1 00:00:01,392 --> 00:00:05,527 ♪♪♪ 2 00:00:13,578 --> 00:00:21,543 ♪♪♪ 3 00:00:21,586 --> 00:00:29,551 ♪♪♪ 4 00:00:29,594 --> 00:00:37,515 ♪♪♪ 5 00:00:43,782 --> 00:00:45,393 [Insects buzz] 6 00:00:49,049 --> 00:00:50,572 Man: [Speaking French] 7 00:01:41,188 --> 00:01:42,624 Wade: It's kind of an interesting question, 8 00:01:42,667 --> 00:01:44,495 was this film cursed? 9 00:01:47,672 --> 00:01:50,632 To take a Hollywood film set to Haiti 10 00:01:50,675 --> 00:01:53,635 in the immediate wake of the revolution 11 00:01:53,678 --> 00:01:56,116 was incredibly courageous. 12 00:01:58,205 --> 00:02:00,642 That world of Haiti can be very intimidating. 13 00:02:02,165 --> 00:02:04,298 Famously people either are repelled by Haiti 14 00:02:04,341 --> 00:02:08,171 or they become absolute obsessives about Haiti. 15 00:02:08,215 --> 00:02:10,304 And I certainly was in the latter category. 16 00:02:11,870 --> 00:02:14,873 I became almost to a fault an evangelist for Voodoo. 17 00:02:17,528 --> 00:02:19,965 My name's Wade Davis, I'm a Professor of Anthropology 18 00:02:20,009 --> 00:02:22,011 at the University of British Columbia, 19 00:02:22,054 --> 00:02:23,447 and a writer. 20 00:02:25,884 --> 00:02:28,757 Now, this began as a kind of serendipitous assignment. 21 00:02:31,542 --> 00:02:34,154 My great professor, Richard Evans Schultes, 22 00:02:34,197 --> 00:02:36,982 was very interested in this rumored existence 23 00:02:37,026 --> 00:02:40,029 of a folk poison in Haiti 24 00:02:40,072 --> 00:02:42,510 that was said to bring on a state of apparent death 25 00:02:42,553 --> 00:02:44,164 so profound, it could fool a physician. 26 00:02:45,687 --> 00:02:47,471 So he casually asked me if I was interested 27 00:02:47,515 --> 00:02:50,082 in going down to the island nation of Haiti, 28 00:02:50,126 --> 00:02:52,389 and searching for the formula of the drug 29 00:02:52,433 --> 00:02:55,697 reputedly implicated in this business of making zombies. 30 00:02:55,740 --> 00:02:57,916 And naturally, I said yes. 31 00:03:00,005 --> 00:03:01,746 Reporter: Zombies, the living dead, 32 00:03:01,790 --> 00:03:03,748 have for years been the staple ingredient 33 00:03:03,792 --> 00:03:06,055 of second-rate horror movies. 34 00:03:06,098 --> 00:03:08,492 But is there any truth behind the Hollywood fantasies? 35 00:03:09,885 --> 00:03:11,800 A couple of years ago, "Newsnight" took a look 36 00:03:11,843 --> 00:03:13,410 behind the cinema clich,s, 37 00:03:13,454 --> 00:03:15,673 and found that on the West Indian island of Haiti, 38 00:03:15,717 --> 00:03:18,110 truth is indeed stranger than fiction. 39 00:03:18,154 --> 00:03:21,462 - What drove the whole story was the discovery 40 00:03:21,505 --> 00:03:23,681 by a man called Lamarque Douyon, 41 00:03:23,725 --> 00:03:25,727 of the case of Clairvius Narcisse. 42 00:03:27,294 --> 00:03:29,644 Male Reporter: This is 62 years old Clairvius Narcisse. 43 00:03:31,123 --> 00:03:32,690 He's looking at the grave in which he was buried 44 00:03:32,734 --> 00:03:34,910 19 years ago. 45 00:03:34,953 --> 00:03:37,869 The funeral was attended by all his family and friends. 46 00:03:39,306 --> 00:03:40,785 - He heard everything, when he was put in the coffin, 47 00:03:40,829 --> 00:03:42,744 when he was put in the grave. 48 00:03:42,787 --> 00:03:44,746 And he was showing you -- - A scar here. 49 00:03:44,789 --> 00:03:47,836 - A scar here, it was a nail from his coffin. 50 00:03:49,490 --> 00:03:51,840 Wade: So these lines of evidence led Douyon 51 00:03:51,883 --> 00:03:53,929 to go public, saying he had found the first 52 00:03:53,972 --> 00:03:56,714 verifiable instance of the living dead. 53 00:03:56,758 --> 00:03:59,543 And what he meant by that is he had found an individual 54 00:03:59,587 --> 00:04:02,111 who, by all accounts, had been pronounced dead, 55 00:04:02,154 --> 00:04:04,244 and turned back up into the realm of the living. 56 00:04:06,637 --> 00:04:09,553 These powders, of which I have somewhere, uh... 57 00:04:11,903 --> 00:04:13,383 this poison doesn't make a zombie. 58 00:04:14,819 --> 00:04:16,908 The question is, can this poison make someone appear 59 00:04:16,952 --> 00:04:18,562 to be dead? 60 00:04:19,781 --> 00:04:22,305 It's a whole plethora of ingredients: 61 00:04:22,349 --> 00:04:24,046 Bufo marinus, the Caribbean toad, 62 00:04:24,089 --> 00:04:26,440 with these big parotid glands 63 00:04:26,483 --> 00:04:28,355 with the cardioactive steroids in them, 64 00:04:28,398 --> 00:04:30,226 a number of toxic plants, 65 00:04:30,270 --> 00:04:32,272 broken glass, 66 00:04:32,315 --> 00:04:35,013 also um, human remains for magical reasons. 67 00:04:36,711 --> 00:04:39,627 And the most powerful neurotoxin found on Earth. 68 00:04:39,670 --> 00:04:41,977 It's called tetrodotoxin. 69 00:04:42,020 --> 00:04:45,502 It comes from the viscera and the skin of a couple 70 00:04:45,546 --> 00:04:49,463 of different genera of puffer fish, if you will, 71 00:04:49,506 --> 00:04:52,640 which includes the legendary fugu fish, 72 00:04:52,683 --> 00:04:55,599 which is prepared by specially licensed chefs 73 00:04:55,643 --> 00:04:58,863 who are said in the West to eliminate the toxin. 74 00:05:02,606 --> 00:05:05,305 One of the things that I was completely unprepared for 75 00:05:05,348 --> 00:05:08,220 was how this would all kind of explode 76 00:05:08,264 --> 00:05:10,397 over the American media. 77 00:05:10,440 --> 00:05:13,400 So I walked off the street to a literary agent in London, 78 00:05:13,443 --> 00:05:15,880 and secured a-a book advance. 79 00:05:15,924 --> 00:05:18,274 And I used the book advance to finish the research, 80 00:05:18,318 --> 00:05:20,189 but then I had to write a book. 81 00:05:20,232 --> 00:05:21,930 And that's how "The Serpent and the Rainbow" 82 00:05:21,973 --> 00:05:23,801 was actually written. 83 00:05:25,194 --> 00:05:28,023 The book really did attempt to take a phenomena, 84 00:05:28,066 --> 00:05:29,851 the Haitian zombie, that had been used 85 00:05:29,894 --> 00:05:32,375 in an explicitly racist way 86 00:05:32,419 --> 00:05:34,246 to denigrate a people and their religion, 87 00:05:34,290 --> 00:05:36,031 and it tried to make sense out of it. 88 00:05:36,074 --> 00:05:39,208 And I think David Ladd, the producer, really got that. 89 00:05:39,251 --> 00:05:41,558 And I think that was every bit his intention. 90 00:05:43,081 --> 00:05:44,953 - My name is David Ladd. 91 00:05:44,996 --> 00:05:47,347 I was the producer of "The Serpent and the Rainbow." 92 00:05:48,870 --> 00:05:51,046 What I saw as a commercial appeal was 93 00:05:51,089 --> 00:05:53,483 the reality that zombies actually exist. 94 00:05:53,527 --> 00:05:56,007 I mean, zombies have been fodder 95 00:05:56,051 --> 00:05:58,749 for films for years, and years, and years. 96 00:05:58,793 --> 00:06:01,970 But the fact that they actually exist 97 00:06:02,013 --> 00:06:04,538 was fascinating to me. 98 00:06:04,581 --> 00:06:06,975 And the lead character was a real life, 99 00:06:07,018 --> 00:06:09,107 honest-to-God Indiana Jones. 