Reggie Ugwu

Shults’ biological father struggled with alcoholism and addiction and was an infrequent presence in his life. He was raised from a young age by his stepfather and mother, both psychotherapists, who kindled his interest in human fallibility.

In 2013, 10 years after he lost contact with his biological father, Shults paid him a final visit as he was dying from pancreatic cancer. A character in Shults’ second movie, “It Comes at Night” (2017) — a meditation on grief and frailty in the guise of a postapocalyptic horror film — consoles her dying father using the same words Shults said to his: “You don’t need to fight it. You can just let it all go.”

Though “It Comes at Night” received strong reviews, Shults, who at 32 has quickly joined the vanguard of American independent film, was dismayed by reactions to the movie. The emotional ideas he had been trying to communicate had been lost in translation, drowned out amid an ancillary debate over the film’s genre credentials.

“Waves,” Shults’ new movie, released Friday, also includes a scene with a character offering clemency to a dying father, but this time he has dispensed with the supernatural packaging.

The film, which features searing performances by Sterling K. Brown, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and newcomer Taylor Russell, is told in two parts, each of which revolves around a love story. The first focuses on Tyler, a determined but volatile high-school wrestling prospect, and the second on Emily, his soft-spoken and emotionally adrift younger sister.

Connecting them is yet a third, more complicated kind of love story, one that pays close attention to how families both absorb and amplify individual pain.

Earlier this month, over coffee in New York’s Washington Square Park, Shults, whose broad, slightly hunched shoulders attest to his own high-school wrestling days, discussed the personal origin of “Waves” and how thinking about mortality influences his work. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q: Was this always a story with two parts for you?

A: That was in the first outline, with the idea of a brother and a sister and two relationships. I wanted to make a movie about what it’s like to go through something hard and then come out the other side — how unpredictable that can feel, especially when you’re in it. My other movies end at their lowest emotional point. (Shults’ first film, “Krisha” (2015), which starred members of his real family, portrayed an alcoholic’s relapse at Thanksgiving.) This just felt more like where I’m at now as a human being.

Q: You worked with Kelvin before on “It Comes At Night.” What was it like collaborating with him this time?

A: We just kind of fell in love on the last movie and loved working together. I told him about my idea for this movie before there was a title or character names. When I started writing, we would do minitherapy sessions over text and phone calls where we would talk about our experiences at that age and growing up upper-middle class in the South. For me it was Texas, for him it was New Orleans; for me it was wrestling, for him it was music. Eight months before we started shooting, I sent him an early version of the script and he gave me notes and we just kept working on it.

Q: With Kelvin as Tyler, obviously that means you’re dealing with a black family. How did you handle writing one as a white person?

A: It was all in collaboration. Kel and I talked early on about the idea of making it a black family with universal issues but still keeping things specific and authentic. He would point out things in the script that didn’t feel right, like, “Actually, my dad would tell me this,” or “We’d do it like this.” Then I’d write a new version. On every movie I make, I always want the actor’s input. So this was just taking it a step further.

Q: Did you ever think, “Actually, maybe I should steer clear of this?”

A: Absolutely. But it started from a really personal place and a personal script. And then Kelvin and I loved each other and wanted to do this thing together. I made my first movie with the people who I love and who are closest to me, and that’s what I believe in.

Q: The movie seems to be asking, “What happens when we have the courage to open up to the people that we’re closest to? And what are the things that get in the way of that?”

A: Definitely. I had a lot of resentment toward my stepdad for a long time, just because of the way he pushed me and because of our different personalities. Then one day, when I was older, he opened up to me, and was vulnerable, and told me things he had never told me before. I saw him as a human being in a totally new way, and it changed our relationship. Talking to your loved ones and really breaking down those barriers is hard. It seems so simple, but it’s not.

Q: In “Waves,” there’s a character who, like you, visits his estranged father on his deathbed. When you’re writing something like that, do you think about how much of yourself to put on screen?

A: I do now! There were some moments in creating those scenes where I was like, “I’m terrified. I didn’t think this through. What am I doing? This is the worst feeling in the world.”

Q: What made it the worst feeling in the world?

A: It’s weird to relive the most traumatic thing in your life, it just gave me an all-consuming sense of dread. I’m shaking a bit just thinking about it. Even with “Krisha,” it was inspired by family members, but not literally my life. So I did ask myself, “Is this healthy?”

Q: You’ve said that your father’s death changed you. How?

A: It changed everything. A huge thing is not wanting regrets and not holding onto baggage. It’s made me want to lead a life that I’m proud of, care for the people I love and salvage bad relationships. I think coming that close to death spiritually changes you, and it changes your perspective.

Q: Something that popped into my mind is how young you are, and how prolific you’ve been. Confronting mortality like that, did it set a fire under you as well?

A: Absolutely. That’s a big reason I think “Waves” clicked into place. I was depressed after “It Comes at Night.” I thought that what I cared about in that movie no one had felt, and the people that probably would have connected with it didn’t see it. I felt like, “What if I die tomorrow and this is all I have to show for myself?” I got this urge to put everything I had as a human being into something that I felt proud of, so that if I passed away at least I would have done something. I think about that every day now.

Q: Are you working on anything next?

A: Nothing. For the first time, I have no idea what I’m going to do next. I put it all into this movie.

