.245 --> 00:07:45.375
For me, it's really about, you know, what's the human story at the core of a, a topic I've stumbled upon.
00:07:45.545 --> 00:07:52.115
So that can be women rockabilly singers, contemporaries of Elvis Presley's in the '50s.
00:07:52.185 --> 00:07:56.805
I've, I've worked on a film about the country music family, the Carter Family.
00:07:57.115 --> 00:08:09.935
I have done my own self-exploration of my Italian American culture on my mother's side, and the religious traditions that reside within that.
00:08:09.995 --> 00:08:21.165
These things tantalize me, and then it's like, over the time I've realized, how long am I going to have to live with this topic, and can I sustain my own interest in this topic to get this thing done?
00:08:21.435 --> 00:08:27.906
My, uh, film about the Carter Family is called The Winding Stream, and that film took me 10 years to make.
00:08:28.185 --> 00:08:36.554
And then it got distribution and was in festivals and art house cinema, and I lived with that film for, like, 15 years.
00:08:36.735 --> 00:08:44.355
When I started it, a lot of people noted that it was an important American story that had not been told.
00:08:44.375 --> 00:08:49.684
These are the folks at the earliest stages of what we call country music.
00:08:50.164 --> 00:09:00.221
It's a fascinating story about this husband and wife and a sister-in-law who become foundational Music figures.
00:09:00.572 --> 00:09:05.641
And, and bonus, Johnny Cash married into that family.
00:09:05.771 --> 00:09:19.051
So the film is about the Carters and the Cashes, about the, the relationship, the way they helped him, the way he helped them, and eventually how their, their legacies were preserved even to this day by succeeding generations.
00:09:19.341 --> 00:09:29.921
So Johnny Cash was in the film, and I'm like, "Oh, this is a no-brainer. Like, people are gonna be throwing money at this." And it took years to raise the money, and it was really piecemeal.
00:09:29.921 --> 00:09:38.490
Like, I'd say, "Oh, I got X number of dollars. That means I can go back to Nashville, and I can shoot for three days or four days or-"
00:09:38.521 --> 00:09:49.910
Right, and I imagine that it's really hard to keep the through line of what you're building or even remember that early footage to figure out what questions you wanna ask, what stories are coming out.
00:09:50.230 --> 00:09:56.910
The funding piece, I think, is something that people don't know a lot about, and I know it's changed- Mm-hmm … a lot.
00:09:56.940 --> 00:09:58.240
Yeah, just this year.
00:09:58.291 --> 00:10:06.020
There, there are only so many entities that were funding independent film, and they included a group called The Independent Television Service.
00:10:06.442 --> 00:10:17.094
They included federal funding like the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and local Trickle-down versions of those groups.
00:10:17.195 --> 00:10:23.015
It's gotten a lot harder now because the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is no more.
00:10:23.015 --> 00:10:29.795
The NEA and the NEH have been greatly reduced, and I would argue changed.
00:10:30.645 --> 00:10:36.655
So there's no going to those entities anymore from my standpoint and, and getting funding.
00:10:37.004 --> 00:10:43.745
And the other issue, of course, is a home for a lot of my documentaries in the past has been public television.
00:10:44.084 --> 00:10:57.284
But this year, with the cuts of, at PBS- Mm-hmm … and the cuts with the end of Corporation for Public Broadcasting, that means that the one show that was- Mm… considering it is going off the air.
00:10:57.325 --> 00:11:00.314
It feels like it's a very interesting time.
00:11:00.745 --> 00:11:06.554
You've been here through a, a lot of it, where- Mm-hmm … there wasn't an independent documentary scene.
00:11:06.615 --> 00:11:08.404
Then it really flourished.
00:11:08.514 --> 00:11:10.964
Now it's a very uncertain time.
00:11:11.064 --> 00:11:11.444
Very.
00:11:11.474 --> 00:11:27.755
And so as new filmmakers are coming up, and as, as you even, who's so experienced, is looking at the next five, 10 years- Mm-hmm … it must be a little bit murky as to w- what's gonna happen and what's gonna happen with this genre.
00:11:28.264 --> 00:11:35.445
And the, and the genre also, I should say, includes a consideration of lengths, right?
00:11:35.735 --> 00:11:42.044
Documentaries- Mm … kinda traditionally in public television are either an hour or a couple hours long.
00:11:42.055 --> 00:11:44.895
In theaters they're at least 90 minutes long.
00:11:45.014 --> 00:11:50.224
I, I think we're all suffering from attention deficit issues now.
00:11:50.365 --> 00:11:56.285
I mean, whether- Yeah … we're diagnosed with that or not, we are all suffering from it because of social media and how we use media.
00:11:56.615 --> 00:12:01.544
You know, asking anyone to sit through a 90-minute film is a trick.
00:12:01.894 --> 00:12:02.274
Yeah.
00:12:02.904 --> 00:12:09.904
Let's talk about your most recent film- Mm-hmm … Our Mr. Matsura, which I got to see recently and absolutely loved.
00:12:10.384 --> 00:12:11.584
Why don't you tell us about it?
00:12:11.944 --> 00:12:25.895
It's a film about a Japanese immigrant photographer who was the son of a samurai and left Japan a- as it was going through radical changes in the last half of the 19th century.
00:12:25.934 --> 00:12:39.454
And he showed up in s- in the Pacific Northwest in 1901, and made his way to Okanogan County, which is the largest county, to this day is the largest county in Washington with the fewest people in it.
00:12:39.985 --> 00:12:40.954
Very remote.
00:12:41.325 --> 00:12:49.665
Part of it borders on Canada, and it also is adjacent to the Colville Confederated Tribes Reservation.
00:12:50.154 --> 00:13:00.604
Um, so when Frank Matsura showed up, he started taking pictures of everyone he met, and some of them are just kinda pedestrian documentation.
00:13:00.615 --> 00:13:02.314
Here's the downtown.
00:13:02.324 --> 00:13:03.934
Here's the mine.
00:13:03.944 --> 00:13:06.344
Here's people growing apples.
00:13:07.463 --> 00:13:10.043
But some of the pictures are like, "Wait, wait, what?
00:13:11.663 --> 00:13:16.203
Uh, are those a bunch of men in a studio with bonnets on their heads?
00:13:16.363 --> 00:13:28.762
And why is the photographer in all the pictures?" That's one facet, but then the other facet is, wow, he knew a lot of the Native American folks, and they seem to really trust him.
00:13:29.233 --> 00:13:40.942
They have a relationship with him, and he is taking beautiful, extraordinary pictures of them, and they seem to be participants and not subjects.
