INTERVIEW WITH FILM DIRECTOR SALLY HECKEL

Today I have the immense pleasure of welcoming a very special guest, director Sally Heckel, to CINEMATIC REVELATIONS for an interview. Sally has directed two short movies, being THE BENT TREE and A JURY OF HER PEERS [my review of the film can be found here] and full-length documentary UNSPEAKABLE, acting in the capacity of producer and writer on the latter two projects. In this interview Sally will be discussing her role as director of A JURY OF HER PEERS, her producing and writing work, and making both fiction, and non-fiction motion pictures.

Welcome to CINEMATIC REVELATIONS Sally!

Athan: When did you first realize that you wanted to be a film director?

Sally:  Thank you, Athan, I’m glad to be here!

I became deeply interested in films when I started college in Boston in 1963. There was an art movie house near my college which offered a new double feature of European films twice a week. I saw every one that I could. It didn’t occur to me at the time that I could be a film director, but I remember once, when I was standing on the steps of a building and the slant of the sun in that particular place, along with the tree trunk and leaves and stone step, conjured an intense feeling in me that brought back a particular high school emotion. I thought it was like a “Proustian” memory, the specific light and surroundings was taking me back to a youthful moment, and I spent some time imagining how and what I’d shoot to recreate that feeling on film. Several years later I was in a student film, and seeing how they were making it, how they set up and lit shots, how they covered a scene, I thought, “Oh, I can do that.” The last days of shooting, the cameraman offered to let me shoot some cutaway shots. I loved doing it!  After that, I decided to go to film school.  

I was especially interested in showing the unspoken in films, the spaces between, or “making the invisible visible", as Sarah Elder, Filmmaker and Professor of Media Studies, State University of New York at Buffalo put it. A Jury of Her Peers contained wonderful, lean dialogue in which what’s not said is what is really being communicated.

In my feature film, Unspeakable, about my father’s suicide, my intention was to film places and images in a way that conjured up my youthful memories to recreate that time and the feelings I had about my father.  

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Athan: A JURY OF HER PEERS is a striking, solemn work that leaves one thinking about what has occurred in the movie long after seeing it. Were you influenced by the oeuvre of movie directors from Classic and New Hollywood, British, or international cinema in your filmmaking?

Sally: I was not consciously aware of any specific influence. But, having seen, and been in awe of, many of the great European films, they must have permeated my consciousness, but I can’t say how.

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Athan: Have you studied acting, or had aspirations to be an actor before becoming a director?

Sally: I was interested in acting and was in high school plays, and in the student film I mentioned, but I never studied acting. I was quite shy and self-conscious, so I think my acting ability was rather limited.  

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Athan: Your direction of A JURY OF HER PEERS was impeccable, making it a memorable motion picture. What is it that drew you to directing the movie?

Sally: When I read the story, I had chills up and down my spine.  Here was a suspenseful mystery of a wife accused of murdering her husband which simultaneously painted a complete picture of a women’s world trivialized and ignored within the male-dominated home and system of law. The two women protagonists come from different social positions but share the knowledge of being part of a systemically denigrated class. They share a bond as women, and that understanding enables them to take the law into their own hands (one of whom is married to an officer of the law), and save another woman’s life.

Diane de Lorian as Mrs Hale in A JURY OF HER PEERS

All of this is brilliantly achieved by the author, Susan Glaspell, in the most natural and ordinary way, growing out of the women being in the accused’s house to gather clothes for her in jail, and discovering and understanding hints and traces in the most mundane things, preserved fruit, quilt pieces, shabby clothes. It’s a profoundly political story told with everyday objects and oblique conversation, revealed in what is unspoken.

I thought the story was perfect, and I thought it would translate very well into film. So much is revealed in details that can so effectively be shown in film through close-ups and editing. And so much goes on between the two women that can be similarly pointed out and intensified on film.

Also, before I discovered the story, a friend had shown me an abandoned farm in upstate New York that, when I read the story, immediately came to mind as the perfect location for the film. Having a real period farmhouse and out-buildings in the middle of nowhere made it a possibility to make a believable period drama on a small budget. It also gave me a reality to draw from while writing the film script.

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Athan: What did you find most exciting about the experience of making A JURY OF HER PEERS?

Sally: Oh, gosh, every day was exciting, but I would say that working with Diane de Lorian and Dorothy Lancaster, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, the protagonists, was the most exciting. We rehearsed for a month in the city. I was living in a loft space at the time and I drew an exact floor plan of the kitchen on my floor with indications where the windows and doors were and with the furniture that would be there. We rehearsed the whole film like a play and the actors’ process of finding their performance, finding their characters’ truth, was truly thrilling.