100 00:06:09,151 --> 00:06:10,935 He was the real deal. 101 00:06:12,372 --> 00:06:14,156 - My favorite director at that time was Peter Weir. 102 00:06:14,199 --> 00:06:16,550 And I thought that "The Year of Living Dangerously" 103 00:06:16,593 --> 00:06:19,030 was a really remarkable template 104 00:06:19,074 --> 00:06:21,032 for what I had actually experienced in Haiti. 105 00:06:22,599 --> 00:06:25,254 David L.: All of a sudden Wes popped up and said, 106 00:06:25,297 --> 00:06:27,082 "Gee, I'd really like to do this." 107 00:06:28,388 --> 00:06:29,824 And we couldn't resist. 108 00:06:31,565 --> 00:06:34,829 Wes was the hottest genre director in the business. 109 00:06:34,872 --> 00:06:37,832 And you know, zombies, Wes Craven, 110 00:06:37,875 --> 00:06:40,138 who could pass on that? 111 00:06:41,401 --> 00:06:44,142 Wade was both grateful and horrified. 112 00:06:44,186 --> 00:06:46,057 How can you do this? 113 00:06:46,101 --> 00:06:48,059 This is a serious piece of work. 114 00:06:50,497 --> 00:06:52,629 - No, I'm not at all a horror film fan. 115 00:06:52,673 --> 00:06:54,936 I really have no relationship to the genre whatsoever. 116 00:06:58,243 --> 00:07:00,071 - Well, I suppose I do now, you know. 117 00:07:00,115 --> 00:07:02,552 Wes was very keen to move out 118 00:07:02,596 --> 00:07:04,946 of the horror genre at the time, 119 00:07:04,989 --> 00:07:07,339 and I remember Wes saying to me, sincerely, 120 00:07:07,383 --> 00:07:09,211 that he thought "The Serpent and the Rainbow" 121 00:07:09,254 --> 00:07:12,432 would be his sort of ticket out in a way. 122 00:07:14,042 --> 00:07:16,566 Jonathan: My father was like a-kind of renaissance man. 123 00:07:18,394 --> 00:07:20,440 He didn't set out to be a horror director. 124 00:07:20,483 --> 00:07:22,833 I think that he was excited to... 125 00:07:22,877 --> 00:07:25,836 kind of leave horror a little bit. 126 00:07:27,925 --> 00:07:31,712 But I think that horror did allow him to work out 127 00:07:31,755 --> 00:07:34,454 some of his demons from childhood. 128 00:07:34,497 --> 00:07:36,891 He basically didn't have a father. 129 00:07:36,934 --> 00:07:38,545 His father left him when he was very, very young, 130 00:07:38,588 --> 00:07:40,503 and died when he was five. 131 00:07:40,547 --> 00:07:42,592 His mother, Caroline, my grandmother, 132 00:07:42,636 --> 00:07:44,855 was constantly trying to get my father 133 00:07:44,899 --> 00:07:48,468 to stop making these terrible, awful movies you're making. 134 00:07:51,253 --> 00:07:53,168 In "The Last House," "Hills have Eyes" era, 135 00:07:53,211 --> 00:07:55,953 he was a madman. You know, that's it. 136 00:07:55,997 --> 00:07:58,086 And people thought he should be locked up. 137 00:07:58,129 --> 00:08:01,045 I thought it was awesome that he was making these films. 138 00:08:01,089 --> 00:08:03,004 Marianne: In those days, 139 00:08:03,047 --> 00:08:04,658 when you said you did those kind of movies, 140 00:08:04,701 --> 00:08:06,703 people would make little comments like, 141 00:08:06,747 --> 00:08:08,662 "I never watch those." 142 00:08:08,705 --> 00:08:11,403 So he was a little bit insecure about that. 143 00:08:12,927 --> 00:08:15,799 Well, when I first met Wes, I had an interview with him. 144 00:08:15,843 --> 00:08:17,497 Two days before the interview, 145 00:08:17,540 --> 00:08:18,672 I watched "Nightmare on Elm Street," 146 00:08:18,715 --> 00:08:21,152 and it was so scary. 147 00:08:21,196 --> 00:08:23,459 And the night before, I watched "The Last House on the Left," 148 00:08:23,503 --> 00:08:25,592 and that was a little daunting. 149 00:08:25,635 --> 00:08:27,594 But then when I met him, 150 00:08:27,637 --> 00:08:30,074 he was so nice and charming, 151 00:08:30,118 --> 00:08:33,643 and he gave me a job as his assistant on "Deadly Friend." 152 00:08:35,079 --> 00:08:37,255 They sent us the book "The Serpent and the Rainbow." 153 00:08:37,299 --> 00:08:39,344 What a story! You know, zombies and Haiti and... 154 00:08:40,955 --> 00:08:42,609 This was a big studio movie. 155 00:08:43,914 --> 00:08:45,960 David L.: Then we just started casting. 156 00:08:46,003 --> 00:08:49,267 Bill, at the time, did a movie for my brother 157 00:08:49,311 --> 00:08:50,791 called "Spaceballs," 158 00:08:52,053 --> 00:08:54,316 which was how I was introduced to him. 159 00:08:54,359 --> 00:08:57,406 And I thought, Bill looks a lot like Wade Davis. 160 00:08:59,408 --> 00:09:00,975 - Barf! 161 00:09:01,018 --> 00:09:04,065 - And so we brought him in, and Wes fell in love with him. 162 00:09:04,108 --> 00:09:06,894 And from that point on, the part was his. 163 00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:12,334 Bill: That was the third movie 164 00:09:12,377 --> 00:09:13,988 that I was a part of. 165 00:09:14,031 --> 00:09:16,077 The first one, a small part, didn't shoot very long on it. 166 00:09:16,120 --> 00:09:17,948 The second one, 167 00:09:17,992 --> 00:09:20,821 a magnum opus, "Spaceballs," 168 00:09:20,864 --> 00:09:23,345 which was quite exotic. 169 00:09:23,388 --> 00:09:26,130 But "The Serpent and the Rainbow" 170 00:09:26,174 --> 00:09:28,089 took it all to another level. 171 00:09:28,132 --> 00:09:30,047 And I thought, 172 00:09:30,091 --> 00:09:32,136 Is this is what my life is gonna be like? 173 00:09:33,573 --> 00:09:35,966 And it's only now that I realize, no, 174 00:09:36,010 --> 00:09:37,968 that never happened again. 175 00:09:38,012 --> 00:09:40,710 Never had quite the experience as we did 176 00:09:40,754 --> 00:09:42,886 on "The Serpent and the Rainbow." 177 00:09:44,584 --> 00:09:46,586 Cathy: After I did "Mona Lisa" 178 00:09:46,629 --> 00:09:49,414 in 1986, 179 00:09:49,458 --> 00:09:52,853 my agent mentioned about this film, 180 00:09:52,896 --> 00:09:54,724 "The Serpent and the Rainbow." 181 00:09:54,768 --> 00:09:56,770 And of course the whole, you know, 182 00:09:56,813 --> 00:09:59,381 Voodoo for a Black person, 183 00:09:59,424 --> 00:10:02,558 how Hollywood has interpreted Voodoo in the past 184 00:10:02,602 --> 00:10:04,647 as being these savages. 185 00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:07,911 So I wanted to get this right. 186 00:10:07,955 --> 00:10:09,696 Male Narrator: A blonde captain 187 00:10:09,739 --> 00:10:11,785 in the darkness of Voodoo land! 188 00:10:11,828 --> 00:10:14,222 [Dramatic music plays] 189 00:10:14,265 --> 00:10:16,224 - Where do we get this idea of Voodoo being 190 00:10:16,267 --> 00:10:18,313 a black magic cult? 191 00:10:19,793 --> 00:10:22,752 It largely comes from the fact that the U.S. Marine Corps 192 00:10:22,796 --> 00:10:25,886 occupied Haiti in the 1920s and stayed for 20 years. 193 00:10:28,540 --> 00:10:29,933 During the era of Jim Crow, 194 00:10:31,326 --> 00:10:33,328 segregation in the South, 195 00:10:33,371 --> 00:10:35,504 many of the Marines were from the South, 196 00:10:35,547 --> 00:10:37,071 and everybody above the rank of sergeant 197 00:10:37,114 --> 00:10:38,812 got a book contract. 198 00:10:38,855 --> 00:10:41,031 And the books had names like "Cannibal Cousins," 199 00:10:41,075 --> 00:10:42,859 and "Black Bagdad," 200 00:10:42,903 --> 00:10:44,774 "Voodoo Fire in Haiti," 201 00:10:44,818 --> 00:10:46,558 "A Puritan in Voodoo-Land," 202 00:10:46,602 --> 00:10:48,212 "The Magic Island," 203 00:10:48,256 --> 00:10:50,911 and all this pulp fiction that gave rise to the RKO movies. 