Interview With James Kicklighter Director Of THE SOUND OF IDENTITY

James Kicklighter has taken on a modicum of contextual depth with his latest documentary feature, The Sound of Identity. Not only is it a multi-layered look into the world of the Tulsa Opera scene, the preparation for their production of Don Giovanni, but most importantly Kicklighter finds a brilliant subject in Lucia Lucas; the first transgender women to star in the leading role of a major opera.

Alexander Miller for Film Inquiry: Cool, so let’s get the ball rollin’!

So I guess one of the things that comes to my mind with documentary filmmakers, there’s always two schools of thought, the fly on the way Fred Wiseman Style, then there’s the more involved Errol Morris, more expressive style. There’s a great deal of focus going in your film; there are the cultural notes, there are notions of opera as a medium that looks like this fading art form, there’s also this countdown element as we get closer and closer to the production, and of course, there’s Lucia, who is just bursting with personality. And there’s so much crossover in content with Don Giovanni and connections with Trans culture; I guess where I’m going with this is: how much of this was discovered in post-production and editing, and you do this remarkable job of keeping all these plates spinning in the air. How much was delivered in post, and what was the initial jumping-off point?

James Kicklighter: That’s an extremely fair question; I can truthfully say that each of those spinning plates was thought about in production. I felt very strongly that this film had a couple of different narrative elements, that if I played it the right way, it would all converge into a singular story. Because I think that the challenge in making a film that has a couple of different layers to it, has a couple of different storylines to it, is that one has to be clear for the viewer, because you have to be sure that you have to make sure that you’re taking them through each of those spinning plates, right?

Mhmm

James Kicklighter: Without losing track of one, but the second part of that, of course, I think, is about making them go in a specific direction, and to my mind, that was always about Lucia’s personal journey, that happens after the opera. With her family, that was always, to me, the destination. And so the questions of identity, the question of performing, the question of reconciliation, the question of transformation, all of those elements tie into reconciling the thing that happened to her as a child versus the thing that she is as an adult. Which is a question that I think many of us have to ask ourselves when we have decided the person that we wish to become; I just think that becomes a very interesting vehicle when you’re doing that in a narrative that’s about performance. 

Yeah, definitely, there’s this perfect storm element to the film, where, you said you have the element with Lucia’s family, the reconciliation, themes of transformation, and all of this feeds directly into the creative process, because after all, this is a film about art, expressing yourself, being yourself, and also the matter of identity, after all, it’s in the title?

James Kicklighter: It’s so literal, right? I know, we were trying a title; it was really challenging; what are we calling this thing? I said, “well, it’s about music, it’s about identity and how do we express it, so it’s the sound of identity, right?” (laughs)

It’s perfect, right? [laughs]

James Kicklighter: [laughs]

There are all these moving pieces, there so much going on, there’s the performative element, the behind-the-scenes element, the familial element (with Lucia’s father). I guess where I was going with this, is that how much of this content presented itself to you as you were going with production?

*Spoiler Warning Ahead 

James Kicklighter: There are a few things that I knew walking into it. I knew that we were going to be doing a show about Don Giovanni, I knew that Lucia’s father may or may not come to the show, and I knew that we had 30-days. Those were kinda, really, the big ideas; what I sparked in the creative process was this notion of voice and gender, the idea that “how do we reconcile what our voice sounds like versus how we present ourselves physically. For those of us who haven’t been misgendered, I like to think of it as, when you go to McDonald’s to the drive-thru, and you say something, and they say “yes ma’am or no sir” because of the perception of what your voice is. And then you get to the drive-thru window and say, “oh my god, I’m so sorry,” and that is how we perceive identity, so the notion that she was a trans/female performer with a baritone voice was fascinating to me, I knew that that was the core of where we’d start, and that’s where we started in filming.

A few days into shooting, I realized that Tobias Picker was going to be a major part of the story, that I wasn’t just about Lucia’s voice or the performance, which I knew you know walking into the film, it couldn’t be just about that, or else you wouldn’t have a very compelling film. But it also about the mentor-mentee relationship it was about someone who had never experienced in their life like Lucia had in her life, that changed the entire trajectory in how they saw themselves, that yin and yang, that back and forth, between the mentor, the mentee the pain we carry, the pain we have to reconcile, I knew that they had to be two sides of the same coin. That was the second thing that became apparent in filming, and the third of course was the blending of Don Giovanni, with the character journey, of course, Don Giovanni for those not familiar with opera, and I was one of those people, I knew nothing about opera walking into this show, it really helps a lot when you’re surrounded by some of the best professionals in the world, you can become a quick study in 30 days.

