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Life & Times Transcript

03/02/06

Hena Cuevas>> Along the two thousand mile United States-Mexico border, cameras are an important tool. Night scopes help border patrols spot foreigners trying to dash across the desert. But the border patrol isn't the only one wielding cameras. Citizen groups like the American Civil Liberties Union are finding that video can say what words can't. This is an excerpt from their documentary, "Rights on the Line: Vigilantes at the Border".

>> "Whatever it takes to stop the flow of people coming across the border right now has to be done for the survival of America."

>> "We need to get them removed because they're taking over our communities as strangers from Mexico and wherever else they come from."

Hena Cuevas>> "Rights on the Line" is a joint production between the ACLU and the American Friends Service Committee. At first, the idea was to show the growing militarization of the border.

Ray Ybarra>> "So here we are, International Avenue, where I like to consider my little playground when we used to come and visit my grandfather. You just look at the gigantic steel fence. You can see a huge difference from what it was like when we were growing up here."

Hena Cuevas>> The narrator is Ray Ybarra from the ACLU who also shot most of the documentary. In April of last year, the Minuteman Project got off the ground. Ybarra found himself shooting footage of civilian volunteers lining up to stop illegal immigrants from crossing into the United States.

Ray Ybarra>> "You have people who want to come down here and patrol the border. The white supremacist websites are going crazy talking about this issue and I have no doubt in my mind that there will be white supremacists here hunting for migrants in April."

Hena Cuevas>> Nearly two thousand Minuteman volunteers from around the country converged along the border to assist immigration agents. The Minuteman Project was founded by Chris Simcox seen here in the documentary and Jim Gilchrist, an Orange County retiree who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year.

Jim Gilchrist>> I feel it's my duty as a patriotic American to come and help resolve the problem. Am I promoting revolution and burning down buildings? No, no, not at all.

Hena Cuevas>> Monica Hernandez is one of the producers of "Rights on the Line". She says it reveals the danger of civilians taking the law into their own hands.

Monica Hernandez>> There's been incidents of violence and this is just vigilantism. Vigilantism, as far as I know, is illegal, so that's what I see the problem being, the major problem.

Hena Cuevas>> The documentary paints the Minuteman Project as vigilantes, people who take the law into their own hands, but Minuteman founder Gilchrist refutes that description. He says the volunteers are there only to report illegal activity.

Jim Gilchrist>> This is not a war, not in a conventional sense. It's probably a philosophical war that I firmly believe in to preserve our national identity, our sovereignty.

Chris Simcox>> "So we're a neighborhood watch group. It's no different than a neighborhood watch group in many cities around this country."

Hena Cuevas>> The first footage was shot in Arizona, but as the Minuteman Project grew in popularity, it expanded to the San Diego area. Then the ACLU realized that the Arizona video could be useful in another way.

Monica Hernandez>> So we figured what we would do is then refocus our documentary to be more specific on what the vigilantes were doing out in Arizona and then use that as an organizing tool out in San Diego to prepare for when they would come down to San Diego.

Hena Cuevas>> Eventually, the Minutemen did make it into California and the ACLU followed with a hundred fifty observers and video cameras.

>> "Who goes there?"

>> "How you doing, gentlemen?"

>> "Good. How are you doing?"

>> "All right. Heard you got two."

>> "Who are you?"

>> Legal observers. How about you?"

>> Well, we didn't get anything. There's two gentlemen sitting down over here. They're waiting for BP."

Hena Cuevas>> This isn't the first time a group of private citizens has gone to the border. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the KKK gathered volunteers and decided to patrol the border. Back then, there were no official reports of violence and that, says founder Gilchrist, is going to be the key to keeping the Minuteman Project around. He says he needs to make sure his volunteers don't get into any trouble.

Jim Gilchrist>> I cannot guarantee that somebody isn't going to do something stupid someday, sometime. I mean, that's the law of probabilities. But, so far, we've had a hundred percent cooperation with our volunteers. We emphasize it. They're all mature enough to know that this is not a war. You're not down there to play cowboy.

Hena Cuevas>> Gilchrist and Simcox are sure the video will show that, so far, the Minutemen volunteers have been nonviolent.