204 00:10:52,173 --> 00:10:54,001 - [Gasps] 205 00:10:54,044 --> 00:10:57,308 - She's making Voodoo. - She's making Voo do what? 206 00:10:57,352 --> 00:10:59,659 - [Laughs maniacally] Man: Voodoo! 207 00:10:59,702 --> 00:11:02,879 - I do? - Not "you do," Voodoo! 208 00:11:02,923 --> 00:11:05,752 - "Zombies on Broadway," "Zombies of the Stratosphere," 209 00:11:05,795 --> 00:11:07,710 "The White Zombie Slave," 210 00:11:07,754 --> 00:11:10,408 were full of children bred for the cauldron. 211 00:11:10,452 --> 00:11:12,889 Pins and needles in Voodoo dolls don't even exist. 212 00:11:12,933 --> 00:11:15,892 And of course, notoriously, 213 00:11:15,936 --> 00:11:18,155 zombies crawling out of the grave to attack people. 214 00:11:20,070 --> 00:11:23,726 ♪♪♪ 215 00:11:23,770 --> 00:11:25,510 Roger: It's very unfashionable these days 216 00:11:25,554 --> 00:11:27,643 to have any anti-Black images, Man: Yes. 217 00:11:27,687 --> 00:11:28,905 - But make 'em Voodoo priests, 218 00:11:28,949 --> 00:11:31,386 because then we can absolutely exploit them 219 00:11:31,429 --> 00:11:33,040 in any way possible, and I thought 220 00:11:33,083 --> 00:11:35,695 there was a lot of not too far under the surface racism 221 00:11:35,738 --> 00:11:37,914 in this movie that really offended me. 222 00:11:39,089 --> 00:11:40,830 - My entire investigation 223 00:11:40,874 --> 00:11:42,745 was trying to take this phenomena 224 00:11:42,789 --> 00:11:45,182 that had been used in a racist way to denigrate a people, 225 00:11:45,226 --> 00:11:47,968 and try to make sense out of sensation. 226 00:11:48,011 --> 00:11:50,405 David L.: Wade was very much into the authenticity 227 00:11:50,448 --> 00:11:52,189 of what we were doing. 228 00:11:54,061 --> 00:11:57,586 No other people looked like the Haitians 229 00:11:57,629 --> 00:12:00,328 or had the kind of culture of the Haitians. 230 00:12:02,156 --> 00:12:04,811 That's something that lives in that island. 231 00:12:06,813 --> 00:12:10,033 I mean, what an adventure to go and make a film in Haiti. 232 00:12:12,296 --> 00:12:14,646 Jonathan: When I was getting out of school I was interested 233 00:12:14,690 --> 00:12:17,171 in writing and directing, and all that stuff. 234 00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:20,043 My father said, come on out, 235 00:12:20,087 --> 00:12:21,828 and see what it's like to be on a real film set. 236 00:12:23,481 --> 00:12:25,309 Weirdly, when I was a really little kid, 237 00:12:25,353 --> 00:12:27,747 I was on "The Last House" set like, twice. [Laughs] 238 00:12:27,790 --> 00:12:29,749 On the Lower East Side I had my balloon popped. 239 00:12:31,663 --> 00:12:33,622 That had been the sum of my experience on a set. 240 00:12:33,665 --> 00:12:35,276 [Pops loudly] 241 00:12:35,319 --> 00:12:37,452 If you want to do this, this is a really, 242 00:12:37,495 --> 00:12:39,367 really hard business. 243 00:12:39,410 --> 00:12:41,108 So if you're gonna work with me, 244 00:12:41,151 --> 00:12:42,979 you're gonna work your way up from the bottom. 245 00:12:44,459 --> 00:12:47,505 David Anderson, who was doing makeup effects for his father, 246 00:12:47,549 --> 00:12:49,507 was somebody I hung out with all the time. 247 00:12:51,205 --> 00:12:53,424 Marianne: David Anderson, our makeup effects guy, 248 00:12:53,468 --> 00:12:56,079 his dad took the job and said, oh, you can have my son, 249 00:12:56,123 --> 00:12:58,168 because Lance didn't want to go to Haiti. 250 00:12:59,866 --> 00:13:02,085 So we didn't know that was David's first job. 251 00:13:02,129 --> 00:13:04,044 David A.: "Serpent" was the first feature 252 00:13:04,087 --> 00:13:06,176 that I was working for my Dad on, 253 00:13:06,220 --> 00:13:08,483 and he tapped me to go to set. 254 00:13:08,526 --> 00:13:10,746 He said, I'm going to send you to Tahiti. 255 00:13:10,790 --> 00:13:12,835 And I was really excited. 256 00:13:12,879 --> 00:13:15,359 And then I realized it was to Haiti, not Tahiti. 257 00:13:16,621 --> 00:13:18,798 Although, to me at that point, 258 00:13:18,841 --> 00:13:20,234 there really wasn't a whole lot of difference 259 00:13:20,277 --> 00:13:22,192 between Haiti and Tahiti. 260 00:13:22,236 --> 00:13:23,846 Uh, but there is now. 261 00:13:23,890 --> 00:13:26,806 ♪♪♪ 262 00:13:26,849 --> 00:13:28,720 While I was getting off the plane in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 263 00:13:28,764 --> 00:13:30,418 I kind of recognized a couple of faces 264 00:13:30,461 --> 00:13:32,855 that had been on the other flight, 265 00:13:32,899 --> 00:13:35,771 and soon realized that we were on the same crew, 266 00:13:35,815 --> 00:13:37,468 and that we were heading to the same place. 267 00:13:37,512 --> 00:13:39,731 Dawn: This was such an amazing adventure. 268 00:13:39,775 --> 00:13:41,821 We were all similar in age, 269 00:13:41,864 --> 00:13:44,649 and we were all earlyish in our careers. 270 00:13:45,912 --> 00:13:47,478 Marianne: Wes loved it. He was right there 271 00:13:47,522 --> 00:13:49,045 in the middle of everything. 272 00:13:51,047 --> 00:13:53,049 Wade: David Ladd called me up and said, 273 00:13:53,093 --> 00:13:55,008 Well, what do you wear in Haiti? I said, I don't know, 274 00:13:55,051 --> 00:13:57,184 but there's this outfit in San Francisco 275 00:13:57,227 --> 00:13:59,360 you've never heard of called Banana Republic. 276 00:13:59,403 --> 00:14:01,797 They make all these great linen and cotton clothes. 277 00:14:01,841 --> 00:14:04,756 David: At the time, Banana Republic was a store 278 00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:07,237 where you bought your stuff to go on safari, 279 00:14:07,281 --> 00:14:10,153 you know, become adventurers like Indiana Jones. 280 00:14:10,197 --> 00:14:13,026 I mean, they had the hats, and I mean, 281 00:14:13,069 --> 00:14:15,680 it was, you know, you had a whole look. 282 00:14:15,724 --> 00:14:17,769 Wade: When I got down to the set, 283 00:14:17,813 --> 00:14:19,815 the whole goddamn production from grip to the director 284 00:14:19,859 --> 00:14:21,991 was dressed head-to-toe in Banana Republic. 285 00:14:23,340 --> 00:14:25,473 - It didn't really seem the kind of stuff 286 00:14:25,516 --> 00:14:28,432 that Wade would wear, but David really said, 287 00:14:28,476 --> 00:14:30,870 oh, wait 'til you meet him. He dresses like this. 288 00:14:30,913 --> 00:14:32,697 Yeah, this is how he dresses. 289 00:14:34,177 --> 00:14:36,484 And um, David had begun to dress like this. 290 00:14:36,527 --> 00:14:38,312 And basically it was Banana Republic stuff. 291 00:14:40,836 --> 00:14:42,359 David L.: The pants with the pockets on the side, and the... 292 00:14:44,144 --> 00:14:45,972 it was great. [Laughs] 293 00:14:48,322 --> 00:14:50,585 At the time when we first went down there, 294 00:14:50,628 --> 00:14:52,195 Baby Doc had fallen 295 00:14:53,370 --> 00:14:55,024 as the dictator of Haiti. 296 00:14:56,373 --> 00:14:58,375 - The president for life they called Baby Doc 297 00:14:58,419 --> 00:15:00,247 flew away from Haiti today, to France. 