I thought it was very important that the elements of the show, and the expiration of identity, toxic masculinity, how we use that as currency, how our cultural conversations about what you can or can’t do now, based on what the identity is, would be essential to the narrative of the film because it’s a narrative that is happening as they’re preparing for the production, and it’s also a narrative that’s also being discussed by the different players in the sound of identity. And so those things, I kind of discovered in filming, as you do in any documentary, but as I said earlier, I knew all of those elements as I was filming, and I knew seven days into filming that those elements were the things I was going to lay with, and with that knowledge that enabled me to go through the remained with 30 days of filming with that intent and shooting with that intent. And shooting with that intent, to try to explore each of those elements, so hopefully, when we did edit it that each of the spinning plates would come together.  

Excellent, yeah, there’s a lot to unpack and compartmentalize. I’ll try to unpack the best I can; the second time through, I noticed, the first time I think I was so caught up with Lucia and her personality and her journey, it was very overwhelming in the best sense of the word. In that, it’s a wonderful story and the artistic process, and the second time through, and when you mention Tobias and the mentor/mentee relationship, that narrative stuck out to so much more (upon second viewing), and there’s this air of passing the torch. He went through his experience coming out, the therapy he had to undergo, and all that. Did you know about their relationship, and did you know that there would be this passing of the torch from one generation to the other?

 

James Kicklighter: No, that was part of the discovery process. There’s this moment in the film where they’re in the restaurant, and they’re talking about how they’re going to use identity in the performances. Should they advertise it that she’s trans, should they lean into it, should they not lean into it, as I said that a big part of our cultural conversation today right now about artists, what kind of art can you tell based on what part of your identity is, which I think is a fascinating question isn’t posited very often in this way. And so, as soon as we shot this scene, I told the producers, my whole team, “it’s going to be about Tobias and Lucia” There’s this yin and yang here that I did not see initially. I was lucky to see it in the first seven days. Otherwise, that might have come off as much in the film; There is that passing of the torch in the film, isn’t there?

A kind of reflection, I think, because you’ve got an artist on the cusp of being successful and one who sees fewer days in front of him than what was before him. And I think that when we see time in that way, it changes the way you think about the way you want to spend the rest of it. And so, for me, in my own personal life, my dad died when I was twelve, unexpectedly, so I have always been drawn to stories about loss and identity, and perhaps, at 32 years old, I have a different sense of time than some of my peers because of that. So saw something kind of deeply hopeful and also kind of mournful in the story of Tobias because he’s been fortunate in his career to do the things that he’s done, but he’s also coming at a time where he won’t be able to do some of the things that maybe Lucia will be able to do in her life. And that, knowledge to me, about the nature of time, and progress and how we see ourselves as just a reminder, that we all have a responsibility to make a better world for the people that we mentor, that we bring along, and that we don’t’ always get to see the totality of those that thing that bears out. We’re lucky when we do; we’re lucky when we can create a star-like Lucia; like Tobias says, “we’re lucky that we have opportunities, and that kind of pensiveness about that back and forth between them, I thought was really important to the core of the film. I hope that answers your question…

Oh yeah, tats beautiful actually, and it got me thinking about another thing I was thinking of; when I watched the trailer for the film like you had said earlier, you were new to the world of opera, you know, my background is that I’ve seen Amadeus.”

James Kicklighter: Same, right, classic film, a masterpiece. [laughs]

[laughs] It was funny, but yeah, Lucia being trans and everything like that, and going into the project, and when you hear that opera is on the ebb and is a dying art form, and there’s this conversation where art and culture art and culture are always influencing one another. And certain demographics adhere to certain things, whether it’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show or something like that. Were you drawn to this, thinking that opera could be something that the LGBTQ community could really identify with?

James Kicklighter: I think there was a time where it was. I know that in the, up until the ’80s, there was this huge culture of opera in the LGBTQ community; of course, AIDS took a huge amount of people in the LGBTQ community, I think that there were not elder to pass that down, to a new generation. As I’m sure there are other things too, not just opera,  I can speak to opera because I’ve had this experience. But, think for a moment about the things that you’ve learned in your life from people that are in your community. If you have a whole generation that disappears or most of the generation that disappears? What is it you’ve lost?

