The Storyteller Has Come Full Circle
By Barb Douglas
After driving up beautiful, but steep Mount Tzouhalem, thinking I was going to slide over the side a couple of times, I reach the humble cottage of Louie Lawless, something of a celebrity in Vancouver Island's Cowichan Valley.
As I sat down to talk with him, I could instantly see that he was brimming with energy and enthusiasm. When I spoke to him on the phone, he seemed more subdued, and I already knew something about him. Born in Penticton, B.C., he grew up on a wheat farm in Bridesville, B.C., which sits at about 5,000 feet above sea level. The second oldest of nine siblings, his childhood and adolescence mostly consisted of hard work. He says he "escaped the slave labor lifestyle" when he was eighteen and found his way to San Francisco, and later to Hollywood where his new life began. Working on T.V. show such as The Beverly Hillbillies, The A- Team, Rip Tide, and many other T.V. shows of the 70,s and 80, as well as feature films.
As I was trying to get a handle on the complicated business that is the movies, I asked him about his membership in various organizations. He said he belongs to the Directors' Guild of America - "just a union with a more prestigious name." Still trying to understand his role, I asked what a director/producer specifically does in a production. Louie said the producer produces the movie, and the director analyzes the script and directs the actors." Their duties also include the overall design of a movie, including casting and hiring the actors.
I then tried to pin Louie down on the difference between Canadian and American films. He didn't bite, though, except to say that the natural light in Canada creates a wonderful cinematic texture that is unique to this area. I asked him again, saying I meant the content, and referred to the two local documentaries he made about the Cowichan River and the natives Pow Wow. He said he enjoyed working on these, especially working with so many new people, but he added, “The human condition and the struggles we all go through are really the same everywhere."
"What is it about movie making that you like?" Without hesitation, Louie said, "I love the storytelling." I was wowed. It was honest, direct and humble. He was spectacular. Louie continued: "Well, that, and bossing people around, as I used to on the farm with my brothers and sister." After saying goodbye a second time to Louie and his dog Angel, I look around again at the lush surroundings. I think about Louie Lawless, who said that this is his favorite place in the world. He has traveled from his snowy mountain farm in southern B.C. to the sparkle of Hollywood and back to his house on Mount Tzouhalem. It seems the storyteller has truly come full circle.
"Unrepentant" Filmmaker screens work
Cowichan Valley New Leader- December 08, 2007 by Peter Rusland
Duncan Garage Showroom will show local director Louie Lawless’ documentary film focused on the 1994 firing of former Port Alberni United Church priest Kevin Annett who uncovered and questioned motives for alleged brutal activities in church schools starting around 1952.
UNREPENTANT was written by Kevin Annett and veteran Hollywood film maker Louie Lawless, who was part of the Production team that produced the feature length documentary film “Manson”, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Since then, Louie has been a member of the Producers' Guild of America and the Directors' Guild of America.
The film school teacher and academy award nominee, read Kevin Annett’s book" Love And Death In The Valley" before working with the former priest. "I knew this was a story that begged to be told. It has all the ingredients of powerful drama: greed, corruption, and murder, all involving the government and churches, and told through the eyes of a whistle blowing minister.”
“My movie’s about one man’s struggle,” Lawless said of his award-winning picture.
“It’s the true story of a minister who defied his church and his country for his right to tell the truth.”
Unrepentant is loaded with Lawless’ moving interviews with survivors of residential schools.
That plight stunned Lawless who started work on Unrepentant in 2004.
“It’s about Canada’s silent apartheid,” he said.
He did not, however, contact United Church leaders for their take.
“I thought it wasn’t necessary. I didn’t create the situation; all I do is tell Kevin’s story,” he said. “I thought, ‘A whistle-blowing minister; what a fantastic story. The truth speaks for itself.”
Louie Lawless spent three decades in Hollywood during which he produced or directed feature films and a number of television programs, while also teaching acting and film production in Hollywood. Since 1994 he has produced and directed independent films in Victoria and also teaches at the Victoria Motion Picture School.
Louie Lawless Producer / Director "Unrepentant"
hEyOkA mAgAzInE New York City, New York Interview by John LeKay
JL: Would you say that Canada is similar to the apartheid in South Africa?
Louie Lawless: This is just my opinion, that the design of apartheid is the control of a people in order to steal their land, in Canada's case the state and the churches joined forces to do just that.
JL: What would you say is the mind set towards the aboriginal people of your country in general?
Louie Lawless: They are thought of as second class citizens and treated as such, much like the blacks were in the US in the 60's.
JL: What about the severe conditions of poverty, alcoholism, crime etc. on some of the reserves (reservations) over there in Canada. To your knowledge, does this sort of thing run through much of the Canadian reserves?
