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Crime Story Episode 26: Subject Doc

Host: Kathleen Goldhar

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I'm Kathleen Goldhar. This is Crime Story. Every week, a new crime with the storyteller who knows it best.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I think it's fair to say that we're in the golden age of documentaries. It feels like every day, there's a new podcast or film or TV series that takes us deep into a particular moment. Obviously, I think this is a positive thing, but I am willing to accept that there is a flip side. And if anyone has thought about this, it's Margie Ratliff. Margie was in her 20s when she appeared in the hit documentary series, The Staircase, about the trial of her father, Michael Peterson, who was charged, convicted and then released for the murder of his wife, Kathleen. After the doc was out and the series became a TV show starring Colin Firth, Margie regretted her participation. But instead of just fading into the background, she took her experience and produced a new film called Subject. It explores the life altering experience of being the subject of a documentary. And it's not just about Margie. We hear from others like Jesse Friedman from Capturing the Friedmans, and Arthur Agee from Hoop Dreams.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Hi, Margie.

MARGIE RATLIFF: Hi. Thank you. It's wonderful to be here.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Also joining us for this conversation are Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tashera, who co-directed the film. Hi to you both.

CAMILLA HALL: Hi.

JENNIFER TASHERA: Hi.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So I want to know how the heck you guys got together. It's a bit of a strange bedfellows situation. So how did this all happen?

CAMILLA HALL: Well, it was kind of a bit of one of those moments from the universe. I came to documentary from journalism. And, you know, I had a lot of questions in my mind of how documentary was different to journalism, all the things that I was experiencing on a daily basis, and really kind of reaching out and trying to talk to people and understand documentary better and like, what are the kind of guidelines that we should be following. And so Jen and I were having these conversations and really thinking about our industry as a whole and how we could perhaps be doing things better. And in that moment of having those conversations, and even the title of the film already existed as Subject because this word was so kind of fascinating to us, out of the blue, I got an email from a mutual friend saying, oh, Margie is coming to L.A. She really wants to be working in documentary. She studied documentary before, and she's looking to collaborate on projects. And it was just kind of like one of those crazy moments where I was like, how could we be having all these ideas and then suddenly, this incredible participant from such a huge and important show kind of suddenly came in my inbox. And it just felt like this kind of bolt from the universe. And so Margie and I went for coffee in L.A. And I think the minute that we met, that was just a kind of a connection. And it really kind of was the first time I’d had that experience of thinking, like really, she really took me to understand like what it was like to be in her shoes. And I felt like, what if it was something happened to my dad and I was coming or I just came back from college? And I really just… it was the first time I really had kind of fully understood or fully thought about in that way, really the experience of a participant. And Margie was able to just capture that in such an amazing way. But I would love to hear from Margie in terms of, yeah, what it was like for her just starting to have that conversation.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, Margie, before you… oh, sorry, let me just ask you, Margie, because I think it's important that people understand you and who you were before you got into this and your mindset, because there is this wave of documentaries, and there is this sense that it's so important and good for the world and humanity to get these documentaries out there so that we can better understand other people and tap into our communal humanness and all that kind of stuff. But you're bringing a point of view that hasn't really been explored yet. So tell me about the other side of this coin, of what it means to be the person that we knew you as as the daughter in this other, as you said, massively important but also massively popular documentary series.

MARGIE RATLIFF: It's hard to answer because there were so many different phases of the documentary. So when I met Camilla, it was maybe five days before Netflix released the original 10 episodes and three new episodes on almost 200 countries. And so it was like the calm before the storm. So it had been a long time, maybe 15 years, something like that, of The Staircase on the Sundance Channel or, you know, just kind of like in smaller places, international distribution, much smaller. So it had a big impact on our lives because every time it would come up, we would have to deal with the trauma and kind of relive it. But then, having met Camilla, she got to see me in this really pivotal moment of, oh no, at least will be a steady stream of people coming up to me so I could manage it, but I was so scared. I had no idea what would happen to my family because of The Staircase.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What appealed to you then about jumping back in? Because you're on screen. You're talking about it. Obviously, you're not diving deep into the story of your mother and all that, which is understandable, but you are back in public view, for that matter. So what appealed to you about joining this group?