00:13:41.323 --> 00:13:48.843
And I just fell in love with the body of work, and then I started learning more and more what, what is, what we can know about him.
00:13:48.843 --> 00:13:54.892
It's still, there's so much we don't know, and the film is partly about that, about the mystery of this man.
00:13:55.272 --> 00:13:56.853
He's really under the radar.
00:13:56.902 --> 00:14:05.293
So I applied for some funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and they gave it to me, and I started working on it, and it's been a sheer joy.
00:14:05.323 --> 00:14:10.353
And Frank Matsura is, like, my North Star.
00:14:10.353 --> 00:14:16.322
I think he's incredible the way he interacted with the people that he took photos of.
00:14:16.683 --> 00:14:27.353
People who know about Frank become sort of a little cult, and that's part of the film also, was all the people who love him as if he were still alive and talk about him as if he were still alive.
00:14:27.692 --> 00:14:28.853
People call him Frank.
00:14:29.323 --> 00:14:34.872
His pictures are all over the small towns that he worked in in Okanogan County.
00:14:35.283 --> 00:14:44.793
The folks from the tribe still know their family's relationship to the pictures, and the people in the pictures are ancestors that they can reference.
00:14:44.923 --> 00:14:54.152
And we got to go to Japan and work on it, too, which was also great because he left so young that m- most of the people in Japan don't know about him.
00:14:54.582 --> 00:14:59.432
But we're hoping that this revives that in Japan as well, so.
00:15:00.711 --> 00:15:08.871
It was really remarkable to think of, in 1901, this person coming over, and how did he get from Seattle to Okanogan?
00:15:08.911 --> 00:15:18.990
And then how is he engaging as if he's part of, and he was, part of the community in all of these different parts of that unique community.
00:15:19.091 --> 00:15:19.160
Right.
00:15:19.301 --> 00:15:24.031
He really, um, maybe because he had a camera-
00:15:24.170 --> 00:15:30.421
Mm-hmm… Adriana: and therefore Yes… Adriana: to these relationships.
00:15:30.451 --> 00:15:38.231
The film had many amazing advisors from m- many different walks of life and many different disciplines in academia.
00:15:38.531 --> 00:15:51.890
And Maki Fukuoka, who was one of the advisors, is a photography professor at the University of Leeds in the UK, and she was s- talking about that very thing, that, you know, it turns out his English was probably pretty good.
00:15:52.150 --> 00:16:02.200
Uh, he, he was Christianized in, in Japan, and most Japanese Christians learned English so they could read the Bible in English.
00:16:02.610 --> 00:16:19.790
So he came with that language, but Maki says the other language he came with was photography, using that as a way of communicating with people, taking pictures, sharing pictures, being in pictures with people, which is crazy what he did.
00:16:19.791 --> 00:16:29.300
I don't know of any other Western photographer who is in as many photos with other people, and did a million self-portraits too.
00:16:29.531 --> 00:16:32.111
Now we, we're just cl- selfie, selfie, click, click, click.
00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:36.680
He had to set them up and shoot them, and then process them and develop them and-
00:16:36.681 --> 00:16:37.660
Absolutely, yeah.
00:16:37.711 --> 00:16:40.030
He's lugging this huge piece of equipment.
00:16:40.221 --> 00:16:44.671
These aren't little cameras, they're big box, you know, wooden cameras with tripods.
00:16:44.730 --> 00:16:56.160
He's trudging around all over the place, or he's in his studio, but either way, big camera requires people to be relatively still, and a certain amount of lighting.
00:16:56.211 --> 00:17:03.281
And yet there's still a sort of spontaneity and fun- Yeah and playfulness that's in a lot of the ph- photographs.
00:17:03.281 --> 00:17:08.361
It's like, how did you accomplish that knowing all the other variables are working against you?
00:17:08.642 --> 00:17:10.980
It's an extraordinary body of work.
00:17:11.261 --> 00:17:13.020
There are about 4,000 photos.
00:17:13.041 --> 00:17:19.750
They're, they're at Washington State University, and they're also at the Okanogan County Historical Society.
00:17:20.060 --> 00:17:30.054
And that part of it really tugged at my heart, because here are volunteers at a small- town historical society preserving this guy's memory.
00:17:30.314 --> 00:17:30.693
Mm.
00:17:30.733 --> 00:17:34.354
And very rigorously with no real resources.
00:17:34.433 --> 00:17:41.603
And they've got his pictures on buildings, and they, yeah, you know, have a little exhibit in the historical society.
00:17:41.763 --> 00:17:44.823
And they worked very closely with me on the film, which was great.
00:17:45.074 --> 00:17:55.212
Th- it's extraordinary that this person made such an impact socially that it went beyond the transactional- Right … I take a picture, you have the picture.
00:17:55.393 --> 00:18:01.673
It, he was taking pictures of people where they were, how they wanted to dress.
00:18:01.673 --> 00:18:01.952
Yeah.
00:18:01.962 --> 00:18:03.604
Especially in the case of the Native folks.
00:18:04.074 --> 00:18:10.324
You know, they're wearing different elements, tribal regalia, Western street clothes.
00:18:11.074 --> 00:18:17.893
You know, there's a whole body of work of just the Native cowboys and how cool they look- Mm-hmm … in their, uh, their cowboy outfits.
00:18:18.613 --> 00:18:21.084
All of that, you know, is him meeting people where they
00:18:21.084 --> 00:18:21.243
are.
00:18:21.243 --> 00:18:26.523
Yeah, and you get a sense of what life is actually like instead of this, this, I don't know.
00:18:26.553 --> 00:18:38.714
I, y- you know, one of the things that struck me in the middle of the film, there's a photograph of a couple of younger women, maybe in their early 20s or so- Mm-hmm … like, sitting around and laughing.
00:18:38.723 --> 00:18:40.913
They're just having, hanging out and having a good time.
00:18:41.473 --> 00:18:50.942
And I thought, "God, you know, all of the imagery we have prior to when people were able to own cameras," right?
00:18:51.848 --> 00:18:54.858
is so staid- Mm-hmm … and, and stiff.
00:18:54.858 --> 00:18:55.208
So-
00:18:55.358 --> 00:19:03.648
Yeah… Adriana: the thing that happens in about the 1920s, no one h- laughed or ever- Had a smile … had a good time.
00:19:04.077 --> 00:19:06.638
Like, ev- life was always, life was hard.
00:19:06.708 --> 00:19:07.018
Right.
00:19:07.077 --> 00:19:08.238
And it was in black and white.
00:19:08.477 --> 00:19:08.767
Right.