Louie Lawless: John, it runs wild in Canada because most the native chiefs are on the payroll of the government and they do not wish to change the status quo. The budget for Indian Affairs is 9 billion dollars and by the time it reaches the native on the ground there is just pennies left. The even bigger damage is to the well being of the native’s mind because of the years of abuse we have done to the people directly, and how do we undo that? As a matter of fact to this day under the Indian Act circa 1800, it is still the law and the natives are still wards of the state, like children or mentally disabled people.
JL: What do you believe are the chances of bringing some of these residential school priests, pedophiles and perpetrators to justice?
Louie Lawless: Kevin said it best, the people responsible are not going to prosecute them-selves, and this has to be brought to a higher court. Where is that, maybe our film.
JL: How did this film affect you on a personal level?
Louie Lawless: First as a filmmaker, this is a story that I felt had all the ingredients of a Shakespeare story, a whistle blowing minister who opens his doors to native people, and who subsequently share with him the crimes and theft of their land, and he was fired for his good work. This is not the way things are supposed to work. On a personal level it provoked many thoughts and answered questions about organized religion that I had.
JL: How long have you been interested in native causes?
Louie Lawless: Born Irish Catholic and a son of a poor farmer, I always felt like an outsider until I ran away to Hollywood and became a filmmaker. I did not know about the native problem until I returned to Canada in the 1990's and got involved in filming some native stories, and saw firsthand the racism between the white and natives. It was so thick you could cut it with a knife. An elephant in the living room that people do not want to see or talk about.
Penticton born filmmaker
Victoria Times Colonist by Michael D. Reid
Published: Friday, June08, 2007
Louie Lawless has made some scary movies during his Hollywood career. Take Manson (1973) an Oscar-nominated documentary about Charles Manson, for example, or Abducted: The Reunion (1994), a horror flick with Jan-Michael Vincent and Dan Haggerty about a crazy mountain man who terrorizes sexy campers.
Nothing compares to the horrors Lawless faced doing Unrepentant. The Penticton - born director's documentary recounts Canada's "dirty little secret" and focuses on the price paid by controversial clergyman Kevin Annett because of his crusade to document cultural genocide at church-run Indian residential schools in Canada and to bring its perpetrators to justice.
Unrepentant, winner of Best Director of an International Documentary Film at last year's New York Independent Film and Video Festival, interweaves Annett's saga with heart-wrenching first-hand testimony from emotionally scarred aboriginal survivors, with much pain etched on their faces.
Inspired by a story in The Globe and Mail on "Canada's Silent Apartheid," Lawless says he began work on the film four years ago. He was eager to tell "the story of a man who struggled to be honest and truthful" but whose world would fall apart with an ensuing divorce, ostracism and physical threats. Annett says he was also prevented from completing his PhD. "I'm always looking for a great story and this -- it's Shakespeare," says Lawless. "It's got greed, corruption, lying, and murder."
How did it all start?
By Louie Lawless
My first experience in the film industry was when I started an acting class in Hollywood California. Estelle Harman was the teacher and owner. What an eye opener for a 20 year old farm boy from the sticks. My first class was a scene study class and as I struggle not to pass out from fear of just being there, two actors started doing a scene. Wow, I forgot where I was and immediately I was in another world where I was watching a real argument from my life. I was suddenly forced back to reality by the loud sound of hands clapping. These two humans, who I thought where in a real argument, where in fact just two actors. Yes, I knew I was where I wanted to be.
I got lucky and started acting in plays, the last play called "The Group" ran for a full year. I was able to get into the Actors Equity Union and started making money as an actor. This lead to other acting jobs, the last being a movie called "Planet of the Dinosaurs", I played Captain Northside.
At the same time as luck would have it, I also got a great job working at General Service Studios in the mail room, The studio produced -The "Beverly Hillbillies", "Petticoat Junction", "Green Acres" and other shows. My job was to pick up and deliver mail and scripts to all of the cast, crew and studio personal on the lot and also deliver to other studios, namely -M.G.M., Universal, Fox, Warner Brothers and Paramount. I took advantage of my situation and started to hang around the editing rooms and watch how film is edited, yes editing real film, remember this is 1965. What really impressed me was how I would watch the Beverly Hillbillies being filmed on the stage, and then see in the editing room how the show would be edited into the final product to be showing on television. What I life I was living!
As fate would have it, I started to become more interested with the process of telling the story, and through the Directors' Guild Of America I got involved in a training program, that was teaching the craft of directing and the director's team. I soon became a member of the Guild and started working on many television shows and feature films in Hollywood, where I lived and worked for over thirty years, until I finally came home to Canada.
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