JO: One of the reasons I ask that, and you've already hit on it, is that there are more or less only two places to watch a documentary, either on the television screen or the movie screen, and right now in our culture there is usually a certain mindset that goes along with those media on the part of both the audience and the producers, namely entertainment.

WG: I think that learning can be entertaining. I've always been an avid learner, and have always enjoyed the process of learning and discovery. I think that one of the things that motivates people in general is their curiosity, which I think is sort of an innate human trait. Part of what I find challenging and what I'm interested in is creating documentary products, documentary films, that are "entertaining," and in that sense what I'm saying is I think there are things that inspire people to want to pay attention. They inspire people to want to know more or to want to feel more included in sort of the overall process of life.

JO: Besides what you've already stated, is there anything specifically that drew you to the documentary form as opposed to a regular, and more popular, story-type movie?

WG: I somehow at some point managed to discover that real stories, real life, can be as compelling as anything that we can make up or fantasize about or imagine. We have a tremendous capacity to imagine stories and to imagine events and situations, but a lot of these things that we imagine are modeled after real life. There are a lot of movies that have been made that are modeled after people's real lives. You know, there's "Cleopatra," things like that. That's not a documentary, but it's not a complete work of fiction either. There are a lot of instances like that, and I think at one point I just found that I personally identified more strongly with real stories that were also compelling.

JO: You just mentioned how many movies are based on real events and real people, and it seems to me the point of such a basis is to over-dramatize those situations and people, to make them more interesting. It seems like one could also do that in a non-fiction, documentary movie, and that while in a story movie you'd want that, you wouldn't so much in a documentary. Are there any safeguards that you set up to keep from doing that in your films?

WG: I maintain my integrity. I mean, one of the things that I think keeps me tied to the documentary genre is that the real facts of the story and the real coincidences and the real conundrums and paradoxes that people find themselves in in their real lives are - if you manage to really dig enough to find all of those little gems, those little pieces of information, you generally end up with something that is just as compelling as whatever you can imagine in a narrative situation, in a dramatic film. So, no, I don't really, I personally don't concern myself with the dangers of over-dramatizing. I think that's something that perhaps people need to do because they can't find enough interesting material to work on or something. Do you know what I'm saying?

JO: Sure, I think that's a good point.

WG: I think it's something that you can be distracted by -- the tendency to want to over-dramatize -- but that's not a big concern for me.

JO: Could you tell us about any documentaries that might have influenced you in your career, or not necessarily influenced you per se, but that you find a lot of value in?

WG: I haven't been terribly influenced particularly by documentary filmmakers. I'm really a fan of the film genre in general. You know, the cinema is a very complex art form and a very sophisticated art form that includes so many different sub-art forms. The visual aspect, the story telling, the writing, the music, all of those things combined together I feel quite enamored with, so I'm really a student of all filmmaking. I will say one of my favorite filmmakers, one of my favorite documentary film makers, is Ken Burns. I really admire him a lot, and I really admire what he's done, and the reason I admire what he's done is because he is able to take fairly conventional subjects and marry them with what I consider to be really authentic human qualities. I think Ken is a very insightful filmmaker -- really does an excellent job of bringing passion and humanity into his stories in a way that is very accessible, and I admire that. As for films, I like the "Woodstock" film a lot, because it's a very honest portrayal of an event in time, and I think that it successfully portrayed a certain moment in terms of history in a fairly heartful and accurate manner. So I sort of have a soft spot for that.

JO: If I remember correctly, one of the more intriguing aspects of that film is that there is no, or at the very least little, narration in that film.

WG: I don't think there was any.

JO: There are just connected images of what was actually going on.

WG: Yes, and I think it communicates that moment in time very well. Another piece that I like a lot is "The Trials of Nuremberg," which is certainly not "Woodstock," but again, it's history. It's letting us know what really happened, and who was really who, and what's the story behind the story.