You’ve lost this cultural understanding of certain things, like opera, and many other things that we can’t even speak to because you’ve lost an institutional library, you’ve lost this entire knowledge base, I think with this film, and with this real event, that obviously happened. There is hopefully some kind of renewed discussion about that in the LGBTQ community about how opera plays a role in its culture. Because there are many people LBGTQ Trans etc., that are in the world of opera, that may not have had a platform, or you haven’t heard about because it’s such an insular world. I had an interview earlier today, and we talked about the fact that this film is unusual because, if you think about most films about opera, documentaries, narratives, etc., it’s usually done when someone’s dying, almost dead, or very dead.

Right.

James Kicklighter: It’s never at the start of their career, and especially not at the cusp of their stardom, not at the NY Times, BBC, or guardian are covering you and your work, that’s a major risk. And so, that’s unusual in the sense that we get to see that moment and then have that conversation with them in the community. 

It’s interesting too, because, like you said, with history, and culture and passing on one thing from one person to another, you know, when a percentage doesn’t survive, you lose something. I think that speaks to the film is that you’re capturing a very significant moment in art, and culture, and also our present-day conversation. Also, I love the transferral of time from Tobias and Lucia; it’s a very beautiful friendship; you really get the feeling that these two people have this very profound understanding, and the personalities bump a little, in the best possible way. Like the scene at the restaurant, when Lucia calls out the waitress, and you can tell he (Tobias) is a little uncomfortable. 

James Kicklighter: Yeah, we scoped that scene for three-and-a-half hours, and the only part of the film, there’s only seven minutes of the film, we only used the second half of it. It comes to a point where you shoot something like that long enough in documentaries, where I believe the subject forgets they’re being filmed; they know they’re being filmed back here, right? But, when you’re speaking, you forget about it, and you know, we had nice, long, zoom lenses, and were really hidden, far away and they forget it about it eventually, and then you’re able to capture those authentic moments that feel like, they should be in a scripted film, even though it’s not scripted, it feels like it’s a written piece of dialogue, which is something you know, that I wanted to accomplish with this film. I wanted it to be, even though it’s a documentary, I wanted it to feel like a narrative film; because I thought that was also emulating the heightened world of opera. 

Yeah, Like I was saying, there’s the fly-on-the-wall and the more participatory director, and I think what you get with moments like that, when, for instance, you’re a fly on the wall with performers, it’s a different dichotomy.

James Kicklighter: You’re very fortunate as a director because you know they’re engaging with the screen; you know they understand the relationship with it. I think the better question, perhaps, is that the challenge is two-fold with a performer, or performers, one, are they being truthful? Because they know how to act, and two, how do you not reveal to them what your intentions are so they’re not performing for it? Because if I let either of those cards go, I’m not directing a film anymore.

Right, I think that’s an interesting thing to bring too. You are capturing your subjects, and you’re building this narrative front his event, and these people, these subjects are giving you so much to work with, and it’s an interesting role, and the documentarian, as the director, you are in the pursuit of the truth, and you’re not editorializing, you’re not merely recording your structuring narrative from what you’re surrounded by, and you kind of like writing the script as its happening and in a very interesting way. What I get from the film is that fly on the wall as well as a participant, did feel like that was the case for a lot of it?

James Kicklighter: For sure, because I think that this film, of course, is informed by the content, right? You’re kind of; I call it “tracking the story in real-time” rather than writing  A script around it. Because I’ve always felt that with this type of film, if I’m able to construct the narrative from the subjects themselves, then I’ve told something that’s truthful to that experience. But if I’m not also tracking the story and following it, I’m not going to be able to tell it; I’ve got to really be on top of it, this story might be going in this direction, and another story might be going in another direction. How do I follow that? How do I keep track of it? Because if I lose the thread, or there’s a road to nowhere, then have I missed up the narrative, right? You only have 30 days in something like this; I don’t get a giveback here, I had a contained window of time in which this must happen, and so for me, it’s always following that.

