- 5 months ago
Cursed Films season 2 episode 4 The Serpent and the Rainbow
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00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:30Transcription by CastingWords
01:00Transcription by CastingWords
01:30Transcription by CastingWords
01:59Transcription by CastingWords
02:30My great professor, Richard Evans Schultes,
02:33was very interested in this rumored existence of a folk poison in Haiti
02:39that was said to bring on a state of apparent death so profound it could fool a physician.
02:45So he casually asked me if I was interested in going down to the island nation of Haiti
02:49and searching for the formula of a drug reputedly implicated in this business of making zombies.
02:56And naturally I said yes.
02:57Zombies, the living dead, have for years been the staple ingredient of second-rate horror movies.
03:06But is there any truth behind the Hollywood fantasies?
03:09A couple of years ago, Newsnight took a look behind the cinema clichés
03:12and found that on the West Indian island of Haiti, truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
03:18What drove the whole story was the discovery by a man called Lamarque Duyon of the case of Clarius Narcisse.
03:25This is 62 years old Clurvius Narcisse.
03:30He's looking at the grave in which he was buried 19 years ago.
03:35The funeral was attended by all his family and friends.
03:38He heard everything when he was put in the coffin, when he was put in the grave,
03:42and he was showing you a scar here.
03:45It was a nail from his coffin.
03:49So these lines of evidence led Duyon to go public,
03:52saying he had found the first verifiable instance of the living dead.
03:56And what he meant by that is he had found an individual
03:59who by all accounts had been pronounced dead and turned back up into the realm of the living.
04:04These powders, of which I have somewhere,
04:09this poison doesn't make a zombie.
04:14The question is, can this poison make someone appear to be dead?
04:18It's a whole plethora of ingredients.
04:22Bufomeranus, the Caribbean toad,
04:24with these big parotid glands with the cardiacic steroids in them,
04:28a number of toxic plants, broken glass,
04:32also human remains for magical reasons.
04:35And the most powerful neurotoxin found on Earth,
04:40it's called tetratotoxin.
04:42It comes from the viscera and the skin
04:45of a couple of different genera of pufferfish, if you will,
04:49which includes the legendary fugu fish,
04:52which is prepared by specially licensed chefs
04:55who are said in the West to eliminate the toxin.
05:01One of the things that I was completely unprepared for
05:04was how this would all kind of explode over the American media.
05:10So I walked off the street to a literary agent in London
05:13and secured a book advance,
05:15and I used the book advance to finish the research,
05:18but then I had to write a book,
05:20and that's how The Serpent Rainbow was actually written.
05:24The book really did attempt to take a phenomenon,
05:28the Haitian zombie,
05:28that had been used in an explicitly racist way
05:32to denigrate a people and their religion,
05:34and to try to make sense out of it.
05:35And I think David Ladd, the producer, really got that.
05:39And I think that was every bit his intention.
05:42My name is David Ladd.
05:44I was the producer of The Serpent and the Rainbow.
05:48What I saw as a commercial appeal
05:50was the reality that zombies actually exist.
05:53I mean, zombies have been fodder for films
05:56for years and years and years.
05:58But the fact that they actually exist
06:01was fascinating to me.
06:04And the lead character was a real-life,
06:07honest-to-God Indiana Jones.
06:09He was the real deal.
06:11My favorite director at that time was Peter Weir,
06:14and I thought that The Year of Living Dangerously
06:16was a really remarkable template
06:18for what I had actually experienced in Haiti.
06:20All of a sudden, Wes popped up and said,
06:25gee, I'd really like to do this.
06:27And we couldn't resist.
06:30Wes was the hottest genre director in the business,
06:35and, you know, zombies, Wes Craven.
06:38Who could pass on that?
06:40Wade was both grateful and horrified.
06:44How can you do this?
06:45This is a serious piece of work.
06:48Are you a horror film fan?
06:50No, I'm not at all a horror film fan.
06:52I really have no relationship to the genre whatsoever.
06:55You do now, though, right?
06:57Well, I suppose I do now, you know.
07:00Wes was very keen to move out of the horror genre at the time,
07:04and I remember Wes saying to me sincerely
07:07that he thought Serpent of the Rainbow
07:08would be his sort of ticket out in a way.
07:13My father was, like, kind of a renaissance man.
07:16He didn't set out to be a horror director.