MARGIE RATLIFF: Well, at the beginning, I told, you know, Jen and Camilla I don't want to be in the film. I'd be happy if we, you know, went and filmed me climbing. There's a scene of me climbing out in Joshua Tree National Park, which I was going to do anyway when Netflix released the documentary. But we were going to use that as a, you know, kind of like a video to bring to other participants to say, hey, this is what our project is, because it's kind of a meta project to try to explain when we were first out of the gate. So then it was building trust with Jen and Camilla, and building like a strong friendship along with a partnership that I started to, you know, think, oh, maybe my story would be helpful. But then when HBO Max made the series, the fictionalized series of The Staircase, that's kind of when it was very apparent that our storyline would be helpful for the film.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Jen, how did you do that? How did you develop trust? I don't mean it as like a conniving, manipulative way, but I mean, what did it mean to you? Like how do documentarians who go in with this idea that they really do want to have a full partnership, how do you develop that kind of a relationship?

JENNIFER TASHERA: Just transparency. I think that, you know, accepting that you're going to make a ton of mistakes, which we did. I don't know how long your show is, but I can tell you all the mistakes that we made in the process. But it was the transparency of working together to make a better way of doing things throughout the process that really built the trust. And Camilla and I, we say all the time that, you know, Subject is and was, continues to be this experiment. And from what we've learned in Subject, we've been able to build our company, take a lot of the things we've learned into our next projects, talk about these things from a place of openness, which, up until I met Cam, I think I was in, you know, like a good 15 years in the documentary industry. And so we would have the conversations behind closed doors, but there was really this sort of fear when it came to talking about the mistakes that you made with your participants or in the field. So.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So let me interrupt you. Give me a mistake. Tell me what one of them was that stands out.

JENNIFER TASHERA: Okay. Well, when Margie decided to come on in, first, she was a co-producer, and she's now a producer. That was something that we really wanted to do and crediting people for the actual jobs they did. But on one of our first shoots, we went to Jesse Friedman's house, and Margie was with us. And it was before we had brought Doctor Kameelah Rashad onto our team as our AP and our participant advocate, who's also a trained psychologist. And we didn't really think about how that interview could potentially trigger Margie, Retraumatize Margie. This was a situation that Jesse… like very similar things that not a lot of people have gone through, their family lives blowing up, prison trials, and we didn't have the support that she needed. And, you know, now, it's like we go into projects with like a full team of mental health professionals, especially if they're reliving trauma or have experienced a great deal of trauma. And this is someone that we care about very much that we put in that situation. So that was one. There were many others, but that was one where we were like… it was very quickly after that that Doctor Kam… that we knew we needed that extra support, that Doctor Kam came on board, and that the mental health aspect became a really big part of filming.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I have so many questions I want to ask you, and I keep thinking it for once, we're going to have to separate it out. But this participant advocate, I've never heard that term before. Cam, do you want to tell me what that actually is? And where and when did it start? Like it's really to me, something I hadn't heard.

CAMILLA HALL: Yeah. I mean, I think Subject, the whole process of making Subject was just this continual search of kind of how to do things better, but like at every single stage. So we really didn't have it kind of worked out at the beginning. And as Jen said, we made, you know, so many mistakes along the way. But essentially, Doctor Kameelah Rashad was an executive producer and participant advocate. And so her responsibility was really about the experience of the participants and ensuring that we were creating the right, essentially holding us accountable as filmmakers to check in and make sure that we were being transparent, that we were essentially being accountable for all the things that we said that we were going to do. So how that practically played out was really through she was available for one on one sessions with the co-producers. We had some group sessions before the release of the film. She was with us for our festival premiere. And essentially, it was just this idea of having a third person that is not dealing with the investors on the project, that doesn't have like an incentive to finish the film, that the filmmakers, however wonderful they are, they're always going to have that incentive and that desire to make a film because they're film directors. And so really recognizing that and saying these relationships are really complicated, so let's actually have somebody else who can also be a mediator and essentially just help to encourage the right kind of conversations that kind of need to be happening. And so I think for both Jen and I, that experience was so life changing in so many ways. It's hard to kind of envisage how we did without that role in previous projects.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Really influencing to me was just examining the word subject, because as a storyteller, I've used that word so many times, and you don't even think about it. But Margie, what does the word subject mean to you?