As far as inferring myself into that narrative, I certainly believe that The Sound of Identity is the most meta film I’ve made. Because it is Lucia’s story, it’s also my story, but it’s also the story of anyone who is an artist. It’s about the process of creation; it’s about what it means to be an artist, things that we have to do, the things we have to give up, the things we have to sacrifice to become the people that we want to be, I think that met narrative that I hope is what you portray is going to have repercussions when you’re doing a documentary, as opposed to a narrative film or anything else, what you portray, is going to be impactful on real people, and you ended to be cognizant of that. That’s not to say that I edit things out that they don’t like because that would be not objective. But, it’s about understanding that the choices I make are going to have a real impact on real people, and when you think of Lucia, who’s on the cusp of being successful, if this film were to be damaging to her, that would have a real impact on her career. And when you’re doing the edit, these are things you have to consider “just say, is this truthful to who this person is in the thirty days that I’m portraying them.”

Yeah, it’s interesting; there’s a difference between their day-to-day life, then there’s someone leading up a show, or perfect and whatever, but I feel like there’s this honesty and truth to Lucia. And that I don’t think that she’s putting on airs; I feel like this is how she conducts herself in everyday life.

James Kicklighter: It is! And of course, as a director, I have to be constantly skeptical of that too. I try to make it a rule; in all of my films, honestly, I try to not get too close to the performer; it doesn’t matter if its a documentary or a narrative film, because I feel like if you get too close, you can’t be objective, and you can’t think about the story you’re trying to tell. In times I’ve gotten too close to performers, and that’s nipped me in the bud later. Because I wouldn’t be able to see things in the way that I should. So I was constantly questioning, “is she being authentic, is she telling me the truth, is she a reliable narrator?” Just like I would in any other documentary film; and so you’re kind of prodding at that, trying to find an answer because if you automatically assume the subject is authentic and telling everything that is, you might not explore some of those other aspects they’re trying to show you. 

And there’s kind of what you would call, an “extra-textual element” to the film, the subjects, and there are these moments of very social honesty. Like I loved it when they (Lucia and Tobias) are playing video games. And you can see this but of disconnect, in that Tobias is like, “why am I being struck with lightning?!” And watching, I was like, “I know, you’re playing Mario Kart, that’s why!” But Also, at first, it seems a little awkward, but it segues into this brutally honest revelatory moment. And I guess where I’m going with this is that were there a lot of moments? Casually candid interactions turned into something more profound. 

James Kicklighter: Sure, that scene was shot on a very challenging day. We were about halfway through filming, and there was just a lot of tension, and we all got in kind of a heated argument about Tobias, Lucia, and I, and I honestly did not think we were going to film for the rest of the day.

Wow!

James Kicklighter: And, that turned into that scene, which is quite remarkable in that it happened in that way. I think that sometimes, in the filing process and in the creative process, when tensions are high, people are able to release those tensions. Then sometimes, you’re able to capture some of the most authentic things, the most truthful things, because you’re all operating on a base level of trust. And once you earn that trust as a filmmaker, from your subject, cast whatever you want to say, I think you’re able to get some of those movements because they feel like they’re in that won’t let them down; and that’s something I take very seriously. 

There’s a lot of directors of the old-guard, like I remember John Ford would refer to these things as “happy accidents” when in fact they’re not, they’re quite manipulated, but in this case, yeah, it’s like you said, it’s stemmed from an event that wouldn’t have expected them to stem from. 

James Kicklighter: And then that opened everything up to honesty in a way we weren’t expecting, we were supposed to filming there for two- to three hours, and one of the logistical challenges of filming this, of course, that there were we were wrapping our filming around their event, which was their show, that meant we had to film with them on off days or downtime, or they would have to let me in on those times. So the access was incredible, and I give them a lot of credit for letting me do that. Because you know, they let me observe, but still, you’re filming in your downtime when you’re doing a show, but that was a day when we’re filming for 2-3 hours, but after our blow up, we ended up being there for seven hours and were filing for 7 hours, and we were filming until 1:00 am, it was really late, they had the day off the next day, so it was okay. But it was something like the restaurant scene, we kept filming, and filming, and filming, and as we did, as we got through our logistical tensions, we were then able to capture something that was really authentic and truthful about what it was that made Lucia and Tobias tick,  and what it means to be an artist itself. And that is something I’m really proud of, and sometimes you just have to get through those things. And I’ve had enough experience now in my career where I have situations like that occur, where I know how to navigate out of them; if I had done this ten years ago, I probably would have stopped filming, not knowing what to do, so sometimes experience helps.