07:20I think that he was excited to kind of leave horror a little bit,
07:27but I think that horror did allow him
07:29to work out some of his demons from childhood.
07:34He basically didn't have a father.
07:36His father left him when he was very, very young
07:38and died when he was five.
07:40His mother, Caroline, my grandmother,
07:42was constantly trying to get my father to stop making
07:45these terrible, awful movies you're making.
07:50In the Last House, Hills Have Eyes era,
07:53he was a madman.
07:54You know, that's it.
07:55And people thought he should be locked up.
07:58I thought it was awesome that he was making these films.
08:00In those days, when you said you did those kind of movies,
08:04people would make little comments, like,
08:06I never watched those.
08:08So he was a little bit insecure about that.
08:12Well, when I first met Wes,
08:13I had an interview with him.
08:15Two days before the interview,
08:17I watched Nightmare on Elm Street.
08:18It was so scary.
08:20And the night before, I watched Last House on the Left.
08:23And that was a little daunting.
08:25But then when I met him, he was so nice and charming.
08:30And he gave me a job as his assistant on Deadly Friend.
08:34They sent us the book, Serpent and the Rainbow.
08:36What a story.
08:37You know, zombies in Haiti.
08:39And this was a big studio movie.
08:43Then we just started casting.
08:45Bill, at the time, did a movie for my brother
08:49called Spaceballs,
08:51which was how I was introduced to him.
08:53And I thought, Bill looks a lot like Wade Davis.
08:59Bob.
09:00And so we brought him in,
09:02and Wes fell in love with him.
09:04And from that point on, the part was his.
09:09That was the third movie that I was part of.
09:13First one, small part, didn't shoot very long on it.
09:16Second one, a magnum opus Spaceballs,
09:21which was quite exotic.
09:22But the Serpent and the Rainbow took it all to another level.
09:28And I thought, is this what my life is going to be like?
09:33And it's only now that I realized,
09:35no, that never happened again.
09:38Never had quite experience as we did on Serpent and the Rainbow.
09:41After I did Mona Lisa in 1986,
09:48my agent mentioned about this film,
09:52The Serpent and the Rainbow.
09:54And of course, the whole, you know, voodoo for a black person.
09:59How Hollywood has interpreted voodoo in the past
10:02as being these savages.
10:04So I wanted to get this right.
10:07A blonde captain in the darkness of voodoo land.
10:14Where do we get this idea of voodoo being a black magic cult?
10:17It largely comes from the fact that the U.S. Marine Corps
10:22occupied Haiti in the 1920s and stayed for 20 years.
10:28During the era of Jim Crow,
10:30segregation in the South,
10:32many of the Marines were from the South,
10:34and everybody above the rank of sergeant got a book contract.
10:37And the books had names like Cannibal Cousins,
10:41Black Baghdad,
10:42Voodoo Fire in Haiti,
10:44A Puritan in Voodoo Land,
10:46The Magic Island,
10:47and all this pulp fiction that gave rise to the RKO movies.
10:53She's making voodoo.
10:55She's making voodoo what?
10:58Voodoo!
10:59I do?
11:00That you do. Voodoo.
11:02Zombies on Broadway,
11:04Zombies of the Stratosphere,
11:05The White Zombie Slave,
11:07were full of children bred for the cauldron,
11:10pins and needles and voodoo dolls that don't even exist,
11:13and of course, notoriously,
11:15zombies crawling out of the grave to attack people.
11:23It's very unfashionable these days
11:25to have any anti-black images,
11:26but make them voodoo priests,
11:28because then we can absolutely exploit them in any way possible.
11:31And I thought there was a lot
11:33of not-too-far-under-the-surface racism in this movie
11:36that really offended me.
11:37My entire investigation
11:40was trying to take this phenomenon
11:42that had been used in a racist way
11:43to denigrate a people
11:45and try to make sense out of sensation.
11:47Wade was very much into the authenticity
11:50of what we were doing.
11:53No other people looked like the Haitians
11:57or had the kind of culture of the Haitians.
12:00That's something that lives in that island.
12:06I mean, what an adventure to go and make a film in Haiti.
12:11When I was getting out of school,
12:13I was interested in writing and directing and all that stuff.
12:18My father said,
12:19come on out and see what it's like to be on a real film set.
12:22Weirdly, when I was a really little kid,
12:25I was on the last house set like twice.
12:27On the Lower East Side, I had my balloon popped.
12:30That had been the sum of my experience on the set.
