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“’We’re More Afraid of What Happens When We Stop Filming’”: Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman on The Alabama Solution
The Alabama Solution When Andrew Jarecki (HBO’s The Jinx, Capturing the Friedmans) and Charlotte Kaufman (a producer on The Jinx, Part Two) first stepped inside the secretive Alabama prison system they were there to shoot a revival meeting — an uplifting event that church ministries hold in prison yards throughout the state. What they stumbled upon instead was a far different story, one of horrific abuse, sweeping coverups and even murder at the hands of those charged to enforce the law.
Making ample use of the evocative footage shot over six years on contraband phones by the incarcerated men who risked their lives to participate in this film, The Alabama Solution unspools in nail-biting real time, which gives the film a wrenching, can’t-look-away immediacy. The approach gives the film a refreshing feeling — that these human beings whose rights have been systematically violated for years, often decades, are finally in charge of the narrative and of their own lives.
Filmmaker spoke with Jarecki and Kaufman during this year’s SCAD Savannah Film Festival, where the pair participated in a post-screening Q&A on October 28th, and also on the Docs to Watch Directors Roundtable the following day. The Alabama Solution is currently streaming on HBO.
Filmmaker: So what was the filmmaking process like over six years? Were you working on the project continuously?
Kaufman: Well, we really approached this first and foremost as an investigative project. It’s a work of investigative journalism, the scope of which is much larger than just what you see in the film. We actually followed every single death that happened in Alabama’s prisons across six years. All of our findings are up on our website, and we’re slowly publishing additional articles about those findings.
We didn’t limit ourselves in terms of what we were looking at or looking for. We approached the filmmaking process with a very open mind — just trying to understand what was driving this crisis, much like the people caught in the middle of it.
Filmmaker: So you had other characters that you followed?
Kaufman: Yes, and what’s amazing about working with Andrew is that, like me, he’s extremely curious, and we’re going to allow that curiosity to determine what we focus on. We really felt we had a duty to follow up on as many leads and stories as possible. So we had other in-depth investigations and, though I hate using the term, characters. We had people who really informed our understanding of the crisis, like mental health counselors that worked inside the prison. We even followed an entire victim rights advocacy group just to understand what drives tough-on-crime philosophy and politics.
Filmmaker: So how did you decide what to cut out? This sounds like a sprawling editorial process.
Kaufman: Well, we had such an incredible team working with us, including our editor Page Marsella. She really made the cellphone footage, which is only about 30% of the film, speak to the other footage in a way that feels seamless.
Jarecki: Yes, it was a very sprawling process. And I have to say, I know you write about documentary process, and you have written very thoughtfully about that, so I think you know that, at the core of it, it’s always about time compression, right? You’re gonna try to illuminate a story by taking a very large issue and a very longterm problem that maybe has occurred over years. Take Bob Durst, who has been avoiding justice for 40 years. One of the reasons why Bob Durst gets away with murder for 40 years is because it all happens in fits, in tiny moments over decades, and nobody ever really pieces it together. We’re sort of bamboozled by time.
This issue was much more like a hydra. Early on we interviewed everybody from Bill Baxley, the former attorney general, to Roy Moore, who’s a really polarizing but very thoughtful guy, surprisingly, about how the justice system works. With all of his problems, Moore is continuing to advocate for trying to improve situations in the justice system.
We try to go in there with the attitude that we want to understand as much as possible from the directly impacted community and from the experts, even though we know we’re probably not going to put the experts in our movie. It’s just an opportunity to gather all this material. And one of the reasons why it takes so long to look into this kind of issue is not just because there’s so many stakeholders who have contributed to create this disaster — all wanting to claim plausible deniability — but also the secrecy. It’s difficult to gather true information. We would put in five FOIA requests for every one that came back with something. You’re just constantly getting rope-a-doped by a system that is so recalcitrant, which is sort of its default mechanism.
And then there’s the men who are in there. We interview them and they’re saying such extraordinarily insightful things, but you only have little windows to talk to them. If you need to explore something more fully you’re gonna have to go back, and then back again. And they’re gonna have to put their phone down, or maybe their phone’s taken away, or maybe they’re in solitary confinement. It’s a bear. But we’re so driven to try to get to the essence.