Q: Really? If I checked your Notes folder on your phone … nothing?

A: I mean, I have gibberish notes and random stuff, but not any real ideas. I don’t want to make another movie until I have something that I believe in 100%, and I feel like I’ve got to live more life and get more perspective before I’ll have anything else that I can contribute.

This article originally appeared in

Trey Edward Shults' Fractured Family Portraits

Filmmaker Trey Edward Shults thinks a lot about families. Specifically, families in trouble. They preoccupy his work to a degree that is difficult for him to explain. And, believe him, he has tried to explain, including to his stepfather, who will call after watching one of his movies to ask whether everything is OK.

In 2016, her video for Beyoncé’s “Formation” won every award under the sun — including a Grammy and a drawer full of VMAs — and she served as an executive producer and primary director of “Insecure,” created by noted Beyoncé fan Issa Rae. Scripts for potential feature films soon found her, but none moved her initially.

“It was like, ‘Oh do you want to shoot this musical?’ Or, ‘Do you want to do this dance movie?’ — things that people would think were obvious,” Matsoukas said, in a recent interview. “None of it sounded very interesting to me, and so I waited.”

“Queen &amp; Slim,” the story of two strangers whose first date is dramatically extended when a clash with a police officer sends them on the run, got her attention. Matsoukas had worked with Waithe previously on the Emmy-winning “Thanksgiving” episode of “Master of None” and was excited by what felt like a step in a genuinely new direction.

“It was dramatic and it was a comedy and it starts off as almost a horror film,” she said. “It straddles the line between so many genres of filmmaking, and I found that really intriguing and fulfilling.”

Matsoukas discussed where she found inspiration for the movie’s many moods, from fine art photography to footage of Sandra Bland’s 2015 arrest. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

‘Belly’

This is my go-to. I’m such a huge fan of Hype Williams and was very much guided by how he photographed black people and black bodies in motion: very beautiful and real but also stylized. For me, “Belly” had all of the elements of the culture in it, visually, musically, and aesthetically. I’ve always wanted to try to create the same thing in my work.

For “Queen &amp; Slim” I especially looked to it as a lighting guide and a portraiture guide. Our movie opens with a diner scene, and in “Belly” there’s a diner scene between DMX and Nas. I remember looking at that and really loving the light on their skin and how the fluorescents were kind of reflected off it. I’m really conscious of how we light black skin. There’s a belief in the industry that black skin needs an incredible amount of light or a certain traditional way of lighting in order to be visible, and it’s just not true. I kind of threw all of that away and just let people live in the environments.

Deana Lawson

I love the way she captures the everyday black experience through a very intimate lens. I think it’s really powerful. There’s a sequence in our movie that takes place at Queen’s Uncle Earl’s, and I probably used her photography as a reference for that whole house. The way she shoots homes and the people in their homes with their real possessions, the possessions tell the story of who those people are. I actually have a piece of hers in my living room, so she inspires me every day. I like things to be rooted in authenticity and what’s real, and then to try and sell that in a really beautiful way, even when it’s ugly, even when it’s dirty.

Birney Imes

He has a book called “Juke Joint,” and that definitely was an influence not only on the juke joint scene in our movie, but on some of the Americana scenes as the car is driving through the South. He just has an incredible eye and is really able to capture black Southern life in a way that takes in the nuances and history of the landscape.

‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’ and ‘Taxi Driver’

I looked to these two movies for so many of the driving scenes. A lot of scenes take place in a car, and that was a major challenge. I wanted to give them a real progression so that we weren’t just repeating the same angles and the same shots. And I wanted you to be able to feel Queen and Slim’s intimacy and their connection growing as the road trip advanced.

I knew I wanted to be in the real spaces and not on a stage using video projection. I wanted them to feel the pavement moving beneath them and see the passing landscape. It’s difficult being in a car and locked up together for that long, and you can allow those emotions to effect how you deliver a line, or how you touch someone or don’t touch someone.

Footage of Sandra Bland’s Arrest

I watched that many times to understand who she was, and who she was in that moment. I wanted to try and characterize Queen in a similar way. I’ve been in that scenario myself, where I was pulled over in a senseless traffic stop. I felt like I wasn’t going to hold my tongue because I was in the right and needed to stand up for myself as a person. You want the officer to see your humanity. And he couldn’t see Sandra Bland’s humanity; all he saw was a black woman getting loud with him. But she was standing up for her rights.

With 'Queen & Slim,' Melina Matsoukas Steps Beyond Beyoncé

In literal terms, Melina Matsoukas is a first-time filmmaker — her directorial debut, “Queen &amp; Slim,” written by Lena Waithe and starring Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith, arrives in theaters Nov. 27. But it’s hard to think of her as a rookie. As a young music video director in the 2000s and early 2010s, she was responsible for a string of vivid, otherworldly images that now seem like collective hallucinations: Snoop Dogg as a disco-era sex symbol, Rihanna romping through a field wit...

Kiwanuka felt the strangeness most intensely when he went to one of Crowe’s dinner parties. He hadn’t known it was a dinner party. He just thought Crowe was inviting him to hang out. But there he was, at a dining table in Crowe’s expensive London hotel suite, as a parade of Britain’s tabloid elite walked in and sat next to him: David Beckham, Tom Jones, Ed Sheeran. He could feel the eyes in the room bearing down on him, all of which seemed to be asking the same question: Who in the hell is that?

