“誓言”电影制片人展示NXIVM不仅仅是“性爱”
‘The Vow’ Filmmakers on Showing NXIVM as More Than a ‘Sex Cult’
HBO关于NXIVM的限量系列的“誓言”董事Karim Amer和Jehane Noujaim不想听到该组织再次被称为“性爱邪教”。尽管NXIVM三年前成为主要新闻头条，首先是新的新闻头条，首先是一个新的新闻头条约克时报（York Times）关于DOS的故事，DOS是一个团体，正在为成员收集令人尴尬的材料（称为“抵押品”），并为它们烙上品牌，在某些情况下据称将它们操纵为性情况，该小组本身是建立的1998年，自称为“多层次营销公司”。联合创始人基思·拉尼耶（Keith Raniere）在自我完善和自我实现方面举办了成千上万的研讨会和课程，该公司在世界各地开设了中心。阿米尔告诉《综艺》，现在只用一种性爱来标记，这就是“严重问题”。这就是为什么他和他的妻子和纪录片制作伙伴努贾姆（Noujaim）“试图尊严地讲述一个故事”。他解释说：“人们对纪录片充满信心。我并不是说我们在这里要纠正所有错误，但我们正在努力帮助带来更多的细微差别。多年来，将他们的生活和职业致力于拉尼耶尔的教义，然后最终向《纽约时报》讲故事。在后来的情节中，演员凯瑟琳·奥克森伯格（Catherine Oxenberg）也成为“誓言”中的一个杰出人物，因为她为使女儿的印度从拉内尔（Raniere）的离合器中脱颖而出。“我们在有任何新闻元素之前就跟随这个故事，” Noujaim告诉《多样性》。 “这是一个非常个人的故事。马克当时是我认识了10年的人，并且一直在组织中非常相信，该组织的道德使命突然以一种非常不同的方式交谈，质疑他所相信的一切，而且非常非常Noujaim在201中接受了NXIVM的“旗舰入门班”0，她回忆说，并遇到了许多与她保持联系的人。同年，她与维森特（Vicente）和“组织中的其他几个领导人就可能制作电影的人”进行了交谈。但是直到2017年，她才完成那堂课，现在，在2020年，她和Amer还完成了纪录片的完成 - 尽管纪录片讲述的故事不是他们第一次听到NXIVM时可以预测的。大多数宗教的基础是对道德使命的一种投降，我并不是说NXIVM是一种宗教，而是在许多方面您在NXIVM中看到的动态，您在政党，宗教组织中也看到了动态，” Amer说。Noujaim说，她在NXIVM中的个人联系“绝对”帮助获得了“誓言”的关键材料 - 从深入的访谈到NXIVM会议和课程的视频和音频录音以及个人电话交谈。 “我有的人大都会没有被吸引到性邪教。十八人参加了自我完善的课程；有一个少量加入了DOS。她认识我的许多人都知道我的意图是理解的，而不是某种剥离电影。”她说，这样的镜头对电影制片人来说是必不可少的，将观众纳入了他们的主题的经历。她解释说：“您有机会感受到在那里的实际情况。” “制作节目的首要任务是使故事人性化：要采取人们认为自己理解的问题 - 在头条新闻中被抹灰和轰动一时，并尝试给它带来细微的，人类的面孔。并花点时间这样做。这就是我们作为电影制片人而不是记者的奢侈品。这就是为什么他们从组织的较早时代和看似积极的意图开始，然后深入研究开始扭曲原始信息和使命的子集。“这是逐渐的垫脚石，可以达到您在该系列中看到的一些更强度。但是，在大多数人所接受的介绍性水平上，这似乎是良性的。” Amer谈到NXIVM时说。 “您在课堂上听到的许多语言与您在洛杉矶大部分地区听到的语言没有什么不同，人们与他们的生活教练交谈。这是很多相同的自我实现，‘您可以成为想要成为的东西；您可以控制自己想要的感觉，”激进的自力更生。这有一个美丽的方面，但是正如我们在这个故事中所看到的那样，这也可能是虐待的门户：社区虐待，虐待自己，我认为这确实很有趣，很复杂，并且对他人的虐待。”包括涵盖演员艾莉森·麦克（Allison Mack动力”的群体是以父权制的思维方式出生的）和dos.noujaim称麦克（Mack一开始，“对她的真正纯真”。 （Noujaim还补充说，她早些时候与NXIVM遇到了Mack几次。）Mack可以在档案片段中从课堂，宣传视频和个人录音中看到“ The The Vow”，而不是新的原始采访。但这并不是说电影制片人不想告诉她这个故事的一面。“因为我们已经看到了，” Noujaim谈到Mack在“誓言”中描绘的上述脆弱性时说，“我们知道有一个更深层的故事关于艾莉森的头条新闻的故事。她是一个人，问自己的这些问题，想过上更合乎道德的生活，我认为作为人口，理解和同情人是一个人之一我们可以做的最重要的事情。埃德蒙森（Edmondson），维森特（Vicente）和皮耶斯（Piesse）等人仍在努力应对他们在将精力投入到组织的同时，以及对他们的参与的混合感，尤其是在考虑他们带入该小组的其他人时。 （Vicente是鼓励Noujaim完成她的课程的人 - 她在2017年上课，不久之后，《纽约时报》的文章发布了。）其他成员可能正在挣扎，甚至可能是未来季节的主题节目。努贾伊姆说：“我们与参与其中的每个人接触 - 许多人在故事的各个方面 - 我们正在继续拍摄。 2020年10月被判刑。麦克因性贩运，性贩运阴谋和强迫劳动阴谋被捕，一直被捕艾维在众议院被捕下，但她的判决被推迟，部分原因是冠状病毒大流行。在假定的判决“完全运气”时播出的表演的时机，并指出“誓言”可能没有明确的结局。因为这是一个“时间的时刻”。他解释说：“这实际上是关于他们从哪里开始和何处结束的地方，并了解了他们所处的位置。这是“ NXIVM故事”，而不是确定的NXIVM故事。”“ The Vow”在晚上9点播出周日。在HBO上。
Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim, directors of "The Vow," HBO's limited series about NXIVM, never want to hear the organization referred to as only "a sex cult" again.
Although NXIVM made major news headlines three years ago, first with a New York Times story about DOS, a group-within-the-group that was collecting embarrassing material on its members (called "collateral"), as well as branding them and in some cases allegedly manipulating them into sexual situations, the group itself was founded in 1998 as a self-proclaimed "multi-level marketing company." Co-founder Keith Raniere led thousands of workshops and classes on self-improvement and self-actualization, and the company opened centers around the world. To label it just a sex cult now, Amer tells Variety, is "deeply problematic."
That is why he and his wife and documentary filmmaking partner Noujaim are "trying to tell a story with dignity." He explains, "People put a lot of faith in the documentary. I'm not saying we're here to right all wrongs, but we're trying to help bring in more nuance."
Over the nine-episode first season, Amer and Noujaim primarily follow Sarah Edmondson, Mark Vicente and Bonnie Piesse, three former members of NXIVM who devoted their lives and careers to Raniere's teachings for years before ultimately telling their stories to the New York Times. In later episodes, actor Catherine Oxenberg also becomes a prominent figure in "The Vow" as she fights to get her daughter India out of Raniere's clutches.
"We were following the story long before there was any news element," Noujaim tells Variety. "It started as a very personal story. Mark was somebody I had known for 10 years at that time and had always believed very much in the organization and the ethical mission of the organization was all of a sudden talking in a very different way, questioning everything that he believed, and it was very much a crisis of faith."
Noujaim took NXIVM's "flagship introductory class" in 2010, she recalls, and met a number of people in it with whom she kept in contact. That same year, she spoke with Vicente and "a couple of the other leaders in the organization about potentially making a film" about the organization. But it wasn't until 2017 that she finished that class and now, in 2020, that she and Amer are finishing the documentary -- although the story the documentary is telling is not one they could have predicted when first hearing about NXIVM.