298 00:15:01,465 --> 00:15:03,206 - A few hours before dawn today, 299 00:15:03,250 --> 00:15:05,382 an American military transport plane 300 00:15:05,426 --> 00:15:07,515 took off from Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince, 301 00:15:07,558 --> 00:15:10,126 carrying President Jean-Claude Duvalier, 302 00:15:10,170 --> 00:15:12,955 members of his family, and several staff people, 303 00:15:12,999 --> 00:15:14,957 and security guards. 304 00:15:15,001 --> 00:15:17,090 It brought to an end one of the longest-running 305 00:15:17,133 --> 00:15:20,049 and most brutal dictatorships in the Caribbean. 306 00:15:20,093 --> 00:15:22,530 As soon as the Haitian people heard the news this morning, 307 00:15:22,573 --> 00:15:24,358 there was dancing in the streets, 308 00:15:24,401 --> 00:15:27,056 along with numerous reports of violence 309 00:15:27,100 --> 00:15:29,232 against members of the dreaded militia 310 00:15:29,276 --> 00:15:31,626 associated with Baby Doc. 311 00:15:32,888 --> 00:15:34,585 David L.: That was the Tonton Macoute, 312 00:15:34,629 --> 00:15:37,545 which was the kind of secret police of the Duvaliers 313 00:15:37,588 --> 00:15:39,634 and their reign in Haiti. 314 00:15:41,070 --> 00:15:43,290 It was a wild time down there. 315 00:15:44,726 --> 00:15:47,729 And unfortunately, I mean, Haiti has struggled ever since, 316 00:15:47,772 --> 00:15:49,818 and-and before, long before. 317 00:15:51,472 --> 00:15:59,480 ♪♪♪ 318 00:16:00,916 --> 00:16:03,353 - These are all from Haiti. 319 00:16:03,397 --> 00:16:05,703 I was taught to take more pictures than you need. 320 00:16:07,444 --> 00:16:09,794 These are just continuity from the script. 321 00:16:09,838 --> 00:16:11,796 So this was obviously Bill, 322 00:16:11,840 --> 00:16:13,494 and he just got hit with the powder. 323 00:16:13,537 --> 00:16:15,365 - [Blows] - Aah! 324 00:16:15,409 --> 00:16:18,542 ♪♪♪ 325 00:16:18,586 --> 00:16:21,154 - And this was from a scene that David Ladd, 326 00:16:21,197 --> 00:16:24,200 I believe, shot, the second unit director scene. 327 00:16:24,244 --> 00:16:26,159 That's where I learned the term "magic hour." 328 00:16:26,202 --> 00:16:28,683 It's "magic hour!" What the fuck is "magic hour?" 329 00:16:28,726 --> 00:16:30,641 [Laughs] 330 00:16:32,339 --> 00:16:34,515 Before we started filming, we were all invited 331 00:16:34,558 --> 00:16:36,996 to a Voodoo ceremony where we were all gonna be blessed. 332 00:16:38,432 --> 00:16:41,000 It was like, okay, you guys are here in Haiti. 333 00:16:41,043 --> 00:16:42,610 Well, guess what, you're gonna come into the jungle, 334 00:16:42,653 --> 00:16:45,004 you're gonna get hammered on alcohol, 335 00:16:45,047 --> 00:16:47,484 and then we're gonna show you some shit. 336 00:16:47,528 --> 00:16:50,009 And that's exactly what happened. 337 00:16:50,052 --> 00:16:51,532 - I don't know what the producers were thinking. 338 00:16:51,575 --> 00:16:53,664 We went out at night 339 00:16:53,708 --> 00:16:56,363 into the heart of the countryside 340 00:16:56,406 --> 00:16:58,321 to a Voodoo ceremony. 341 00:16:59,801 --> 00:17:02,195 - Women and men would come out and do these dances, 342 00:17:02,238 --> 00:17:05,154 and then allow themselves to become possessed. 343 00:17:05,198 --> 00:17:08,244 - You'd see that moment of possession. 344 00:17:09,506 --> 00:17:12,292 Now this person is being ridden by a God. 345 00:17:12,335 --> 00:17:15,121 - It was all real at that moment. 346 00:17:15,164 --> 00:17:17,384 These people believed it. 347 00:17:17,427 --> 00:17:20,343 And after that evening, so did we. 348 00:17:21,910 --> 00:17:23,955 What it did is it turned this group of strangers 349 00:17:23,999 --> 00:17:25,696 into a family. 350 00:17:27,046 --> 00:17:29,091 It was a ceremony to bless us, 351 00:17:29,135 --> 00:17:32,051 and take away all the evil spirits to protect us, 352 00:17:33,661 --> 00:17:37,360 so that we could successfully make this film in Haiti. 353 00:17:37,404 --> 00:17:39,928 [People chatter, rumbling] 354 00:17:41,582 --> 00:17:44,846 Jonathan: It felt to me that every day was 16 or 18 hours. 355 00:17:47,022 --> 00:17:50,286 It was an insanely ambitious amount of material, 356 00:17:51,766 --> 00:17:53,637 and not a lot of control. 357 00:17:54,943 --> 00:17:56,510 Everything was shot on location, 358 00:17:56,553 --> 00:17:58,599 so you're always in a village, 359 00:17:58,642 --> 00:18:01,297 many which had never seen a film crew before. 360 00:18:02,951 --> 00:18:04,605 There were tons of extras around, 361 00:18:04,648 --> 00:18:07,434 and people that didn't know not to look into camera, 362 00:18:09,088 --> 00:18:12,091 and it was definitely not a normal film set experience. 363 00:18:14,963 --> 00:18:17,139 Cathy: Thinking back on it, I just think, 364 00:18:17,183 --> 00:18:19,837 who was protecting us as a film crew, 365 00:18:19,881 --> 00:18:24,190 Because we did not come across the Tonton Macoute, 366 00:18:24,233 --> 00:18:26,148 but they were there. 367 00:18:26,192 --> 00:18:28,150 [Flames roar] 368 00:18:28,194 --> 00:18:30,021 Dawn: I think the producers really underestimated 369 00:18:30,065 --> 00:18:32,285 the danger of Haiti. 370 00:18:33,851 --> 00:18:35,462 I just kinda had a sense that this isn't gonna be 371 00:18:35,505 --> 00:18:37,116 as easy as you think. 372 00:18:38,552 --> 00:18:40,162 David A.: I wasn't qualified to be there at all. 373 00:18:41,729 --> 00:18:43,383 You know, whether I was a seasoned filmmaker or not, 374 00:18:43,426 --> 00:18:46,212 nobody had an advantage over me, 375 00:18:47,909 --> 00:18:49,606 because it was all new. 376 00:18:51,869 --> 00:18:53,958 Bill: We were wanting to honor their traditions, 377 00:18:54,002 --> 00:18:56,004 and particularly their religion. 378 00:18:57,223 --> 00:18:59,138 Part of it was I think everybody knew 379 00:18:59,181 --> 00:19:01,879 we needed to have them favor us. 380 00:19:03,229 --> 00:19:05,579 And that if we didn't get their favor, 381 00:19:05,622 --> 00:19:07,624 we would have a hard time shooting. 382 00:19:09,104 --> 00:19:11,106 Things could turn bad. 383 00:19:11,150 --> 00:19:13,369 - No! [Screaming] 384 00:19:14,936 --> 00:19:22,248 ♪♪♪ 385 00:19:22,291 --> 00:19:27,601 ♪♪♪ 386 00:19:27,644 --> 00:19:29,994 [Drum thumps] 387 00:19:30,038 --> 00:19:31,474 Marianne: I had done some travelling. 388 00:19:31,518 --> 00:19:33,346 But you still get culture shock 389 00:19:33,389 --> 00:19:35,217 when you're somewhere like that. 390 00:19:36,436 --> 00:19:38,220 And everyone had culture shock, 391 00:19:38,264 --> 00:19:40,091 especially a lot of the actors had culture shock. 392 00:19:40,135 --> 00:19:42,006 Um... many people, 393 00:19:42,050 --> 00:19:43,791 a few people had nervous breakdowns over there. 394 00:19:46,185 --> 00:19:48,448 David L.: We had a writer, Richard Maxwell, 395 00:19:48,491 --> 00:19:51,277 who literally was possessed at a certain point. 