MARGIE RATLIFF: I never really thought about it much because that was the standard word, you know, in the United States that was used for someone in a documentary. But once we started to get into filming and then me meeting the other participants in Subject, it started to feel like, oh, wait, but we have agency. We have our own voices. I have my own life completely out of The Staircase storyline, so I'm not a subject. I'm a person. And when we had… actually, Doctor Rashad was there for our zoom, and we really workshopped what we wanted to be called. And just hearing, you know, some people like to be called the star, and some people like to be called the protagonist or collaborator. There's so many things that you can call the people in your films to honour them and honour their stories.

CAMILLA HALL: And I think that was… like doing that kind of group meeting before the festival premiere and really like talking about these things, like what is the language, what are the words, what is the word that we're going to talk about? Let's agree on that before we go out and we do press interviews, before we sit on panels. And I think like really workshopping that together as a team so that we really kind of collectively as a whole group understood like not just that we made a film together, but how are we going to speak about the film and what is the language that we want to share with the world? And I think that that was a really important thing. And again, I think in the past, I've never had such a thorough approach, I guess, to that moment in the process. And I think it really helped us to feel like a family and to feel united going into what is actually a really scary process of releasing a film for the participants and also for the filmmakers.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So did you end up deciding on the word participant? Is that the word you decided to use?

CAMILLA HALL: Yeah.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Can we talk about one of the participants, Jesse Friedman? His story was very compelling. It was very nuanced. And I didn't really, even by the end of it, know where he landed himself. Like I felt like I couldn't figure out where he was coming from. So Jen, can you just give me a quick sense of who he was and sort of why he fit into the film that you guys made?

JENNIFER TASHERA: Well, you know, all the films that are what we call the case studies, the five main films are films that Camilla and I love very, very much, that affected our lives in huge ways. Capturing the Friedmans absolutely is one of them. When we first reached out to Jesse, you know, and Jesse is nuanced, complicated, that barely just scratches the surface of Jesse and Lisa’s stories. It was truly him meeting Margie and forming a friendship with Margie where he considered meeting with us and ultimately decided to be in the film. But I think you're right. I still think he struggles with all of it. You know, what I love so much about the film is when Lisa says something along the lines, is Jesse’s been a subject all his life, not just by the film, but just all of the above and the toll that that takes on a person. You know, again, to say it's complicated is an understatement. It's a small part of a much bigger conversation, I guess I would say, around that.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Because yeah, because Margie, you say in the film you wish you could scrub yourself from the staircase, whereas I don't think that's what Jesse feels. So Margie, talk to me a little bit about those different emotions that everybody who is a participant might be going through. Because it's interesting to me that like Arthur Agee from Hoop Dreams, which was like as a person of my age, growing up, that was seminal, right? Like absolutely a seminal film. He has it different. You know, his life turned out the way it seems like that film actually affected his life in a very positive way, although he has things about it that made him uncomfortable. So Margie, can you talk to me about that? How like you're part of a small community of people. And what are the different emotional hills and valleys that you guys go through? And I'm not talking about obviously the… like for you, like your mother and your father is one thing, but the making of these films to represent what happened. Tell me a bit about that.

MARGIE RATLIFF: Yeah, I think complicated, even if you had a positive experience or maybe a generally negative experience. I've never met someone who's been a documentary participant who's like, oh no, it was great. It was so easy, and left it at that. Never. No, there's long conversations. There's heated discussions. There's lots of emotions and vulnerability every time I meet someone who is in a documentary or is currently in one. And so I've just had this wonderful experience where, you know, before Subject, I maybe had met one or two other people who had been in documentaries, but nothing like The Staircase in popularity. And then to going to, you know, I'm starting a non-profit that is for documentary participants. So to bring legal resources and mental health resources, I mean, community is such a big part of that, of feeling. I felt so lonely that my family and I, it felt like we were the only ones who could really understand what it was like to be in that kind of documentary. But then meeting Jesse and his mom, it just kind of like blew that out of the water for me. And I said, wait, what if we aren't alone? And what if there are other people going through these complicated situations like us?