JO: You've probably already answered this, but if you can add to it, what do you think the ideal value of the documentary film itself is either within the context of film in general, or maybe even within our culture, or, heck, even life?

WG: Well, I think that there are a number of stories that are available to be told that are important stories, that are pivotal moments in time or pivotal moments in history or even in contemporary or current times, that can show us more than we might be exposed to on a day to day basis about who we are and how we operate and what motivates us and things of that nature. I think there's value in that. I think there's value in seeing things that are true that aren't necessarily commonplace and that are indicative of some aspect of our collective character.

JO: Now, I've seen in other places where you've mentioned and put a lot of emphasis on what you term "human experience" in connection with your work. Is that tied into what you just said about collective character?

WG: Yes, it is, as a matter of fact.

JO: Well then if you could just elaborate, if you would, on exactly what you mean by phrases like "collective character" and "human experience."

WG: I think it's interesting that you mention that. You know, human experience determines to a great degree how we view the world, what our worldview is. And similarly, any individual's worldview, any individual's set of morals, ethics, values, standards, you know, the fiber of their character, so to speak, has a lot to do with what they do in life, what decisions they make, what actions they take, which I think ties in with sort of the general superstructure of laws and morals and values and all that. There's a lot of talk these days about family values and morality, and I think a lot of this is tied to what we experience, how we experience life. I like to play in this arena. I like to play in the arena of actual and real experiences. And again, it ties into what I was saying before about exposure to things that aren't common, things that are maybe out of the ordinary or are in some way suppressed or hidden. "Waco" was about a suppressed story, for example. I have found so far that people who have a chance to learn more about these kinds of experiences benefit. They take a little piece -- they identify with a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I think people find value in that.

JO: Before we move into your film on Waco more fully, I would like to ask you one, sort of a technical, question. Since the documentary is a visual medium, since you are presenting facts, viewpoints, what you've summed up as the "human experience" in a visual form, what do you believe are the strengths of that kind of presentation, as well as what might be more of a weakness in having to present these things visually?

WG: Well, again, we're kind of getting into some similar concepts. The tendency to perceive documentaries as about facts kind of implies that facts are in and of themselves not dramatic, you know, that there's no drama to facts. And there's a difference between the truth and just a pile of facts. The truth often involves conundrums, paradoxes, confusing facts, facts that don't necessarily agree with one another, contradictions. And these are things that aren't necessarily dry. They can be quite fascinating. They can be quite mysterious. And as far as the visual element of that goes, I think that one of the things that I rely on in my films is character. So, visually we may be looking at a talking head, but character-wise and emotionally, if we are connected to the story, if we are engaged and involved in what the story is saying to us, then there's something there to grab onto emotionally. It's not just a talking head, it's a person that has a certain character that we identify with in a certain way, or we don't identify with, we dis-identify with. So I rely a lot on character, as opposed to glamorous visuals. It's true we live in a very visually sophisticated environment right now as far as the medium is concerned. There's a lot of visual tools out there, and I actually like not being forced to be committed to sophisticated visual work, special effects, creating whole universes that are completely artificial. It's technically very demanding.

JO: Well, what I meant by presenting things visually is not like special effects, or what do they usually say, "visually stunning," I think is what they always put on video box covers. What I mean by visuals is as a visual medium, as opposed to books which use the printed word and plays which use live dialogue.

WG: Right, right. All these things have to do with the consumer and how the person is consuming the product, or who is your audience. It all has to do with the audience. If the audience is involved internally, if they are connected with what they are seeing, hearing, sensing, I rely a lot on 'how is my audience going to react' to this little sort of interplay, say, between a couple of characters, much like a play. A play is dialogue. At the same time, there is something that transcends just what you hear or just what you see or just what people are saying. It's that next level up, again, of human experience. It's how people experience things. That's what I like about the film medium -- it is experiential. More so than writing alone or audio alone. It's a very effective medium for getting people's attention and getting them to be involved with something. And to me the critical factor is how involved is my audience? How much do they become a part of it?