396 00:19:53,627 --> 00:19:57,935 That was one of the most odd experiences of the film, 397 00:19:57,979 --> 00:19:59,676 and of the making of it. 398 00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:02,592 Richard was down there, and of course, uh, 399 00:20:02,636 --> 00:20:04,246 he wanted to be exposed 400 00:20:05,726 --> 00:20:09,295 to as many of the authentic characters and places 401 00:20:09,338 --> 00:20:11,732 as he could possibly be, 402 00:20:11,775 --> 00:20:14,735 as he was doing a kind of final rewrite with Wes. 403 00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:17,607 And I don't remember the specifics of it, 404 00:20:17,651 --> 00:20:20,915 but Richard got involved with a Voodoo practitioner 405 00:20:20,958 --> 00:20:23,396 who he thought had put a curse on him. 406 00:20:23,439 --> 00:20:25,615 - Richard was a nice guy. 407 00:20:25,659 --> 00:20:27,356 But--and he was very sincere about Voodoo, 408 00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:29,489 but he got so shaken by the experience 409 00:20:29,532 --> 00:20:31,752 he had a nervous breakdown on the set. 410 00:20:31,795 --> 00:20:34,233 Marianne: I think they sent Jill Simpson to his room 411 00:20:36,235 --> 00:20:38,193 to see how he was doing, 412 00:20:38,237 --> 00:20:40,239 and he was only in a t-shirt. 413 00:20:40,282 --> 00:20:42,502 And as I recall, it like, had a bullseye on it, 414 00:20:42,545 --> 00:20:44,199 and that was it. Nothing else. 415 00:20:44,243 --> 00:20:45,853 - You know, it was-it was... 416 00:20:47,550 --> 00:20:49,335 - So obviously, she came back, she said, oh my God, 417 00:20:49,378 --> 00:20:51,511 we're in trouble. 418 00:20:51,554 --> 00:20:53,556 Bill: I'd see him at dinner or something, and... 419 00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:56,037 "how are the rewrites goin'?" 420 00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:57,647 But it was the moment when he said, yeah, 421 00:20:57,691 --> 00:20:59,301 I really got a lot done. 422 00:21:00,650 --> 00:21:02,435 I, you know, there was... 423 00:21:02,478 --> 00:21:05,742 trouble with the original name for my character, 424 00:21:05,786 --> 00:21:07,657 and uh, it had-- 425 00:21:07,701 --> 00:21:10,660 eventually the lawyers 426 00:21:10,704 --> 00:21:13,010 decided that "Dennis" 427 00:21:13,054 --> 00:21:15,491 would be a good first name, and I hated that name. 428 00:21:15,535 --> 00:21:18,015 I just never liked Dennis. 429 00:21:18,059 --> 00:21:19,974 But that's what he had to do. 430 00:21:20,017 --> 00:21:22,150 And I remember he said, uh, I got a lot done. 431 00:21:22,193 --> 00:21:24,935 I've changed all the names. 432 00:21:24,979 --> 00:21:27,764 So every one of 'em says "Dennis." 433 00:21:29,679 --> 00:21:31,812 And then I realized, oh, that's like, a click, 434 00:21:31,855 --> 00:21:33,466 with software. 435 00:21:34,684 --> 00:21:36,904 - This one morning, we, we found him 436 00:21:36,947 --> 00:21:40,342 standing outside Wes's door completely naked. 437 00:21:42,213 --> 00:21:43,519 And around him were 438 00:21:44,694 --> 00:21:47,044 25 cigarette butts. 439 00:21:48,959 --> 00:21:50,700 - Wes opened the door and there he was, 440 00:21:50,744 --> 00:21:53,224 and he's just like, I'm sorry, man, I can't do it. 441 00:21:53,268 --> 00:21:54,835 - And he just stood there and smoked 442 00:21:54,878 --> 00:21:57,054 until Wes got up. 443 00:21:57,098 --> 00:21:58,795 And Wes came and got me. 444 00:22:00,667 --> 00:22:03,844 I got on a plane with him and got him to Miami, 445 00:22:03,887 --> 00:22:07,064 handed him off to his wife, and he was flown home. 446 00:22:07,108 --> 00:22:10,677 But he-he was completely under some kind of a-- 447 00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:14,071 what he thought was a Voodoo spell. 448 00:22:14,115 --> 00:22:16,073 Marianne: Other people had nervous breakdowns. 449 00:22:16,117 --> 00:22:17,553 Jay: Who else had a nervous breakdown? 450 00:22:17,597 --> 00:22:19,860 - I don't know if I can tell you. 451 00:22:19,903 --> 00:22:21,644 It might have been one of the actors. 452 00:22:23,559 --> 00:22:26,127 And I think they had... a nightmare or a vision. 453 00:22:29,565 --> 00:22:31,306 - Uh... 454 00:22:32,699 --> 00:22:34,831 really, I always have a hard time talking about this, 455 00:22:37,181 --> 00:22:39,183 because I don't know the audience. 456 00:22:40,750 --> 00:22:43,623 You know, I don't know people's openness. 457 00:22:46,539 --> 00:22:48,802 I went through this ceremony, 458 00:22:48,845 --> 00:22:51,152 and um, just a really-- 459 00:22:51,195 --> 00:22:53,937 some-some unsettling things happened 460 00:22:53,981 --> 00:22:57,941 in that-in terms of things that I perceived about myself, 461 00:22:57,985 --> 00:23:00,291 and different environments and everything, and so-- 462 00:23:00,335 --> 00:23:02,642 the-right away, Wes says, like, what'd you take? 463 00:23:02,685 --> 00:23:04,426 What'd you drink? Did you smoke anything? 464 00:23:04,470 --> 00:23:07,255 You know. [Laughs] 465 00:23:09,518 --> 00:23:11,564 Some of it is pretty much um... 466 00:23:13,653 --> 00:23:16,525 some things that people probably have experienced 467 00:23:16,569 --> 00:23:19,354 in different times with clairvoyance 468 00:23:19,398 --> 00:23:22,792 or a sense of past lives or something. 469 00:23:26,013 --> 00:23:27,797 [Birds chirp] 470 00:23:29,233 --> 00:23:30,539 I had a lot of uh, 471 00:23:31,888 --> 00:23:34,587 sequences to do with travelling really quickly 472 00:23:34,630 --> 00:23:37,241 over the surface of Africa. 473 00:23:39,505 --> 00:23:42,508 And moving towards a gathering of people 474 00:23:42,551 --> 00:23:45,249 out in the middle of nowhere. 475 00:23:45,293 --> 00:23:47,426 And I realized that it was a convocation of people 476 00:23:47,469 --> 00:23:50,472 of all skin tones and colors. 477 00:23:50,516 --> 00:23:53,257 And that there was this-- steps with an oration. 478 00:23:54,998 --> 00:23:58,088 That was an experience where I was so disturbed, 479 00:23:58,132 --> 00:24:01,265 I cancelled the rehearsals the next day. 480 00:24:02,919 --> 00:24:04,660 They said, what's the matter with you? 481 00:24:04,704 --> 00:24:06,575 And I didn't want to talk about it, you know. 482 00:24:06,619 --> 00:24:09,012 I just, but Wes was really like, 483 00:24:09,056 --> 00:24:10,449 this is why we came here. 484 00:24:14,365 --> 00:24:16,455 Davud A.: We shot a scene in a cemetery at night. 485 00:24:18,718 --> 00:24:22,330 And I actually had to get into an open grave 486 00:24:22,373 --> 00:24:24,550 that one of our skeletons had to go in, 487 00:24:24,593 --> 00:24:27,335 that I had to get in and dress. 488 00:24:27,378 --> 00:24:28,945 That's just one of those moments where you just go, 489 00:24:28,989 --> 00:24:30,599 what the fuck am I doing here? 490 00:24:31,774 --> 00:24:33,384 Getting into the hole, 491 00:24:33,428 --> 00:24:35,474 I'll never forget looking and seeing the rocks 492 00:24:35,517 --> 00:24:38,215 around the wall of the hole that they had dug for me, 493 00:24:38,259 --> 00:24:40,217 and coming to the realization 494 00:24:40,261 --> 00:24:42,568 that those were not rocks, that those were bones. 495 00:24:42,611 --> 00:24:44,787 And they were at all levels. 496 00:24:44,831 --> 00:24:46,833 There were bones, people piled on top of people. 