CAMILLA HALL: And honestly, it's so crazy. You would imagine it's a small community of people that have been participants in films, but actually, so many people have been in TV shows and films. And it's like by making this film, I mean, there's been almost at least one person at like every single screening that we've been to or somebody who was, whether it's in like a viral video, whether it was they were in a documentary when they were a kid or a teenager, it's really actually a much bigger community than you would imagine, which is kind of crazy.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: That makes sense. I mean, like we’ve said, this world is blowing up. And with social media now, I mean, there's no way. But what it does strike to me, though, is what you guys are talking about and the relationship that you guys, the three of you have built is very unique for the documentary world. I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about the business of making documentaries, because I think there is a business to it, and it's different than straight up reporting, you know, in a newspaper, even though we're starting to see those things slide. So I'm not naive enough to say that none of this kind of bleeds into other media. But, you know, documentary is a business. There's often significant amount of money, there's investors, and then there's like releases that I think most people don't know about. So I'm not sure which of the two of you, Jen or Camilla or even Margie, want to talk about it, but these releases are very unique to the private world of storytelling. So tell me, for people who don't know what that is, what are releases when it comes to the work that you guys do?

JENNIFER TASHERA: A release is a contract that you usually have the person, the participant or, you know, the person you're doing the story on, sign at the beginning of a project. They're inherently pretty… they're ridiculous, if I'm going to be perfectly honest. They’re really predatory. A lot of times, there is fine print that will include things like life rights, and it's always in perpetuity of the universe. They literally say the universe, because Earth isn't enough to own somebody's life and story and likeness. You know, a lot of times, when you're getting into the big business of documentary filmmaking, they will have a younger PA or AP type person who needs to prove themselves casually sign or slide the release into under the nose of a potential participant. And yeah, I just… I do think it's very… obviously, the way I'm speaking about it, I do think it's very problematic. I don't think it needs to be that way. It's just a way to ensure that big business completely owns their investment, but I do think there's a way to do that that's not so icky.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: How? How do you do it differently?

JENNIFER TASHERA: Yes. I mean, look, documentary is a huge genre, right? And a lot of times, you know, we're talking about specific films, specific types of films where kind of the sliding scale that Camilla and I tend to use is this idea of power imbalance. You know, if you're making an exposé on somebody that has a lot more power than you do, the precautions or the rules or the checklist is going to be a little bit different. There's going to be rules and regulations depending on what network you're working for. If you're making a network project independent, I mean, we didn't even have anyone sign the releases until much later, and then we didn't even have most people sign them. And then they became deal memos once we knew exactly what the partnership looked like. To me, that's the way to do it. What's our north star? What's the project look like? What's this partnership look like? Let's make our release together that makes sense for us and makes sense for you. The things that Jesse cared about in his release were things different from Margie. Margie was about the life rights. And so it was like, make sure all that's in there. We have no stake in her life rights. And all these things where Jesse was like he wants to be part of the distribution calls and know where his story, this part of his story was going, easy. Done, you know? So ideally, that's one way. When it comes to doing something along the lines of, you know, at a network level, you know, it's a little bit trickier. I will say in my experience, that there is always a way around things. I think we need to remember that when it comes to like participant compensation or releases or creative control, it's like, oh no, we never do that unless they're a musician, an athlete, a politician, someone with means. And then all of a sudden, all those rules go flying out the window. So I think it is really knowing what to ask for, you know, trying to get things in writing before a project is sold to a major network or a distributor, being like, oh, this is kind of the deal, but also kind of, you know, in the same breath, protecting yourself, that it still can get distribution, that you're not creating… So it's again, it's a very tricky fine line.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah. And Margie, how did you feel this time signing the release or the deal memo or whatever compared to when you did The Staircase? What was the different experience for you?