JO: Okay, you just answered my next question, which was why you chose the form of film to present non-fiction situations, as opposed to, say, a book.

WG: Yeah, I think there's much more of an opportunity to put your audience in the moment. One of the things that I keep focused in my mind while I'm making a film is the moment when the lights have come up, and the audience is walking out of the theater. Where is my audience participant going to be at that moment? What are they going to be feeling? What are they going to be thinking? Most of the time, I want them to want to talk to whomever they've come to the theater with about what they've just seen. That's one of my primary objectives -- will people be motivated to talk about what they've just seen with each other once they get out of the theater.

JO: Moving now to "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," the film for which you are probably the most famous. It seems to take a definite side on the issue, or to attempt to make a point, compellingly I might add, as opposed to, say, an objective, journalistic dissemination of cold facts. Is that how you feel the documentary should be, or is that just your style?

WG: I view "Waco" as nothing but a dissemination of cold, hard facts. You know, there's no opinion expressed in that film. If you go back and view it, there isn't one opinion given in the movie. What's given is a lot of conflicting facts. There's a lot of information in that film that's presented -- a lot of that film is testimony before Congress. When I made it, I wasn't really looking for anything more than what I just said -- how are people going to be affected when they walk out of the movie theater? Maybe not so much how, but ARE -- if they are going to be affected. So the only objective that I held in my mind as I was making it was, I want to get through to people. I want them to understand what happened. And because it was so politically sketchy, you know, tentative - when we were making "Waco," most people thought, why are you doing that? Why bother? Everybody knows what happened there. That was the general response that we got. Now, of course, working on it as deeply as I was with my partners I knew there was a lot more that happened there than most people knew. And my job was to present the facts, what happened. And it goes exactly back to what we were talking about earlier because it is a compelling story. It's a real human drama. It's a real, actual, compelling, set of circumstances. And that's just what it is. I didn't create the story, I just told it.

JO: That's actually a rather amazing statement. In my own watching of it, as I just said, I thought you were certainly taking a side. Many of the reviews I've read also seemed to think something along the same lines in that you were taking somewhat of the Branch-Davidian side in presenting the story. I think it would be interesting, in re-watching it, to keep conscious of what you just said, and see how that comes out.

WG: Well, I wasn't so much on the Branch-Davidian side as I was on the side of information that was generally not available. A lot of what the film consists of are things nobody else knew. I personally like the little moments when somebody says, "Ah-ha" or "I didn't know that." And, that's just a reflection of what my own process is. I was not a student of the Waco incident. The idea of making the film was really introduced to me by a friend of a friend. He came by the studio one day and said he wanted to make a documentary about this, that's all. I didn't know a lot about it. So as I was learning about it, in the process of making the film there were many times when I went, "Ah, I didn't know that." So I just made it a point to include those moments in the film, because I thought what I found interesting other people might find interesting."

JO: That was certainly me all the way through that film saying, "I didn't know that."

WG: Yeah, for me, that's basically documentary filmmaking: "I didn't know that."

JO: Now, your "Waco" film, that was definitely a heavy, affecting experience, especially toward the end, obviously. I watched the whole thing with my eyebrows drawn down. How does that fit in with what you've already talked about concerning the human experience, or, maybe I should say, what does that say about the human experience?

WG: In terms of the "Waco" film, I think you have to actually look at the Waco incident. That incident involved thousands of people, five, six, seven hundred on site while it was actually occurring, and the film is really intended to be an honest reflection of their experience. I mean, Waco's a heavy story, heavy-duty, and so no wonder, the fact that the film affects people as a heavy story tells me I did a good job in telling the real story. I had to tone down my own emotions severely and stay away from any feelings that I might have and just tell the story.

JO: Central to your film on Waco was the concept of injustice. Similar veins run in your film "Reckless Indifference," as well your project in the works, "The Great Darkness: The Orphans of Duplessis." What is it about the ideas of justice and injustice that draws you to them or that you find especially valid?

