PRINTThe veteran: Q&A with Margaret Brown
February 28, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
For more on each movie, visit our True/False blog.
When filmmaker Margaret Brown returned to her native Mobile, Ala., to make a film, she had every intention of producing a fictional narrative. But as she researched her idea — a fictionalization of the story of her mother, the town’s Mardi Gras queen of 1966 — she unintentionally stumbled onto a more interesting subject.
Related ArticlesHer pet project unexpectedly became an expansive work about Mobile’s Mardi Gras celebrations, which are segregated even today. Incorporating her hometown’s regrettable history, festival theatrics and the politics of the present, The Order of Myths is not simply a white guilt trip but an examination of an ongoing racial rift. It’s also been receiving rave reviews: The New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis calls Order “a story that is at once very site-specific and seemingly simple and as big and richly complex as the United States itself.”
Together, The Order of Myths and Brown’s first movie, Be Here to Love Me, about Texas folk singer Townes Van Zandt, comprise what she considers a “poetic treatment of a Southern space.” The Van Zandt movie’s appearance in the 2005 festival marked Brown’s True/False debut. Now, fresh from Sundance, she returns with her new movie and hopes for a similar experience.
Vox: The Order of Myths contextualizes today’s racial relations by combing the past. How exactly did you distill the past into the parts in your film?
Margaret Brown: I was interested in the word tradition. People use that a lot to justify why things were how they were. They would say, “Well, it’s always been that way.” And there were no further examinations of what’s behind that word, so I just had to look back and ask: Are traditions always good? It’s very important to the South — its traditions — but I think a careful examination of that word is what the movie is about.
Vox: Was it difficult to reconcile your perception of Mobile, Ala., before you shot the movie with what you saw during the shoot?
MB: One thing you find in the film is that the white Mardi Gras queen’s ancestors brought the last slave ship to the United States and the black Mardi Gras queen is a descendant of the people who were on that ship. I was interviewing Stephanie Lucas’ — the black queen’s — grandparents, and her grandfather said, “My grandfather was on that boat.” Myself and the cinematographer were just like, “Oh my God. This really, really deepens and focuses the story in a way that shows how this racial divide goes so far back.”
Vox: Was it difficult to earn the trust of participants on both sides of the event?
MB: Sure, it was hard for people to trust me. On the white side, a lot of those people knew my family. But it is a segregated event, so people were like, “What’s the angle?” I told people that this was an observational film and it wasn’t a polemic. It would be observing the season. On the black side, I think there are always trust issues: You’re coming in, you don’t know people. But it’s really about spending time with people and just getting them as comfortable as you can.
Vox: Were the participants in the film pleased with the result?
MB: I took five of the main characters to Sundance. I finished the film the day before Sundance, so I didn’t have anything to show until then. But I’d told them what the film was about and prepared them as much as I felt that I could. I showed them all beforehand, and parts of it are hard because the film is something of a mirror. Sometimes the truth can be difficult, so I think some of it was hard, but ultimately, they liked the film. And all the characters really bonded at Sundance, and that was amazing to watch.
Vox: The story of The Order of Myths seems to lend itself more easily to a visual medium than Be Here to Love Me. Did this significantly affect the way you shot and edited Order?
MB: After making the Townes movie about someone who is dead, I was like, “I am never making a film again where I have to use so many talking heads interviews.” I really want to make an observational movie that shows how people are in the world, the subtle ways that their actions show their reality. I knew that Mardi Gras is already super-visual, and when you see the film, it’s incredibly rich. The people I met were so interesting; I knew that following them would not be boring. I wanted something that would be more of a cinematic experience.
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