Kevin Willmott Interview
CSA - Confederate States of America

Friday, August 25, 2006 4:00pm eastern time..PHONE RINGS at PCM...

Joe: Hello... PCM

Kevin Willmott: Hi This is Kevin Willmott.

J: Hi Kevin how are you?

KW: Great!

J: Thanks a lot for letting me interview you today.

KW: My pleasure and thank you.

J: So where are you calling me from?

KW: Kansas. I'm a professor at the University here.

J: I know you are working on a new project, Bunker Hill, are you working on it from there?

KW: Yes. I grew up in Kansas and have worked on all of my films here too.

J: That's pretty cool. You are not dependent on other people then...

KW: (laughs loudly) Yeah, we are real independent film makers here!

J: Tell me, how was Spike involved with CSA?

KW: Well, I met Spike Lee through Sundance. He really liked the movie and just wanted to help so it became the Spike Lee Presentation.

J: I didn't see a whole lot of credits on with your name attached on imdb (imdb.com) but I must say the production values on CSA were excellent. It was sharply done. What inspired you to write CSA?

KW: A couple of different things. I had some experience in writing some screenplays in Hollywood however, none of them have been produced, so one thing I had done in the past is written a lot of history. In particular, the issue of slavery is one that Hollywood doesn’t seem to know how to handle very well. This was hopefully a new and more interesting way to kind of deal with the issue of slavery. On top of that, the other big thing was there are a lot of Americans that believe slavery was not the cause of the civil war. While traveling around the country, I found that most teachers didn’t talk about slavery in history class. If they did, it is confined. They seem to skip it now because it is too uncomfortable. There are a lot of different emotions that happen so they're afraid of saying the wrong thing and feel the need to keep up with being politically correct. It gets too complicated and they don’t want to go there.

J: I did not give slavery a lot of thought as I was much younger, but I have children in school and you are right, slavery is glossed over in school. I think you should be up front with what happened in the past and go forth.

KW: To me that’s the deal and you know it hurts us that we can’t be that honest about it.

J: Did you ever get concerned that this mockumentary might confuse people with fact from fiction?

KW: Well you know part of the concept of the film was that by reversing history would kind of tell what actually did happen. I mean the south did not win the civil war. Part of the reason why we can’t talk about it is the south did win the civil war in a way. They lost on the battle field but won in the attempt to hold on to their way of life. The best example of that is where I lived in Lawrence, Kansas. We loved to talk about John Brown and the abolitionists. The city was founded by abolitionists and we called it the Free State. But after the civil war, Lawrence became segregated. Where I teach, Kansas University had become segregated. It’s not the Mississippi Board of Education case, it’s the Topeka Kansas Board of Education case that desegregated schools. So the north became just as racist and just as segregated as the south did. The worst place Dr. King went to was Chicago, not Birmingham. So I think all things are reflections of that it has always been the American issue. Part of it was that with the confederacy losing, we had to bring them and reconcile the situation. In doing that, the memory of slavery had to be sacrificed. That’s part of the reason why we have a tough time talking about it. The whole concept of the mockumentary, to confuse people, is that we end of telling people what did happen. The film demands that you know a little about history. I like to challenge people with my films.

J: PCM is generally modern trivial stuff, but part of my sideline is in studying music. I have found that if you take out the sex from a 50 cent song it is exactly the same type of song that a black person called the n word at the time would sing a hundred years ago Rapper's LL Cool J's or Jay-Z's phrasology is another example. The stereotype still lasts today on some of the earlier recorded stuff. I don’t see this as a good thing.

KW: No you’re right. It's a very bad thing. African Americans don’t know the history either. Because we have all been separated from this history, I think it makes it easier for us to repeat it. I think you’re seeing forms of that. You are seeing images that we put away during the civil rights movement that are reappearing today. This is because these artists don’t know the history, therefore, they simply repeat it. It’s all about the money for them. It’s not they are trying to damage or even improve society, It’s difficult because the money thing is the defining stick for them. "If the kids want it, it can’t be so bad". Movies do it too. I don’t want to come off that all rap music is bad, however, we are talking about things that are stereotyped and slavery, along with other negative imagery are ones that the average individual doesn’t really understand anymore.

J: During this mockumentary you cut to the commercials, which by the which were as randon as regular TV commercials. You made a statement in the film, then cut to commercials. You didn't hammer that statement into my head, you were telling a story. I thought that It was very risky to do this, especially as an independent film maker to push your audience aside for 2-3 minutes and then get back to your story.