12:33If you want to do this,
12:36this is a really, really hard business.
12:39So if you're going to work with me,
12:40you're going to work your way up from the bottom.
12:43David Anderson, who is doing makeup effects for his father,
12:47was somebody I hung out with all the time.
12:50David Anderson, our makeup effects guy,
12:53his dad took the job and said,
12:54oh, you can have my son.
12:56Because Lance didn't want to go to Haiti.
12:59So we didn't know that was David's first job.
13:02Serpent was the first feature
13:03that I was working for my dad on.
13:05And he tapped me to go to set.
13:08He said, I'm going to send you to Tahiti.
13:11And I was really excited.
13:13And then I realized it was Tahiti, not Tahiti.
13:16Although to me, at that point,
13:18there really wasn't a whole lot of difference
13:19between Haiti and Tahiti.
13:22But there is now.
13:24While I was getting off the plane
13:27in Port-au-Prince, Haiti,
13:28I kind of recognized a couple of faces
13:30that had been on the other flight
13:32and soon realized that we were on the same crew
13:35and that we were heading the same place.
13:37This was such an amazing adventure.
13:39We were all similar in age
13:42and we were all early-ish in our careers.
13:45Wes loved it.
13:46He was right there in the middle of everything.
13:50David Ladd called me up and said,
13:52well, what are you wearing in Haiti?
13:53I said, I don't know,
13:54but there's this outfit in San Francisco
13:56you've never heard of called Banana Republic.
13:58They make all these great linen and cotton clothes.
14:02At the time, Banana Republic was a store
14:04where you bought your stuff to go on safari.
14:07You know, become adventurers like Indiana Jones.
14:10I mean, they had the hats and the,
14:12I mean, it was, you know, you had a whole look.
14:15And I got down to the set,
14:17the whole goddamn production from grip to director
14:19was dressed head-to-toe in Banana Republic.
14:22Didn't really seem the kind of stuff
14:25that Wade would wear,
14:26but David really said,
14:28oh, wait till you meet him.
14:29He dresses like this.
14:31This is how he dresses.
14:33And David had begun to dress like this
14:36and basically it was Banana Republic stuff.
14:40The pants with the pockets on the side.
14:42It was great.
14:47At the time when we first went down there,
14:51Baby Doc had fallen as the dictator of Haiti.
14:55The president for life they called Baby Doc
14:58flew away from Haiti today to France.
15:00A few hours before dawn today,
15:02an American military transport plane
15:05took off from Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince
15:07carrying President Jean-Claude Duvalier,
15:10members of his family,
15:11and several staff, people, and security guards.
15:14It brought to an end
15:15one of the longest-running
15:17and most brutal dictatorships in the Caribbean.
15:19As soon as the Haitian people
15:21heard the news this morning,
15:22there was dancing in the streets,
15:24along with numerous reports of violence
15:26against members of the dreaded militia
15:29associated with Baby Doc.
15:31That was the Tonton Macout,
15:34which was the kind of secret police
15:36of the Duvaliers
15:37and their reign in Haiti.
15:40It was a wild time down there.
15:44Unfortunately, I mean, Haiti has struggled
15:46ever since and before, long before.
15:49These are all from Haiti.
16:02I was taught to take more pictures than you need.
16:07These are just continuity from the script.
16:09So this was obviously Bill
16:11when he just got hit with the powder.
16:13And this was from a scene that David Ladd, I believe,
16:21shot, a second unit director scene.
16:24That's where I learned the term magic hour.
16:26It's magic hour!
16:27What the fuck is magic hour?
16:28Before we started filming,
16:33we were all invited to a voodoo ceremony
16:35where we were all going to be blessed.
16:37It was like,
16:39OK, you guys are here in Haiti?
16:40Well, guess what?
16:41You're going to come into the jungle,
16:42you're going to get hammered on alcohol,
16:45and then we're going to show you some shit.
16:47And that's exactly what happened.
16:49What the producers were thinking,
16:51we went out at night
16:53into the heart of the countryside
16:55to a voodoo ceremony.
16:58Women and men would come out and do these dances
17:01and then allow themselves to become possessed.
17:05You'd see that moment of possession.
17:09Now this person is being ridden by a god.
17:12It was all real at that moment.
17:15These people believed it,
17:17and after that evening, so did we.
17:21What it did is it turned
17:22this group of strangers into a family.