00:19:08.767 --> 00:19:09.268
That's right.
00:19:09.268 --> 00:19:09.378
There
00:19:09.378 --> 00:19:10.677
was no color anywhere.
00:19:10.678 --> 00:19:10.968
No.
00:19:10.968 --> 00:19:14.398
And, and it's this funny thing, like, uh, that you don't really think of.
00:19:14.407 --> 00:19:23.327
You just think, oh, the, in the before time- Beth: Right… Adriana: it's this black and white, then suddenly there's light and color.
00:19:23.327 --> 00:19:28.187
And then seeing his photographs, you go, "Oh my God, of course. People-" Yeah … people were peopling.
00:19:28.438 --> 00:19:28.708
Yeah.
00:19:28.918 --> 00:19:29.067
You
00:19:29.067 --> 00:19:29.356
know?
00:19:29.427 --> 00:19:31.327
And- They were, they were peopling just like we people.
00:19:31.458 --> 00:19:31.658
Yeah.
00:19:31.658 --> 00:19:31.846
Yeah.
00:19:31.848 --> 00:19:36.457
And, and, and it was a real glimpse into actual life.
00:19:37.008 --> 00:19:42.017
So what other exciting projects do you have on the horizon or coming up?
00:19:42.208 --> 00:19:47.927
So funny overlap is that I've been working on a project that precedes, uh, Mr.
00:19:47.927 --> 00:19:53.116
Matsura by several years, and just got finished recently.
00:19:53.528 --> 00:20:06.768
It's a film called Beyond the Duplex Planet, and it's about a friend who's an artist, who in his 20s, fresh out of art school, he got a job as an activities director at a nursing home.
00:20:06.888 --> 00:20:24.807
Because he was an artist, and still is an artist, he decided,"We're not playing bingo.""We're, we're doing something different." So he started treating the job as an art project of his own, and interviewing the members of this all-male mom-and-pop nursing home in Boston called the Duplex Nursing Home.
00:20:25.098 --> 00:20:31.807
And he took the interviews and made it into what we would refer to now as a zine, called The Duplex Planet.
00:20:32.138 --> 00:20:38.197
And The Duplex Planet featured interviews that were not your typical interviews.
00:20:38.208 --> 00:20:48.854
So not, "Where were you during the Great Depression? What did you do during the Second World War?" They're things like- How close can you get to a penguin?
00:20:49.284 --> 00:20:53.673
And which do you prefer, coffee or meat?
00:20:54.334 --> 00:20:56.033
Or what is embarrassment?
00:20:56.234 --> 00:20:59.724
Or, you know, these qu- questions- Wow that forced thoughtful answers.
00:20:59.744 --> 00:21:03.202
And for a lot of these men, they found it wildly entertaining.
00:21:03.234 --> 00:21:04.324
They loved David.
00:21:04.683 --> 00:21:12.183
And over time, David was making this for them, but they weren't that interested in the finished product, they were interested in the process.
00:21:12.433 --> 00:21:16.603
But David's friends, people like me, started going, "This is cool.
00:21:16.712 --> 00:21:18.373
You're really getting to know these men.
00:21:18.533 --> 00:21:35.182
You're getting to h- see how human we all are." It became sort of a, a culty thing where it got a lot of subscribers like Penn and Teller, and the guys in R.E.M., and, um, you know, George Carlin, the comedian, and all these.
00:21:35.433 --> 00:21:37.712
People started, like, following it.
00:21:38.024 --> 00:21:47.143
And David did this for a number of years, and then it mutated into another form, which is he started performing these pieces live with music.
00:21:47.202 --> 00:21:52.673
So he's still doing it, and he's, um, gonna be 72, I think, next year.
00:21:52.683 --> 00:21:52.712
Uh-huh.
00:21:52.942 --> 00:22:05.813
He's still doing this really important work about meeting people where they are, finding about their specific lives, and how the specific illuminates the greater humanity that we all share.
00:22:06.093 --> 00:22:14.077
And what we hope to do with the film is Show the film and then have a performance connected with it, so I hope to bring it to the Kagans at some point.
00:22:14.087 --> 00:22:15.278
I, I hope you can.
00:22:15.278 --> 00:22:16.528
I can't wait to see it.
00:22:16.606 --> 00:22:17.116
I love it.
00:22:17.598 --> 00:22:19.268
Thank you for sharing that with us.
00:22:19.277 --> 00:22:19.307
Sure.
00:22:20.268 --> 00:22:30.528
As you know, at the end of every episode, I always ask people to shout out one of their places- Mm-hmm … or people, or a few places or people that they're really into in Clark County.
00:22:30.557 --> 00:22:30.968
Mm-hmm.
00:22:31.057 --> 00:22:36.147
So in just a second I'm gonna ask you that question, so you can think about it for just a moment.
00:22:36.586 --> 00:22:41.647
And for you, our audience, I just wanna make sure that you are signed up for our newsletter.
00:22:41.927 --> 00:22:42.856
It's super easy.
00:22:42.877 --> 00:22:56.897
The link is in the show notes, and that is the best way to get special ticket offers, event updates, and to see photos and videos of our podcast guests, including some special sneak peek behind the scene things that Beth shared with me.
00:22:57.397 --> 00:23:06.067
And when you sign up for our newsletter you help us grow and gain sponsors who support this free arts and culture content, so make sure to do that.
00:23:07.027 --> 00:23:11.807
All right, Beth, what place or person or people are you really into these days?
00:23:12.397 --> 00:23:13.728
Well, three things.
00:23:13.757 --> 00:23:19.567
I, I would say I'm really into the ArtsHub, great new emerging center.
00:23:20.557 --> 00:23:21.507
Excited about that.
00:23:21.576 --> 00:23:25.137
I'm really into Hasubi, the Hawaiian poke place downtown.
00:23:25.477 --> 00:23:29.647
And I'm really into my friend Brian Tashima's work.
00:23:29.888 --> 00:23:33.377
Brian is a musician with a band called Second Player Score.
00:23:33.687 --> 00:23:48.977
He's an author of a young adult series with a neurodivergent hero called the Joel Suzuki series, and he's also a filmmaker and made a cool film about Vancouver, a Vancouver centric film called Hold My Beer.
00:23:49.567 --> 00:23:52.608
So those are my top choices lately.
00:23:52.907 --> 00:23:53.387
Awesome.
00:23:53.427 --> 00:23:56.767
Well, Beth, thank you so much- Sure… for welcoming me into your space.
00:23:56.767 --> 00:24:06.537
I can't wait for people to see more of your films and to find out more about how they can support independent documentary filmmakers- Mm-hmm … in our community and in the greater world.