497 00:24:46,876 --> 00:24:48,965 - Oh shit! Oh sh-- - Are you okay? 498 00:24:49,009 --> 00:24:50,793 David A.: And we just dug... 499 00:24:52,229 --> 00:24:54,710 this horrible hole right in the middle of it all, 500 00:24:54,754 --> 00:24:57,713 And excavated all these body parts, and bodies, 501 00:24:57,757 --> 00:25:00,455 and put 'em aside, and put our fake skeleton in there, 502 00:25:00,499 --> 00:25:02,196 and shot the scene. 503 00:25:02,239 --> 00:25:03,980 And uh... 504 00:25:04,024 --> 00:25:06,026 for that I'm probably goin' to Hell. 505 00:25:07,549 --> 00:25:09,203 Jonathan: There's all these scenes with piles of skulls 506 00:25:09,246 --> 00:25:11,248 and piles of bones everywhere, right? 507 00:25:11,292 --> 00:25:13,381 The set dressing was three or four 508 00:25:13,424 --> 00:25:16,210 enormous gunny sacks of human bones. 509 00:25:16,253 --> 00:25:18,386 And I never asked where they got 'em. 510 00:25:18,429 --> 00:25:19,909 I didn't want to know. 511 00:25:21,215 --> 00:25:22,782 Should I even be talking about this? 512 00:25:22,825 --> 00:25:25,219 Like, I-I don't even know that this is cool, you know. 513 00:25:25,262 --> 00:25:27,177 This is not cool. Like-- [Laughs] 514 00:25:28,744 --> 00:25:31,225 Dawn: We had several members of local crew. 515 00:25:31,268 --> 00:25:33,053 And this one woman in particular 516 00:25:33,096 --> 00:25:35,577 was going to help us wrangle some bones for an altar 517 00:25:35,621 --> 00:25:37,797 that we were creating. 518 00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:40,539 And um, when she delivered the bones, 519 00:25:40,582 --> 00:25:42,541 we realized they were real human bones. 520 00:25:42,584 --> 00:25:45,544 And she had uh, robbed a grave. [Laughs] 521 00:25:47,023 --> 00:25:48,982 - Ah! There's a lot of stories 522 00:25:49,025 --> 00:25:50,592 I don't know if I want to tell, 523 00:25:50,636 --> 00:25:52,551 I don't even know if I should've told the bone story, 524 00:25:52,594 --> 00:25:54,422 but um... Jay: Too late. 525 00:25:54,465 --> 00:25:55,989 - Yeah! [Laughs] 526 00:25:57,643 --> 00:26:00,167 When they go to make the Voodoo potion in the cemetery, 527 00:26:01,385 --> 00:26:03,083 there's a shot where the camera 528 00:26:03,126 --> 00:26:05,346 kinda dollies through the gravestones. 529 00:26:05,389 --> 00:26:07,740 And I don't want to accuse anybody of this, 530 00:26:07,783 --> 00:26:09,916 somebody told me like, we're gonna put 531 00:26:09,959 --> 00:26:11,787 a dolly track down here, 532 00:26:11,831 --> 00:26:14,137 so those two headstones have to move, and... 533 00:26:15,748 --> 00:26:18,446 and you-you know, clear the path. 534 00:26:18,489 --> 00:26:20,230 Like, make a level path. 535 00:26:20,274 --> 00:26:23,103 And um, the graves were not deep. 536 00:26:23,146 --> 00:26:25,671 And the bodies didn't seem to be in coffins. 537 00:26:27,194 --> 00:26:29,762 So there was sort of some moving of bones, 538 00:26:29,805 --> 00:26:31,764 and you'd kind of move a headst-- you know, 539 00:26:31,807 --> 00:26:33,809 take a picture of the headstones, and move it, 540 00:26:33,853 --> 00:26:36,507 and put it back later. 541 00:26:36,551 --> 00:26:38,074 I think we may have... desecrated some stuff. 542 00:26:38,118 --> 00:26:39,946 I'm not sure. But I don't remember. 543 00:26:39,989 --> 00:26:41,730 I could-it could all be a hallucination. 544 00:26:41,774 --> 00:26:43,906 Please don't hold me to any of this. 545 00:26:43,950 --> 00:26:46,474 Dawn: To me, when a bunch of Americans 546 00:26:46,517 --> 00:26:48,128 try to recreate something that's happening 547 00:26:48,171 --> 00:26:50,086 in Haitian culture, that's enough to be 548 00:26:50,130 --> 00:26:52,306 a little nerve-wracking right there. 549 00:26:52,349 --> 00:26:55,657 If we had disrupted something there by doing something wrong, 550 00:26:55,701 --> 00:26:58,181 would we have called in a God that was angry at us? 551 00:26:59,705 --> 00:27:01,445 I don't know. 552 00:27:03,447 --> 00:27:04,666 [Beep] 553 00:27:04,710 --> 00:27:06,581 [Birds chirp] 554 00:27:06,625 --> 00:27:07,843 David L.: At this point we'd been there 555 00:27:07,887 --> 00:27:09,453 for a number of weeks. 556 00:27:12,108 --> 00:27:14,415 But nobody had really dealt 557 00:27:14,458 --> 00:27:16,635 with the desperation of the people. 558 00:27:18,506 --> 00:27:22,075 So it was kind of a little bit shocking, 559 00:27:22,118 --> 00:27:24,033 and a little bit frightening 560 00:27:24,077 --> 00:27:26,079 to see this all of a sudden change 561 00:27:26,122 --> 00:27:27,994 in the way that it had. 562 00:27:31,562 --> 00:27:32,738 David A.: We were shooting the giant procession. 563 00:27:35,001 --> 00:27:36,872 So we had our main characters, 564 00:27:36,916 --> 00:27:40,615 and literally thousands of Haitian extras. 565 00:27:40,659 --> 00:27:42,269 I think there were 2,000. 566 00:27:45,315 --> 00:27:47,666 Wade: They hired like, 1,500 extras, 567 00:27:49,319 --> 00:27:51,365 but of course it quickly grew to 3,000 or 4,000 in Haiti. 568 00:27:54,368 --> 00:27:56,196 Then they had the naivete to think 569 00:27:56,239 --> 00:27:58,111 that the assistant director could go, "cut!" 570 00:27:59,765 --> 00:28:01,592 Well, you don't let loose 4,000 Haitians, 571 00:28:01,636 --> 00:28:04,508 drums, night, torches, and music, 572 00:28:04,552 --> 00:28:06,989 and song, and chant, and go, "cut!" 573 00:28:07,033 --> 00:28:10,253 I mean, this was a full-on ceremony at this point. 574 00:28:10,297 --> 00:28:12,038 [Crowd shouts] 575 00:28:14,910 --> 00:28:17,434 [Overlapping shouting] 576 00:28:19,436 --> 00:28:20,742 And rumor went out that everybody 577 00:28:20,786 --> 00:28:22,701 wasn't gonna get paid. 578 00:28:22,744 --> 00:28:24,267 - Some of the extras found out that other people 579 00:28:24,311 --> 00:28:25,965 were getting more money. 580 00:28:26,008 --> 00:28:28,445 And so they all were demanding to be paid 581 00:28:28,489 --> 00:28:30,012 the greater amount of money. 582 00:28:30,056 --> 00:28:31,971 And it may have been the difference of a dollar 583 00:28:32,014 --> 00:28:33,886 to ten dollars, which, it-- 584 00:28:33,929 --> 00:28:35,975 you know, that many years ago, in Haiti, 585 00:28:36,018 --> 00:28:38,020 was an, an incredible amount of money. 586 00:28:38,064 --> 00:28:40,153 Bill: There was a lot of people. 587 00:28:40,196 --> 00:28:42,329 Even before we came down there, that said, 588 00:28:42,372 --> 00:28:44,418 you're gonna come into Haiti, 589 00:28:44,461 --> 00:28:47,116 and you have an insane amount of money 590 00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:49,379 for this conditions that these people live in here. 591 00:28:51,251 --> 00:28:54,689 The average pay a day is a dollar 592 00:28:54,733 --> 00:28:56,430 for cuttin' sugar cane, 593 00:28:56,473 --> 00:28:58,649 one of the worst jobs you could ever have in this life. 594 00:28:59,955 --> 00:29:02,218 And I think production was trying to get-- 595 00:29:02,262 --> 00:29:04,177 well, we'll give 'em three dollars a day. 596 00:29:05,918 --> 00:29:07,876 - They felt that we were underpaying them, 597 00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:09,704 and I think we probably were. 598 00:29:09,748 --> 00:29:11,140 And they wanted more money. 599 00:29:11,184 --> 00:29:13,490 [Crowd shouts] 600 00:29:15,623 --> 00:29:18,191 Bill: You know, suddenly I began to get a feeling 601 00:29:18,234 --> 00:29:20,062 that people were getting anxious. 