17:26It was a ceremony to bless us
17:28and take away all the evil spirits
17:31to protect us
17:32so that we could successfully
17:34make this film in Haiti.
17:41It felt to me that every day was 16 or 18 hours.
17:44It was an insanely ambitious amount of material
17:50and not a lot of control.
17:54Everything was shot on location,
17:56so you're always in a village,
17:58many of which had never seen a film crew before.
18:02There's tons of extras around
18:04and people that didn't know not to look in the camera,
18:07and it was definitely not a normal film set experience.
18:14Thinking back on it,
18:15I just think who were protecting us as a film crew
18:19because we did not come across the Tonton Macoud,
18:24but they were there.
18:25I think the producers really underestimated
18:29the danger of Haiti.
18:33I just kind of had a sense that
18:34this isn't going to be as easy as you think.
18:37I wasn't qualified to be there at all.
18:41You know, whether I was a seasoned filmmaker or not,
18:43nobody had an advantage over me
18:46because it was all new.
18:51We were wanting to honor their traditions
18:53and particularly the religion.
18:56Part of it was,
18:57I think everybody knew we needed to have them favor us
19:02and that if we didn't get their favor,
19:05we would have a hard time shooting.
19:08Things could turn bad.
19:10I had done some traveling,
19:31but you still get culture shock
19:33when you're somewhere like that.
19:36And everyone had culture shock,
19:37especially a lot of the actors had culture shock.
19:40And many people,
19:41a few people had nervous breakdowns over there.
19:45We had a writer, Richard Maxwell,
19:48who literally was possessed at a certain point.
19:52That was one of the most odd experiences
19:56of the film and of the making of it.
19:59Richard was down there.
20:00And of course,
20:02he wanted to be exposed to as many
20:05of the authentic characters and places
20:09as he could possibly be
20:11as he was doing that kind of final rewrite with Wes.
20:15I don't remember the specifics of it,
20:17but Richard got involved with a voodoo practitioner
20:20who he thought had put a curse on him.
20:23Richard was a nice guy,
20:25and he was very sincere about voodoo,
20:26but he got so shaken by the experience
20:28he had a nervous breakdown on the set.
20:30I think they sent Jill Simpson to his room
20:34to see how he was doing,
20:37and he was only in a T-shirt.
20:40And as I recall,
20:41it like had a bullseye on it,
20:42and that was it, nothing else.
20:44You know, it was...
20:45It was...
20:47So obviously she came back,
20:48she said,
20:48oh my God, we're in trouble.
20:51I'd seen him at dinner or something,
20:52and how are the rewrites going?
20:56It was the moment when he said,
20:57yeah, I really got a lot done.
21:00I, you know,
21:01there was trouble with the original name
21:03for my character,
21:06and it had...
21:07Eventually the lawyers decided
21:11that Dennis would be a good first name,
21:14and I hated that name.
21:16I just never liked Dennis,
21:17but that's what he had to do,
21:19and I remember he said,
21:20I got a lot done.
21:22I've changed all the names.
21:25So every one of them says Dennis.
21:28And I realized,
21:30oh, that's like a click.
21:32Software.
21:34This one morning,
21:35we found him standing outside Wes's door,
21:39completely naked,
21:41and around him were 25 cigarette butts.
21:47Wes opened the door,
21:50and there he was,
21:51and he's just like,
21:51I'm sorry, man,
21:52I can't do it.
21:53And he just stood there and smoked
21:55until Wes got up,
21:56and Wes came and got me.
22:00I got on a plane with him
22:02and got him to Miami,
22:04handed him off to his wife,
22:05and he was flown home.
22:07But he was completely under
22:09some kind of a,
22:11what he thought was a voodoo spill.
22:13Other people had nervous breakdowns.
22:15Who else had a nervous breakdown?
22:17I don't know if I can tell you.
22:19It might have been one of the actors.
22:22And I think they had
22:23a nightmare or a vision.
22:31Really, I always have a hard time
22:33talking about this.
22:37Because I don't know the audience.
22:39You know,
22:40I don't know people's openness.
22:45I went through this ceremony,
22:48and just really,
22:51some unsettling things happened,
22:54and in terms of things
22:56that I perceived about myself
22:58in different environments
22:59and everything,
22:59and so right away,
23:01Wes is like,
23:01what'd you take?
23:02What'd you drink?
23:03Did you smoke anything?