"The fundamental basis of most religions is a kind of surrender to an ethical mission, and I'm not saying that NXIVM is a religion, but in many ways the dynamics that you see in NXIVM you see also in a political party, in religious organizations," Amer says.
Noujaim says her personal connections within NXIVM "absolutely" helped gain access to pivotal pieces of material for "The Vow" -- from in-depth interviews to video and audio recordings of NXIVM meetings and classes, as well as personal phone conversations.
"The people I had met were not drawn to a sex cult. Eighteen-thousand people took self-improvement classes; there was a small number that joined DOS. So many of the people that knew me, knew that my intention was understanding, rather than some kind of take-down film," she says.
Using such footage was essential to the filmmakers to put the audience inside their subjects' experiences. "You have the chance to feel what it might actually be like to be there," she explains. "The first priority with making the show is humanizing the story: To take an issue that people think they understand -- that has been plastered and sensationalized across the headlines -- and to try and put a nuanced, human face to it. And to take our time doing it. That's the luxury we have as filmmakers, rather than journalists."
Both Amer and Noujaim compare telling the story of NXIVM -- from its creation to the abuse of power that eventually went on within it -- to "peeling back the layers of an onion." That is why they start with the organization's earlier days and seemingly positive intentions, before diving deep into the subsets that began to warp the original message and mission.
"It's a gradual stepping stone to get to some of the more intensity that you see in the series. But at the introductory level, which is what most people took, it's pretty seemingly benign," Amer says of NXIVM. "A lot of the language you'd hear in the classes was not that different from the language you'd hear in most parts of L.A., with people talking to their life coach. It's a lot of the same self-actualization, 'you can become what you want to become; you control how you want to feel,' radical self-reliance. That has a beautiful aspect to it, but as we see in this story, that can also be a gateway to abuse: abuse by a community, abuse of yourself, which I think is really interesting and complicated, and abuse of others."
This includes covering actor Allison Mack's involvement with Raniere and later JNESS (a women's "empowerment" group that was born of a patriarchal way of thinking) and DOS.
Noujaim calls Mack someone who "came into the organization, very obviously, with a very open heart and open mind and a desire to learn," and notes she had a "real innocence about her" in the beginning. (Noujaim also adds that she did meet Mack a few times in her earlier days with NXIVM.) Mack can be seen in archival footage from classes, promotional videos and personal recordings in "The Vow," not a new, original interview. But that is not to say the filmmakers would not want to tell her side of the story.
"Because we've seen that," Noujaim says of Mack's aforementioned vulnerability depicted within "The Vow," "we know that there's a much deeper story to the story that has been told across the headlines regarding Allison. She is a human being asking these questions of herself and wanting to live a more ethical life, and I think that, as a human population, understanding and having empathy with people is one of the most important things we can do."
As "The Vow" airs, the fate of NXIVM's members still looms. People such as Edmondson, Vicente and Piesse are still grappling with the time they lost while devoting their energy to the organization, as well as mixed feelings about their involvement, especially when considering how many other people they brought into the group. (Vicente was the one who encouraged Noujaim to finish her classes -- which she did in 2017, not too long before the New York Times article came out.) Other members may be struggling similarly and may even be the subjects of a future season of the show. "We reached out to everybody involved -- many people, on all sides of the story -- and we are continuing to film," Noujaim says.
Meanwhile, Raniere was convicted of sex trafficking and multiple counts of conspiracy in June 2019 and is scheduled to be sentenced in October 2020. Mack was arrested for sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy and has been living under house arrest, but her sentencing was delayed, in part due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Amer calls the timing of the show airing around the time of supposed sentencing "complete luck" and notes that "The Vow" may not have a clear ending because it's about a "moment in time."
He explains: "It's really about where they begin and where they end, with an understanding of where they've gotten to, as opposed to being a historic document that's chronicling every event of the story. It is 'A NXIVM Story,' not the definitive NXIVM story."
"The Vow" airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
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发表于 2022-7-5 09:26:08
发表于 2023-9-14 04:09:29