It must be interesting, you know, having a roomful of artists together, your navigating your process, and you’re navigating your process in terms of getting the show going and staying on track. Was there ever an overwhelming moment where, this massive meeting of the minds, where you’re discovering your project, and they’re discovering there’s, was it ever overwhelming?

James Kicklighter: I don’t know if we had a meeting of the mind per se; while they’re operating simultaneously, they’re also operating very separate buckets. I’m sure there are several members of the cast who haven’t seen the films yet, that are probably fascinated to see what it was. Because I know that Tobias and Lucia, of course, have seen the film and we’re on very good terms by the way, that said blow up I’m describing was one time. [laughs]

[laughs] Yeah.

James Kicklighter: There are members of the cast that we interviewed, once they were really interested to sit down with us because they had no idea what we were doing. They knew we were making a film, but they have no idea what the films are about, they don’t know what the structure of it’s going to be, they’re not filming like Lucia and Tobias every day with us, so it’s a different narrative, right? So in some ways, they operated in separate buckets, which was also fascinating because they are both, I guess now, inextricably intertwined, so it’s very interesting that they both have their own different trajectories, their own different universes within the same universe (laughs)

Yeah, it’s interesting it informs so much; for instance, you have Hidenori Inoue and some other members of the cast (of the play), and you sit them down for an interview, and they know that they are part of a larger project that’s not directly about them, they are going to present themselves, in a way that says “I am going to be a part of this!” So, you know, that can be a very expletive moment. Did you ever feel like one of the people who were supporting players in this project? Did you ever feel like they were trying to elevate themselves to be more pronounced?

James Kicklighter: [laughs] No! You would think so, you would think so? But I didn’t get that at all.

That would be me! [laughs]

James Kicklighter: You would think so; I don’t think that any of our supporting players did that, I think they were very matter-of-fact, honestly, and they were very good with me too. Because I did tell them, I want them to be very truthful with me about anything I ask; everything you say is not going to be seen for a year or two, so you’re not going to impact the show, and I’m not going to repeat it. So they could tell me about things that were happening or not happening and be honest about it because they knew I wasn’t going to blab my mouth about it to someone about it in the other products; they were more curious about what I was up to because they didn’t know what my films were going to be about. And I think that to a certain extent, they probably still don’t, so I’m curious to hear what they think on Tuesday when it’s released. Because they were parts of that story, so what I would do, I would observe in the rehearsals interactions, and make decisions about who I felt was an important interview in one-offs, separately, joining in this kind of greek chorus you know of performers that were in the film.

There were some performers that I did not interview, plenty that I did not interview because I didn’t see them as being integral to this story that I needed to tell. But you know, using this spinning plates analogy, it would be like who was a part of this plate, and who did I need to have to fill in this portion, who is going to fill in this gap that is missing. As I did that, one thing that we did, technically, I observed their personalities, and I tried to match the scenes that we interviewed them in with their personalities. So when we had Michael St. Peter, that’s like, in the antique shop with his tea, that was very indicative of his personality. And also something that he said, he said he loved antique malls, I was like “let’s do it,” and he felt like he belonged in that space. So that was something that, for me, Anthony Clarke, who loves bourbon and has a big thick Kentucky accent, so I was like, “we have him sit in a bar.” And so I tried to think about how do we take these characters, which are not part of the core cast, in my film, and put them in a setting that makes sense who they may be. And that’s something that, you know, they were really honest, they were great. I did not feel as though they were putting on something because they needed to, they were there to tell the story, and they were great.

I think that’s a real juxtaposition, too, because, with the interview (with Anthony) in the bar, it was great to have the contrast because you have this one cap in an antique shop.

James Kicklighter: Antique store, yeah!

Then like you said, then a bourbon bar, you get this beautiful harmony, in that there’s the contrast in these different personas, but they’re all part of this greater collective.

James Kicklighter: Right.

It kind of takes this notion of culture bumping against each other, and there’s a harmony that these different classes of character are getting together to perform for the greater good. 

James Kicklighter: And I felt that’s one reason why it was so important in really specific spaces; like I said earlier, I was really intentional with the way that I placed Lucia and Tobias; I felt like if we’re going to be that intentional, we have to the same with our secondary characters, we have to put them in spaces where they really belong. So my DP producer and I did extensive location scouting for each of these characters; we’d say, “here’s ten bars we can do; which ones make sense?” And it was the same process I’d apply to a narrative film, I really did apply here, and this, when we were location scouting, there’s not a single interview or a single shot in that sense that wasn’t intentional. 

