“We’re all desperately searching for common ground”

An interview with Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, directors of Boys State 

Boys State is a political coming-of-age story, examining the health of American democracy through an unusual experiment: a thousand 17-year-old boys from across the state of Texas gather together to build a representative government from the ground up. Documenting impeachment threats, dramatic debates, underdog victories, and even nefarious internet memes, filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine (The Overnighters, 2014 Sundance Film Festival) chart the dramatic twists and turns of these intersecting stories to reveal profound truths about our political choices and civic obligations and to remind us, ultimately, that democracy is not a spectator sport. 

Can you talk about how you see the film now in light of how much has changed in our country, and the world, in the last few months? 

Jesse Moss: Most certainly, where we are now is not where we were in January [when the film first premiered]. But the news cycle moves so fast, so where we were last week is not the same as where we are next week, whether we’re talking about the pandemic, or Black Lives Matter. Everything moves so rapidly and dramatically. Especially with a movie that has political resonance, it’s very hard to know how people will receive it three weeks from now, which is the Apple release date, or two weeks from now, when it’s in theaters. But I think the underlying motivation of the film is still resonant for people. 

Amanda McBaine: I think the film shifts and evolves as the world shifts and evolves. It’s hard for me to talk about it without spoilers, but I think Rene and Steven’s journey becomes even more important now, because of the way they transcended that space [of Boys State] at that time. 

To change gears, I think it’s important that people know how fun this movie is. I remember reading the original description and thinking that it sounded dry. But the film is funny and moves very quickly and with suspense. Sure, there’s incisive political commentary, but it’s also lighter. Can you talk about that balance? 

Jesse: It’s so important, with so much darkness in the world, to feel like the film offers hope. It raises some important and heavy issues. But it’s a hopeful film and I’m excited to share a film that’s not just political, but also entertains people and makes them laugh. The trailer conveys the spirit of the film and I’m happy that it conveys this idea that it’s okay to laugh. But it’s an interesting question, too, because politics is a deadly serious business, literally deadly, as we know. But is there room for a film that’s serious about politics and civil discourse, but also has humor and playfulness? What’s the national appetite for the two, in combination? And I think the challenge for us is to get out of the way and let people connect with these kids, whether on screen during the film or afterwards in discussions. I hope people do take them seriously, but also recognize that they were teenagers when we made the film.

Amanda: Even from the get-go of this project, when we first read about Boys State, and the 2017 legislature voted to secede from the U.S., we had a sense of the tonal range that was possible: They’re teenagers, and they’re going to goof around. We thought if they were going to vote to secede in 2017, we were wondering what are they going to do the next year. There is a more serious question of how polarization is effecting the next generation. but we didn’t know what it was going to be like. The first day we were filming, we were worried, because it was deadly serious with lots of PowerPoint presentations. But then quickly the counselors gave the program over to the kids, and things got going in a way that was profound and ridiculous. 

The choice of which kids you focused on in many ways dictates the kind of film it is, no? 

Jesse: I think it’s pretty clear that we could have gone in and skewered the event, or the organization. There was a simpler film to make here. But we had to start with the kids and we like them all immensely, personally, and they’re very complicated, very smart, and very ambitious. And they’re very different. It was hard to see at the beginning what the film would look like with them in combination. When you’re casting a movie, you cast your lead and then you cast another lead, and you put them together and workshop them together. But in documentary, you’re casting in isolation, you don’t know what the script is, you don’t know what the event is. But it’s great. That’s why we love the form. And they continue to surprise us. Why we wanted to make a film about teenagers to begin with is they’re forming a political ideology that is not fixed. Robert lives it in the movie in a surprising way. But they’re still changing, and that’s interesting to see. 

In term of the filmmaking, I read you had seven cinematographers deployed through the film. Logistically, how did you capture it? 

Amanda: It was very challenging film for us, because it was such a departure from the films we made in the past. The Overnighters was shot by Jesse alone for over a long period of time. This one, we knew we had to capture whatever was going to happen in that week. So the stakes were pretty high, and because there was 1,100 kids and we had six main characters at the time, we knew, at the time, that we needed an A team to help us. We needed to be in the field, and we needed people we trusted running around with the cameras. 

Jesse: I had to let go of the idea that I shoot the film myself, which is effectively how we’ve made all the verite films we’ve made. This movie required a budget to make, and we needed a financier. Up until now, I don’t think you could finance a verite film, because you don’t know what the story is and what you’re getting. But this film, it was a good moment and Concordia was willing to take a risk and it was contained. We built a crew of 28 people, 7 of whom who could operate cameras. We wanted DPs that I could trust; it required surrendering my ego and control, and to trust, whether it was Martina Radwan, Claudia Raschke, Thorsten Thielow, or Wolfgang Held, they’re great artists in of themselves, and it made a lot of sense to get this collective of DPs. And letting them connect with their subjects and making those decisions themselves. You can’t be tapping on your cinematographer and literally turning them to point in a different direction. You don’t do that when you’re shooting verite. You just have to trust people and let them understand what the story is. It was exiting, because I like to take on work that’s different and challenging. I’ve done verite and know how it works, but not with seven DPs. 

Who captured those roving shots of Stephen Garza indefatigably walking around the campus? It’s so symbolic of his hope and persistence. 

Jesse: Thorsten shot that. There’s this moment where we’re behind him, and the camera is tracking him, and it’s on a Movi [Steadicam], so it’s a heavy piece of equipment, but it allows you to get that floating stabilization of the shot. It’s a bit of a feature film tool, and rare in a verite film, and we introduced it very selectively. And that was just a poetic moment. Steven is always a bit isolated. It moves me deeply. And it captures something essential about him. One of our frustrations or regrets of this moment is that the film can’t be in a theater, because we shot the film widescreen. We wanted a movie that would live on the big screen and work that way. There really is a whole visual idea of how we shot the film, and that was a part of it. 

So what was this whole visual idea? 

Jesse: The entire movie is shot on a 35mm Zeiss prime lens, at a consistent shallow f-stop of f-2. All the cameras were set to it. It was a look that Thorsten and I worked out. It’s a bit risky to shoot verite on a zoom lens, but we had discussed this kind of leap of faith. It allows you to have a compact package. The f2 was important, because shallow depth allowed us to introduce separation and throwing that background out of focus. And with the widescreen you could feel all the boys compressed in the frame. We liked that idea this is a film about conversation, and of having a boy on the right side of the frame and another boy on the left side of the frame, and a mob in the middle, so widescreen pushed them together in a way that was central to the theme of the movie. 

I think the success of the film is twofold: You could say that you just got lucky; but then you can also credit proficient filmmaking and editing. So how much is luck and how much is skill? 

Jesse: And beyond luck and skill, how much does it tap into an unconscious longing for what the film embodies: We’re all desperately searching for some kind of common ground—the center doesn’t seem to be holding in American life and that’s what motivated the film. We are seeing the fracture of the union and the assaults on the institutions of democracy by our political leader. How sustainable is this enterprise? And where is the center? I think the film itself and how the boys conduct themselves, in a large part, does reflect a little glimmer of common ground and something hopeful, if only the hopefulness of young people and some commitment to fundamental values. And yeah, luck also plays a part in any verite film. 

Amanda: We also worked hard in the edit room. We had a couple months casting and a week shooting, but we spent a lot of time editing. And we worked hard to approximate the emotional journey of our shoot and I think we did manage to do that: We made a film that expressed what we went through. We worked hard to cast it. They’re extraordinary. That’s the luck, that we met these boys, and they went up again each other, and we couldn’t have scripted that. It’s always a combo.