23:04Some of it is pretty much
23:10some things that people
23:14probably have experienced
23:16in different times
23:17with clairvoyance
23:18or sense of past lives
23:22or something.
23:28I had a lot of sequences
23:32to do with traveling
23:33really quickly
23:34over the surface of Africa
23:36and moving towards
23:40a gathering of people
23:42out in the middle of nowhere.
23:45And I realized
23:46there was a convocation
23:47of people of all skin,
23:49tones, and colors,
23:50and that there was
23:52the steps with an oration.
23:54That was an experience
23:55where I was so disturbed.
23:58I canceled the rehearsals
24:00the next day.
24:02They said,
24:02what's the matter with you?
24:03And I didn't want
24:05to talk about it.
24:05You know,
24:06I just,
24:06but Wes was really like,
24:09this is why we came here.
24:13We shot a scene
24:14in a cemetery
24:15at night,
24:17and I actually had
24:19to get into
24:20an open grave
24:22that one of our skeletons
24:23had to go in
24:24that I had to get in
24:25and dress.
24:27That's just one
24:27of those moments
24:28where you just go,
24:29what the fuck
24:29am I doing here?
24:31Getting into the hole,
24:32I'll never forget
24:33looking and seeing
24:34the rocks
24:34around the walls
24:35of the hole
24:37that they had dug
24:37for me
24:38and coming to
24:39the realization
24:39that those were not rocks,
24:41that those were bones,
24:42and they were at all levels.
24:44They were bones.
24:45People piled on top of people.
24:46Shit.
24:47Are you okay?
24:48And we had just dug
24:49and we had just dug
24:49this horrible hole
24:53right in the middle
24:53of it all
24:54and excavated
24:55all these body parts
24:57and bodies
24:57and put them aside
24:58and put our fake skeleton
25:00in there
25:00and shot the scene.
25:02And, uh,
25:03for that,
25:04I'm probably going to hell.
25:06There's all these scenes
25:07with piles of skulls
25:08and piles of bones
25:09everywhere, right?
25:10And set dressing
25:11was three or four
25:12enormous gunny sacks
25:14of human bones.
25:16And I never asked
25:17where they got them.
25:18I didn't want to know.
25:20Should I even be
25:21talking about this?
25:22Like, I don't even know
25:23that this is cool.
25:24You know,
25:25this is not cool.
25:26Like...
25:26We had several members
25:29of local crew
25:30and this one woman
25:32in particular
25:32was going to help us
25:34wrangle some bones
25:35for an altar
25:35that we were creating.
25:37And, um,
25:38when she delivered the bones,
25:40we realized
25:40they were real human bones
25:42and she had, uh,
25:44robbed a grave.
25:47There's a lot of stories
25:49I don't know
25:49if I want to tell.
25:50I don't even know
25:50if I should have told
25:51the bones story,
25:52but, um...
25:53Too late.
25:54Yeah.
25:54When they go
25:57to make the voodoo potion
25:59in the cemetery,
26:00there's a shot
26:02where the camera
26:02kind of dollies
26:03through the gravestones.
26:05And I don't want
26:06to accuse anybody of this.
26:08Somebody told me,
26:09like,
26:09we're going to put
26:09a dolly track down here
26:11so those two headstones
26:12have to move
26:13and, you know,
26:16clear the path.
26:18Like, make a level path.
26:20And, um,
26:21the graves were not deep
26:22and the bodies
26:24didn't seem
26:24to be in coffins.
26:26So there was
26:27sort of some moving
26:29of bones
26:29and you'd kind of
26:30move a headstone,
26:31you know,
26:31take a picture
26:31of the headstones
26:32and move it
26:33and put it back later.
26:35I think we may have
26:36desecrated some stuff.
26:38I'm not sure,
26:39but I don't remember.
26:39I could,
26:40it could all be a hallucination.
26:41Please don't hold me
26:42to any of this.
26:43To me,
26:44when a bunch of Americans
26:45try to recreate something
26:47that's happening
26:47in Haitian culture,
26:48that's enough
26:49to be a little nerve-wracking
26:50right there.
26:51If we had disrupted
26:53something there
26:54by doing something wrong,
26:56would we have called in
26:57a god that was angry at us?
26:59I don't know.
27:05At this point,
27:07we'd been there
27:07for a number of weeks.
27:11But nobody had really dealt
27:13with the desperation
27:15of the people.