MARGIE RATLIFF: Well, it was a completely different experience because back in 2001 or 2002, when The Staircase started filming, it wasn't a standard practice for European countries to even do release forms. So I didn't even get the opportunity until maybe 2015 for just two of the episodes. And it was a very, very basic release form. So for me, really watching myself have no power over my own story for so long without even signing a release form just really gave me a new outlook on what release forms are for and what power they actually do hold to protect participants. So when we got to this point with Subject, it was more of a conversation. So it wasn't just a here's a form, sign it, you know? And I've done that in my past as a documentary filmmaker too, of like, here's the standard form. Everyone uses this form. If you have questions, ask me, but we won't talk it through. And for this one, you know, I was able to consult my own lawyer, which… and it not be my dad's defence attorney, and make sure that I had someone who was looking out for me, but also a full conversation with the filmmakers, you know, Jen and Camilla, about really how to make sure that if Subject gets turned into a fiction film somehow, I still get to keep my life rights and I can still tell my story in my own way.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The other sort of more controversial stuff you guys dive into is paying participants. And there's a real divergence of opinion about paying participants. And you said that, you know, athletes, yes, they get paid, but other people get paid for their photographs. So they call them archival material, right? So there are ways that you can sneakily get money into people's hands. But the reason I say that is because it's always been this idea that we don't pay. You don't pay, you don't pay, you don't pay. I worked in public broadcasting for like 17 years and then went into private podcasting. And all of a sudden, we're paying people for archives. And I was like, oh, you can't pay people. But of course, you start to look into it and you're like, well, why the hell can't you pay? I'm making money off of this. Why the hell do you who's like Margie or whoever, it's your life. You shouldn’t walk away from this without any compensation. We all need to put food on our table and live. So I'd love to just have a conversation with you guys about the pros and cons, or the complicated nature that paying a participant adds to telling a story. I don't know who wants to go first.

MARGIE RATLIFF: Oh, I can. I get a lot of people who ask me, usually journalists at this point, after they see our film, and they say, oh, well, don't you think that you would have been a little more performative? Or don't you think it would have changed the story if the filmmakers of The Staircase paid you? And I said, well, thinking back to when I was 20 years old and just lost my mom and my dad was going through a trial, if I had been paid a day rate or paid for my archival videos that were used or even got a release form for them, if I had been compensated in any kind of way with resources, those resources could have helped me to pay for when I later would need to fly and go visit my dad in prison, could have paid for my mental health costs for a long time. And really, even if, you know, documentary still was taking that journalistic turn, when the film was sold to Netflix and then optioned to HBO, those are the points of sale where you can go back. Like in the Hoop Dreams model, you can go back once you actually do make money and go, wait a second, we're making money off of other people's trauma and stories. Why are we not compensating them?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah. Just to make it clear for people who don't know, I did find that so interesting that the directors and execs of Hoop Dreams didn't pay them at the time because they didn't have the money. But later, when the film became this massive hit, they actually went back and said, now you can have a cut, which is incredible.

JENNIFER TASHERA: It makes so much sense. That's kind of like you have nothing to lose. I mean, that's what we did with Subject. We obviously, and I think that point’s really well made in the film. It’s like we're not… we don't get in the documentary to make a ton of money. We're not rolling in it by any means. And a lot of these films don't make money. But if they do, on the chance that they do, you know, why wouldn't you cut the participants into that? So we did the same thing for Subject. And I just… yeah, I think that's kind of the way to go.

CAMILLA HALL: And I think like what's changed in terms of, you know, when documentaries were things that sat on PBS or the BBC, you know, documentary has changed so much with the rise of the streamers. And, you know, when I'm talking about streamers, I'm talking about Netflix, Disney, Nat Geo, all these different platforms that have been created. And essentially, through that process, it's almost like if you think about like the financial crisis, this is like a huge boom. And just so much money was coming into this field. And at the bottom of it, the commodity is essentially just people's individual stories. And so these individual stories are just getting packaged and repackaged and sold on and sold off. And the people at the heart of them were just completely like not… there was just no care or thought for these people at the heart of this kind of new hot commodity. And so that's really what shifted and changed. It's when it became a business. Like documentary really wasn't a business. It was like an art form. It was a journalistic practice. It was an art form. And as documentaries started making more and more money through the box office and then the streamers obviously identifying this huge audience, you know, that's where things shifted. And that's why, in many ways, we made Subject, because we need to have this conversation now, because everything has changed and nothing has caught up with the change. And within this new system, the only people who are being recognized and taken care of are essentially rich and powerful people who have lawyers and agents. If you don't have a lawyer and agent, you're not getting anything out of this, and potentially just a very traumatic experience without even mental health care in place. So, you know, we felt very kind of strongly about this shift that was happening in our own backyard, and just kind of was this kind of attempt just to kind of like hold on to documentary in the form that we grew up with and kind of how to protect some of the kind of sacred things that we loved about documentaries.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I mean, I didn't actually know about the TV show for The Staircase. But when I saw in the doc that Colin Firth and like Sophie Turner, I was like, how? It's sort of like saying we took Stephen King's novel and didn't pay him to make it into a TV show, but we're going to take your actual existence and not pay you, but we're going to pay these TV stars millions of dollars to pretend to be you. I mean, it really is quite gross. I'm not going to watch it just because of that, just so you know.

