Q&A WITH RAMELL ROSS
RaMell Ross is an image-maker whose work addresses the history of Black communities in the United States. His first film — the Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018) — was informed by his experience as basketball coach and photography teacher in Greensboro, Alabama. His newest film, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel about two Black boys at a juvenile reformatory school in the ‘60s, premiered at Telluride earlier this year and opened the NYFF to rave reviews and popular acclaim.
Nickel Boys is now screening in theaters across the country.
Q. The novel you’ve adapted, Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, is written in the third-person. Your film adaptation, Nickel Boys, is shot in the first-person. How did you land on this decision?
A. It seemed like the right thing to do. I made this film, Hale County This Morning, This Evening, which is essentially a first-person film without my hands in it. That’s my entryway into cinema: using my eye and my personal sensibility to explore the world.
In the film, Elwood has that power — that world-building tool. It’s kind of like gifting him those ideas because in that time period, Black people weren’t able to explore the world that way.
Q. Your film makes extensive use of the archive — soul music, excerpts from The Defiant Ones, newspaper clippings — and you’ve spoken about how images are always in dialogue with the images that preceded them. How do you decide what visual material from the past to include in your films?
A. It’s a pretty painstaking process. We had three folks working on it almost full time. Allison Brandin was our Archival Producer. Then, we had Gala Prudent and another artist, Alex Westfall, sifting through the interstitials and looking for moments that feel like something relatively unseen — moments that if you came across in a clip, you’d be like, “Whoa, what was that? That’s fascinating!”
Q. Your unique mode of shooting obviously poses challenges for the actors in the film. What did you take away from seeing actors work so closely with the camera?
A. It feels so unnatural and when you see someone do it, it looks performative. In a way, with acting, you usually have something like a wide shot filmed from far away and that doesn’t feel as performative. It may feel theatrical, but there’s a different type of performance that happens when someone’s acting directly to the camera. It has to do with the history of people acting directly to the camera in news and other industrial modes of camera-use.
But I think I learned that sometimes the most awkward, or the strangest processes, feel the most human. When I watched the film, the way that Aunjanue [Ellis-Taylor] was looking through the lens and through the screen felt very human. It felt more human than me watching two people have that interaction from a third-person camera, which feels voyeuristic and indirect.
Q. All of your films investigate the experience of looking and being looked at as a Black individual in the United States. What questions first come to mind when you begin to plan how the camera will interact with your subjects in each of your films?
A. For this film, most of the camerawork, specifically with the characters, was meant to accomplish the narrative needs of the moment. Separate from that, it’s about trying to frame images from people’s perspectives that also say something about the way they see the world.
I think that when we’re world-building with cinema, and with cameras outside of the character’s body, we’re trying to build a world for the viewer. But the way in which the camera was used here implies that there’s already a world that doesn’t need to be built.
Q. At what stage of production do you feel most connected with your work?
A. I care most about framing and photography — what the image looks like and what it’s saying. I’m really thrilled to be able to do it with Jomo Fray, the DP, who’s an incredible guy.
The camera is in the middle of the world, in the same way people are in the middle of the world as human beings. The world revolves around each of us. In that sense, being photographically-inclined speaks to the way in which photography is inscribed into our everyday reality. We all take pictures and we all know we’re being photographed when we leave the house. We think of the world in cinematographic terms.
Q. Where have you found inspiration that people might not necessarily expect?
A. Music. Arthur Russell and The Books are my faves. And, a lot of poetry. But Allen Ginsberg’s Howl is the poem that always gives. I have an audio recording of it and I’ve been trying to memorize it.
Q. What have you been listening to lately?
A. A little bit of Kendrick Lamar because he’s on such a tear. But I have my mainstays, like Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. I’ve also been listening to a lot of audiobooks. Sarah Lewis’ new book, The Unseen Truth, is unbelievable. She dissects, and I like to say grand things like this, “What is America’s visual constitution?” and “The way that we see the world.” But she researched it and explains it. She really breaks down how our vision became racially fraught over time and when things started to transform. It’s profound.
Q. If you could choose to organize one retrospective, what filmmaker would it be?
A. Wong Kar Wai or Yasujirō Ozu so that I can re-familiarize myself with all of their work — as a way to be selfish, but also to share something with the public.
Q. What image would you like to end this interview with?
A. A Sudden Gust of Wind by Katsushika Hokusai. Isn’t it just a metaphor for everything? It’s the greatest image ever.