00:24:06.576 --> 00:24:06.907
Uh-huh.
00:24:06.997 --> 00:24:14.567
Obviously there's so much important work that's being done, and I'm really grateful to get to be a part of getting the word out.
00:24:14.848 --> 00:24:15.326
Thank you.
00:24:15.377 --> 00:24:18.957
I, I really appreciate the opportunity, and I'm really glad to finally meet you.
00:24:19.167 --> 00:24:19.467
This was really cool.
00:24:19.467 --> 00:24:19.606
I know.
00:24:19.606 --> 00:24:19.748
It was
00:24:19.748 --> 00:24:20.178
so fun.
00:24:20.547 --> 00:24:21.507
Okay, thank you.
00:24:21.596 --> 00:24:21.947
Thank you.
00:24:24.592 --> 00:24:25.852
And now let's hear from you.
00:24:26.182 --> 00:24:32.852
This is our Community Voices segment where you call in to shout out your favorites in local arts, culture, and heritage.
00:24:33.361 --> 00:24:46.771
Community Voices is sponsored by Johnson Bixby, Vancouver's woman-owned, women-led financial planning and portfolio management firm, helping you plan for and celebrate life's possibilities.
00:24:47.171 --> 00:24:50.541
Advisory services by Johnson Bixby, SEC registered.
00:24:50.750 --> 00:24:54.841
Securities through Private Client Services, member FINRA, SIPC
00:24:58.162 --> 00:25:01.302
Hi, I'm Esme, and I'm really into Dizzy Castle.
00:25:02.042 --> 00:25:07.230
Hello, I'm Eloise, and I'm really into the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival.
00:25:07.932 --> 00:25:08.802
Hi, I'm Donna.
00:25:08.802 --> 00:25:13.260
I'm here at the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival, and I just want to do a shout-out to School of Rock.
00:25:13.271 --> 00:25:15.601
Such a great support for young musicians.
00:25:16.822 --> 00:25:18.321
We'd love to hear from you.
00:25:18.402 --> 00:25:20.591
What are your favorite spots in Clark County?
00:25:20.812 --> 00:25:22.692
Who really deserves a shout-out?
00:25:23.132 --> 00:25:26.961
Give us a call and leave a message or send us a voice note via email.
00:25:27.412 --> 00:25:30.331
All the details on how to do that are in the show notes.
00:25:31.741 --> 00:25:35.381
I'm Into This Place is produced and edited by me, Adriana Baer.
00:25:35.771 --> 00:25:39.701
Engineering and mixing for this episode by Tansy Aster Creative.
00:25:40.391 --> 00:25:49.622
This episode was recorded at the home studio of Beth Harrington, and you can find out more about Beth and us at imintothisplace.com.
00:25:50.082 --> 00:25:50.921
See you out there.
00:00:36.679 --> 00:00:50.579
Before we jump into today's interview, I'm so excited to extend a special invitation to all of you to join me and today's guest, Beth Harrington, for a special screening of her film, Our Mr. Matsura.
00:00:51.560 --> 00:01:00.400
We talk about this film on the episode today, and it will be a special screening at the Kiggins Theatre on October 18th.
00:01:00.969 --> 00:01:09.370
00 PM and will be followed by a panel discussion that I will lead with Beth Harrington herself.
00:01:09.750 --> 00:01:19.569
So this will be a chance for you all to come and see Beth, her film, and then I'm into this place in action on stage at the Kiggins live.
00:01:20.299 --> 00:01:22.299
I really hope that you're able to join us.
00:01:22.319 --> 00:01:25.789
I absolutely love this film, and I know you will, too.
00:01:26.389 --> 00:01:40.969
The screening is also a benefit to help Beth and her team with distribution efforts for this film, including a trip to Japan, where they intend to screen it in Mr. Matsura's own backyard.
00:01:41.558 --> 00:01:47.310
So please click the link in the show notes to find out more about that, and we hope to see you
00:01:47.310 --> 00:01:49.219
00 PM
00:01:51.665 --> 00:02:00.975
Recently, I was sorting through my parents' record collection that I inherited years ago, and one of the records I found was an old Johnny Cash album.
00:02:01.195 --> 00:02:04.355
Right next to it was an album from The Carter family.
00:02:04.875 --> 00:02:08.665
And it made me think of this cool documentary called The Winding
00:02:08.665 --> 00:02:12.516
The Carters, the Cashes, and the Course of Country Music.
00:02:12.665 --> 00:02:22.805
This film, which premiered at South by Southwest, was directed and created by one of our local documentary filmmakers, Beth Harrington.
00:02:22.965 --> 00:02:27.156
She has won an Emmy Award for her work.
00:02:27.415 --> 00:02:33.506
She's been Grammy nominated for Welcome to the Club: The Women of Rockabilly.
00:02:33.975 --> 00:02:51.795
And she also has a brand-new documentary called Our Mr. Matsura, and that documentary opened my eyes to the incredible body of work of this long ago, relatively under-the-radar documentary photographer.
00:02:52.004 --> 00:03:21.016
And it's so interesting that Beth Harrington decided to do a film about Frank Matsura because she is a documentarian, and she's been with it for a couple of decades now and is really looking at what's about to happen or what is happening with independent documentary filmmaking now that many of the funding streams for making that work happen are dried up or being taken away.
00:03:22.024 --> 00:03:34.355
I find Beth to be, um, just a perfect example of her art form because she's so good at telling her own story, and she also is an incredible storyteller.
00:03:34.634 --> 00:03:44.396
Uh, we were together for almost two hours, but of course I try to keep these episodes short for you so you can listen while you're driving from point A to point B.
00:03:44.644 --> 00:03:48.956
So today you'll hear our short but deep conversation.
00:03:49.185 --> 00:03:57.865
She, s- she has a breadth that is really inspiring and a depth that makes you wanna sit down and learn more about her.
00:03:58.134 --> 00:04:03.096
So I hope you enjoy stepping into the world of documentary filmmaker Beth Harrington.
00:04:04.815 --> 00:04:13.305
Welcome to I'm Into This Place, your deep dive into the local arts, culture, and heritage of Clark County.
00:04:14.906 --> 00:04:23.855
From fabulous new restaurants to quirky art installations, to the historical sites you never even knew to look for, we're inviting you along.
00:04:25.035 --> 00:04:33.656
Whether you're a Clark County connoisseur or just starting to get to know her, get ready to fall head over heels for this place we call home.
00:04:34.545 --> 00:04:38.185
I'm your host, Adriana Baer, and I'm into this place.
