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Broken Heart Land featuring celebrated black feminist author bell hooks and best-selling author and radical psychologist Dr. James Hillman will film in and around Berea, Kentucky in October, 2006.
This film is part of an occasional series entitled James Hillman's Fragments . The Fragments projects all proceed from Hillman's premise that "conversation is consciousness", so while we outline topics, we do not script dialogue. We capture the spontaneous intellect, wit and insight that flashes within conversation, much like improvisation in jazz. The series uses psychology as a tool for inspiration, investigation and insight into culture, with an emphasis on the American perspective and landscape. The series focuses on particular American locales to excavate "The Soul of American Places". Each segment in the series will be aired independently.
Broken Heart Land is filming on location because bell hooks lives in Kentucky and this is a visit to her world: birthplace of Daniel Boone, Abe Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, Carrie Nation and Cassius Clay, Carter Godwin Woodson and Alice Allison Dunnigan, home of KFC and Fort Knox, poor but ironically home to the Sport of Kings; a Civil War border state still on the Blue State / Red State divide. bell hooks has returned to her birthplace after years on the West and East Coasts to engage in healing as reflected in her recent work on love in America. Dr. Hillman, the octogenarian New Englander, the white intellectual, comes to discuss race and gender, white consciousness and male patriarchy in her home -literally her house in the first section of the film. That image is a strong departure from typical documentaries that depict a folksy or "authentic" black presence. We are offering a meeting of intellectual equals to the viewer.
As the film opens, Hillman will arrive in KY and Berea in a sequence leading to Ms. hooks' front porch. They will great each other while a voice over track introduces the two and their work. We will stage the first conversations inside her residence to visually emphasize a "coming home" theme. James will introduce his thesis of the "White Man on the Horse" as the icon of white male supremacy. hooks will open with her themes of race, gender and reconciliation in contemporary American culture. The visual component of a white man coming to a black woman's hearth and home to listen, to converse and to consider will launch our visit to Berea.
As the conversation warrants we will cutaway to images of Berea, founded in 1850 by the abolitionist Rev. John Gregg Fee and home to Berea College, whose mission was to educate children of all races, until 1904 when Jim Crow went into effect. After Brown vs. Board of Education Berea College re-integrated. The College where Ms. hooks is Distinguished Professor in Residence, operates under a no tuition model. Vistas of the college and students will intercut with the ongoing conversation at her home. Also we will feature images of hooks at work, her library, kitchen, garden and the home itself. We intend to figuratively find an archetypal hearth incarnated in her home.
Next we will journey to the nearby Civil War battleground near Richmond KY. Music will play over the drive while hooks and Hillman add voice over. As we disembark they will open a discussion of the Civil War as archetype of American divorce and divisiveness. Hillman is keen on the Civil War as an image of the land asking for a blood sacrifice from white European immigrants, something not required of Black Americans since slavery joins Black America to the land in ways we label as "soul". Hillman is keen on "soul" as an image lost to white consciousness and the discussion will contrast two images of "soul": visceral, felt and lived in Black America vis-à-vis missing, vacant and vague in White America. Hillman postulates the Civil War as our Trojan War; that is founding the American mythology as the Trojan War founded the Greek's. The battleground will form the visual presence to this section. We will use a small crane for longer vistas and sweeping shots from ground level to high overhead to dramatize the sacrifices made on this battlefield. The music will have a martial quality.
Then we will leave the battleground behind and head for a much needed detour into cuisine. The entourage will stop at a local diner and the entire cast and crew will appear eating and chatting together in a montage. We hope to catch a bit of humor while allowing the viewer to recover from the previous heavy topics. Hillman and hooks will provide voice over. They will talk of Kentucky as place of reunion as in "My Old Kentucky Home". The talk may range to hillbillies and bluegrass music, quilting and coalmining. We will certainly cutaway to images of distilleries to relieve the spirit.
Next we will visit a horse farm and talk of the irony of "Black Beauty". Hillman will deepen the mythology of "The White Man on the Horse". The genesis of what hooks calls White Male Patriarchy might well be Robert E. Lee on his horse Traveler and she will add her insights into the formation and propagation of sexism and racism. The legacy of southern aristocracy needs debunking and the discussion will cover this topic as images of the horse farm, with its long white fences and open fields provide the setting. During this segment we will intercut comments from other participants, possibly Wendell Berry and some academic associates of Hillman's and hooks' TBD.
The film will end with nightfall and a return to hooks' home. We will close with the two friends still engaged in discussion and laughter, perhaps over tea. We pull away from her front window or porch into the cool Kentucky night of early autumn. The visual component will dissolve into black as the music eases us into a short voice over from the two before the end credits.
A major component in our conception of the film revolves around conversation itself. Two people talking is a viewer-friendly way of evolving complex ideas because conversations have a natural give and take, query and response. Documentaries often devolve into monographs with a protagonist conveying a didactic POV. This project's structure allows us to find "a path through the woods", a journey of discovery for the filmmakers, the participants and the viewers.
Alternately one might listen in Broken Heart Land for a "voice of place" asking for consideration. Geography, history, human presence, cuisine and local custom will play roles in creating this filmic essay into psychic images of race, healing and soul. We consider the American audience sophisticated and intelligent, therefore we avoid repetition, conclusions and summary statements. Instead we hope to raise questions, provoke thought and send the viewers off on their own journeys of rumination and inspiration. The model from academia is the seminar: a coming together to germinate a new flowering of thought.
A brief technical consideration: We have developed a production method in which Ms. hooks and Dr. Hillman will be radio-miked at all times and the sound recordist will literally record at all times. We will have two JVC HDV cameras rolling, but all dialogue will be captured so even if we miss a moment visually, we will have for voice over use. The image quality of these cameras is astonishing, far superior to DVCAM. We will have a small lighting crew, a second cameraperson in addition to the sound mixer. The Jensons' work as a production team: Kevan Jenson will serve as co-director and primary cameraman, Maria Jenson, a Black American will co-direct.
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