MARGIE RATLIFF: Thank you.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I think it's awful. But can I just ask you, either like Jennifer or Camilla, like there is that old idea of the objectivity of the storyteller, right? And I'm not trying to be dismissive of Margie, but like having Margie be there to tell her own story, you could argue, takes away the objectivity of the storyteller who could look at it from a sort of a more bird's eye point of view. So how do you as storytellers yourself and as… what gets taken away and what gets added when you involve somebody like Margie or a participant that’s directly involved in the story? Because there's an emotional attachment to the story, whether you want it to be there or not, right? So how do you deal with that as storytellers? Or does it even matter anymore? Like is it just an old thought that is sort of also going out the window with everything else?

JENNIFER TASHERA: Yeah. I think there's this one, like this need for like this magical checklist that we can do. And I always… like every talk we have about Subject, I go back to Michelle Stevenson's line in Subject where she says it's not about a magical checklist, right? It’s about being deliberate at every step of the process. And I think that every single one of those relationships needs to be explored in that way. The relationship I have with Margie is completely different than the relationship I have with other participants, depending on the film that we're making, what we're trying to accomplish together, the need of the film, like the decision to make the film. I also love, you know, this idea that we're these objective beings is so silly to me. You know, I think the minute you pick up the phone and say, I want to tell your story, the story, that objectivity has gone. The story has changed. The minute you show up with the camera, the story has changed. So we can all kind of pretend that these relationships affect and, you know, whatever can change the story for the worst. But ultimately, I do think it's kind of not seeing the elephant in the room, for lack of a better thing. And I do think that it's just about every situation is going to be a little different. And hopefully, through all of these conversations that we've been having and the industry has been having, that you'll be able to take a little bit from here and take a little bit from there and form a partnership that makes the best sense for the two of you and the story you're trying to tell.

MARGIE RATLIFF: I also do feel like there does need to be a radical shift from this journalistic perspective that there's, you know, someone offering their story, and that's the thanks that they get, is they get to tell their story, because now, everybody can tell their story. You know, there's TikTok, there's Instagram, there's blah, blah, blah, blah. And so there's a wonderful non-profit here in Australia, I'm in Melbourne right now, and they are called Our Race. And what they do is they work on ethical storytelling. So it's really a perfect partnership with our film. And they use the terms story holder and story partner. And it's a different way. So someone who's a story holder, maybe they work a lot with First Nations communities here in Australia, and they give honour and respect to that person who's lived that story. And the partner is the filmmaker who can then, you know, form a partnership. So it's not an extractive quality. It's not like a bird's eye view. Even when you're filming a fly on the wall kind of film like The Staircase, I still would get a nice smile from the cinematographer when there was a tough day in court, you know, from behind the camera. It's impossible for people who are so compassionate, like The Staircase filmmakers, to not get intertwined with the participants’ lives.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So I find that interesting too, Margie. Like you said in the film, you wish you could wipe yourself from it. But you do seem to have had a good relationship with them. So is it the act of the filming of it that bothered you more, or was it sort of the what it did to your existence when it came out, or was it the Netflix thing? Like what was it that is really the harder pill for you to swallow?