27:18So it was kind of
27:19a little bit shocking
27:22and a little bit frightening
27:23to see this all of a sudden
27:25change in the way
27:26that it had.
27:30We were shooting
27:31the giant procession.
27:34So we had our main characters
27:36and literally thousands
27:39of Haitian extras.
27:40I think there was 2,000.
27:42They hired like 1,500 extras
27:46that of course
27:49quickly grew
27:50to 3,000 or 4,000 in Haiti.
27:53Then they had the naivete
27:55to think that the assistant director
27:56could go cut.
27:59Well, you don't let lose
28:004,000 Haitians,
28:01drums, night, torches,
28:03and music,
28:04and song,
28:05and chant,
28:06and go cut.
28:07I mean,
28:07this was a full-on ceremony
28:09at this point.
28:10And rumor went out
28:19that everybody
28:20wasn't going to get paid.
28:21Some of the extras
28:22found out that
28:23other people
28:24were getting more money,
28:25and so they all
28:26were demanding
28:27to be paid
28:27the greater amount
28:29of money.
28:30And it may have been
28:31the difference
28:31of a dollar to $10,
28:33which, you know,
28:34that many years ago
28:35in Haiti
28:35was an incredible
28:36amount of money.
28:38There was a lot
28:38of people
28:39even before
28:40we came down there
28:41and said,
28:42you're going to come
28:43into Haiti
28:43and you have
28:44an insane amount
28:46of money
28:46for this conditions
28:48that these people
28:49live in here.
28:50The average pay
28:52a day
28:53is a dollar
28:54for cutting sugar cane.
28:55One of the worst jobs
28:56you could ever have
28:57in this life.
28:59And I think production
29:00was trying to get,
29:01well,
29:02we'll give them
29:02$3 a day.
29:03they felt
29:06that we were
29:06underpaying them
29:07and I think
29:07we probably were
29:08and they wanted
29:10more money.
29:14You know,
29:15suddenly I began
29:16to get a feeling
29:18that people
29:18were getting anxious
29:19and I was hearing
29:20from the ADs
29:21that there was
29:22a talk of a strike,
29:24that the extras
29:25were going to strike.
29:26and then,
29:29you know,
29:29that kind of became
29:30louder and louder
29:32and then became
29:33more like a little bit
29:34of an unrest.
29:37And I'll never forget,
29:38at this point,
29:39I thought I had
29:39a great bond
29:40with these people
29:41and I got up
29:41on top of a bus
29:43and was trying
29:44to negotiate
29:44with them.
29:45I remember him
29:46with a megaphone
29:47in his
29:48Banana Republic outfit
29:49and on top
29:51of this building
29:52the megaphone
29:53and a translator
29:55trying to
29:56talk everybody
29:58down.
29:59And I looked down
29:59and they all
30:00had rocks
30:00in their hands.
30:02And the negotiations
30:02fell apart
30:03and they revolted
30:05and started
30:05throwing rocks at us.
30:07And they started
30:07to kind of riot.
30:09We had to leave
30:09our camera equipment.
30:10Everybody had to,
30:11we had to run
30:11into a church
30:12and lock the door.
30:14We were surrounded
30:15and we,
30:19we needed
30:20to get out.
30:21In the meantime,
30:22Doug had ensconced
30:23himself in a house
30:24and he was paying
30:26the extras
30:27with what money
30:28he had.
30:29The word was out
30:30that we are
30:31out of here.
30:31And I literally
30:33ran straight from set
30:35into a bus,
30:36got in the bus
30:37and off we went.
30:38And I was in
30:39one of the first buses
30:40that left
30:41with rocks pelting
30:43the back of the bus
30:44as we left.
30:46We went straight
30:47from that location,
30:48straight to a running
30:49plane
30:50and straight to
30:51the Dominican Republic.
30:52That was it
30:54for Haiti.
30:56I do like
30:57to be an adventurer.
30:59But with adventure
31:01comes responsibility
31:03as well.
31:06No one had thought
31:07about, you know,
31:08you're going to gather
31:09a thousand people
31:10together
31:10who are making
31:12three dollars a day.
31:14I think it was
31:15a naive decision.
31:16We all got over
31:19at Dominican Republic,
31:21Santo Domingo.
31:22Everybody's
31:23completely exhausted
31:23and the luggage
31:26doesn't appear.
31:30Obviously,
31:31there's a scam
31:31happening.