00:04:38.615 --> 00:04:39.274
Let's go.
00:04:42.088 --> 00:04:47.728
Beth, I'm here in your studio, your home office studio, and it's really lovely in here.
00:04:47.757 --> 00:04:53.408
I'm seeing all kinds of cool film equipment and posters and scripts.
00:04:53.628 --> 00:04:56.708
Thank you so much for welcoming me into your space.
00:04:56.718 --> 00:04:57.057
Thank you.
00:04:57.347 --> 00:04:58.518
I'm glad you're here.
00:04:58.598 --> 00:05:00.877
So you are a documentary filmmaker.
00:05:00.927 --> 00:05:01.287
Mm-hmm.
00:05:01.977 --> 00:05:08.516
And that is a very unique and wonderful genre within the film world in general.
00:05:08.857 --> 00:05:17.807
And so today we're gonna talk about what got you there, and also some of the amazing projects that you've worked on and directed and created.
00:05:18.277 --> 00:05:20.817
And we're gonna talk about your newest project.
00:05:21.108 --> 00:05:24.067
How did you catch the film bug back in the day?
00:05:24.167 --> 00:05:39.728
You know, it, it was a long time coming, because when I was coming up as a young person, and even into my early 20s, there really wasn't such a thing as independent filmmaking on the level that it exists now.
00:05:40.076 --> 00:05:56.968
Documentary filmmaking at the time was really the domain of news organizations, you know, doing these social issues documentaries or public television was kind of in its infancy and was starting to do this stuff.
00:05:56.997 --> 00:05:58.277
I mean, the, I'm old.
00:05:58.367 --> 00:06:00.648
So the, this stuff didn't really exist.
00:06:00.648 --> 00:06:13.008
And I remember the first time I saw a documentary that really blew my mind, it was on public television, and I was in my teens, and it was a show called An American Family, which was really groundbreaking.
00:06:13.198 --> 00:06:17.824
It's not as- choreographed as reality shows are now.
00:06:18.004 --> 00:06:22.646
It was very much fly on the wall, and I was just kinda mesmerized by that.
00:06:22.646 --> 00:06:24.855
I thought that was really cool.
00:06:24.865 --> 00:06:26.146
I got out of college.
00:06:26.146 --> 00:06:30.055
I was a media communications major in college, and then I got out of school.
00:06:30.314 --> 00:06:39.355
It still took me m- a number of years to find my footing and figure out what I was gonna do with the creativity I felt and the desire to tell stories.
00:06:40.225 --> 00:06:54.765
And really, uh, eventually I fell in with o- other documentary filmmakers and went, "Yeah, this is my happy place." And so I started chipping away at it, and eventually started making documentaries probably in my late 20s.
00:06:55.275 --> 00:06:59.134
And I contend that truth is stranger than fiction.
00:06:59.216 --> 00:07:02.295
There's just so much cool stuff out there that's real.
00:07:02.545 --> 00:07:05.336
I don't need to make anything up, you know?
00:07:05.336 --> 00:07:05.646
Yeah.
00:07:05.646 --> 00:07:07.646
So that, I, I love meeting people.
00:07:07.646 --> 00:07:09.545
I love being in other people's worlds.
00:07:09.955 --> 00:07:14.276
So that kinda jazzes me about documentary filmmaking, and still does, you know?
00:07:14.276 --> 00:07:15.715
That's still what motivates me.
00:07:15.715 --> 00:07:17.155
Like, where can we go?
00:07:17.175 --> 00:07:17.884
Who can we meet?
00:07:17.955 --> 00:07:19.564
Ooh, cool, you know?
00:07:19.634 --> 00:07:24.566
What is it that draws you to a certain subject or a certain character, then?
00:07:25.045 --> 00:07:36.925
My happy place is making films about culture and history, and, um, and that includes art and music and, you know, all of the manifestations of the humanities.
00:07:37.245 --> 00:07:45.375
For me, it's really about, you know, what's the human story at the core of a, a topic I've stumbled upon.
00:07:45.545 --> 00:07:52.115
So that can be women rockabilly singers, contemporaries of Elvis Presley's in the '50s.
00:07:52.185 --> 00:07:56.805
I've, I've worked on a film about the country music family, the Carter Family.
00:07:57.115 --> 00:08:09.935
I have done my own self-exploration of my Italian American culture on my mother's side, and the religious traditions that reside within that.
00:08:09.995 --> 00:08:21.165
These things tantalize me, and then it's like, over the time I've realized, how long am I going to have to live with this topic, and can I sustain my own interest in this topic to get this thing done?
00:08:21.435 --> 00:08:27.906
My, uh, film about the Carter Family is called The Winding Stream, and that film took me 10 years to make.
00:08:28.185 --> 00:08:36.554
And then it got distribution and was in festivals and art house cinema, and I lived with that film for, like, 15 years.
00:08:36.735 --> 00:08:44.355
When I started it, a lot of people noted that it was an important American story that had not been told.
00:08:44.375 --> 00:08:49.684
These are the folks at the earliest stages of what we call country music.
00:08:50.164 --> 00:09:00.221
It's a fascinating story about this husband and wife and a sister-in-law who become foundational Music figures.
00:09:00.572 --> 00:09:05.641
And, and bonus, Johnny Cash married into that family.
00:09:05.771 --> 00:09:19.051
So the film is about the Carters and the Cashes, about the, the relationship, the way they helped him, the way he helped them, and eventually how their, their legacies were preserved even to this day by succeeding generations.
00:09:19.341 --> 00:09:29.921
So Johnny Cash was in the film, and I'm like, "Oh, this is a no-brainer. Like, people are gonna be throwing money at this." And it took years to raise the money, and it was really piecemeal.
00:09:29.921 --> 00:09:38.490
Like, I'd say, "Oh, I got X number of dollars. That means I can go back to Nashville, and I can shoot for three days or four days or-"
00:09:38.521 --> 00:09:49.910
Right, and I imagine that it's really hard to keep the through line of what you're building or even remember that early footage to figure out what questions you wanna ask, what stories are coming out.
00:09:50.230 --> 00:09:56.910
The funding piece, I think, is something that people don't know a lot about, and I know it's changed- Mm-hmm … a lot.
00:09:56.940 --> 00:09:58.240
Yeah, just this year.
00:09:58.291 --> 00:10:06.020
There, there are only so many entities that were funding independent film, and they included a group called The Independent Television Service.
00:10:06.442 --> 00:10:17.094
They included federal funding like the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and local Trickle-down versions of those groups.
00:10:17.195 --> 00:10:23.015
It's gotten a lot harder now because the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is no more.