Chris Simcox>> "No immigrant, illegal or legal, coming across that border has ever been harmed by an American citizen. There is not a documented account since 1976. There have been some wild allegations, but there's not one victim."

Hena Cuevas>> But the documentary producers wanted proof, so Ybarra did a public records request.

Monica Hernandez>> And we found this person who had been beaten up and had been deported. We actually went to Mexico City to do the interview with him there and he related to us what his actual experiences were when he was hit.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> But there is no way to know if the abuse was at the hands of a Minuteman volunteer or was in any way related to the project. And according to Gilchrist, they are the ones who have been attacked.

Jim Gilchrist>> Sometimes we have bricks thrown at us and coffee cups and bottles and other times somebody will threaten to stab us with a knife. We've been shot at once down the California border.

Hena Cuevas>> One of the biggest criticisms leveled against Gilchrist is that some of his volunteers carry guns.

Jim Gilchrist>> The reason is that, having been shot at and knowing that border patrol agents are shot at routinely and assaulted and battered with rocks and other weapons, I felt it would be a disservice to ask people to go to the border and martyr yourself for me. I mean, I'm kind of laughing there. How ridiculous does that sound? "Join me at the border and just turn the other cheek and let yourself be murdered." I'm not about to let that happen.

Hena Cuevas>> But Gilchrist emphasizes they're allowed only if it's in an area where it's already legal to do so. He's aware of the repercussions if someone were to get hurt or, even worse, killed.

Jim Gilchrist>> If someone does something seriously wrong, they will pay the consequences and I've made it very clear that I will side with my adversaries for their prosecution and conviction.

Hena Cuevas>> What do you tell people who watch these documentaries that are against your project?

Jim Gilchrist>> Believe almost nothing of what you see, absolutely nothing of what you read (laughter) and come and visit me. If you want to see what the Minuteman Project is all about, then come and join us.

Hena Cuevas>> However, Hernandez says that she hopes the video will sway public opinion. In the meantime, as border patrol cameras capture illegal crossings, video cameras may help ensure Americans themselves don't step over the line. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> Television advertisers are frustrated. More and more viewers are getting TiVo and skipping right through those commercials. That means they have to come up with other ways to get their products in front of consumers and they're doing it with something called "product integration".

You can see it most blatantly in so-called reality shows like "The Apprentice" or "Extreme Makeover - Home Edition". Products of companies don't just appear on screen visually. They're part of the script like this reference to a builder.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> The scripts are always positive because the company has paid to be part of the program's content. This has the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild taking to the picket line. They say actors should not have to shill for a product they may or may not endorse and, if they do endorse it, they should be paid and consumers should know that companies have paid to be written into the script. We talked with the president of the Writers Guild of America West, Patrick Verrone.

Patrick Verrone>> In my career, I've been fortunate to work on shows like "The Simpsons". I worked on "The Tonight Show" when Johnny Carson was there. The material that we wrote, for example, for Carson, he would deliver in front of the curtain or at the desk. Then if he turned to the camera and held up a bottle of beer or a box of cereal, somebody else wrote that or he adlibbed it. It was a different skill-set in terms of the actual advertisement of products and I think viewers are particularly savvy to the notion of being advertised to.

We're living in a quickly advancing electronic age where people have DVRs, digital video recorders, like TiVo where they speed through the thirty-second commercial. Producers are finding that they can't get the ad revenues that they want by just filling thirty-second commercials, so the advertisers are trying to insinuate the products into the body of the show.

The difficulty we have as writers and, again, actors and directors, is that's a different job. What we're being asked to do is to put that product possibly or likely in an incongruent presentation. It's uncomfortable. We don't get any additional compensation for it. In the case of many actors, if you're an actor that has a commercial contract with one brand of cola and you're being asked in a show to advertise another brand of cola, you actually have a conflict of interest to deal with.

So we've been -- again, we found this has been the case mostly or initially in reality television where writers and contestants don't have the protections of the unions and they've been sort of the canaries in the coalmine. They've been the first place that a lot of this new product integration has been tested and we're trying to hold the line. We've asked for a code of conduct with our employers. We're looking for a sort of rules and regulations that govern how this sort of thing is done.