Kiwanuka’s third album, called “Kiwanuka” and out Friday, is a hard-won answer to that question. It’s a muscular, multilayered declaration of self-worth and reliance from an artist who has been open about his insecurities, both as a “Black Man in a White World,” as he put it in a trenchant 2016 song, and as a rock and soul singer who was born into the wrong decade.

The Jimi Hendrix-worshiping, London-born son of Ugandan immigrants, Kiwanuka has been gradually asserting a place for himself in a landscape dominated by hip-hop and electronic music since he won the BBC’s Sound of 2012 poll, beating out Frank Ocean and Skrillex.

His first album, “Home Again” (2012), impressed critics with its observant, soul-flecked folk songs, delivered in a rich, full-bodied voice that sounded the way drinking hot cocoa in front of a crackling fireplace feels. But it was “Love &amp; Hate” — an eclectic reanimation of psych rock, political R&amp;B; and funk, which, among other distinctions, spawned the unlikely theme song for “Big Little Lies” — that first showed the artist growing into his talents, and earned him a seat at that table with Beckham and Sheeran. (Kiwanuka, an introvert, said he only lasted at the party for about two hours.)

He re-teamed with the producers of “Love &amp; Hate,” Danger Mouse and Inflo, to make “Kiwanuka,” on which questions of ego, identity and belonging receive top billing. “If you don’t belong, live in the trouble,” he sings on the upbeat first single, “You Ain’t the Problem,” putting a finger on what could be the album’s thesis statement.

Earlier this fall, Kiwanuka, 32, sat at a sidewalk cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn — wearing his signature unkempt Afro and high-top Chuck Taylors — and discussed feeling perpetually “one step away” from social acceptance as a child, the effect getting married had on his songwriting and the prognosis for rock ’n’ roll in the 21st century. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q: “You Ain’t the Problem” is a kind of pep talk for people who might feel rejected, or fear rejection. Was that something that you needed to hear?

A: It was a little, yeah. I was thinking about being an artist and, specifically, how I used to get really self-conscious at festivals. I would see my favorite artists, or people who I thought were really cool and had these things that I aspired to have, and I’d be like “Man, I don’t know how to do that”; or “My songs are like this, but if only they were like that.” I just got really tired of that negative, beat-yourself-up mentality. I started to think, “Screw this, man: There’s nothing wrong with me. Of course I can work on myself and grow, but enough of this self-deprecating attitude. Let me just enjoy this amazing experience of being an artist, and believe in myself, and keep going.”

Q: “Hero,” the second single, is almost the flip side of that. It’s “I’m everything you ever wanted. Now what?”

A: I was thinking about what it takes to become a big name, like a full-blown superstar. A lot of the times it’s inventing this image, or an alter ego, like Elton John or Bob Dylan or David Bowie. I really hated that idea, because I’ve taken so long just to be really happy with myself — the last thing I want to do is try to make up this new character. So “Hero” is kind of posing that question: If I do all of these things, will I become this iconic big singer?

Q: Alienation and self-worth are recurring themes in your music. Is that the legacy of your childhood in London?

A: Yeah. My family and I stuck out so much in the town we were in. It was mostly white people. I was lucky because I had a fun upbringing, but I never quite slotted in anywhere perfectly. I would listen to rock music and indie, but I could never dress like those kids did — I couldn’t even figure out where to get the clothes from. And even when we would go to Uganda, they would call me and my brother “mzungu,” which can mean either English or white man. So everywhere I went I was always just one step away from being the thing that everyone else was. It wasn’t until I started playing in bands and making my own music in secondary school that I felt like I found a place where I really belonged.

Q: Since “Love &amp; Hate,” you’ve gotten married and entered your 30s. Has it changed you?

A: It has; I think it really helped improve my confidence. All that stuff about comparing myself to other artists, or feeling insecure in the studio, it really started to die down after I got married. I’m enjoying the skin I’m in a bit more. There’s just a peace in feeling like “This is my team.” It’s made me care more about other people.

Q: Are you writing differently?

A: It’s funny, because I love melancholy stuff so much. But now I do want to sing about more joyful things, instead of just “Cold Little Heart.” There’s a song on this album called “Piano Joint” that originally had a different theme and chorus. It used to be “My oh my, it’s sad in love.” Danger Mouse and I liked it a lot, and it rhymed perfectly. But I just couldn’t sing it — it was too negative. When I went to record it for the album, I told the engineer that I had to change the lyrics. So now it’s “My oh my, this kind of love,” and it’s about how even in the hard times, love is what gets you through. If I had left it the other way, I wouldn’t have been able to perform it every night. It wouldn’t have been true.

Q: You mentioned feeling like an outlier as a black kid who listened to rock. It made me think of how much rock itself has fallen outside of the mainstream.

A: Definitely. I think it’s lost some relevance for now. I think it got to the point where it was so based in aesthetics, the skinny jeans and everything, that it was almost a joke. If you said you were in an indie band, people would kind of roll their eyes at you. So right now, it’s in a bit of a timeout. But everything goes in cycles.

