'Won’t You Be My Neighbor?' Is Not a Mr. Rogers Nostalgia Piece, Says Director Morgan Neville | Documentary Roundtable - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

Neville also directed this year's documentary, 'They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead,' centered on the final 15 years of Orson Welles' life.

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00:00I hate nostalgia.

00:05You know, it's the fast food of emotions.

00:09I mean, because the thing about nostalgia is, I mean, nostalgia literally means going home.

00:13I mean, it's inherently a regressive idea that doesn't ask much from an audience.

00:17And I felt like this film was inherently a progressive idea.

00:20Not how do we go back, but how do I get Fred Rogers into 2018?

00:24Who's a better advocate for these kinds of crucial issues we have in our culture right now

00:28about civility and neighborliness and kindness?

00:31Fred Rogers was kind of the closest thing I could come up with

00:34and was just trying to amplify that message.

00:37I wondered, are there aspects of the film that came out differently

00:41because of the moment we're living in right now?

00:44Sure. I mean, without a doubt.

00:47It changes the perspective on everything.

00:50I mean, Mr. Rogers talks about bullying in your film.

00:53Sure, and building a wall, the land of make-believe, you know, all these things.

00:56The issues that we're dealing with right now in our culture have existed for a long time.

01:01I did a film called Best of Enemies about these debates between Gore Vidal and William Buckley,

01:04which actually deals with all the same issues of TV.

01:07TV is a place to either make conversation and civility better or worse.

01:13There are issues I care about, so I keep coming back to them in different films in different ways.

01:17And if that was a cautionary tale, Won't You Be My Neighbor is, you know, a hopeful tale.

01:22We have these conversations as filmmakers about, are we preaching to the converted?

01:26Are we just talking to each other?

01:27And I felt like it was this rare opportunity to make a film that would play for people who I didn't agree with.

01:33And it's done that.

01:34And if that's the thing that's actually given me the most optimism,

01:38there are people who I don't agree with politically who have loved the film,

01:42and maybe in that way we can have some common ground we can build upon.

01:52I mean, you were born a couple of years before the show started.

01:55Did you grow up watching him?

01:56I was born six months before the show started,

01:59and I was like Gen 1 Mr. Rogers fanatic.

02:02And my relationship with him predates my memory.

02:05And making the film, it really, it took me back to revisit part of myself that I hadn't thought about in a really, really long time.

02:12Making the film was like 10 years worth of therapy rolled into one production.

02:15You know, it was very cost efficient in that way.

02:17And I honestly had no idea if anybody else cared.

02:20I mean, I had a number of people tell me when I was making the film,

02:23they're like, Mr. Rogers, really?

02:25You know, good luck with that.

02:26You know?

02:27And it turns out a lot of people were touched in a similar way.

02:31Mrs. Rogers, Joanne, who's an amazing woman,

02:35when I explained to her the film I wanted to make,

02:38I said, I want to make a film about his ideas, not about his biography.

02:42And she said, well, that sounds like a good thing,

02:44because Fred always said if anybody made a film out of his life,

02:46it'd be the most boring film ever.

02:48And I said, well, I don't necessarily agree with that.

02:50But when she gave me her blessing, because she had to give me complete control over the film,

02:55she said, don't make him into a saint.

02:57And I can't think of anything a filmmaker wants to hear more from The Guardian.

03:02And I think part of that is to understand that he was human,

03:05because everybody in the world had treated him as this two-dimensional character.

03:09And to treat him as saintly means that you don't appreciate the hard work he had to do to actually do these things.

03:16And it also doesn't ask us as an audience to have to live up to it.

03:20I felt like with that blessing, you know, it was this chance to really get into the human struggle that he dealt with.

03:33When I started making documentaries, there was nothing cool about documentaries.

03:37I mean, the only reason to make them was because you loved them.

03:39And I did.

03:40And I remember five years ago doing this round table.

03:44And there was debate at the table of people wanting to get rid of the word documentary because it wasn't cool enough.

03:50I mean, what a difference five years makes.

03:52And I think part of it is the filmmaking's getting better and better.

03:56But also, we're making films that other people aren't making.

03:59Kind of adult films that are asking real questions, that are engaging with the real world.

04:04And it's just scratching something that I think an audience is dying for in this day and age.

04:09What was the biggest influence growing up that may have shaped your point of view as a filmmaker?

04:14I mean, I started my career as a journalist.

04:16And I was definitely under the sway of new journalism.

04:18So my heroes were really, like, Joan Didion was a major hero for me.

04:22But people who were talking about non-fiction issues, but with kind of a fiction way of storytelling and articulation.

04:29And that's something that I was trying to do as a young man and that I'm still doing in documentary and I think we're all doing.

04:35What's the first thing you do when you wrap a film?

04:37You know, a documentary doesn't feel wrapped in the same way it's, like, on a scripted film.

04:42You know, that it feels like it's not really wrapped until you screen it for an audience.

04:46And at that moment, it's not your film anymore. It's their film.

04:49So that's the experience that I had on this film and that I think we all have.

04:53It's like, that's the moment you can celebrate.

04:56Till then, you're just holding your breath.

04:59I'll see you next time.

05:01I'll see you next time.

05:02I'll see you next time.

05:03Bye.

'Won’t You Be My Neighbor?' Is Not a Mr. Rogers Nostalgia Piece, Says Director Morgan Neville | Documentary Roundtable

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