MARGIE RATLIFF: For me, it was the sales. So I think the original filming, it's a very important film, and there could have been a lot more support going through. But at the same time, that wasn't a standard practice, so I understand. You know, there could have been mental health facilitators for us to check in throughout the filming process, or even, you know, during the trial. There could have been talks about compensation if the film made any money. There could have just been giving us a heads up that the film was sold, you know, or that there was going to be a billboard that I would drive by every day to work, or just any form of communication would have been helpful. And so those are the kinds of things that start to wear at you. And those are the kinds of things when the HBO Max series came out and they had optioned the rights from the French filmmakers, the HBO Max series even puts the French filmmakers in a bad light, you know? And it really incensed the filmmakers. And so that was the moment where I said, I just… I need to get out of this. I need to get out of this cycle. It feels so extractive, and it's purely just hurting me at this point to have this content out there in the world.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So why the hell do you want to make them?

MARGIE RATLIFF: Well, to be clear, I make nature documentaries with no people, usually.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Okay, fair.

MARGIE RATLIFF: But I do think I… it's something I think that a lot of us documentary filmmakers struggle with, is like, am I the right person to tell this story? There's a beautiful study that was done by the Documentary Accountability Working Group, DAWG, D-A-W-G. They did an ethical framework that goes all the way from a reflection stage to the impact of the film. And so they're asking very important questions of before you even approach someone to tell their story or be a partner in that story, look inside yourself and say, do I have the resources? Should I be the one telling this story? What is it about me that makes me want to tell this story? So I think that there's a lot more work that needs to be done around this.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Camilla or Jennifer or both of you, like we talked about Capturing the friedmans being one of your favourites. And, you know, some of the ones you put in your film were definitely some of mine. And I'm curious if you still watch them and enjoy them now that you've had this sort of time to really kind of be more intellectual and thoughtful in the way that you do your work. Like how should we now that we've been introduced to this idea of, quote unquote, the subject and what it means, how should we look at those films that used to be so important to us?

CAMILLA HALL: I think for me, it's more about like, how do I consume documentaries as a whole going forward? Now I've like learned these things. My eyes have been opened. I've thought about things in maybe a different way. You know, those films are part of the history of documentary. I mean, they were so profoundly impactful. But I think going forward, it's really about this idea of conscious consumption. And this is something that has come up in our conversations in some of our events. In fact, it was somebody in one of the theatres in the U.K. that kind of mentioned this idea, and we really, really, really chimed with it. But it's really, you know, we think about what we eat, we think about even the clothes we wear, where they come from, how they're made. And it was almost like so little thought was going into like what are we consuming? Like how is it affecting us? How is it made? How are the people feel that are in those films? And even on a kind of very systemic level, like film festivals or this part of our independent community, a lot of these questions were not even being asked. Like have the participants seen the film before it premieres at a huge giant film festival? Like basic questions that are now forming part of that process and becoming more normalized, which I think is really key. But yeah, I think it's this idea of just being more conscious about what you're watching. If you're thinking of watching a new show, just have a Google. See what's online. See if the participants have supported the project. See if they're on board with the making of the film. You know, participants do now have this amazing direct voice to their audiences through social media, and they're able to say how they feel about a certain piece. You know, going forward, we hope there are kind of more guidelines, more kind of watermark stamps, working with Margie’s non-profit, things that, you know, essentially ways for documentaries to show that they have really considered some kind of ethical framework around the way that they've made films. I mean, for me, true crime is a genre that is really hard after making Subject and getting to know Margie, the whole genre. And I've made true crime. Like I've directed a true crime film, and I just… I find the genre extremely hard to watch now. It really feels like a strange foray into somebody's trauma for pure entertainment purposes, and I literally just have no interest in watching it at all.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And the evolution of the true crime genre in terms of the podcast and the docs now has turned into what happened to you with the adaptation. So what responsibilities do directors and people involved in films have to manage what HBO or Netflix or whatever does with those things? Margie, do you want to start?

MARGIE RATLIFF: Oh, I'm just taking a deep breath because it's such a personal question in a way. I think that these conversations need to be had within, you know, documentary departments, fiction departments, within universities, within the streaming, you know, departments in the streaming companies, film festival programmers. A lot of people are starting to watch our film Subject and have those conversations outwardly. So I think Jen and Camilla can talk about, you know, being in an edit room, being at a film festival, being like, oh, do you have a problem with this? Because I kind of have a problem with this. And having to whisper and feeling strange about it. And now that we can kind of air these things out, a lot more care needs to go and advocacy needs to go into taking care of people in documentaries.

