Remembering Ed Pincus

In remembrance of Ed Pincus, David Sutherland Productions would like to share highlights of a recent dialogue between David and Ed, hosted by the LEF Foundation for the 10th anniversary celebration of the Moving Image Fund.

As part of the celebration, LEF invited David and Ed to view each other's work and select an intriguing scene to discuss. Ed selected a scene from Country Boys while David chose one from The Axe in the Attic, Ed's film with his filmmaking partner Lucia Small. A full transcript of the dialogue can be found here.

Sutherland: I thought there were several places where confrontations between filmmaker and subject happened. There’ a great scene with a husband, and his ex-wife, who’s living in a tent separate from him. They fight about their relationship on camera, and then turn and ask the confrontational question, “Are you both sleeping together?” (laughter) It’s a great scene, with lots of humor. What I’m trying to say for anyone who hasn’t seen the film, is that when you decided to do this, you definitely did it, whether it was embarrassing or not. I could never do this, so it’s totally foreign to my nature. But the way it was edited and put together, I thought it worked extremely well.

"As a filmmaker, it’s a way to say, we’re no different than you." - Ed Pincus

Pincus: Lucia and I feel that being a filmmaker is a very privileged position. You have a voice; your subjects don’t. Lucia primarily did sound and she has a very engaging personality. She wouldn’t interview people, but create conversations with them instead, which was totally new to me. I’m from the tradition of fly-on-the-wall filmmaker. Part of the humor comes out of this give and take between filmmaker and subject -- and it’s meant to have a lot of laughs. But also, by asking people difficult questions, people could confront us with difficult questions. It’s a way to say, we’re no different than you. We might not be under the same pressure you are, but we’re also vulnerable.