31:32So I got on
31:33the luggage rack
31:33and I crawled
31:34through the door
31:35and went out
31:35on the tarmac
31:36and came around
31:38the side of the
31:38luggage van
31:39filled with luggage
31:40from the plane
31:41and I saw like
31:43five Dominican cops
31:44trying on
31:44everybody's clothes.
31:47Caught them
31:48red-handed
31:49and I just said,
31:50no, you know,
31:51I speak Spanish.
31:52I said, no, no.
31:53Eso no es posible.
31:55Hermanos, por favor.
32:00When you make a film,
32:02you become a family.
32:05This is a group
32:06of people
32:06that are brought
32:07together anywhere
32:08from three or four
32:10months' worth
32:11of time
32:11to a year's time
32:13and you share
32:16your life with them
32:17and they share
32:18their lives
32:18with you.
32:20So this is Marianne.
32:21She and Jill,
32:22this is Jill Simpson
32:23here,
32:24were this dynamic duo
32:26and without them,
32:28I don't think
32:28Wes could have
32:29functioned.
32:32Serpent the Rainbow
32:32was the movie
32:33that Wes and I
32:34decided to become
32:35partners on.
32:36I started working
32:39with Wes
32:40as a producer
32:40on Shocker.
32:43We did Shocker
32:44and People
32:44Under the Stairs
32:45for Universal.
32:48We clicked
32:49and we were
32:50really good friends
32:50and we just had
32:51a really good
32:52partnership.
32:54I just thought
32:55Wes was going
32:55to be here forever
32:56because he was
32:57so full of life
32:58and interested
32:59and intriguing
33:00and it just
33:02kind of doesn't
33:02make sense
33:03that he's gone
33:03even to me now.
33:06It was family.
33:11Obviously for David
33:12as well.
33:12I mean,
33:12he met his wife
33:13through Serpent
33:14and the Rainbow.
33:16I had to ask
33:17for his approval
33:18to marry Heather,
33:19basically.
33:23I didn't even ask
33:24Heather's father.
33:25I had to ask
33:25Wes Craven.
33:29So,
33:29there you have it.
33:31Thank you, Wes.
33:34People loved him.
33:36People went
33:37through hell
33:37for him
33:38and did it gladly.
33:40Like,
33:40we're happy
33:41to be there.
33:43You know,
33:43for me,
33:44it could be
33:44challenging at times
33:45because I was like,
33:45the film crew
33:47is really your family.
33:49Everybody worked
33:49with my father
33:50and people
33:50interfaced with him
33:51and interviewed him
33:52and knew him.
33:53Like,
33:54he's such a great guy
33:55and he was.
33:56He was a great guy.
33:57He was not
33:57a great father.
33:59I've talked to
34:01a lot of people
34:02about it.
34:02It just wasn't
34:03something that he
34:04could really wrap
34:05his head around.
34:06He wanted to,
34:07I think,
34:08but he didn't
34:10want to do that
34:10more than he wanted
34:11to be a director
34:12and wanted to be
34:13who he had become.
34:15He tried to branch out
34:17and do other things.
34:18He comes back to horror.
34:19That's where the opportunity
34:20is and that's
34:21where he gets to process.
34:23Whatever happened
34:24to him as a child,
34:25which I know
34:25broad strokes of,
34:27there's definitely
34:28trauma there.
34:30I think he did
34:31what he did really well
34:32and he put everything
34:33into it and he had
34:34a lot of compassion
34:35for the people
34:36who were around him.
34:38I think he had
34:39a lot of compassion
34:40for me and my sister.
34:41He didn't always
34:42know how to connect
34:43and that's true
34:47for a lot of people,
34:48a lot of fathers
34:48and sons.
34:53We're not going
34:54to be, like,
34:54super cozy
34:55as father and son.
34:57But we were able
34:58to come together
34:59on film sets
34:59and that was
35:01a beautiful thing.
35:02when the film came out,
35:21I was disappointed.
35:24These gratuitous horror elements
35:27to my mind
35:28completely deflated
35:30the power
35:31of the truth
35:32of the story.
35:33But I also
35:35clearly recognized
35:36that it wasn't
35:36my film.
35:37It was Wes Craven's film.
35:40In my book,
35:41I had targeted
35:43these movies
35:44as being
35:45the perpetrators
35:46of the grotesque
35:47stereotypes
35:48about voodoo.