Because I’ve done documentaries, you know that are more, you know that is capturing the moment, seeing how it goes, but everything was composed, everything was on sticks, very specific. We are capturing thighs as they go, but we are treating it with a very narrative intention. And so that just shifts the way you look at everything else. 

It brings me to another thing, there’s another contrast, you’re discovering things as they’re going, but the film doesn’t have this “loose, think-on-your-feet” style which I actually really admire, aesthetically The Sound of Identity is a very structured, clean, crisply assembled movie. And I think that really is a testament to your ability as a director, but I guess I’m wondering, is that intentional?

James Kicklighter: Oh absolutely. We knew, my DP Jonathan Pope, we met during our first week in college, at Georgia southern university when we were freshman, we shot each other’s first student films, we shot each other…you know, everything? We’ve been fortunate to work together now, ever since, almost on everything ever since. And with that kind of relationship, it’s not just creative but personal; we have a lot of alignment on what we expect from things. So when we first started talking about The Sound of Identity, that was the first thing we both came to without even talking to each other about it. We said, “this is a film we don’t know much about opera, we know that this is a world that is heightened, we know that it’s larger than life, it’s opulent. That was kind of our whole thought process, and we said, “if that’s going to be the case, then we need to treat this whole thing as though it were a scripted film, and so I took that same approach in directing, and in structure, and he took that same approach with cinematography, and I think that when your in that alignment, when you’ve been working together for so long you’re able to generate things like that, we know what the other experts, and we get there. 

It’s that notion of authorship; we have had these great director DP collaborations over the years, whether it’s Jean Luc Godard or Raol Coutard, Vilmos Zsigmond, and Spielberg…

I suspect John and me if I have the good fortune to keep working, I’ll be in that same place; if we should be so lucky, it’s just that John and I have that same alignment. And I think this film is the best expression of that because we were given the resources and tools we needed to do that. The producers supported that vision, and like that concept, and let us run with it. 

And there’s always that element in filmmaking, or the artistic process, especially in documentary filmmaking, you have to think on your feet and have a proactive mindset, but it’s interesting because the film here, it doesn’t have that scrappy loose, feel and that definitely translates very literally and I think that works very much to its benefit, crisp, clean production and I think that supports the vision and expresses all the statement that you had on the table very well. 

James Kicklighter: I appreciate that, and that’s the challenge; like I said earlier, with a documentary, you don’t really know how it’s going to unfold, so you walk in the story you wanted to tell, then you have the story you want to tell, and then you have the story that you shot, and then you have the story that you edited,  and you figure out where that triangulation exists when you’re done with, and I really do feel, with The Sound of Identity That I walked out with the film I wanted to make in the beginning, and you don’t always get to say that….especially a documentary. The risks that I took in this film from the narrative standpoint, from the father showing up at the end, none of those things had to work, those are happy accidents, it’s not like I directed those into happening, I can only do so much as a director in a documentary, I was just fortunate to have something where all of those chickens came to roost, and you don’t know if that’s going to happen walking into a film ever. So, we’re lucky.

It’s like you were saying and the spinning plates, and happy accidents, would you have paid an extra guy to pose as the father? No, exactly, it’s not the movie….

James Kicklighter:It wouldn’t have worked, exactly! It wouldn’t have the emotional resonance, right? Because it’s like you can see it, when that moment happens in the film you can see it, you can see that there’s something different in Lucia that you have not seen up until this moment, and that was something I was proud of. And obviously, it was a very delicate moment for us to film, and I’m really proud of the way our team handled it. 

Definitely, and you get that in the final product, I don’t want to say “hands-off” because you see the emotionality, and you see the action and stuff like that, but it’s’ that there’s that little bit of distance in that you, as the viewer register that the crew is being mindful. 

James Kicklighter: That was the only moment in the film we talked about composition when we talked about this thing; we permitted that to be different. Also, I think it punctuates the moment. It’s not that it’s gritty, and it’s not that it changes the entire structure of filming, but what it did do is feel a little less composed, and a little more organic and a little less narrative and a little more documentary. I thought that if any time in the film that we feel that way, that was the only way to do it; it also brings attention to that moment because it changes how you see it as a viewer, and it emphasizes that this is an authentic, real moment happening here. And I, as the director, who is observing this film, and this person for thirty days, does not need to be in the way of this real moment, because that is something that again is not just a part of my film, this is part of their life, and my job is to observe that and not to be in the way of it. 