Val Zavala>> So you're asking for a code of conduct. What are some of the key elements of that code that you would like to see enforced?

Patrick Verrone>> Well, chief among them is the notion of disclosure. There are rules on the books already. The Federal Communications Commission even before there was television had rules on the books that govern the notion of payola and placing products in exchange for money. You'll see on many shows and in movies at the end where credits will say, "Promotional consideration paid for by. . ." It's very important to us that those disclosures be in place because we believe, as viewers ourselves, that people want to be told when they're being sold to.

Val Zavala>> Money spent on product integration in television and film hit the one billion dollar mark in 2004. In television alone, there was an eighty-four percent increase in product integration. "The Apprentice" is famous for it. The show is full of quick references like this one.

Martha Stewart>> "Each team was given an empty suite at the Westin Hotel."

Val Zavala>> But it also contains longer scripts. You can bet that Wishbone paid a pretty penny for this.

Martha Stewart>> "When I was a child, my mom took me to the grocery store and bought her first jar of salad dressing. It was called Wishbone and Wishbone has been making salad dressing for about fifty years and their annual revenues are three hundred million dollars."

Patrick Verrone>> If advertisers want to have their products in these programs, they need to have the buy-in and the approval and the consent of the community of the writers and the actors.

Val Zavala>> Now regarding children's programming, some people would say there should not be any product placement, much less product integration, in children's programs precisely because of what you said. They're very impressionable.

Patrick Verrone>> That's right. It's certainly been the case that most of the companies are playing fair about that. There hasn't been, in our mind, a place where the children programming crosses those boundaries. But, you know, adults are being forced to watch stuff that -- I'm afraid what's going to happen is that people are going to end up speeding through the programming itself because it's got a commercial built in to it and you end up missing story points, you end up missing something that's not -- the firewall is going to be gone between advertisements and entertainment.

Val Zavala>> But our culture has become inundated with advertising. You can hardly go anywhere, grocery stores, airports, anywhere, without seeing televisions on and advertising. Isn't this just simply the next frontier and is not anything that we should worry about as consumers?

Patrick Verrone>> Sure. Advertisers build television. I mean, this is a medium, particularly network-free broadcast television. Not what we're on right now, of course (laughter), but most of that was built on the notion of thirty-second spots and somebody paying to underwrite the program. Not the case, say, with direct video downloads. Not the case with, say, HBO or with feature films. Those are different business models.

It's likely that this kind of integration will continue. You know, we're in this business too. I mean, writers that I represent, the actors in the Screen Actors Guild, are very much interested in making sure that the industry continues to develop and grow. If it's an advertisement-based industry, great. So be it.

The problem is, we want to be part of the discussion where we're not being forced to shoe-horn products or promote products that we're not comfortable with having our names and faces associated with. By all means, this is how, you know, our paycheck comes through this source as well. We have no problem with the business model. We just want to be at the table where these decisions are made.

Val Zavala>> Patrick Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America West, thank you very much for your time.

Patrick Verrone>> You're welcome, Val.

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Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. This week we're doing something a little different with the Academy Awards being given out in just a few days. We hear our critics' picks for Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Picture of 2005. I'm joined this week by critics Peter Rainer of The Christian Science Monitor and Jean Oppenheimer of New Times. Jean, who is your pick for the best actress of 2005?

Jean Oppenheimer>> Reese Witherspoon in "Walk The Line".

[Film Clip]

Jean Oppenheimer>> I think it was a really terrific performance, the best that she's ever given, and I think that there was a real risk of playing June Carter as an overly sweet person. I think, in this depiction, you can see that she does have that very sweet side, but also all these conflicts and things that are upsetting to her, loving the man that she feels she shouldn't be loving. I thought she brought that out beautifully.

Also, I read that Reese Witherspoon only agreed to this part if she didn't have to sing. Then, of course, after she got the part, she was told that she had to do the singing. I think she has a terrific voice, so I thought that, all in all, it was a really wonderful performance.

Larry Mantle>> Well, Peter, what's your pick for the best actress performance of last year?

Peter Rainer>> Keira Knightley for "Pride & Prejudice".