00:10:23.015 --> 00:10:29.795
The NEA and the NEH have been greatly reduced, and I would argue changed.
00:10:30.645 --> 00:10:36.655
So there's no going to those entities anymore from my standpoint and, and getting funding.
00:10:37.004 --> 00:10:43.745
And the other issue, of course, is a home for a lot of my documentaries in the past has been public television.
00:10:44.084 --> 00:10:57.284
But this year, with the cuts of, at PBS- Mm-hmm … and the cuts with the end of Corporation for Public Broadcasting, that means that the one show that was- Mm… considering it is going off the air.
00:10:57.325 --> 00:11:00.314
It feels like it's a very interesting time.
00:11:00.745 --> 00:11:06.554
You've been here through a, a lot of it, where- Mm-hmm … there wasn't an independent documentary scene.
00:11:06.615 --> 00:11:08.404
Then it really flourished.
00:11:08.514 --> 00:11:10.964
Now it's a very uncertain time.
00:11:11.064 --> 00:11:11.444
Very.
00:11:11.474 --> 00:11:27.755
And so as new filmmakers are coming up, and as, as you even, who's so experienced, is looking at the next five, 10 years- Mm-hmm … it must be a little bit murky as to w- what's gonna happen and what's gonna happen with this genre.
00:11:28.264 --> 00:11:35.445
And the, and the genre also, I should say, includes a consideration of lengths, right?
00:11:35.735 --> 00:11:42.044
Documentaries- Mm … kinda traditionally in public television are either an hour or a couple hours long.
00:11:42.055 --> 00:11:44.895
In theaters they're at least 90 minutes long.
00:11:45.014 --> 00:11:50.224
I, I think we're all suffering from attention deficit issues now.
00:11:50.365 --> 00:11:56.285
I mean, whether- Yeah … we're diagnosed with that or not, we are all suffering from it because of social media and how we use media.
00:11:56.615 --> 00:12:01.544
You know, asking anyone to sit through a 90-minute film is a trick.
00:12:01.894 --> 00:12:02.274
Yeah.
00:12:02.904 --> 00:12:09.904
Let's talk about your most recent film- Mm-hmm … Our Mr. Matsura, which I got to see recently and absolutely loved.
00:12:10.384 --> 00:12:11.584
Why don't you tell us about it?
00:12:11.944 --> 00:12:25.895
It's a film about a Japanese immigrant photographer who was the son of a samurai and left Japan a- as it was going through radical changes in the last half of the 19th century.
00:12:25.934 --> 00:12:39.454
And he showed up in s- in the Pacific Northwest in 1901, and made his way to Okanogan County, which is the largest county, to this day is the largest county in Washington with the fewest people in it.
00:12:39.985 --> 00:12:40.954
Very remote.
00:12:41.325 --> 00:12:49.665
Part of it borders on Canada, and it also is adjacent to the Colville Confederated Tribes Reservation.
00:12:50.154 --> 00:13:00.604
Um, so when Frank Matsura showed up, he started taking pictures of everyone he met, and some of them are just kinda pedestrian documentation.
00:13:00.615 --> 00:13:02.314
Here's the downtown.
00:13:02.324 --> 00:13:03.934
Here's the mine.
00:13:03.944 --> 00:13:06.344
Here's people growing apples.
00:13:07.463 --> 00:13:10.043
But some of the pictures are like, "Wait, wait, what?
00:13:11.663 --> 00:13:16.203
Uh, are those a bunch of men in a studio with bonnets on their heads?
00:13:16.363 --> 00:13:28.762
And why is the photographer in all the pictures?" That's one facet, but then the other facet is, wow, he knew a lot of the Native American folks, and they seem to really trust him.
00:13:29.233 --> 00:13:40.942
They have a relationship with him, and he is taking beautiful, extraordinary pictures of them, and they seem to be participants and not subjects.
00:13:41.323 --> 00:13:48.843
And I just fell in love with the body of work, and then I started learning more and more what, what is, what we can know about him.
00:13:48.843 --> 00:13:54.892
It's still, there's so much we don't know, and the film is partly about that, about the mystery of this man.
00:13:55.272 --> 00:13:56.853
He's really under the radar.
00:13:56.902 --> 00:14:05.293
So I applied for some funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and they gave it to me, and I started working on it, and it's been a sheer joy.
00:14:05.323 --> 00:14:10.353
And Frank Matsura is, like, my North Star.
00:14:10.353 --> 00:14:16.322
I think he's incredible the way he interacted with the people that he took photos of.
00:14:16.683 --> 00:14:27.353
People who know about Frank become sort of a little cult, and that's part of the film also, was all the people who love him as if he were still alive and talk about him as if he were still alive.
00:14:27.692 --> 00:14:28.853
People call him Frank.
00:14:29.323 --> 00:14:34.872
His pictures are all over the small towns that he worked in in Okanogan County.
00:14:35.283 --> 00:14:44.793
The folks from the tribe still know their family's relationship to the pictures, and the people in the pictures are ancestors that they can reference.
00:14:44.923 --> 00:14:54.152
And we got to go to Japan and work on it, too, which was also great because he left so young that m- most of the people in Japan don't know about him.
00:14:54.582 --> 00:14:59.432
But we're hoping that this revives that in Japan as well, so.
00:15:00.711 --> 00:15:08.871
It was really remarkable to think of, in 1901, this person coming over, and how did he get from Seattle to Okanogan?
00:15:08.911 --> 00:15:18.990
And then how is he engaging as if he's part of, and he was, part of the community in all of these different parts of that unique community.
00:15:19.091 --> 00:15:19.160
Right.
00:15:19.301 --> 00:15:24.031
He really, um, maybe because he had a camera-
00:15:24.170 --> 00:15:30.421
Mm-hmm… Adriana: and therefore Yes… Adriana: to these relationships.
00:15:30.451 --> 00:15:38.231
The film had many amazing advisors from m- many different walks of life and many different disciplines in academia.
00:15:38.531 --> 00:15:51.890
And Maki Fukuoka, who was one of the advisors, is a photography professor at the University of Leeds in the UK, and she was s- talking about that very thing, that, you know, it turns out his English was probably pretty good.
00:15:52.150 --> 00:16:02.200
Uh, he, he was Christianized in, in Japan, and most Japanese Christians learned English so they could read the Bible in English.
00:16:02.610 --> 00:16:19.790
So he came with that language, but Maki says the other language he came with was photography, using that as a way of communicating with people, taking pictures, sharing pictures, being in pictures with people, which is crazy what he did.
00:16:19.791 --> 00:16:29.300
I don't know of any other Western photographer who is in as many photos with other people, and did a million self-portraits too.