The good thing is, if you’re making rock and indie now, you’re definitely not doing it to be cool, or make millions of dollars. And I think sometimes that’s how you get those game-changing albums that shock people with something that feels real and true and unexpected. I definitely think music could do with something like that again.

Once a 'Step Away,' Singer Now Has a Place at the Table

Around the summer of 2016, shortly after his second album, “Love &amp; Hate,” was released, Michael Kiwanuka started getting texts from Russell Crowe. The texts were friendly — compliments about his music, invitations to get a beer, enthusiastic updates about works in progress — but felt strangely portentous, like being invited behind a velvet rope. After all, Crowe, the Academy Award-winning star of “Gladiator,” was seeking out and befriending Kiwanuka, an acclaimed but relatively obscure si...

No sound in the film is more likely to induce nightmares than the voice of its main villain, Red. Played by Lupita Nyong’o in a dual performance (she is also Adelaide, Red’s non-villainous doppelgänger), Red becomes the movie’s most unsettling enigma the moment she first opens her mouth.

(Warning: If you haven’t seen “Us,” moderate spoilers about the character follow).

In a showstopping monologue at the top of the second act, Red’s speaking voice — a dyspeptic rasp, as if her vocal cords have been gnawed through by rats — suggests someone who has seen the unspeakable, and takes an already eerie performance by Nyong’o to a darker, unearthly realm.

The sound has provoked strong reactions in audiences and critics. In his review, New York magazine’s David Edelstein described it as “the whistle of someone whose throat has been cut” and “a rush of acrid air from a tomb.”

Here’s where the voice actually came from, according to our interviews with both Nyong’o and Peele.

A Cryptic Script

Even in his script, Peele kept details about who Red was close to the vest. One of the few clues he did include pertained to the voice. He described it simply as “scratchy” and hinted at a mysterious back story.

“I described it as a voice that hadn’t been used in years,” Peele said.

An Unlikely Influence

Those scarce details gave Nyong’o — who worked closely with Peele in developing the character — plenty of latitude. At a fashion event before preproduction, she found unlikely inspiration when she heard a speaker who reminded her of Peele’s description. It was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder that causes involuntary spasms of the larynx. Learning about the disorder helped ground her eventual performance.

“I was fascinated, and I started doing research,” Nyong’o said. “I met with people who have the condition and built it from there.”

‘Raw Rage’

Does Red have spasmodic dysphonia, or just sound like she does? We may never know. But Nyong’o’s research convinced her that the disorder was a plausible consequence of the grim back story Peele’s script had implied.

“It’s not really understood why it happens, or how it happens,” she said. “It could be a trauma in your life — someone dying, or a physical assault. It varies. For me, it felt very organic as an inspiration for Red, who’s had this kind of strangled past.”

Working with vocal coach Beth McGuire, who also worked with Nyong’o on “Black Panther” and the 2016 Broadway play “Eclipsed,” the actress took her real-world inspiration and suffused it with ghostly malevolence.

“Red’s character is very id-driven, so one of the things that we were looking for was for that to come across in the quality of her voice — just the raw emotion, the raw rage,” Nyong’o said.

A Stamp of (Creepy) Approval

Peele first heard what Nyong’o had come up with during preproduction, when the actress pulled him aside for an informal audition of the voice and her vision for the big monologue.

“She sat me down and said, ‘Are you ready?'” the director recalled. He wasn’t.

“It was like nothing I had ever heard,” Peele said. “So creepy.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/24/movies/why-lupita-nyongos-us-voice-sounds-so-creepy.html" id="220aa814-03c4-35b3-a3fa-779cf85ba1bc">The New York Times</a>.

Why Lupita Nyong'o's 'Us' Voice Sounds So Creepy

There are no shortage of haunting images in “Us,” the new horror film from Jordan Peele. But many of the movie’s most effective jolts are heard rather than seen, from the chilling score (including a macabre riff on Luniz’s “I Got 5 on It”) on down.

There’s one scene from this season of “Euphoria” that sticks in my mind, and, somehow, it includes not even one close-up of a penis. It’s a conversation from the third and best episode, “Made You Look,” between Rue (Zendaya), the show’s emotionally and chemically unsteady narrator, and Jules (Hunter Schaefer), her closest companion and aspirational love interest.

Jules, who is transgender, is giddy over having made a date to meet Tyler, a boy from another high school whom she met on a gay dating app. Rue, lying next to her crush on a sunny stretch of grass, can’t quite process this information platonically, and instead bluntly questions the location of the proposed rendezvous — a lake on the edge of town.

Jules, accusing Rue of watching “way too much ‘Dateline,’” explains that Tyler’s mother is “super conservative,” and that he can’t risk being seen with a trans girl in public. But Rue isn’t having it.

RUE: Honestly, Jules, I don’t really care about the situation, because it just doesn’t seem safe.

JULES: I’ve been in situations that are way less safe.

RUE: OK, but that’s not really the point, right? The point is it’s dangerous.

JULES: Rue, this is the difference between, like, you and me. Like, I don’t always get the privilege of meeting people in front of a (expletive) audience or something.

On the subject of how people forge intimacy online, Jules’ observation — that what might seem like reckless or desperate behavior to some is merely the cost of living for others — is the show at its disarming best. “Euphoria,” which features a now famous defense of nude selfies as “the currency of love,” has a natural champion in Jules, who believes in the internet, for all its perils, as a force for good in her life.

