Emmy-Nominated Director Susan Lacy On Her Intimate Steven Spielberg & Jane Fonda Docs: “I Try To Get To The Heart”
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Susan Lacys latest documentary, Jane Fonda in Five Acts, debuts on HBO in exactly a month. But thats not the only major event coming up for the director in September. Theres also a little something called the Emmy Awards, where Lacy is in the running for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special for her HBO film on another cultural icon, Steven Spielberg.
“Im trying not to think too much about it,” Lacy confesses of the Emmys. “I mean, its excellent competition, so well just see where it goes.”
Lacy initially convinced Spielberg to participate in a handful of interviews—an achievement in itself because the filmmaker has rarely discussed his career at length. But they wound up doing more than a dozen interviews together totaling many hours, a process that yielded fresh insight into Spielbergs personality and the way his films reflect his preoccupations, fears and anxieties.
“I must say Steven was very surprised, I think, at how much he revealed. He is not a revealing person,” Lacy notes. “And it wasnt hard work. We had a really good time together.”
For over 30 years Lacy has been exploring the lives and work of leading cultural figures, most recently at HBO, and before that at PBS where she created the acclaimed series American Masters. As the Emmy voting period neared an end, Deadline spoke with Lacy about how she manages to create uniquely compelling portraits of some of the worlds foremost artists.
In the case of Jane Fonda and Steven Spielberg, these are people whose work and lives are quite well known to the public. How are you able to get to something new?
I dont make the assumption that everybody is familiar. You cant start with that. These are famous people, but I cant tell you how many people did not know Janes story. Not everybody read her book…There were many people who did not know her mother had committed suicide. There were many people who did not know that she created the [Jane Fonda] workout tape to support the peace campaign and [her then husband] Tom Haydens bid for the senate.
With Steven, I thought, “How do I take Jaws and turn it into something that does give a new spin on it?” And the spin was Steven himself saying, “Every time I start a movie Im scared… But theres a good thing about being scared. When Im scared I get my best ideas.”
How do you approach interviews?
I dont ask rote questions. I try to get to the heart of someone. Sometimes its easier than other times. Jane is very comfortable talking about herself, not everyone is. Thats why I do a lot of interviews. I did 15 interviews with Steven Spielberg. At a certain point its no longer an interview, its a conversation.
If youre going to keep somebody like Steven or Jane [talking], or any of the number of people Ive made films about, you have to be interesting. It has to be an interesting experience for them. That means preparation, that you know what youre talking about and youve done the hard work, youve looked at all the movies, youre not asking the same questions theyve answered 400,000 times. Youre doing something else.
How do you deal with delicate areas of a persons life or experience?
Im a sensitive person so I have a certain sensitivity to what are going to be sensitive issues. I think Vietnam is still sensitive for Jane and hard for her to talk about because its just such a shadow. I think talking about her mothers suicide was really hard but I knew we had to since its the Rosebud of her life. [But] you dont start off—I didnt start off with Janes mothers suicide.
I didnt start off with Steven talking about the difficulties he had with his father. You get there. Some of it is just using good sense and sensitivity. I knew that Stevens first marriage was tricky, his marriage to Amy [Irving]… I knew that was a sort of hard thing for him to talk about so I didnt go right in on that one either.
What about addressing criticism of someones work?
Criticism is always a difficult thing. I dont make valentines. Im also not out to get anybody…In Stevens case there is legitimate criticism of his work—not a lot, quite honestly. I think the thing thats dogged him his whole life is his sentimentality and his need to put a bow on the end of things and I had Tom Stoppard, of all people, addressing it, his need for sentimentality.
I think those are always tricky areas—the lack of critical acceptance sometimes until finally youve done so much and youve become an elder and it sort of goes away. I think Steven had a hard time achieving that and thats one of the reasons it took him so long to get an Oscar. He had five movies, I think, that were in the top selling movies of all time, before he got an Oscar.
Going back to your earliest days with American Masters, are there artists you wanted to profile but it just didnt happen for one reason or another?
There are [a few] that come to mind. One was Johnny Cash. The other was Miles Davis. Those were two that I felt really belonged in the top tier of cultural impact in their own ways… The big one for me was Sinatra. Thats the one I wanted to make. Yeah, I really felt that I had the soul for that one. I love Frank Sinatra. I go to bed listening to his music and I play it all the time. My family is saying, “Isnt there anything else we can listen to?” I really felt that I could do something special with that and that one eluded me.
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