00:16:29.531 --> 00:16:32.111
Now we, we're just cl- selfie, selfie, click, click, click.
00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:36.680
He had to set them up and shoot them, and then process them and develop them and-
00:16:36.681 --> 00:16:37.660
Absolutely, yeah.
00:16:37.711 --> 00:16:40.030
He's lugging this huge piece of equipment.
00:16:40.221 --> 00:16:44.671
These aren't little cameras, they're big box, you know, wooden cameras with tripods.
00:16:44.730 --> 00:16:56.160
He's trudging around all over the place, or he's in his studio, but either way, big camera requires people to be relatively still, and a certain amount of lighting.
00:16:56.211 --> 00:17:03.281
And yet there's still a sort of spontaneity and fun- Yeah and playfulness that's in a lot of the ph- photographs.
00:17:03.281 --> 00:17:08.361
It's like, how did you accomplish that knowing all the other variables are working against you?
00:17:08.642 --> 00:17:10.980
It's an extraordinary body of work.
00:17:11.261 --> 00:17:13.020
There are about 4,000 photos.
00:17:13.041 --> 00:17:19.750
They're, they're at Washington State University, and they're also at the Okanogan County Historical Society.
00:17:20.060 --> 00:17:30.054
And that part of it really tugged at my heart, because here are volunteers at a small- town historical society preserving this guy's memory.
00:17:30.314 --> 00:17:30.693
Mm.
00:17:30.733 --> 00:17:34.354
And very rigorously with no real resources.
00:17:34.433 --> 00:17:41.603
And they've got his pictures on buildings, and they, yeah, you know, have a little exhibit in the historical society.
00:17:41.763 --> 00:17:44.823
And they worked very closely with me on the film, which was great.
00:17:45.074 --> 00:17:55.212
Th- it's extraordinary that this person made such an impact socially that it went beyond the transactional- Right … I take a picture, you have the picture.
00:17:55.393 --> 00:18:01.673
It, he was taking pictures of people where they were, how they wanted to dress.
00:18:01.673 --> 00:18:01.952
Yeah.
00:18:01.962 --> 00:18:03.604
Especially in the case of the Native folks.
00:18:04.074 --> 00:18:10.324
You know, they're wearing different elements, tribal regalia, Western street clothes.
00:18:11.074 --> 00:18:17.893
You know, there's a whole body of work of just the Native cowboys and how cool they look- Mm-hmm … in their, uh, their cowboy outfits.
00:18:18.613 --> 00:18:21.084
All of that, you know, is him meeting people where they
00:18:21.084 --> 00:18:21.243
are.
00:18:21.243 --> 00:18:26.523
Yeah, and you get a sense of what life is actually like instead of this, this, I don't know.
00:18:26.553 --> 00:18:38.714
I, y- you know, one of the things that struck me in the middle of the film, there's a photograph of a couple of younger women, maybe in their early 20s or so- Mm-hmm … like, sitting around and laughing.
00:18:38.723 --> 00:18:40.913
They're just having, hanging out and having a good time.
00:18:41.473 --> 00:18:50.942
And I thought, "God, you know, all of the imagery we have prior to when people were able to own cameras," right?
00:18:51.848 --> 00:18:54.858
is so staid- Mm-hmm … and, and stiff.
00:18:54.858 --> 00:18:55.208
So-
00:18:55.358 --> 00:19:03.648
Yeah… Adriana: the thing that happens in about the 1920s, no one h- laughed or ever- Had a smile … had a good time.
00:19:04.077 --> 00:19:06.638
Like, ev- life was always, life was hard.
00:19:06.708 --> 00:19:07.018
Right.
00:19:07.077 --> 00:19:08.238
And it was in black and white.
00:19:08.477 --> 00:19:08.767
Right.
00:19:08.767 --> 00:19:09.268
That's right.
00:19:09.268 --> 00:19:09.378
There
00:19:09.378 --> 00:19:10.677
was no color anywhere.
00:19:10.678 --> 00:19:10.968
No.
00:19:10.968 --> 00:19:14.398
And, and it's this funny thing, like, uh, that you don't really think of.
00:19:14.407 --> 00:19:23.327
You just think, oh, the, in the before time- Beth: Right… Adriana: it's this black and white, then suddenly there's light and color.
00:19:23.327 --> 00:19:28.187
And then seeing his photographs, you go, "Oh my God, of course. People-" Yeah … people were peopling.
00:19:28.438 --> 00:19:28.708
Yeah.
00:19:28.918 --> 00:19:29.067
You
00:19:29.067 --> 00:19:29.356
know?
00:19:29.427 --> 00:19:31.327
And- They were, they were peopling just like we people.
00:19:31.458 --> 00:19:31.658
Yeah.
00:19:31.658 --> 00:19:31.846
Yeah.
00:19:31.848 --> 00:19:36.457
And, and, and it was a real glimpse into actual life.
00:19:37.008 --> 00:19:42.017
So what other exciting projects do you have on the horizon or coming up?
00:19:42.208 --> 00:19:47.927
So funny overlap is that I've been working on a project that precedes, uh, Mr.
00:19:47.927 --> 00:19:53.116
Matsura by several years, and just got finished recently.
00:19:53.528 --> 00:20:06.768
It's a film called Beyond the Duplex Planet, and it's about a friend who's an artist, who in his 20s, fresh out of art school, he got a job as an activities director at a nursing home.
00:20:06.888 --> 00:20:24.807
Because he was an artist, and still is an artist, he decided,"We're not playing bingo.""We're, we're doing something different." So he started treating the job as an art project of his own, and interviewing the members of this all-male mom-and-pop nursing home in Boston called the Duplex Nursing Home.
00:20:25.098 --> 00:20:31.807
And he took the interviews and made it into what we would refer to now as a zine, called The Duplex Planet.
00:20:32.138 --> 00:20:38.197
And The Duplex Planet featured interviews that were not your typical interviews.
00:20:38.208 --> 00:20:48.854
So not, "Where were you during the Great Depression? What did you do during the Second World War?" They're things like- How close can you get to a penguin?
00:20:49.284 --> 00:20:53.673
And which do you prefer, coffee or meat?
00:20:54.334 --> 00:20:56.033
Or what is embarrassment?
00:20:56.234 --> 00:20:59.724
Or, you know, these qu- questions- Wow that forced thoughtful answers.
00:20:59.744 --> 00:21:03.202
And for a lot of these men, they found it wildly entertaining.
00:21:03.234 --> 00:21:04.324
They loved David.