But the vision of the web actually presented by the show over the course of the first season, which ends Sunday, is much darker. Last Sunday’s episode was the latest to suggest that, where teen internet usage is concerned, “Euphoria” more closely resembles the paranoid vision that Jules ascribes to Rue — a Very Special Episode of network news.

Take the storyline of Kat (Barbie Ferreira), a fellow student at the high school and one of the show’s strongest characters. Kat, like Jules, occupies an outer ring of her known social universe, having been bullied because of her weight from the time she was 11. Also like Jules, she turns to the internet — first as a writer of Tumblr fan fiction, then, after a sexual awakening, as a cam girl with a roster of submissive patrons — seeking the feelings of acceptance and self-confidence that haven’t been readily available to her elsewhere.

On “Euphoria,” the characters’ digital and physical lives are constantly swirling around one another, usually in a downward spiral that ends in alienation and self-loathing. When we first see Rue using a cellphone, she’s staring at a direct message from a person who has threatened to rape her. Cassie, the character who inspired the rant about nude selfies, has spent virtually the entire season in tears over hers.

These sorts of cautionary tales are unavoidable on a show that aspires to authentically portray the experiences of young women who exist online. And they heightened the creator Sam Levinson’s intense sensitivity to, and enduring fixation on, the premature loss of innocence. But Kat and Jules stand out because their digital lives allow us to glimpse a function of the internet — as a rich and generative lifeline to the isolated and vulnerable — that we’re less accustomed to seeing dramatized on cable television.

Which is why I was disappointed that, for both of them, the road of online experimentation leads — all too predictably — to ruin. After a few scenes of internet-borne sexual empowerment (one impeccably soundtracked to DMX’s “X Gon’ Give it to Ya”), Kat soon falls prey to lecherous predators, leaving it to a real boy from school to rescue her from digital debasement. And, as Rue suspected and the audience was forewarned, Jules’ lakeside rendezvous with Tyler (like a disturbing earlier hookup with a much older man whom she met on the same app) was destined for catastrophe.

When depicting teenagers engaged in risky behavior, it’s important to be realistic about the consequences. But there is more to online community than the hungry eyes of perverts and frauds (usually), and it’s surprising that a show that goes to such pains to wrap itself in the political and aesthetic banners of contemporary youth culture would adopt such a retrograde posture. A more compelling vision would better capture the fullness and complexity of internet relationships — the highs (the joy of finding your tribe, a date where no one wants to call the police), the lows and the awkward alike.

Instead, in the world that “Euphoria” has portrayed, young people who seek intimacy online find degradation and violence around seemingly every corner.

That’s not quite “Dateline,” but it’s pretty close.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/arts/television/euphoria-internet-relationships-conservative.html" id="337b076b-5df0-3c79-a512-1b0603c2a373">The New York Times</a>.

(Reporter’s notebook)

Where 'Euphoria' Is Surprisingly Conservative

In the month since HBO debuted the explosive documentary “Leaving Neverland,” in which two men and their families accuse Jackson of sexual abuse that they say went on for years while the men were children, Vogel has instead found himself in a biographer’s nightmare, scrambling to re-examine thousands of hours of research — and his unspoken biases and assumptions — as the cultural and informational landscape lurches beneath him.

“It complicates things in ways that are just really, really challenging,” Vogel said by phone recently. “Not only are you thinking about how do you deal with this on a personal level, you’re also thinking about how to handle it professionally.”

As music fans have tried to reconcile the Jackson of “Leaving Neverland” — a brazen pedophile who left children and their loved ones in ruin — with the spellbinding “Thriller” singer whose DNA winds through generations of art and culture, the biographers and journalists who wrote him into our collective memory have quietly been retracing their steps, some with pride, some with anguish, some hovering unsteadily in between.

The writers interviewed for this story cover the spectrum, balancing a personal affinity for Jackson with a professional interest in following facts where they lead. For some, “Leaving Neverland” was corroboration of their own investigative work. For others, it was a stinging reproach.

Most said they were moved by the graphic and emotionally wrenching testimony of James Safechuck and Wade Robson, the Jackson accusers. Three authors are revising their books about the singer and will release new editions this year.

But in a sign of an emerging tug of war — and of growing fallout over the methods of filmmaker Dan Reed — two people who were interviewed said they refused to watch the documentary, prejudging it as craven vandalism. And only one said “Leaving Neverland” had changed his verdict on Jackson from “innocent” to “guilty.”

At the time of its premiere in March, Vogel had already been sent galleys of the second edition of his book, “Man in the Music: The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson.” He rewrote the preface, which he said was “rendered incoherent by the documentary,” but stopped short of declaring the case against the singer closed.

“I felt like I had just watched the prosecution’s case,” he said. “I was like, ‘OK, now where’s the defense?’”

Smoking Gun or ‘Major Distortion’?

The rift among Jackson journalists over “Leaving Neverland” is the latest manifestation of a 25-year-old dispute about how best to interpret his life story.

On one side are those who regarded Jackson warily, seeing a powerful celebrity for whom paying a $25 million settlement over 1993 child molestation allegations was but one example of a willingness to use money and influence to camouflage grotesque behavior. On the other are those who saw him as a lifelong victim — a developmentally arrested and unjustly maligned black entertainer who was a magnet for tabloid opportunists, corrupt cops and scheming frauds.