602 00:29:20,106 --> 00:29:22,673 And I was hearing from ADs that there was uh, 603 00:29:22,717 --> 00:29:24,501 talk of a strike, 604 00:29:24,545 --> 00:29:26,590 that the extras were gonna strike. 605 00:29:28,418 --> 00:29:32,683 And then, you know, that kinda became louder and louder, 606 00:29:32,727 --> 00:29:36,078 and then it became more like a little bit of an unrest. 607 00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:39,821 - And I'll never forget, at this point, 608 00:29:39,865 --> 00:29:41,692 I thought I had a great bond with these people. 609 00:29:41,736 --> 00:29:43,390 And I got up on top of a bus, 610 00:29:43,433 --> 00:29:45,827 and I was trying to negotiate with them. 611 00:29:45,871 --> 00:29:48,177 - I remember him with a mic-- a megaphone, 612 00:29:48,221 --> 00:29:50,310 in his Banana Republic outfit. 613 00:29:50,353 --> 00:29:54,140 And on top of this building with the megaphone 614 00:29:54,183 --> 00:29:56,011 and a translator, 615 00:29:56,055 --> 00:29:59,058 trying to talk everybody down. 616 00:29:59,101 --> 00:30:01,800 - And I looked down, and they all had rocks in their hands. 617 00:30:01,843 --> 00:30:04,019 - And the negotiations fell apart, 618 00:30:04,063 --> 00:30:07,066 and they revolted, and started throwing rocks at us. 619 00:30:07,109 --> 00:30:09,285 - And they started to kind of riot. 620 00:30:09,329 --> 00:30:10,983 - We had to leave our camera equipment, 621 00:30:11,026 --> 00:30:13,289 everybody had to-- we had to run into a church, 622 00:30:13,333 --> 00:30:14,900 and lock the door. 623 00:30:14,943 --> 00:30:17,641 - We were surrounded, and... 624 00:30:18,947 --> 00:30:21,732 we...we needed to get out. 625 00:30:21,776 --> 00:30:24,257 David L.: In the meantime, Doug had ensconced himself 626 00:30:24,300 --> 00:30:27,608 in a house, and was paying the extras 627 00:30:27,651 --> 00:30:29,828 with what money he had. 628 00:30:29,871 --> 00:30:31,873 The word was out that we are out of here. 629 00:30:31,917 --> 00:30:36,051 And I literally ran straight from set into a bus, 630 00:30:36,095 --> 00:30:39,054 got in the bus, and off we went. 631 00:30:39,098 --> 00:30:41,317 And I was in one of the first buses that left, 632 00:30:41,361 --> 00:30:44,451 um, with rocks pelting the back of the bus as we left. 633 00:30:46,714 --> 00:30:48,585 We went straight from that location 634 00:30:48,629 --> 00:30:50,805 straight to a running plane, 635 00:30:50,849 --> 00:30:53,373 and straight to the Dominican Republic. 636 00:30:54,635 --> 00:30:56,376 That was it for Haiti. 637 00:30:56,419 --> 00:30:58,726 Cathy: I-I do like to be an adventurer. 638 00:31:00,249 --> 00:31:02,121 But with adventure 639 00:31:02,164 --> 00:31:04,210 comes responsibility as well. 640 00:31:07,300 --> 00:31:09,041 Marianne: No one had thought about, you know, 641 00:31:09,084 --> 00:31:11,521 you're gonna gather a thousand people together 642 00:31:11,565 --> 00:31:13,567 who are making three dollars a day. 643 00:31:15,264 --> 00:31:16,875 I think it was a naive decision. 644 00:31:19,573 --> 00:31:20,966 Wade: We all got over to Dominican Republic, 645 00:31:21,009 --> 00:31:23,185 Santa Domingo. 646 00:31:23,229 --> 00:31:25,535 Everybody is completely exhausted. 647 00:31:25,579 --> 00:31:27,886 And uh, the luggage doesn't appear. [Laughs] 648 00:31:31,193 --> 00:31:33,108 Obviously there's a scam happening, 649 00:31:33,152 --> 00:31:35,241 So I got on the luggage rack and I crawled through the door 650 00:31:35,284 --> 00:31:37,243 and went out on the tarmac, 651 00:31:37,286 --> 00:31:39,898 and came around the side of the luggage van 652 00:31:39,941 --> 00:31:42,335 with-filled with luggage from the plane. 653 00:31:42,378 --> 00:31:44,424 And I saw like, five Dominican cops 654 00:31:44,467 --> 00:31:46,339 trying on everybody's clothes. [Laughs] 655 00:31:47,906 --> 00:31:49,820 Caught them red-handed. 656 00:31:49,864 --> 00:31:51,866 And I just said, no. You know, I speak Spanish. 657 00:31:51,910 --> 00:31:53,563 I said, yeah, no, no. 658 00:31:53,607 --> 00:31:55,914 No es posible, hermanos, por favor. 659 00:31:57,306 --> 00:31:58,917 [Laughs] 660 00:32:01,180 --> 00:32:03,486 David L.: When you make a film, you become a family. 661 00:32:05,662 --> 00:32:08,143 This is a group of people that are brought together 662 00:32:08,187 --> 00:32:11,625 anywhere from three or four months' worth of time 663 00:32:11,668 --> 00:32:14,106 to a year's time. 664 00:32:14,149 --> 00:32:17,326 And you share your life with them, 665 00:32:17,370 --> 00:32:19,328 and they share their lives with you. 666 00:32:20,677 --> 00:32:22,941 David A.: And Marianne, she and Jill, 667 00:32:22,984 --> 00:32:24,681 this is Jill Simpson here, 668 00:32:24,725 --> 00:32:27,380 were this dynamic duo. 669 00:32:27,423 --> 00:32:29,730 And without them, I don't think Wes could have functioned. 670 00:32:31,862 --> 00:32:33,952 Marianne: "The Serpent and the Rainbow" 671 00:32:33,995 --> 00:32:35,518 was the movie that Wes and I decided to become partners on. 672 00:32:39,566 --> 00:32:42,003 I started working with Wes as a producer on "Shocker." 673 00:32:44,179 --> 00:32:46,834 We did "Shocker," and "People Under The Stairs" 674 00:32:46,877 --> 00:32:48,749 for Universal. 675 00:32:48,792 --> 00:32:51,317 We clicked, and we were really good friends, 676 00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:53,101 and we just had a really good partnership. 677 00:32:55,364 --> 00:32:57,149 I just thought Wes was gonna be here forever, 678 00:32:57,192 --> 00:32:59,760 because he was so full of life and interested, 679 00:32:59,803 --> 00:33:01,718 and intriguing. 680 00:33:01,762 --> 00:33:03,807 And it-it just kind of doesn't make sense that he's gone 681 00:33:03,851 --> 00:33:05,505 even to me now. 682 00:33:08,943 --> 00:33:10,858 It was family. 683 00:33:10,901 --> 00:33:12,729 Obviously for David as well. 684 00:33:12,773 --> 00:33:15,036 I mean, he met his wife through "Serpent and the Rainbow." 685 00:33:17,386 --> 00:33:19,606 David A.: I had to ask for his approval to marry Heather, 686 00:33:19,649 --> 00:33:21,738 basically. [Laughs] 687 00:33:23,914 --> 00:33:25,394 I didn't even ask Heather's father. 688 00:33:25,438 --> 00:33:27,179 I had to ask Wes Craven. 689 00:33:29,485 --> 00:33:31,705 So, there you have it. 690 00:33:31,748 --> 00:33:33,011 Thank you, Wes. 691 00:33:34,621 --> 00:33:36,275 Jonathan: People loved him. 692 00:33:36,318 --> 00:33:38,538 People went through Hell for him, 693 00:33:38,581 --> 00:33:40,670 and did it gladly. 694 00:33:40,714 --> 00:33:42,585 Like, were happy to be there. 695 00:33:44,065 --> 00:33:45,588 You know for me it could be challenging at times 696 00:33:45,632 --> 00:33:48,200 because I was like, the film crew is really your family. 697 00:33:49,636 --> 00:33:51,420 Everybody worked with my father, 698 00:33:51,464 --> 00:33:53,205 and people would interface with him and interviewed him, 699 00:33:53,248 --> 00:33:55,120 and knew him, oh my God, he's such a great guy. 700 00:33:55,163 --> 00:33:57,383 And he was. He was a great guy. 701 00:33:57,426 --> 00:33:59,341 He was not a great father. 