WG: Justice is a very honored and regarded part of our world. I is helf very highly. We're fighting a war right now over issues surrounding what is just. We're fighting an injustice in our war against terrorism. So justice is a big part of how we govern ourselves, how we keep ourselves an organized society. These films are examples of a weakness in our overall functioning. Injustice is where we have screwed up, basically. And I also think it's like that in our individual lives -- we learn from our mistakes, and injustice is a mistake. It's something where the justice system, or justice process, went awry -- where something went wrong. And it's unfortunate that some of our institutions that are charged with guarding justice, they don't like to talk about their mistakes. Institutions don't like to disclose, they're selective. But I don't think people are as selective as that. And, again, we I think people as a whole learn from knowing about the errors that have occurred, either in the past or in the present. There is a value there in knowing when things have gone wrong. I mean, I know that in my own life I learn from my mistakes. Sometimes my mistakes hurt, but I learn from them. That's part of the process of life. I think that on a larger scale, the same principles still apply.

JO: Now, besides what you've already told us about justice and injustice, what is it that drew you in particular to this case which involved Brandon Hein?

WG: Well, Brandon is Mr. Everyman when it comes to teenagers. He was not that unusual a kid. The film is actually not just about Brandon. Brandon was the only person that I could get into the prison to film because of restrictions in the California prison code. Brandon and those kids are pretty much Joe Blo/Everybody as far as teenagers are concerned. They were not really radically dysfunctional young kids. They weren't model students, but they also weren't serial killers, either. Yet, they got life without parole. And I think that the mixing or the confrontation between what these kids did and the system is something that deserves circumspect observation. The other thing the story is about is their parents. The parents of these kids were not prepared for what happened to their children. They went into this thinking, "The system is behind us...we trust our system, we trust our district attorney, we trust the justice system -- we live in America, we live in an American suburb, we are model citizens, we work hard, we pay our rent, we pay our taxes, we believe in God and country." And the experience was absolutely devastating for them, let alone for the kids, because at the end of the day, their kids are in jail for life. And only one of them really did anything that was criminal, certainly in their perspective. And since I made "Reckless" I've gotten reports of other teenagers who are confronted with very similar situations here in Los Angeles. One friend of mine, his son is in jail now for I think 11 years, and it was a very similar story to what happened to those kids in "Reckless Indifference," very similar. So I think the thesis that these kids are the teenage examples of Joe Everyman is valid.

JO: What can you tell us about your film "Crop Circles: Quest for Truth" and your projects in development, "Journey" and "Orphans of Duplessis"?

WG: "Crop Circles: Quest for Truth" centers around the crop circle phenomenon, which is primarily in southern England. I stumbled onto this a few years ago, and thought it was quite fascinating. These "pictures" or pictograms appear in the fields over there every year during the summertime. And there's quite a social milieu around this phenomenon. There are people who have been studying it, writing about it, photographing it, in general trying to document it for over a decade. And it's quite a worthwhile pursuit. What I found interesting was the degree of knowledge and sophisticated data that has been collected over the last ten years or so related to this phenomenon. And once I investigated it and found out it was a real phenomenon, it wasn't some sort of man-made trickery or something -- there's a little bit of that -- but the actual phenomenon is really huge. Around a hundred of these things appear every year. That's every year for ten, twelve, fourteen years now. And the British press kind of pooh-poohs it and the American press has pretty much ignored it. When I went over there and actually saw them and sat in them and met people who were associated with researching them, I was very impressed. I was very impressed by the level of intelligence and objectivity and scientific acumen that a lot of these people possess. They're very media-shy, they don't like the media -- they're not really media-hungry. And it's really quite an interesting subject.

JO: Did you come to any conclusions about these crop circles, any theories you think are the most accurate?