For those in the first camp, like Maureen Orth, a former special correspondent for Vanity Fair, “Leaving Neverland” is the smoking gun in the final act of a detective story filled with near misses and false alarms.

Orth wrote extensively about the accusations of 13-year-old Jordie Chandler, whose family sued Jackson and settled in 1994, and said she was struck by how similar his story was to those of Robson and Safechuck.

“The first thing I thought when I watched it was, ‘Yeah, I’ve heard all this before,’” she said of the documentary. “I felt very sorry and sad for those victims.”

Diane Dimond, who first exposed the Chandler allegations as a reporter for the tabloid television show “Hard Copy,” said Jackson’s fans have been sending her death threats ever since. She is at work on three new chapters for the audiobook version of her 2005 Jackson biography and wept while watching “Leaving Neverland.”

“I have a daughter, and I do lament that I spent so much time chasing leads on Michael Jackson,” said Dimond, who was a young mother at the time. “But I hope that people will now understand that these reports were not just done for sensationalism.”

But some journalists see the documentary as just the latest in a pattern of disreputable attempts to bring Jackson down — one being opportunistically marketed after his death when, by law, he can no longer be defamed.

Few in this second camp have been more influential than Mary A. Fischer. Her GQ cover story about the Chandler allegations, “Was Michael Jackson Framed? The Untold Story,” which she later published as an e-book, is still frequently cited by fans who believe Jackson is the victim of a never-ending con.

In an interview, Fischer called “Leaving Neverland” a “major distortion,” and Robson and Safechuck “unreliable accusers.” She was especially critical of Reed’s failure to note potential conflicts of interest — standard practice in journalism — like the men’s previous lawsuit against the Jackson estate, and reports that Robson had earlier sought a book deal.

“That to me feels very manipulative, and I resent it,” Fischer said.

Vogel, who wrote an article in Forbes highlighting the lawsuit and prospective book deal before the film’s release, also accused Reed of cherry-picking.

“I think an equally compelling film could be made in Jackson’s defense by including certain people — and certain evidence — and excluding others,” Vogel said.

He noted alleged discrepancies in the timeline presented by Robson and Safechuck in the film, a growing point of contention for online skeptics. “There are still a lot of questions to be asked, if we believe in due process, and I think there are respectful ways to do that,” Vogel said.

Interviews that Reed gave explaining his decision not to interview sources who could defend Jackson — arguing that the film’s inclusion of Jackson’s own public statements was sufficient — so troubled some experts that they condemned the movie sight unseen.

”That, to me, is what I never did in journalism,” said Linda Deutsch, a now-retired reporter for The Associated Press whose coverage of several high-profile cases in her career included Jackson’s criminal trial in 2005, when he was accused of child molestation and found not guilty. She called Jackson, who personally phoned her after the trial to thank her for her coverage, a “victim of his own superstardom” and said that “Leaving Neverland” should never have been broadcast.

“They’re falsely accusing Michael, and I don’t want to hear it,” Deutsch said.

Susan Fast, director of the graduate program in gender studies and feminist research at McMaster University and the author of “Dangerous,” a book about Jackson and his album of the same name, has also refused to watch Reed’s documentary.

“I just don’t have any interest in watching four hours of unsubstantiated testimony,” Fast said. When it comes to Jackson, she argued, the media has always “reveled in the possibility of his destruction.”

‘The Same Old Binaries’

For some veterans of the Jackson beat, the more fruitful question isn’t whether the artist was a victim or a predator, but why it’s been so hard for some to accept the possibility that he was both.

“It’s more interesting to be trying to push on these things and not keep settling back into the same old binaries and defenses and self-righteousness,” said Margo Jefferson, author of “On Michael Jackson” and a former Times critic who won the Pulitzer Prize for her book reviews. She is working on a new introduction to her book, inspired by “Leaving Neverland.”

“Can we get wiser about holding conflicting opinions, and feelings, and sets of information in our minds simultaneously?” she asked.

Steve Knopper, author of “MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson,” said the film left him regretting some of his own blind spots. His book, which came out shortly after Robson and Safechuck jointly sued the Jackson estate in 2013, expressed skepticism of their claims and defended Jackson against the allegations from 1993 and 2005.

“I found it pretty devastating,” Knopper said of “Leaving Neverland.”

He now believes that Jackson was guilty. Or, that is, mostly believes it: “There is a small part of me that says, ‘I still want more evidence.’”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/arts/music/michael-jackson-books.html" id="ff7bc3e0-b8c2-3495-a302-020f275fd404">The New York Times</a>.

Two years ago, when Joe Vogel agreed to write a new edition of his influential book about Michael Jackson — to be released this summer for the 10th anniversary of the singer’s death — he thought it would be demanding but gratifying work, a fresh opportunity to train his arrow on the most formidable legacy in all of modern pop, to address new questions about the artist’s collaboration with producer Quincy Jones and to celebrate the enduring resonance of Jackson’s abundant song catalog.

Michael Jackson Biographers Face History, and the Mirror

A few — a gaggle of nuns in their habits, at least one collared priest — wore their dispositions on their sleeves. Others communicated in muted gestures, dabbed at tears, or lingered for long stretches in the popcorn-strewn vestibule at the AMC multiplex here, as if still processing the deliberately provocative movie they had just seen.

