Conversation
Page 8
Street Roots • July 13-19, 2018
Street Roots • July 13-19, 2018
Page 9
Conversation
Left, the arrest of Taylor
Washington in Atlanta in 1963,
which was the high school
student’s eighth arrest for
protesting at Lebs Delicatessen.
Right, Police in Clarksdale,
Miss., in 1963.
PH O TO S BY D A N N Y LYO N
Danny Lyon
Subversive
Americana
“Willie,” the feature film, is not a message film. It’s kind of sad.
It’s about a single person. You see him both as an adult and you
see him in and out of prison and jail, but you see him also as a
child, and I think there is something sad about not being a child
anymore.
If I’d do footage of you now, and if you were fortunate enough
to have a father and mother who shot 80-millimeter film of you
when you were 7 or 8, you could probably do something very
poignant, because the fact that we’re constantly morphing as
human beings - there is something sad about it. Because in the
end, we die, which is really awful. I think “Willie” dpes a lot of
that, it goes back and forth in time, and he’s a very powerful
character.
I don’t know what the message of that is. Longevity is a good
thing. He’s dead. I made a sequel, but Willie died.
I met him when he was about 12 and filmed him, and I used
that footage, and I filmed him again at length when he was a
teenager. He was kind of remarkable. And then I saw him again
on a street corner, about two miles from here, where I’m sitting,
and he had just come out of prison, and he was a full-fledged adult
with tattoos, and he looked different
Nancy and I bought his gravestone, and he’s in the local
cemetery. Almost everybody in that film is here in the local
cemetery. It’s all kind of sad. That’s the other side of life. He only
lived to be about 40 or something like that.
Photographer and film m aker Danny Lyon
will be at the Hollywood Theater on July 18
for a screening o f his groundbreaking
films, ‘Willie’ and ‘M urderers’
BY EMILY GREEN
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
fter five years of correspondence, local artist Vanessa Renwick has
convinced her favorite photographer to come to Portland and screen two
of his films.
Danny Lyon, 76, is well-known for capturing pivotal moments during the
1960s Civil Rights Movement in photographs, as well as for embedding himself
within various subcultures in order to capture his subjects on film. The result
was an unparalleled record of subversive Americana in the 20th century.
He was a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), the younger, more radical branch of the Civil Rights Movement that
was instrumental in direct actions such as the Freedom Rides. And in 2016, it
was Lyon’s photos of Bernie Sanders at a 1962 Chicago University sit-in that
surfaced during the campaign. Lyon also famously joined the Chicago Outlaws, a
motorcycle gang, in order to photograph its members for his collection, “The
Bikeriders,” published in 1968.
More recently, he published a book on climate change called “Burn Zone,”
which details the degradation he’s witnessed in New Mexico - as well as all the
contact information, including addresses and phone numbers, of people he
deems responsible, such as the Koch brothers.
But it is Lyon’s portrayal of men living within the walls of America’s prisons
and jails that Renwick has worked diligently to bring to Portland.
At 7:30 p.m. on July 18 “Willie” (1985) and “Murderers” (2005) will screen at
Hollywood Theatre, located at 4122 NE Sandy Blvd. Following the screening,
Lyon and Renwick - each a firebrand in their own right - will lead the audience
in what’s likely to be a provocative discussion.
“M urderers” is a 30-minute film featuring interviews with five men convicted
of murder, and “Willie” is an 82-minute film profiling Willie Jaramillo, a childlike
man who bounces between a life of substance use and time in jail for low-level
offenses. This fall, its sequel, “Wanderer,” featuring Willie’s younger brother
Ferny, will premier in New York.
Renwick selected “M urderers” and “Willie” for their cinematic beauty and
empathy-producing qualities, she said. They also share a common thread:
A
E.G.: I want to ask you about something you wrote on your Bleak
Beauty blog. You wrote a message to the Parkland Students, under
the banner that “Chuck McDew is dead.” You said it was a myth that
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led the Civil Rights Movement, and I
was wondering i f you’d be willing to elaborate on that statement and
what it means for today’s youth.
Michael Guzman, Willie’s childhood friend, was a convicted m urderer featured
in both films.
These works followed Lyon’s first foray into the prison system in 1967 and
1968, when he spent 14 months inside the Texas penal system to produce the
book “Conversations with the Dead.”