35:49and then suddenly
35:52I'm held responsible
35:53for a Wes Craven movie
35:54that by all accounts
35:56essentially perpetuates
35:57that same stereotype.
36:00That's when I started
36:01to think about representation
36:03and I guess, you know,
36:06the white saviourism.
36:08Probably the protagonist
36:09would be black now.
36:13I felt that Bill
36:14was the right actor, though.
36:16He was very sensitive
36:19to his role,
36:21you know,
36:21and to other people.
36:24I think for
36:26young black actresses
36:28now,
36:30there's a record
36:30of somebody
36:31who worked there
36:32in 1988
36:33and did the female lead.
36:36I'm proud of that legacy.
36:43I'm proud of that legacy.
36:44I think that Wade,
37:00you know,
37:01he has very mixed emotions
37:02about it
37:03because on the one hand,
37:04you know,
37:05he felt that maybe
37:06we had to a degree
37:07bastardized
37:08this serious piece of work.
37:12But on the other hand,
37:13it made
37:14Wade Davis
37:15Wade Davis.
37:18I literally went
37:19from being kind of
37:20the darling
37:21of the Haitian community
37:22to being
37:23a so-called
37:24controversial figure.
37:27So it was a very
37:28bittersweet
37:29convergence of forces
37:31that occurred.
37:33That said,
37:34I totally honored
37:35the people
37:36that worked so hard
37:37to make it.
37:38And I left it
37:39all behind me
37:40without bitterness
37:41or contempt
37:43and only joy.
37:44But then I just
37:45went on
37:46with a new phase
37:46of my life
37:47and became
37:47an activist
37:48working on behalf
37:49of the last
37:50nomadic people,
37:52the rainforests
37:52of Southeast Asia.
37:54And I have not
37:55been back
37:55to Haiti since.
37:56For me,
37:59the best film
38:00is to
38:01pose
38:02that
38:02as many people
38:03have.
38:03I love it.
38:06A film like that
38:07is very
38:08vendable.
38:09For me,
38:09it's
38:09that it's
38:10that it's
38:11Black
38:11Vintuels.
38:12It's just
38:13that.
38:13Because it's
38:14that it's
38:15that it's
38:15that Black
38:15Vintuels.
38:18And we
38:18know that
38:19we have
38:19a lot of
38:19resources
38:20that are
38:21capable
38:21to continue
38:22to be
38:22in our
38:23culture,
38:24in our
38:25profondeur
38:25cultured
38:26so that
38:26we can
38:27sell it.
38:27It will
38:28get us
38:28more
38:29profond.
38:29And I
38:31encourage
38:32the
38:32General
38:32of the
38:33Sineasio
38:33to
38:34puiser
38:34again
38:35for our
38:36products
38:36and to
38:37fight
38:37Hollywood.
38:38This time
38:38I know
38:39that it's
38:39an American
38:39who
38:40managed
38:41to puiser
38:42the
38:42Kainan
38:42to
38:42prove it.
38:43So I
38:44can
38:44invite
38:45them.
38:49All in
38:50all,
38:50when I look
38:50back on
38:51it,
38:52I believe
38:53there was
38:53a curse.
38:55I believe
38:56there are
38:56curses.
38:57I believe
38:58we were
38:58actually
38:59blessed
38:59and
39:00protected.
39:01What may
39:02have happened
39:03had we not
39:03gotten that
39:04blessing,
39:05you know,
39:06God only
39:06knows.
39:08But there
39:08was a
39:09certain
39:09confidence
39:10that was
39:10given to
39:10us all
39:11that night.
39:12I basically
39:13learned my
39:14craft through
39:15all of these
39:15people that
39:16I was now
39:17on an
39:18island with.
39:19Every experience
39:20just got soaked
39:21in and filed
39:21and became
39:22like the
39:23foundation.
39:23David Leroy
39:25Anderson for
39:26The Nutty
39:26Professor.
39:28And what I
39:29was able to
39:29achieve there
39:30with this
39:31film crew
39:32and with
39:32this film
39:33community
39:33was enough
39:36to make
39:36my dad
39:36proud and
39:37make me feel
39:38successful and
39:38make me come
39:39home excited
39:40about what I
39:41had done,
39:42but very,
39:43very aware
39:44of the fact
39:45that I
39:45didn't do
39:46any of it
39:47alone.
39:47The Nutty
39:59of the
40:00of the
40:02of the
40:02of the
40:03of the
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