JENNIFER TASHERA: And it's starting to happen. I mean, you mentioned PBS earlier. We were on a couple of panels. The standards and practices of PBS here in the States have changed. Before, you could not show your participants the final product before it went out. Now you can. They redid the rules and regulations around compensation last year. So this year was the first time that, you know, Sundance Film Festival on their application has a whole participant care section where they want you to break down that relationship and how you took care of your participants. So there is a lot of bright lights in this. It's not all like… it kind of seems like this big thing, but there is organizations and resources, a lot of which we have on the Subject website, resources that didn't exist. And I want to say like my first 15 years in documentaries, there was people talking about these things, but just there weren't a lot of places that you could go like DAWG, like the Documentary Accountability Working Group or the Dart Centre, which is journalism and trauma. I used them on my last series, documentality, Detroit Narrative Agency. There's all these organizations now, Peace is Loud, who we work with a lot, who we love so much. But they're putting together a ton of resources, of questions to ask if you're even considering being a participant, or questions that you should, case studies if you're a filmmaker. So I think there's a lot of really good stuff happening.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: That's great. Are there any docs out there now or that you guys feel sort of do hit that high watermark other than Subject?

CAMILLA HALL: Margie, I know you've come across some.

MARGIE RATLIFF: I've had the opportunity because I've been travelling with, oh my gosh, it's 19 months now. I've been travelling with Subject and so at film festivals and Screening or organizations that screen. So I've had the chance to speak with participants in these new films and also with the filmmakers and talk to them about their practices. You know, I watch their film while they're watching my film, and then we come back and we talk about their process of making the film. And I really love… there's a film on PBS right now called Sansón and Me. And that, you know, the filmmaker actually was our moderator for our screening we just had in San Francisco. And Rodrigo Reyes, he had such a complicated story to tell. I don't want to give too much of it away, but just a really complicated story to tell where consent could be very slippery. You know, it was with a young guy who was in prison for life. And so when you have those kinds of situations, how do you… how do you bring them resources and how do you make sure that they really understand what they're consenting to? How do you honour their family and their story? And so, you know, I think it's the filmmakers who are able to sit with me, look me in the eyes and say, yeah, I messed up. I messed up a few times. I messed up a lot. But every time, I had this north star, you know, like Jen says about a north star, of not wanting to harm my participant, not wanting to bring more harm, and to see what good could come out of this story. So I love Sansón and Me. It’s just a fantastic one. I didn't get to speak to the filmmakers of Twice Colonized, which is another gorgeous film. But I do love that in the credits, you know, the main participant, her credit is lived by and then her name. And it's just…

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Oh, isn't that wonderful?

MARGIE RATLIFF: You know, I just cried when I saw that on the screen. So there are a lot of filmmakers who, you know, are trying to bring up these practices. And the more that we talk about it and the more that we screen Subject and people get to see it out in the world, the more that we can have these conversations.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, let's leave it on that note. You guys, it's been so nice to talk to you. I've really enjoyed every second of it. Thank you all and good luck with the rest of the film. I really appreciate your time.

MARGIE RATLIFF: Thank you so much.

JENNIFER TASHERA: Thank you so much. Thanks for having us.

CAMILLA HALL: Thank you so much.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You've been listening to Crime Story from CBC Podcasts. We drop a new episode every Monday. You can get our next episode a week early on CBC Podcasts’ YouTube channel or by subscribing to the CBC Podcasts’ true crime channel on Apple Podcasts. In addition to Early Access, subscribers to our true crime channel also listen ad free. Crime Story is written and hosted by me, Kathleen Goldhar. Our producers are Alexis Green and Sarah Claydon. Sound design by Julia Wittman. Our senior producer is Geoff Turner. Our video producer is Evan Aagaard, and our YouTube producer is Jon Lee. Executive producers are Cesil Fernandes and Chris Oke. Tanya Springer is the senior manager of CBC Podcasts, and Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts.

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Transcript: Crime Story, Episode 26

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