00:21:04.683 --> 00:21:12.183
And over time, David was making this for them, but they weren't that interested in the finished product, they were interested in the process.
00:21:12.433 --> 00:21:16.603
But David's friends, people like me, started going, "This is cool.
00:21:16.712 --> 00:21:18.373
You're really getting to know these men.
00:21:18.533 --> 00:21:35.182
You're getting to h- see how human we all are." It became sort of a, a culty thing where it got a lot of subscribers like Penn and Teller, and the guys in R.E.M., and, um, you know, George Carlin, the comedian, and all these.
00:21:35.433 --> 00:21:37.712
People started, like, following it.
00:21:38.024 --> 00:21:47.143
And David did this for a number of years, and then it mutated into another form, which is he started performing these pieces live with music.
00:21:47.202 --> 00:21:52.673
So he's still doing it, and he's, um, gonna be 72, I think, next year.
00:21:52.683 --> 00:21:52.712
Uh-huh.
00:21:52.942 --> 00:22:05.813
He's still doing this really important work about meeting people where they are, finding about their specific lives, and how the specific illuminates the greater humanity that we all share.
00:22:06.093 --> 00:22:14.077
And what we hope to do with the film is Show the film and then have a performance connected with it, so I hope to bring it to the Kagans at some point.
00:22:14.087 --> 00:22:15.278
I, I hope you can.
00:22:15.278 --> 00:22:16.528
I can't wait to see it.
00:22:16.606 --> 00:22:17.116
I love it.
00:22:17.598 --> 00:22:19.268
Thank you for sharing that with us.
00:22:19.277 --> 00:22:19.307
Sure.
00:22:20.268 --> 00:22:30.528
As you know, at the end of every episode, I always ask people to shout out one of their places- Mm-hmm … or people, or a few places or people that they're really into in Clark County.
00:22:30.557 --> 00:22:30.968
Mm-hmm.
00:22:31.057 --> 00:22:36.147
So in just a second I'm gonna ask you that question, so you can think about it for just a moment.
00:22:36.586 --> 00:22:41.647
And for you, our audience, I just wanna make sure that you are signed up for our newsletter.
00:22:41.927 --> 00:22:42.856
It's super easy.
00:22:42.877 --> 00:22:56.897
The link is in the show notes, and that is the best way to get special ticket offers, event updates, and to see photos and videos of our podcast guests, including some special sneak peek behind the scene things that Beth shared with me.
00:22:57.397 --> 00:23:06.067
And when you sign up for our newsletter you help us grow and gain sponsors who support this free arts and culture content, so make sure to do that.
00:23:07.027 --> 00:23:11.807
All right, Beth, what place or person or people are you really into these days?
00:23:12.397 --> 00:23:13.728
Well, three things.
00:23:13.757 --> 00:23:19.567
I, I would say I'm really into the ArtsHub, great new emerging center.
00:23:20.557 --> 00:23:21.507
Excited about that.
00:23:21.576 --> 00:23:25.137
I'm really into Hasubi, the Hawaiian poke place downtown.
00:23:25.477 --> 00:23:29.647
And I'm really into my friend Brian Tashima's work.
00:23:29.888 --> 00:23:33.377
Brian is a musician with a band called Second Player Score.
00:23:33.687 --> 00:23:48.977
He's an author of a young adult series with a neurodivergent hero called the Joel Suzuki series, and he's also a filmmaker and made a cool film about Vancouver, a Vancouver centric film called Hold My Beer.
00:23:49.567 --> 00:23:52.608
So those are my top choices lately.
00:23:52.907 --> 00:23:53.387
Awesome.
00:23:53.427 --> 00:23:56.767
Well, Beth, thank you so much- Sure… for welcoming me into your space.
00:23:56.767 --> 00:24:06.537
I can't wait for people to see more of your films and to find out more about how they can support independent documentary filmmakers- Mm-hmm … in our community and in the greater world.
00:24:06.576 --> 00:24:06.907
Uh-huh.
00:24:06.997 --> 00:24:14.567
Obviously there's so much important work that's being done, and I'm really grateful to get to be a part of getting the word out.
00:24:14.848 --> 00:24:15.326
Thank you.
00:24:15.377 --> 00:24:18.957
I, I really appreciate the opportunity, and I'm really glad to finally meet you.
00:24:19.167 --> 00:24:19.467
This was really cool.
00:24:19.467 --> 00:24:19.606
I know.
00:24:19.606 --> 00:24:19.748
It was
00:24:19.748 --> 00:24:20.178
so fun.
00:24:20.547 --> 00:24:21.507
Okay, thank you.
00:24:21.596 --> 00:24:21.947
Thank you.
00:24:24.592 --> 00:24:25.852
And now let's hear from you.
00:24:26.182 --> 00:24:32.852
This is our Community Voices segment where you call in to shout out your favorites in local arts, culture, and heritage.
00:24:33.361 --> 00:24:46.771
Community Voices is sponsored by Johnson Bixby, Vancouver's woman-owned, women-led financial planning and portfolio management firm, helping you plan for and celebrate life's possibilities.
00:24:47.171 --> 00:24:50.541
Advisory services by Johnson Bixby, SEC registered.
00:24:50.750 --> 00:24:54.841
Securities through Private Client Services, member FINRA, SIPC
00:24:58.162 --> 00:25:01.302
Hi, I'm Esme, and I'm really into Dizzy Castle.
00:25:02.042 --> 00:25:07.230
Hello, I'm Eloise, and I'm really into the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival.
00:25:07.932 --> 00:25:08.802
Hi, I'm Donna.
00:25:08.802 --> 00:25:13.260
I'm here at the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival, and I just want to do a shout-out to School of Rock.
00:25:13.271 --> 00:25:15.601
Such a great support for young musicians.
00:25:16.822 --> 00:25:18.321
We'd love to hear from you.
00:25:18.402 --> 00:25:20.591
What are your favorite spots in Clark County?
00:25:20.812 --> 00:25:22.692
Who really deserves a shout-out?
00:25:23.132 --> 00:25:26.961
Give us a call and leave a message or send us a voice note via email.
00:25:27.412 --> 00:25:30.331
All the details on how to do that are in the show notes.
00:25:31.741 --> 00:25:35.381
I'm Into This Place is produced and edited by me, Adriana Baer.
00:25:35.771 --> 00:25:39.701
Engineering and mixing for this episode by Tansy Aster Creative.
00:25:40.391 --> 00:25:49.622
This episode was recorded at the home studio of Beth Harrington, and you can find out more about Beth and us at imintothisplace.com.
00:25:50.082 --> 00:25:50.921
See you out there.