702 00:34:01,604 --> 00:34:03,563 I've talked to a lot of people about it. 703 00:34:03,606 --> 00:34:05,260 It just-it just wasn't something that he could 704 00:34:05,304 --> 00:34:07,132 really wrap his head around. 705 00:34:07,175 --> 00:34:09,917 He wanted to, I think, but... 706 00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:12,050 he didn't want to do that more than he wanted to be a director 707 00:34:12,093 --> 00:34:14,791 and wanted to be who he had become. 708 00:34:16,489 --> 00:34:18,273 He tried to branch out and do other things. 709 00:34:18,317 --> 00:34:19,927 He's-he comes back to horror. 710 00:34:19,970 --> 00:34:21,668 That's where the opportunity is, 711 00:34:21,711 --> 00:34:23,626 and that's where he gets to process 712 00:34:23,670 --> 00:34:25,498 whatever happened to him as a child, 713 00:34:25,541 --> 00:34:27,630 which, I know broad strokes of. 714 00:34:27,674 --> 00:34:29,284 There's definitely trauma there. 715 00:34:30,807 --> 00:34:32,635 I think he did what he did really well, 716 00:34:32,679 --> 00:34:34,289 and he put everything into it. 717 00:34:34,333 --> 00:34:36,465 And he had a lot of compassion for the people 718 00:34:36,509 --> 00:34:38,076 who were around him. 719 00:34:39,294 --> 00:34:40,991 I think he had a lot of compassion for me 720 00:34:41,035 --> 00:34:42,819 and my sister. 721 00:34:42,863 --> 00:34:44,212 I think he didn't always know how to connect. 722 00:34:45,692 --> 00:34:48,042 And uh, and that's... that's true for a lot of people, 723 00:34:48,086 --> 00:34:49,435 a lot of fathers and sons. 724 00:34:53,874 --> 00:34:56,833 We're not gonna be like, super cozy as father and son. 725 00:34:56,877 --> 00:34:59,706 But we were able to come together on film sets, 726 00:34:59,749 --> 00:35:02,143 and that was a beautiful thing. 727 00:35:04,667 --> 00:35:06,147 [Low hum of chatter] 728 00:35:06,191 --> 00:35:13,154 ♪♪♪ 729 00:35:13,198 --> 00:35:20,205 ♪♪♪ 730 00:35:20,248 --> 00:35:22,337 Wade: When the film came out, 731 00:35:22,381 --> 00:35:24,165 I was disappointed. 732 00:35:25,427 --> 00:35:28,082 These gratuitous horror elements, 733 00:35:28,126 --> 00:35:31,216 to my mind, completely deflated the power 734 00:35:31,259 --> 00:35:33,914 of the truth of the story. 735 00:35:33,957 --> 00:35:37,874 But I also clearly recognize that it wasn't my film. 736 00:35:37,918 --> 00:35:39,485 It was Wes Craven's film. 737 00:35:40,964 --> 00:35:44,403 In my book I had targeted these movies 738 00:35:44,446 --> 00:35:47,319 as being the perpetrators 739 00:35:47,362 --> 00:35:49,843 of the grotesque stereotypes about Voodoo. 740 00:35:49,886 --> 00:35:51,758 - [Gasps] 741 00:35:51,801 --> 00:35:53,977 - And then suddenly, I'm held responsible 742 00:35:54,021 --> 00:35:56,502 for a Wes Craven movie that by all accounts 743 00:35:56,545 --> 00:35:58,895 essentially perpetuates that same stereotype. 744 00:36:01,289 --> 00:36:03,161 Cathy: That's when I started to think about representation. 745 00:36:05,075 --> 00:36:07,904 And I guess, you know, the white saviorism. 746 00:36:09,254 --> 00:36:10,951 Probably the protagonist would be Black now. 747 00:36:13,910 --> 00:36:16,696 I felt that Bill was the right actor, though. 748 00:36:18,219 --> 00:36:21,266 He was very sensitive to his role, 749 00:36:21,309 --> 00:36:23,398 you know, and other people. 750 00:36:25,183 --> 00:36:28,273 I think for young Black actresses now, 751 00:36:30,449 --> 00:36:33,800 there's a record of somebody who worked there in 1988, 752 00:36:33,843 --> 00:36:36,542 and did the female lead. 753 00:36:36,585 --> 00:36:38,283 I'm proud of that legacy. 754 00:36:39,371 --> 00:36:42,939 ♪♪♪ 755 00:36:59,869 --> 00:37:01,393 David L.: I think that Wade, you know, 756 00:37:01,436 --> 00:37:03,221 he has very mixed emotions about it, 757 00:37:03,264 --> 00:37:05,527 because on the one hand, you know, 758 00:37:05,571 --> 00:37:08,008 he felt that maybe we had, to a degree, 759 00:37:08,051 --> 00:37:10,358 bastardized this serious piece of work. 760 00:37:12,317 --> 00:37:14,319 - But on the other hand, 761 00:37:14,362 --> 00:37:17,235 it made Wade Davis, Wade Davis. 762 00:37:18,845 --> 00:37:21,413 Wade: I literally went from being kind of the darling 763 00:37:21,456 --> 00:37:23,632 of the Haitian community, 764 00:37:23,676 --> 00:37:25,678 to being a so-called controversial figure. 765 00:37:27,723 --> 00:37:29,943 So it was a very bittersweet 766 00:37:29,986 --> 00:37:32,250 convergence of forces that occurred. 767 00:37:34,164 --> 00:37:36,341 That said, I totally honored the people 768 00:37:36,384 --> 00:37:38,256 that worked so hard to make it. 769 00:37:39,996 --> 00:37:41,824 And I left it all behind me, without bitterness 770 00:37:41,868 --> 00:37:44,914 or contempt, and only joy. 771 00:37:44,958 --> 00:37:47,308 But then I just went on with a new phase of my life, 772 00:37:47,352 --> 00:37:49,223 and became an activist 773 00:37:49,267 --> 00:37:51,791 working on behalf of the last nomadic people 774 00:37:51,834 --> 00:37:53,488 of the rainforest of Southeast Asia. 775 00:37:55,098 --> 00:37:56,361 And I have not been back to Haiti since. 776 00:38:50,066 --> 00:38:51,503 David A.: All in all, when I look back on it, 777 00:38:53,113 --> 00:38:55,158 I believe there was a curse. 778 00:38:55,202 --> 00:38:57,204 I believe there are curses. 779 00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:00,381 I believe we were actually blessed and protected. 780 00:39:02,601 --> 00:39:05,038 What may have happened had we not gotten that blessing, 781 00:39:05,081 --> 00:39:06,909 you know, God only knows. 782 00:39:08,607 --> 00:39:10,696 But there was a certain confidence that was given 783 00:39:10,739 --> 00:39:12,915 to us all that night. 784 00:39:12,959 --> 00:39:16,310 I basically learned my craft through all of these people 785 00:39:16,354 --> 00:39:19,008 that I was now on an island with. 786 00:39:19,052 --> 00:39:21,359 Every experience just got soaked in, 787 00:39:21,402 --> 00:39:24,100 and filed, and became like, the foundation. 788 00:39:25,493 --> 00:39:27,408 - David LeRoy Anderson, for "The Nutty Professor." 789 00:39:27,452 --> 00:39:29,541 [Audience cheers] 790 00:39:29,584 --> 00:39:31,238 - And what I was able to achieve there 791 00:39:31,281 --> 00:39:32,935 with this film crew, 792 00:39:32,979 --> 00:39:34,676 and with this film community, 793 00:39:34,720 --> 00:39:37,331 was enough to make my Dad proud, 794 00:39:37,375 --> 00:39:39,333 and make me feel successful, 795 00:39:39,377 --> 00:39:41,596 and make me come home excited about what I had done. 796 00:39:43,250 --> 00:39:45,165 But very, very aware of the fact 797 00:39:45,208 --> 00:39:48,037 that I didn't do any of it alone. 798 00:39:48,081 --> 00:39:51,476 ♪♪♪ 799 00:39:53,782 --> 00:40:00,746 ♪♪♪ 800 00:40:00,789 --> 00:40:07,753 ♪♪♪ 801 00:40:07,796 --> 00:40:14,760 ♪♪♪ 802 00:40:14,803 --> 00:40:21,767 ♪♪♪ 803 00:40:21,810 --> 00:40:28,774 ♪♪♪ 804 00:40:28,817 --> 00:40:35,781 ♪♪♪ 805 00:40:35,824 --> 00:40:42,788 ♪♪♪ 806 00:40:42,831 --> 00:40:49,577 ♪♪♪