WG: That's what's going to make the film fun -- there is nothing but theories, because nobody really knows what's going on. Even the people that have been there ten or twelve years, something that I found quite fascinating, their bottom line is, "We don't know. We have no idea." There is some scientific/biological analysis of the plants, and the plants show some very specific biological anomalies that indicate high heat, -- very short term high temperatures -- and unusual biological specifics that indicate something out of the ordinary. And this is something that we can't recreate just by taking a board out and laying a bunch of crop down and making a picture out of it. There's something going on! And beyond a few scattered pieces of scientific evidence, the most compelling aspect of this is the actual designs themselves which, in many instances, incorporate a lot of higher-level mathematics. There is geometry involved. And that's what really piques people's curiosity -- there's something going on here that looks like it could be some sort of communication. People don't know. But there's a lot of very sophisticated mathematics in these things. You've probably seen pictures of them.

JO: Sure. But all I really know about them is what I've learned in the School of Pop Culture, you know, aliens and hoaxes.

WG: Right, and both of those are a waste of time. The alien thing is really more of a pop cultural kind of pigeon-hole. We don't know what it is, so it must have something to do with extraterrestrials. That's the only pigeon-hole we have to put them in. The people who research them say they don't have any evidence for that at all. As for the hoaxing aspect of it, there is a small group of guys who take great glee in professing to make these things. This has been going on for about ten years, but when you get down to the facts, when you get down to the fact that there are literally over 100 formations every year...do you know how hard you'd have to work? Even if you had ten guys to go out there, they'd have to make them at night, and nobody's ever been caught making them. There's never been one found that has a mistake in it, and nobody's ever been caught. It just doesn't add up. The facts don't add up that they're man-made, so there's something going on.

JO: Now, "Journey" deals with psychedelics. I've read that it is "not a pro-drug opus," but that neither is it a demonstrative condemnation of those substances.

WG: We have a lot of confusion in our culture about things that affect the mind. There's a lot of legislation and control and fear about anything that affects the mind, any kind of psychotropic, or what they call these days "entheogenic-initiated experience" -- an experience that you can initiate on your own that will purposely affect your mind in a very powerful manner. We don't really have the architecture in our society to handle that. What I found interesting is that in indigenous cultures, in native cultures all around the world, for centuries, the purposeful ingestion of some sort of plant or herb combined with some sort of ceremony, some sort of ritual that is very highly regarded in a spiritual sense, is very commonplace. When you talk to an anthropologist and ask them, "where in the world do they eat herbs or bark or roots or whatever and combine them with some sort of ceremony or ritual to expand their consciousness or to somehow access some alternative state of consciousness?" And what anthropologists will tell you is that it is very common -- that it happens all over the world. It doesn't happen in our current society. So then when I started researching this issue more and tried to find some parallels, like, what is it in these indigenous cultures, why do they do this? Is this just some sort of useless, arcane, ancient pastime? And I did not find that. What I found was that these experiences in these indigenous cultures are very important for their self-management. They basically seek insight into issues that are of concern to them. And I think there's a need for that here. I think we have a lot of issues in our contemporary world that could use some insight -- some new thinking, some alternative approaches. And we already have a lot of ways to brainstorm outside of our normal, everyday consensus reality. Within some of our more progressive industries, like computer programming/software design, the use of psychedelics is very common. A lot of computer programmers, graphic designers and people in the arts are experienced in altering their consciousness for a purpose, for a reason. It affects what they do in terms of being creative, in terms of finding alternative methods. When I found out how popular psychedelics were in the computer programming world, and in the graphic arts world, I started finding out the history. For example, in the late 1950's and the early 1960's, people like Henry Luce, who was the editor and publisher of "Time" magazine, took LSD under a psychiatrist's supervision, because in those days things like that were considered to be experimental and potentially very valuable. Cary Grant had like a hundred LSD trips, and credited his experiences with LSD in helping him work out some issues with his dad. I actually talked to his psychiatrist, who is a wonderful woman, who is still alive, she's quite elderly now, but I found out the whole story. And in that very short period of time, the late 1950's/early 1960's, there was a tremendous interest in what I'm talking about here, in the possibility that there may be a tool available to expand one's consciousness or to create an opportunity for insight and insightful examination of oneself. So the film is really about this possibility.