Since March 29, similar scenes have played out across the country as faith-based groups and many others have gathered en masse to see “Unplanned,” a new movie that paints a scathing portrait of abortion rights in general and Planned Parenthood in particular.

Molly Livingstone, a social media marketer in Dallas, organized about 170 people from her church to attend an early screening of the movie. It so struck her, she said, that she was moved to volunteer for an anti-abortion pregnancy center.

In Davenport, Iowa, the St. Thomas Aquinas Guild of the Quad Cities, an anti-abortion medical organization, raised $4,000 to buy tickets for members and civic leaders. Maggie Schoonmaker, a fertility educator who was involved in the effort, said she felt compelled to spread the word about the film.

“The movie provides a way for people to learn the truth about abortion and reproductive rights outside of a church,” she said.

“Unplanned” has banked on its ability to draw such motivated crowds, despite what the filmmakers — Christian anti-abortion advocates hoping to make a dent in Hollywood — described in interviews as a torrent of adversity.

First, they said, came the denial letters from companies holding the rights to songs they had hoped to include on the film’s soundtrack. Then it was an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, normally a kiss of death in evangelical, Mormon and other religious communities.

Television networks, too, rejected the film’s trailer as too political to touch. The official “Unplanned” Twitter account, erroneously linked to online trolls, was temporarily suspended on opening weekend and the star of the movie, Ashley Bratcher, has struggled to book TV interviews outside Fox News and the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Of course, no film is entitled to media exposure. And in each of the above cases, the companies and networks denied singling out “Unplanned.” But the belief among anti-abortion communities that powerful forces have arrayed against the film has kindled long-smoldering claims of liberal and anti-religious bias in the media and Silicon Valley. And it has animated high-profile conservatives — including Vice President Mike Pence; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Donald Trump Jr. — who have risen to the movie’s defense, seeking to turn it into the latest battlefront of the culture wars.

For now, writer-directors Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon can console themselves with a hit. “Unplanned” exceeded box-office expectations on its opening weekend, earning more than $6 million — and recouping its budget — from just 1,100 screens. It expanded that figure this weekend, earning $3.2 million after spreading to 500 more theaters.

The movie comes as conservatives are feeling emboldened to roll back abortion rights, including potentially overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, after the confirmation in October of Justice Brett Kavanaugh solidified their majority on the Supreme Court. Another anti-abortion film, “Roe v. Wade,” starring conservative actor Jon Voight, was promoted at the annual March for Life rally in Washington in January, but has yet to announce a distribution partner or release date.

Solomon said he hoped the film would help trigger “the cultural moment that overturns Roe v. Wade.”

“That would absolutely be a victory for us,” he added.

The success of “Unplanned” follows that of other faith-based films, such as last year’s “I Can Only Imagine” and an earlier Konzelman and Solomon effort, “God’s Not Dead,” which have demonstrated the box-office power of a passionate demographic that often says it is overlooked, if not persecuted, by left-leaning Hollywood.

The filmmakers said they want the same treatment as that given to films favored by the abortion-rights movement, such as “RBG,” the documentary about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Konzelman also referenced an announced film that will star Sandra Bullock as former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, who has campaigned against restrictions on abortion rights.

“Would any of the places that turned us down for advertising turn down Sony, or Paramount, or Universal with a Sandra Bullock movie from the other side?” he asked. “I dare say not.”

“Unplanned” is based on the memoir of the same name by Abby Johnson, a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Texas, who became a celebrity of the anti-abortion movement after what she said was a crisis of conscience. The film dramatizes her conversion narrative and includes three unflinching portrayals of abortions, the first and most explicit of which occurs in the first 10 minutes. (Reports in Texas Monthly and Salon have raised questions about the details of Johnson’s story, and Planned Parenthood said in a statement that the movie adaptation “promotes many falsehoods.”)

The abortion scenes earned the movie its R rating, for “some disturbing/bloody images,” which meant that its trailers could not run in front of non-R-rated films, or even on some Christian radio stations, such as K-Love and Air1. But the filmmakers said they were not willing to compromise on the graphic portrayals, which are central to the film’s appeal to viewers as a self-proclaimed exposé that promises hard truths.

In that first scene, teased in the trailer and on posters as “the moment that changed everything,” Abby, played by Bratcher, witnesses an ultrasound-guided termination of a pregnancy at 13 weeks. The ultrasound, as depicted on screen, shows a fetus with a discernible head, torso and limbs frantically squirming away from a doctor’s probe — an action that Abby later describes as “twisting and fighting for its life” — before being liquefied by suction.

Given a description of this scene, Jennifer Villavicencio, a fellow with the nonpartisan American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists who performs ultrasound-guided abortions but has not seen the film, said that while an ultrasound of a 13-week-old fetus may show a visible head and body, the notion that it would be “fighting for its life” is misleading.

“If you watch an ultrasound, certainly there is movement, but it’s not kicking its legs or recoiling,” said Villavicencio. She noted broad scientific consensus that fetuses cannot experience pain and therefore would not recoil from it until well after 13 weeks.

“There is no neurological capability for awareness of danger — that part of the brain is simply not there yet,” she said.