KW: It is tough and it was a bold choice in that sense. The randomness of it was part of the point that this was to be like television. We wanted it just to be television in the world of C.S.A. We were not trying to shock or sensationalize, but that this is how life in the CSA would function. Most of these products in the commercials did exist and they still do exist in various forms.

J: I did see some familiar things, and I said, wow!

KW: Yeah, we wanted to show you that the whole concept of this film was not crazy. In some ways slavery does still exist. The products that came out of slavery are still around and I think that is proof that all this is still hanging on and just hasn't gone away.

J: I liked how you stepped into Mexico but you didn't’t really stress the racist aspect as much as the concept of slavery. It was about the concept of one person putting down another.

KW: For the CSA it starts with the concept of slavery and that was obviously central to the whole nation. But when you down that path and say we are going to hold on to people and we are going to have them work for us for free and breed them, it gets al ot bigger than just race. It is going to affect every element of your society. That is what we tried to show.

J: That is what made it stand out.

KW: Yeah, the thing that we did try to fight against was being preachy. We really kept a rhythm where we had a reality check and couple of jokes. I like to call it the absurdity of the reality of it all. That was always the criteria. It is a more effective way of examining the subject matter and not at the expense of trying to entertain the audience.

J: When you wrote this, did you originally think of it as a mockumentary and who was your target audience?

KW: Early on I wrote is as a narrative and within the CSA however it seemed to be over the top. It would have sacrificed what was important to the film as well as been a little preachy and offensive. If you’re not teaching with this then what is the point? By writing it as a mockumentary, taking some documentary film footage and all of those things it grounds you into the reality of it all. The documentary part of it says it is real and it is not a joke.

J: What was the mood on the set?

KW: We did talk allot about the subject, the history and the mood was always a community that dealt with this history. Americans can’t talk about it freely yet as it kind of owns us. We were able to create an atmosphere on the set where we owned it. Black and whites all knew what was going on and what was best for all of us. We were trying to deal with something that was a little touchy but we had a handle on it. We hoped to make things better and to open minds a bit concerning these issues. It was one of the hippest things about making the film was all of us becoming an historian. We all just openly talked about where all of these things came from. The crew and cast all became far more aware of this history.

J: Are you happy with the end result?

KW: We are very happy.

J: What was your favorite scene?

KW: Probably the Jefferson Davis story as well as the D. W. Griffith satire. Recreating these were a lot of fun.

J: If you were unable to direct this film who would you have chosen?

KW: Spike Lee would have been a great choice. Spike and I had worked on another project that unfortunately didn’t get funding but he had the right consciousness about the history. There would have been a bunch of white directors that would have done a fine job as well. Black & whites would have judged a white director and said he or she is racist. That is another reason why we can’t be honest with ourselves.

J: Hispanic comedians like George Lopez and Carlos Mencia can say anything to anybody and get away with it. Fortunately we have these guys, say these things and it’d be funny. Me, a white man and you a black man can’t get away with it. We are not there yet.

KW: We're not there yet. We need to understand it and embrace it with ownership. We can get there. We don’t trust each other yet.

J: When I write I find myself rewriting it over and over. Do you find yourself rewriting your work?

KW: No, not really. We were able to grow with this film. Things did continue to develop during the process of the film so I did adjust however, when I got the final draft, the film was what I wanted it to be.

J: I heard hype that it was hysterically funny. I didn’t find it that way. Who was saying it was hysterical?

KW: Well, everybody watches this film differently. For example, I love Woody Allan movies but most of my students don't. I grew up with Woody Allan and we have some of the same interests. I laugh at things that they woudn't because they don’t understand them. I think it’s just that some people come from a different point of view. There is allot of different things going on this movie. It wasn’t meant to be hysterically funny.

J: Any other black directors that you really like?

KW: Carl Franklin is really great. Most of the guys out there are doing really great stuff. It is a challenge to really make the movies you want to make. Hollywood is not about telling your story. For me, I go toward the independent movies. Lower budget movies are great.

J: My favorite independent film of all time is Hollywood Shuffle. He spent $30,000 in credit cards.

KW: Well, we shot ours for $25,000 and it took 3 years. Hollywood Shuffle was finished for a lot more than $30,000 though.

J: Thanks for speaking with us today we appreciate your time

KW: You bet and thank you.

Interview prepared and edited by Lorraine Murphy and Joe Hummel.

Special thanks to producer Rick Cowen.