JO: It's definitely true that we know very little about the mind, the physical apparatus certainly, but also most definitely regarding the more intangible mental workings. It also seems that there would be at least some valid reasons to combat that kind of optimism toward these substances, or I guess potential optimism, about a possible tool for, say, health reasons or what have you.

WG: Well, what I'll say is this, it was important to me in working on "Journey" to be aware of the climate that exists for a subject such as this. And I think that concern over drug abuse is valid. Concern over any kind of abuse, drug abuse, emotional abuse, anything like that is a very valid concern. But I think it's unfortunate that the topic gets blanketed in sort of an overall categorization -- that anything in this area is potentially harmful. There's a lot of information out there as well, I've talked to pharmacologists, people who are working in the brain chemistry field, and pretty much all these things that involve psychoactive properties that are in the plant and herbal domain are non-toxic. There's no toxicity -- chemically, there's no chemical toxicity. So, there's a lot of false information out there that I'm interested in straightening out.

JO: Moving on to "The Orphans of Duplessis," it seems that you're moving back into "Waco" territory as far as tone and heaviness of subject matter, especially when compared to crop circles and psychedelics. What can you tell us about that?

WG: Like I said before, my hope is that we learn from our mistakes. What happened in this story was a monumental set of unfortunate circumstances and just downright deceptive practices that hurt a lot of people, and my basic objective in this is to be a part of the process of rectification -- of setting it to right. I met a lot of these adult orphans who are now in their fifties and sixties. Their stories are very compelling. Because these people were children, and they had no idea, they had no control, they had no power over what happened to them. They had no choice, they did not choose this, this was imposed upon them as children. And the real crux of it is the fact that the church -- the Catholic church was involved in this. And the approach that we're taking is that within the church itself are traditions of forgiveness and traditions of reconciliation and traditions of setting to right injustices. What happened was, in Quebec, all the orphanages were turned into psychiatric institutions basically overnight, and all the children, even normal ones, were treated as mentally ill patients and subjected to all sorts of inhumanity as a result.

JO: I noticed on "Waco" your credits for the film included writer, director, editor, producer, and probably some others that I missed, and I'm sure on your other films it's similar, but that seems like a lot of involvement for a single person on a film.

WG: It's fun because they become very much a part of your life, and then they're done. The most fun I have -- and one of the things that keeps me engaged in all this -- is I love to see what the impact is. It's like throwing a pebble into a pond and seeing where the ripples go, and how the ripples shape themselves. And I really like seeing what it's like to devote myself to something that I really have a commitment to, and a connection to, and do my best, and see what happens -- see how it really impacts people's lives for real. When I was nominated for the Academy Award, one of the special things for the nominees is this luncheon that they have every year where all the nominees in every category come together and have this lunch. They take a big picture -- like a class picture that you get a copy of. Other than the Oscar ceremony itself, it's one of the more special moments for a nominee. So I went there, and I overheard a conversation where somebody was saying, "What's with the documentary thing? Why do they even do documentaries? They don't make any money. It's not like they're blockbusters." And the response was, "Listen, these are the last filmmakers left. These are the only ones that still make films. They shoot them, they cut them, they have hands-on themselves, they touch them. They make the movie -- like Chaplin used to do." You know, Chaplin was a consummate filmmaker-type. He shot and edited and did everything. And I thought that was a great answer. I really felt honored with that kind of response. I think that says a lot about what documentary filmmaking is about. It's not filmmaking by committee. It's not selecting projects that have toys that can be marketed with them, or ancillary products. They're not films that are green-lighted by marketing staffs. They're films of passion, and they're films of personal commitment.