Konzelman and Solomon defended the scene as faithful to Johnson’s personal account and said it had been vetted by Anthony Levatino, a retired obstetrician-gynecologist and longtime anti-abortion activist, who also plays the doctor in the scene.

Ultimately, “Unplanned” may not need scientific consensus to be effective with its most critical base of support. At the sold-out AMC theater in New Jersey, several attendees, who identified as being against abortion rights, said they were moved by a film that addressed what they said was the deeper truth of a subject few are willing to face head on.

“This movie tells the truth and a lot of times we don’t get an opportunity to see that,” said Cheryl A. Riley, director of the Respect Life office for the Archdiocese of Newark, who organized the viewing and works with women who have had abortions.

Describing herself, like Johnson, as formerly in favor of abortion rights, Riley choked up while recalling her own experience terminating a pregnancy at 19: “I know that story and I know that pain.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/movies/unplanned-movie-abortion.html" id="b8290ed0-9ec1-3292-aa83-956defd8f9d9">The New York Times</a>.

With 'Unplanned,' Abortion Opponents Turn Toward Hollywood

CLIFTON, N.J. — It was a rare packed house for a weeknight in the suburbs and when the movie was over the sold-out crowd of about 100 last Wednesday spilled haltingly into the light.

The filmmakers said they want the same treatment as that given to films favored by the abortion-rights movement, such as “On the Basis of Sex,” about the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Konzelman also referenced an announced film that will star Sandra Bullock as former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, who has campaigned against restrictions on abortion rights.

Conveniently (and infallibly) labeled for the conscientious consumer, this is your guide to Oscar beef — from extra spicy to mild.

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

The debate: The long-awaited (some say cursed) Queen biopic is a surprise international smash. Given all the good will toward the band, and Rami Malek, who plays Freddie Mercury, that might have been enough to make it a populist cause célèbre, despite middling reviews from critics. But trouble started before the movie even wrapped.

With two weeks of filming left to go, director Bryan Singer was fired for what the studio said were unexplained absences. Later, a man filed a lawsuit accusing Singer of sexually assaulting him at a yacht party in 2003. (Singer denied the allegations.) And, in January, The Atlantic published the accounts of four others who said Singer had sex with them when they were underage. The director called the article a “homophobic smear piece,” but in response BAFTA removed Singer as a nominee, and GLAAD rescinded a nomination for the film.

Malek and the film’s producers have pointedly distanced themselves from Singer in speeches and interviews. But the director is still officially credited in “Rhapsody” (owing to union rules) and stands to earn as much as $40 million for his work on the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

How hot is this beef?Extra spicy. Even if you love “Rhapsody,” the Singer allegations give pause.

‘Green Book’

The debate: Few movies in contention this year have been as divisive as “Green Book,” the earnest, civil rights-era, interracial buddy film directed by Peter Farrelly.

The film is based on the true story of a black pianist (Don Shirley, played by Mahershala Ali) who hired a white driver and bodyguard (Tony Vallelonga, played by Viggo Mortensen) to chauffeur him on a tour across the Deep South in 1962.

Some controversies surrounding the movie involved cast or crew missteps: Mortensen used a racial epithet in a Q. and A., then issued an apology. Farrelly’s history of jokingly exposing himself on set resurfaced, and he also issued an apology. And a story about an anti-Muslim tweet from screenwriter Nick Vallelonga (son of the driver) led him to issue an apology.

But there are larger criticisms of the movie. Many have argued that its simplified, feel-good message distorts history. And that was before members of Shirley’s family publicly condemned the film, calling it “a symphony of lies.”

Nick Vallelonga has said he based his story on conversations with Shirley himself.

How hot is this beef?Extra spicy. A recent spike in hate crimes and the concerns of African-American audiences have justifiably raised the bar for films about racial reconciliation in America. “Green Book” may not have the gears to clear it.

‘Vice’

The debate: With this madcap, stylistically varied portrait of Dick Cheney and the world he made, Adam McKay hoped to repeat the magic trick he pulled off with “The Big Short”: turning convoluted recent history into fun and informative popcorn fare. This time, though, some critics have tagged McKay’s version of events as both vacuous and paternalistic, suggesting that the director was out of his depth. A pair of fourth-wall-breaking post-credits sequences, in which the viewing audience is implicated directly, didn’t help.

How hot is this beef?Medium. Unless Amy Adams (nominated for her performance as Lynne Cheney) is snubbed, then call 911.

‘BlacKkKlansman’

The debate: Spike Lee is finally getting a victory lap thanks to the box office and critical success of this film, about a black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. “BlacKkKlansman” is nominated for six Oscars, including best director, the first time Lee has been honored in that category. But some observers, including Boots Riley, director of “Sorry to Bother You,” have noted that the film takes more than a few liberties with the historical record, and accused Lee of ginning up a false, feel-good story about a police department on the right side of history. Lee has defended himself by pointing to his long track record on civil rights and suggesting that he shouldn’t be expected to be critical of all police all of the time. “Black people are not a monolithic group,” he told The Times of London.

We have gathered here today to discuss not the artistic merits of this year’s Academy Award nominees for best picture, but the controversies, firestorms and outright debacles that cling to them like dog hair to a dropped Tootsie Pop.

Reggie Ugwu

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