The event is co-sponsored by Renwick’s production company, The Oregon
Department of Kick Ass, and the Portland Museum of Modem A rt
Lyon spoke to Street Roots from his home in Bernalillo, N.M., a town with
fewer than 9,000 residents that lies about 10 miles north of Albuquerque just
east of the Rio Grande. It’s also where “Willie” was filmed.
E m ily G reen: Many of your images are noui considered historic. Do you think
these film s carry a different message today than they did in earlier decades?
D anny Lyon: If you want to send a message, go to Western Union. Do you
know what that’s from? I don’t know the director - it’s from Hollywood.
I don’t think I make message films. But I did hope to destroy the prison
system.
“M urderers” is about guys who either murdered someone or were convicted
of murder, and it does try to humanize them because you don’t m eet people like
this. I liked these people; they were very interesting. Some of them I knew well,
some of them I didn’t
D.L.: I was very excited, as I think millions were, to see these
kids on television fighting back. And I was terribly moved by that.
I did a blog then, and it reminded me so much of the early days of
the Civil Rights Movement, which I was part of and witnessed - 1
was 20 years old and ended up in jail with Dr. King. We didn’t
hang out together. I ended up as a bigger SNCC person (Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), and seeing this first-hand,
this amazing uprising and very successful period in American
history where what was a grassroots uprising of mostly young
people, including high-school people, really did not only change
America, but changed the world, by the way.
There were different organizations in the Civil Rights
Movement There were four of them, and SNCC was the “point of
the spear,” that’s a term from Africa. They were the ones on the
front lines. They were the kids. They were the younger people.
Dr. King was older, he was a minister, and there was criticism of
his leadership.
In Albany, where I was in jail with him, he would show up and
huge numbers of people would appear, you know, the way Bernie
Sanders would show up in Portland and he’d get 10,000 screaming
people, but then Dr. King would leave and all those people would
go home. And SNCC. tJie young people, had a very different
attitude, they went to Portland, they stayed, they organized, they
got involved with gangs, they got involved with schools, and they
literally changed the lives of people who then became full-time
activists.
I think what happened going forward is once he was martyred
- basically they forgot about the Civil Rights Movement after it
happened. Then years later, started making films about it, and all
they did was show the same speech over and over and over.
Everybody knows about “I have a Dream.”
I was there when he made that speech. I was probably within
200 or 300 feet of him because I was SNCC, and 1 was on the
podium, and I didn’t even listen to him.
I had zero interest in it. This might
horrify everyone, like turning your back
on Lincoln during the Gettysburg
I was very excited, as I think
Address, which some people did I
millions were, to see these kids
guess. But I listened to John Lewis
because he spoke for the young people, (Parkland students) on television
and that’s how people felt.
lighting back. And 1 was terribly
I think what happened in the media,
moved by th a t.... Basically, the
they see King, they see a great leader,
message to the Parkland kids is:
and it’s a terrible mistake, because this
Don't wait for a leader because it's
has been drummed into our brains ad
never going to happen. You have
nauseam by NPR and everybody who’s
to do it yourselves. Which I think
documented the movement on major
they started to do.
corporate television, that a leader will
arise. Basically, the message to the
DANNY LYON
PHOTOGRAPHER. FILMMAKER
Parkland kids is: Don’t wait for a leader
AND AUTHOR OF "BURN ZONE"
because it’s never going to happen. You
have to do it yourselves. Which I think
they started to do.
Chuck McDew, by the way, was one
of the first chairman of SNCC, and a
friend of mine, and he died recently. So many of the great leaders
at SNCC have died recently. Julian Bond died, tragically, a year
ago. I still can’t believe he’s gone. Tom Hayden, who was a leader
of the radical left died recently, Muhammad Ali died. They’re my
generation - I’m the same age as all of those people.
E.G.: I asked our staff photographers what they would ask you,
given then chance. I have a couple questions from them.
From photographer Ben Brink: How you do you see your style of
“new journalism” in comparison to the instant gratification of many
of today’s photographers? They shoot, and then move on, with many
photos being worth more than a single great photo in today’s click-
driven photojournalism.
D.L.: There have always been photographers who have taken
lots of pictures; people who have motorized cameras.
These phones are kind of astounding. You can take really good
movies, and you do what they call bursts, where you can take 10
See LYON, page 10