[Film Clip]

Peter Rainer>> I'm not a big fan of her acting normally, so I was quite surprised how good she was in this movie. Generally, she seems to be kind of, you know, twitty and insubstantial and I didn't like her in "Domino" this year at all either. It was totally miscast. But in this film, I think she really does capture the essence of Elizabeth Bennet in the Jane Austen novel. A lot of "Jane-ites" are very upset at this movie because they feel it's not true and accurate and all of this stuff. I guess it's proof that they've read the novel.

Well, I've read the novel too and I think she shows a lot of spirit. I think it's a very adventuresome performance. It's one that's very romantic. It shows a lot of different emotional levels, all the things that you would really want in a depiction of this character from the novel.

Larry Mantle>> We turn to the acting category now. Jean, your pick for best actor?

Jean Oppenheimer>> Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Capote".

[Film Clip]

Jean Oppenheimer>> To me, Larry, there was two brilliant acting performances this year and Philip Seymour Hoffman was one of them. I mean, he just inhabits this role. It's almost other-worldly. Not only does he do what most, you know, people might say, well, the imitation to voice, but he just captures the spirit of Capote, and also the look. It's amazing because Capote was very short and very slight when he was younger.

Philip Seymour Hoffman lost forty pounds for the part, but he's still a good six inches taller than Capote was. Yet you feel that he's this very small person. He somehow shrunk into himself. So I think there were a lot of wonderful male performances this year. I mean, just picking five for nominees is impossible, but he is the one that I think should win.

Larry Mantle>> Peter, do you agree?

Peter Rainer>> Philip Seymour Hoffman is really, I think, the best actor of this year. It's one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen. You know, any good nightclub comic can do a piece of mimicry that approximates Truman Capote, but that's just the beginning of the performance. He goes so far inside of his character. What's particularly fascinating about the performance is that this character is really a cipher with a kind of dead space where his heart ought to be, yet he's able to give you a full sense of who this guy really is and why he is.

It gets into all sorts of aspects of being an artist, being a writer, what that all means and how that impinges on him personally. Just everything to do with this character that is so full and rich that it's really like an essay more than a performance, in a way, on Capote. It's just a fascinating great piece of work and a cast with an amazing acting career that, you know, hopefully is far from over.

Larry Mantle>> Well, Jean, I know this was not an easy decision for you. Your choice for the top film of 2005?

Jean Oppenheimer>> Well, if I have to choose, I'm going to choose "Good Night, and Good Luck".

[Film Clip]

Jean Oppenheimer>> "Good Night, and Good Luck", to me, is such an important subject matter and I think it is so well done. I mean, it's also very impressive filmmaking. The script is excellent. There's a lot of unexpected humor in the film. The actors are all phenomenal. So I just think, all in all, that it's really the film that I think in a way is sort of most important. I say this because it's very difficult this year. I loved the film, "Crash".

[Film Clip]

Jean Oppenheimer>> But I also loved "Capote" and "Brokeback Mountain" and I would not have any problem with any of those four winning. "Munich" is the only one that I was not as keen on.

Larry Mantle>> All right. Peter, what did you think?

Peter Rainer>> I think "Capote" would probably be my choice for the best picture of the year. It's a terrific piece of work on all levels. It's beautifully directed. The script is really first-rate. What it does is, it takes a small aspect of someone's life, Capote's, and becomes a kind of metaphor not only for his own life, but for all sorts of other issues about what it's like to be an artist and a writer.

The Harper Lee character played by Catherine Keener is remarkable. It's really the way to do a so-called, you know, docu-bio-pick. It really does hone in on some very important things in the culture now and I think it's a terrific piece of work. I also really liked "Brokeback Mountain" a great deal.

[Film Clip]

Peter Rainer>> I think that's a movie that has a tremendous amount of heart, that it really has a lot of passion. It's not the kind of passion that comes out at you with arms open and in the usual way, but it's there and it's extremely moving in the end. Beautifully acted and directed.

Larry Mantle>> We thank you for joining us for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Peter Rainer of The Christian Science Monitor and Jean Oppenheimer of New Times. We invite you to join us next week at this very same time for our regular FilmWeek on Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> KPCC radio airs a full hour of FilmWeek on Friday mornings at eleven a.m. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

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