And there’s an air of courtesy, in a contextual sense, it really enlightens the overall feeling of the movie and the feeling of the narrative punch; I guess another thing I was curious about, the movie veers between the prescient material, the archival stuff, I mean my heart jumped when I saw the footage of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stonewall…

James Kicklighter: Right?! That was a great surprise!

Did you expect the archival elements to be a part of the film?

James Kicklighter: Oh yeah, of course, there’s very limited archival footage in this; I’d say like %95 of the film takes place within the film. But I thought it was important to punctuate those moments, so, in editing, I asked the producers if we could get some of the archival stuff because the Ruth Bader Ginsberg footage enhances the narrative; it enhances who Tobias is, I mean, this guy isn’t just some guy at the Tulsa Opera, he’s a big damn deal in opera, and I think that that helps emphasize that to a viewer, like myself, who doesn’t know much about opera. But you noticed, what I probably didn’t do in the archival is that I didn’t show anything that was gender-specific about Lucia before she transitioned. Not one ounce of it. We don’t even talk about it in the film. Because I thought it was very important to talk about who Lucia is today, not who she was then, because this story is about how the things in our past impact our present, not about how the past is in our present. And I felt that showing pictures of her not only otherizes people who are trans, which is something that I think we need to get away from in trans storytelling; I don’t think that if you’re telling a story about a trans person, that the only thing we should talk about is their transition, should be talking about those other things too.

Also, it trivializes the subject, and you don’t want to do a “before and after” type thing…

James Kicklighter: No, exactly. I admit I haven’t seen a lot of films about trans people because I think there are many that are not told. But in the ones that are, that is %90 of the story and felt like with this film, and I told Lucia walking into it, “I’m not going to tell a story about you being trans, I’m going to tell a story about you as an artist.” And why I thought that was important for representation because in this dialogue we’re having in our culture right now, as I said earlier about representation, what kind of stories you can tell based on your identity, who you are and how you perceive things, so I felt like that was really important that this story didn’t put it in that frame, that we said that this is more than you being trans, the representation is important to people who are trans, but how can we build acceptance if all we do is otherize? That’s why we don’t use the word for the first fifteen minutes of the film.  

I think that’s massive; I like that you use the term “otherize.”. It’s an important thing to emphasize in the story. It would undermine the material and feed into this perverse fetishization of trans culture, which I think is a very damaging perspective to take. 

James Kicklighter: I do too, and I think that unfortunately, that’s what a lot of filmmakers choose to do, and I said, “I don’t want to do that,” and I think that helped me build trust with Lucia too because she knew that I wanted to do something different, and I’m really proud of that.

Definitely, as well you should be. And throughout the film, she mentions that she’s not politicizing, and what I mentioned earlier, she’s very stalwart and plain-spoken in her identity, like this take it or leave it mentality, and it’s presented so well, and I got the impression that whether it be an opera, community play, or poetry reading I feel like this is the same Lucia you would get to know.

James Kicklighter: I do too, the Lucia on film is the Lucia off-film too.

There must have been a lot of footage on the cutting room floor. Did you resist the urge to make another cut?

James Kicklighter: No, with this film I did not, actually, the first cut of the film was about two hours and forty minutes long, which is too long obviously, and I kind of philosophically, I feel like I shouldn’t say this because someday in the future I’m not going to do this and someone will cite me on it. But I do think that most stories can be told in ninety minutes. There are not many reasons that you have to tell a story in two hours or two and a half hours; I think that often some directors don’t have enough discipline to leave some things on the cutting room floor. I’ve learned that the hard way, I’ve had experiences in my career, where things were too long because of my control, or not because of my control, I think that if you can tell your story in a more succinct, sharp way it will resonate with the viewer than if you pad everything that you love, so that requires that you kill some of your darlings. I just know that not everybody, not that I’m making myself out to be some kind of filmmaking saint, but I have some directors friends that like have a really hard time making cuts, and I think if you can’t be judicious with your own material, you’re probably not helping your film at all. And I’ve tried to divorce myself from something like “hey, I love this moment” and say, “Is this really serving the film, and the material what I’m trying to tell?” and if I’m not, then the answer no, and it has to go, and that’s the end of that.

