{"id":12743,"date":"2016-03-31T10:38:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T18:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=12743"},"modified":"2016-04-04T08:47:32","modified_gmt":"2016-04-04T16:47:32","slug":"leith-filmmakers-michael-beach-nichols-and-christopher-k-walker-capture-a-town-in-a-powderkeg","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/leith-filmmakers-michael-beach-nichols-and-christopher-k-walker-capture-a-town-in-a-powderkeg\/","title":{"rendered":"“Leith” Filmmakers Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker Capture a Town in a Powderkeg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker have produced\u00a0eye-popping, gritty fare before, including an\u00a0acclaimed film about street dancing,\u00a0Flex Is Kings<\/a><\/em>, and the HBO film Hard Times: Lost in Long Island<\/a><\/em> (which Walker edited), but making Welcome to Leith<\/a><\/em><\/strong> was a different experience altogether. The award-winning directorial\u00a0duo went\u00a0from urban New York to remote, rural North Dakota\u00a0to make\u00a0a film that put them on the, well, map, to record the tense story of notorious white supremacist Craig Cobb’s attempted takeover of a small town. The end result is a\u00a0“cautionary tale [that] couldn’t be more timely or essential” (LA Times<\/a><\/em>).
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Welcome to Leith<\/em> is “is a sober, terrifying look at the very real monsters roaming the quiet countryside,” adds Bilge Ebiri in New York Magazine<\/a><\/em>, and “haunting…a stunning portrait of First Amendment rights pushed to their extremes” (IndieWire<\/a>). The film makes its television debut on Independent Lens<\/em> on PBS Monday, April 4 at 10pm [check local listings<\/a>]. Directors Nichols and Walker talked to us about how making this tense, taut film \u2014 that includes subjects who were armed and dangerous \u2014 took its own\u00a0psychological toll.<\/p>\n

Why did you make this film? <\/b><\/p>\n

Because the story was incredibly compelling and contained several themes we were interested in exploring (racism, civil liberties, first amendment rights). <\/span><\/p>\n

And how did you first learn of the Leith situation and what made you decide to quickly mobilize to start capturing it as a film? \u00a0It must have taken you awhile to set up and get the lay of the land as events were already unfolding.<\/b><\/p>\n

“We approached the project in many ways as a documentary version of a horror film.”<\/pullquote>Michael: <\/b>When I first read about Leith and Craig Cobb\u2019s plans in <\/span>The New York Times<\/a> <\/span><\/i>in August 2013, I was intrigued. But his plan seemed so far-fetched that I figured it\u2019d fizzle out once the national spotlight was on him and the town. I forwarded the article to my filmmaking partner Christopher K. Walker with the subject line \u201clet\u2019s go to ND,\u201d not really thinking it would happen. But then a month went by, and I read about Cobb holding a town hall meeting co-hosted by the head of the NSM (the largest neo-Nazi organization in the country), and the mostly Native American protest that ensued. The story was moving forward, and Cobb wasn\u2019t going away. A couple weeks after that a family of white supremacists moved to Leith and vowed to help Cobb succeed in his takeover plan. At that point we decided we needed to go to North Dakota to start filming; something really strange was happening. A story about race, extremism and civil liberties was playing out as a direct effect of the massive state oil boom in a ghost town miles from civilization.<\/span><\/p>\n

In town, the houses are clustered fairly close together given the empty prairie enveloping it on all sides. This layout meant that we\u2019d be filming with the family of white supremacists during the first part of a day, and then go literally across the street and film with their neighbors for the second part of the day. We were open with both sides about wanting to tell the whole story, but it still felt surreal to keep going back and forth. Part of what was so fascinating about the story was that what Cobb and his followers were attempting was completely legal. Chris and I were captivated by Cobb\u2019s motivations and the implications of his plan for Leith and what that could mean for other small towns in America if people started following in his footsteps.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Welcome

Welcome to Leith filmmakers Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker<\/p><\/div>\n

How did you gain the trust of main players in this story on both sides of the issue? <\/b><\/p>\n

We were as transparent as possible about wanting to tell the complete story from the perspective of everyone involved in the situation, and everyone who participated in the film understood that. As well, I think it helped that we were a two-person crew \u2013 this allowed us the intimacy necessary to tell such a delicate and charged story. <\/span><\/p>\n

Did you experience any culture shock, coming from the East Coast to a very rural part of the Midwest?<\/b><\/p>\n

Leith\u2019s isolation struck us immediately. After driving two hours from Bismarck and passing maybe 10 cars on a two-lane highway, we turned onto a dirt road and drove another three miles. Our GPS didn\u2019t work, and we ended up driving into a small crick on some farmland, getting stuck. We had to call the Mayor and hike up a hill so he could find us and pull us out. It was a rough start, but we like to think we endeared ourselves to the town once that story got out.<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s a creepy element to the film, not just the plot but the setting and the tension and everything. Did you strive to make it feel that way as you were shooting and then editing it? <\/b><\/p>\n

We approached the project in many ways as a documentary version of a horror film\u00a0\u2014 everyone was scared and confused and felt as if one wrong move could end in violence. The tension was palpable. To help convey that, we embraced some tropes of genre filmmaking\u00a0\u2014 slow push-ins, disorienting glidecam, long b-roll establishing shots. Some of the editing in the cell phone-filmed armed patrol borrows from the [horror anthology] <\/span>V\/H\/S<\/span><\/i>, and then our composer, T. Griffin, came up with an absolutely haunting, otherworldly score. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n