Dorothy Lancaster as Mrs Peters in A JURY OF HER PEERS

The whole production was a moving experience for me, seeing the story come together with wonderful actors on a set we created out of an empty house and a scattering of out-buildings. 

Also, I have to say, the editing was exciting as well. It’s always  enthralling to see the film take shape as you edit. My first cut was not particularly well-received. I showed it a couple of times (on the editing machine) and was disappointed by the response. I set it aside for a while (I could do that because I was producing it myself) and when I came back to it after several months and watched again, I suddenly saw all that was wrong with it. I re-cut it from scratch, looking back at all the footage and reselecting performances, using more reaction shots to enhance the silences that were saying so much.

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Athan: For you, what was the most demanding, but emotionally satisfying segment of filming A JURY OF HER PEERS?

Sally: I would say the climactic scene between Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, which culminates with Mrs. Hale thrusting the jar of cherries into Mrs. Peter’s hands. It’s where Mrs. Hale defends the accused and Mrs. Peters defends the law, it voices the foundation of the story and sets the scene for how Mrs. Peters, wife of the sheriff, believably does the unbelievable.

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Athan: Have you kept in contact with any cast members and crew from A JURY OF HER PEERS?

Sally: I kept in touch with Diane and Dorothy, who played the two women. They earned 1% of the film’s earnings, so I also had the pleasure of sending them a check every year. The checks got tinier and tinier, but it was a sweet way to stay in touch.

Sheila Hinchliffe as Minnie Burke in A JURY OF HER PEERS

Janet Meyers, the camera woman, was a very close friend from film school (I had shot her student film). Her artistry and humor were pillars of the production. We too rarely see each other, but when we do, it's like no time has passed.

I met the art director, Jeanne Mc Donnell, on the film. An artist herself, she understood exactly what was needed and was a pleasure to work with. We became, and still are, close friends.

I’ve recently been back in touch with the production assistant, Bette Fried. We had a fun time of finding and securing the all-important props. Important because they had to reveal to the viewer the life of Minnie, the accused woman. 

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Athan: You released non-fiction documentary UNSPEAKABLE, the story of your father’s life, in 2008. What for you were the main differences in taking fictional stories to the screen such as A JURY OF HER PEERS, and non-fiction with UNSPEAKABLE?

Sally: First I have to say that UNSPEAKABLE is not really a documentary. I call it non-fiction narrative. I was telling my and my family’s story of my father and the ramifications of his suicide on all of us, (me, my mother, brother, and sister), moving in time from before his death to well after. There are no talking heads in UNSPEAKABLE. I wasn’t interested in watching people now talking about my father. I sought to invoke the past, the feeling of my childhood, the feeling of being in my home with a depressed father, and also the emotions of just being alive when a child. I used five different types of visuals to tell the story: home movies shot by my father from the 40s and 50s, family photos and snapshots, imagery that I specifically shot to convey the past and youthful emotions that I mentioned earlier, silent re-enactments with actors of particular moments in my youth, and shots of my artwork and the artwork of my sister. Those visual elements and my narration and voice-over interviews with family members and friends of my father tell the story.   

All of that to say that there were similarities between JURY and UNSPEAKABLE. In both I was excavating below the surface, searching for what wasn’t spoken, bringing the past into view to reckon with and understand. The difference was that with JURY it was an intact, existing story using actors. In UNSPEAKABLE it was my own story which required a huge amount of self-searching and understanding to be able to tell.

Another difference was that in the fiction film I worked with actors and a set, speaking written dialogue, and in the non-fiction narrative I worked mostly with still and moving imagery and voices telling stories (less than 1/4 of it with silent actors and a set).  The goal in both was the same, to bring to life the interior lives of people.

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Athan: Do you have any upcoming projects of which you would like to tell readers?

Sally: To make a film from scratch I have to want to do it more than anything else in the world, and at this moment I haven’t yet been bitten by that desire. I think that may change.

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Thank you so much today for your time Sally, and for the insight you have provided into A JURY OF HER PEERS, directing, writing, and production. It has been wonderful having you on CINEMATIC REVELATIONS. You are welcome to return whenever you wish.

Thank you!  It has been a pleasure articulating answers to your interesting questions.

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Sally Heckel links

+Sally Heckel official website

+Sally Heckel IMDb Director Page

+A JURY OF HER PEERS movie IMDb page

+UNSPEAKABLE official movie page 

*Here's the direct link to the site for A JURY OF HER PEERS: Click here

*And the link for Sally Heckel's films: Click here