Kaufman: Also, when you’re taking on subject matter like this and people are giving you the responsibility for telling their stories, the stakes are really high. And I think Andrew and I both feel we thus have to be experts on the subject material; and not just in a solely story-driven away, but to really understand all the ins and outs. We have to speak to as many people as possible, take as much time as needed. It’s a sacred responsibility, especially when it’s a story that is being withheld from the public.
In many ways we’re following a civil rights history of the (prison reform) movement that we don’t usually get to see. There was this tear in the fabric of secrecy that usually exists throughout prisons, and we got access to it. We didn’t want to rush the process because it has to be right, because the stakes are so high.
Filmmaker: Yes, I’m glad you brought up the idea of responsibility because it seemed to me that you’re walking a fine line with this film. On the one hand, speaking to a documentary crew could spark backlash and potentially even get these incarcerated men killed. On the other hand, appearing in a high-profile doc might likewise afford some protection. So how did you, and they, weigh the risks and benefits? Was everyone always on the same page?
Kaufman: Look, a chilling reality about Alabama’s prisons is that people are dying there almost every day, whether they’re whistleblowers or not. It is such a dangerous environment, deadly and brutal. The men in our film have lived with that risk for many decades, and have a really strong belief in the power of the court of public opinion. They believe that a lot of these things are happening because nobody can see them happening, and that they will continue to happen as long as the public doesn’t have full knowledge.
So they take the risk and film what’s going on inside the system, which they’ve been doing since 2013 when (contraband) phones first came into the Alabama prisons. I wish we could say we were brilliant, “Oh, look, you have those phones. Why don’t you document?” But they’ve long been doing this, and have understood the power of piercing the secrecy. As Melvin [Ray] once said to us, “We’re more afraid of what happens when we stop filming.”
Filmmaker: So they’ve gotten the footage out to other people, other journalists. They’re already marked men at this point.
Kaufman: Yes. They had been doing nonviolent activism in the prison, which resulted in them being retaliated against, which you see in the film, talking about their history with Halifax County. And then they started the Free Alabama Movement – and got put in solitary confinement. They have been taking on this risk for a really long time.
However, that does not mean that we can just be laissez-faire in our approach. In terms of making sure we’re always on the same page, we tried to collaborate with a lot of transparency – letting them know how the project was developing, what our intentions were, and continuously revisiting what their own situation was. We constantly checked to make sure that they were always comfortable with everything – to the point where they were like, “Why are we still talking about this? You didn’t come up with this idea. We’ve been doing this for so long.”
Another important thing is that, while I think filmmakers should always show their film to those in it before it comes out so that they can be prepared, that was even more important in this case. Obviously it was also more difficult to do that, but we were able to before Sundance. We made sure that there wasn’t anything we’d overlooked that could put them at risk.
Jarecki: Also, we got to know the advocates and the men’s families. We got to know their loved ones. And it was really clear that allowing them to have their voice was not only critical to getting their word out, but also to their spirits. They’re in such an incredibly painful place all the time.
We also believe, as you were saying, that shedding light on the crisis is likely to make them safer. Right now there are so many people in Alabama that have seen the film, and not only on HBO. We had a premiere in Montgomery with hundreds of people. We’ve been doing grassroots screenings in all of these regions, especially the regions that aren’t going to necessarily have HBO.
And people have really started to react. There was a protest outside St. Clair (Correctional Facility). At a prison oversight committee meeting, which is usually kind of a sleepy meeting, 150 people showed up. Obviously we worry about the men, though I do think that any retaliation against them is going to be more noticed by the public. I think that there’s a certain protective element in that.
Kaufman: The oversight committee even had to address the film and what was revealed in it at that meeting. One of the state legislators turned to his group and said, have you guys seen this documentary? What are we going to do about it? What is our answer to this? What is the actual solution?
To see that…As filmmakers I think that’s why we tell stories. Andrew has said that democracy dies in darkness, but so do people. That’s definitely one of the guiding principles of this film.
Filmmaker: And what were some of the biggest challenges you faced — ethically, emotionally, logistically?