And that’s the important part to acknowledge, and when watching it, I felt like it could be longer. It wasn’t a complaint, but …

James Kicklighter: I’d rather you feel “hey, it could be longer” and leave you wanting more than saying, “gosh, that was too long.”

Exactly!

James Kicklighter: You wanna do that because I feel like if you’ve done that, then you’ve provided a great viewing experience for your viewer. And I know people don’t necessarily like this terminology, but I think of films as products in that sense. It’s a product, and the viewer is the person that’s receiving this experience, and so if I’m creating this good experience for you, the viewer, then I’ve got to think about “how can I best do that?” And usually, that requires killing some of the things I love the most because it means that if it’s not serving the story, it’s gotta go. It can always be a special feature or a cut thing on Youtube later on if you want, but if it doesn’t serve the course of the story, why keep it?

And that’s why we have bonus features…

James Kicklighter: And it’s not something I came out the gate knowing that; it’s something that after time, experience and failure and success, you figure that out. 

It’s interesting because when the credits  rolled, I thought to myself, “I feel okay.”

James Kicklighter: Yeah, and if that’s how you took it, then I feel like I did what I set out to do, so I’m glad you felt that way.

Without a doubt, you get into the movie, there’s the countdown, the relationship between Tobias and Lucia, the behind-the-scenes stuff, but it’s compartmentalized, and it’s edited quite expertly, and you get this nicely packaged experience, and it’s quite an experiential movie, and I’m looking forward to more people seeing, and I’m looking forward to it being a larger part of the cultural conversation.

James Kicklighter: I hope so, I hope people find it, and I hope they get to play it on a nice, big screen with surround sound; because we actually encoded it with Dolby 5.0, I worked very hard with our sound designer to really create an experience for a viewer that is really atmospheric, and envelopes you at that moment. Where we have the music coming out of the rear speakers and the opera creating that kind of sonic surround experience that you certainly wouldn’t get watching it on your iPhone or on your computer, so I really hope that people get to see it in that way; but if they, can’t I hope they get to see it! [laughs]

[laughs] Exactly, whether it’s your iPhone laptop, whatever…

James Kicklighter: Please, see it, but if you see it on a really big screen in 5.1, you’ll have a very different viewing experience, because I believe that sound is essential for any film and it’s’ %70 of a viewing experience. But in a film about opera and music, it makes all the more essential, which is why I was very specific in the way that we mix the music and the score and the opera and all those different pieces together. Because it changes the way that you watch it. 

It was funny because after I watched the film again this morning, in preparation for this interview, I kind of scuttled around my collection, and I found my Talking Heads DVD of Stop Making Sense, and my Swans documentary by Marco Porsia and Rodney Ascher Where Does a Body End, and those Jean Renoir movies the Stage and Spectacle set, and you know, The Red Shoes, stuff like that, it gets you excited about stuff like that. This could possibly be adapted, you never know??

James Kicklighter: You know, somebody mentioned that to me in an interview the other day; they said, “what if you get a phone call about adapting your film into a narrative something in a few years?” And maybe in a few years, maybe I want to play in that sandbox, maybe I don’t. But I always asked the question, “Is this something that makes sense for me, is this something I know how to tell, and does it scare me, and if those three things are yes, then maybe I’ll do it. And if one of those things is no, then maybe someone else will play in that sandbox. 

If it scares you just right ….

James Kicklighter: If it scares me just right. That’s the only complication, right? If we ever adapted this into a narrative film, I would worry that I would know too much about it, and I may not look at it the same way. So I try to ask myself those questions. Because if I’m not challenging myself, then I feel like I’m not going to challenge the viewer.

In my notes, I wrote that “I’d rather watch Tobias and Lucia’s production of The Danish Girl.”

James Kicklighter: Yes, I’m very curious to see Tobias and Lucia’s production of The Danish Girl, which will be next February, I believe. In Germany, I think you can double-check me on that, so February next year. And I think this film will certainly have an impact on that production, a positive impact. 

Excellent, I think we’ve had an excellent talk.

James Kicklighter: Thank you so much; I do appreciate your time; I’m glad you responded to my film. 

Film Inquiry would like to thank James Kicklighter for taking the time to speak with us!