Kaufman: Well, being on a journey like this has been really difficult. You feel guilt and wish you could do more. And when you realize that even a Department of Justice investigation doesn’t have the ability to realize change it can feel very disempowering and frustrating.
But I think ultimately we have to have faith in the power to storytelling, in getting these stories out there. That’s definitely a big challenge as well. Though one challenge we didn’t have, which some documentary filmmakers do, is reluctant participants. These men wanted to be heard, to be seen, to tell their stories. So while the institution itself obviously tries to obfuscate and prevent, the men felt there was value in this endeavor.
I’ll add that one thing that we’ve really tried to do is seriously listen to the men as experts of their own lives. A lot of films about incarceration will focus on the voices of attorneys, or academics, or outside activists. But the best experts about what’s happening inside the prisons, and about where change could come from, are the people who are living that reality day to day. What can we learn from them about how to approach the investigation and get to the bottom of the truth?
Also, if you’re telling a story about an institution, the only way to make it interesting is to be on the ground following the story as it unfolds — not having someone rehash events later, telling the story in the past tense. We had to make sure we were able to be there in the moment, for all the various storylines, over six years. So that was a logistical challenge with our small team, running around the state and shooting a lot of footage we’re probably not going to do anything with. Just always being ready to get in a car and drive somewhere. But then you get lucky with those little nuggets.
Filmmaker: So how has the Alabama prison system responded to the doc?
Jarecki: We did a [segment] on Good Morning America, so ABC reached out to the Alabama Department of Corrections. They responded that they couldn’t comment on the authenticity of the material because it was obtained by improper means or illegal means, and so they didn’t really address the issue. Kind of classic, right? As Kinetic (incarcerated activist Robert Earl Council, aka “Kinetic Justice”) says in the film, they focus more on the phones and not on the incident recorded with the phones. I think they’re still trying to figure out how to respond.
Though the good news is that there are some legislators who are recognizing that they can’t just walk away from this anymore. As these new elections come up it’s going to be an issue. (Alabama Attorney General) Steve Marshall is now running for Senate — because Tommy Tuberville is going to run for governor — and it’s going to matter. Marshall is the one who said, “There’s an argument that there is some systemic problem within all of our facilities, and I wholeheartedly disagree with that.”
It’s going to be very hard to take that position on the stump, especially since there’s a lot of bipartisan support to address the crisis. We’ve shown the film to conservative audiences who’ve said, “I might be tough on crime, but that’s not what I’m talking about. This is a whole other thing. It’s unconstitutional.” By the way, the Department of Justice under President Trump in the first term were the ones that sued the Alabama Department (of Corrections) over its policies.
I’ll add that we’ve also met with a lot of lawyers in Alabama and surrounding states to try to locate people who are specialists in retaliation, in protecting people who are incarcerated. We learned a lot. We were then able to sort of encourage the creation of a defense committee of lawyers who are now going in and meeting with the men. One of the strongest things that does is it just lets the Department of Corrections know these men are being visited — being listened to on the outside. And that may provide an element of protection as well.
Filmmaker: So I’m getting the signal that we have to wrap things up, but is there anything you’d like to add?
Kaufman: I think that even though you leave the film really remembering men like Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council, it’s very much an ensemble piece. We have officers who participated as well. Which has kind of given permission to a diversity of people in the state to talk about their own stories, and their own experiences with the prison system.
There’s something that’s happened in Alabama, and also throughout the US, where we’ve become very acclimated to, and make a lot of excuses for, a certain level of absurd cruelty. Andrew and I always call it a fear-drenched fever dream. We’ve been sort of hypnotized to accept the way we do incarceration in America because we’re so afraid of crime and this and that.
And that also goes for the families, and even the correctional officers who are dealing with this on a daily basis. They’re thinking to themselves, this isn’t right. This is really bad. But then everyone around them has accepted it. And it’s the same for a lot of family members. They can’t believe what they’re going through, yet hear from the majority of people “you do the crime, you do the time.”
So I think the film is kind of helping to wake people up from that, reminding them this isn’t normal. You don’t have to accept this. We’re hearing from more correctional officers, more people within the government. Those that were disturbed but didn’t feel like they could speak out. It’s all quite interesting.
