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Author:
Lynne Littman
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LYNNE LITTMAN is known for her feature films ( TESTAMENT which starred Jane Alexander who was nominated for an Academy Award; documentary films ( NUMBER OUR DAYS for which she won an Academy Award), movies for television (HAVING OUR SAY, The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. ) and her active participation in Independent Documentary Association and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
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LYNNE LITTMAN made her feature film directing debut in l984 with TESTAMENT. Its star, Jane Alexander, was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress. Ms. Littman herself won an Academy Award for her documentary film, NUMBER OUR DAYS, based on the fieldwork of anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff.
For the body of work she created at Public TV station KCET, Littman won 4 Emmy Awards, a Columbia/Dupont Journalism Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, the Radio and TV News Association's Golden Mike, 2 Christopher Awards, 3 Cine Golden Eagles, a George Foster Peabody Award and First Prizes at the Atlanta and San Francisco Film Festivals.
She was an original member of the AFI Directing Workshop for Women.
Her feature documentary, IN HER OWN TIME, follows the orthodox Jewish population in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles and that community's response to Dr. Barbara Myerhoff's fatal illness. It earned her 4th Cine Golden Eagle.
Ms. Littman created the memorable OSCAR TRIBUTE TO WOMEN, opening the 65th ACADEMY AWARDS Broadcast celebrating ?The Year of the Woman?.
She was Chair of the Second International Documentary Congress sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Independent Documentary Association. The event honored filmmaker, Marcel Ophuls.
Ms. Littman directed the CBS ?finale? 2-hour movie: CAGNEY & LACEY: TRUE CONVICTIONS. She directed MARIE TAQUET starring LINDA HAMILTON and ALFRED MOLINA, part of THE RESCUERS anthology produced by Barbra Streisand?s Barwood Productions for Showtime. For Showtime and producer Sandy Stern she directed Jane Shepherd?s FREAK CITY starring PETER SARSGAARD, SAMANTHA MATHIS, MARLEE MATLIN, JONATHAN SILVERMAN, and NATALIE COLE.
Based on the best-selling book HAVING OUR SAY, the Delany Sister?s First 100 Years, Littman directed the movie for CBS starring RUBY DEE, DIAHANN CARROLL, AMY MADIGAN, AUDRA MCDONALD, RICHARD ROUNDTREE, MYKELTI WILLIAMSON produced by Judith James and Camille Cosby. ?Having Our Say? won her a second GEORGE FOSTER PEABODY AWARD and another CHRISTOPHER.
In 2003 she created a film tribute to the renowned French director, Agnes Varda, who was honored at the International Documentary Association Awards Gala. Ms. Varda brought Ms. Littman to Los Angeles as her assistant, in 1968.
Ms. Littman chairs the Director?s Guild of America Documentary Awards competition; she?s on the Board of the International Documentary Association and regularly Co-chairs tIDA? Feature Awards competition; on the steering committee of the Documentary Credits Coalition; a member of the DGA, WGA, ASCAP, the TV Academy, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
A DVD of TESTAMENT, including two new documentaries produced by Ms. Littman, was released by Paramount in 2005.
She has recently completed the screenplay and will direct ?The Spirit Catches You? based on the National Book Critics Circle Award winner ?The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down? by Anne Fadiman. |
THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK“The Devil Came on Horseback” and took my breath away, and broke my heart, and explained the origins of the genocide in Darfur, clearly. It’s a provocative call to action.
To me, the best documentaries are personal odysseys where we witness either the filmmaker or her subject transform along the way, and she shows us why. Filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern are invisible in “The Devil Came on Horseback,” but through their eyes we watch Brian Steidle, a boyish ex-Marine Captain, mature into the best kind of American man. “American” because Steidle possesses the naïve, cockeyed optimism -- a U.S. patented brand – which, when coupled with energy and determination, often leads to heroism.
When and how the filmmakers recognized their hero is their gift -- because he is the beating heart of the movie, which takes shape through his photos and e-mails from Darfur to his family back home. The film focuses on a character with whom we can travel to hell and survive with hope.
We’re with Brian as he takes life-defining risks: disobeying the advice of his career-military father; leaving the marines to volunteer as an un-armed “protector” with the African Union in Sudan; illegally photographing the murderous Janjaweed militia as they cross the desert on a genocidal raid: “I was thinking we could end this right now if I were looking through a scope instead of my camera lens ” he jokes. When he presents his photos, proof of the gruesome slaughter, to Condoleeza Rice, she blows him off: “thanks for the pictures, you’re doing a really good job.”
Brian learns first hand that politics and corruption rule in Sudan and Washington D.C. when he resists U.S. State Department pressure -- they appeal to him as the son of “military tradition” -- to suppress his evidence and not release his photographs. Instead, he contacts New York Times reporter, Nicholas Krystof, before returning to Chad.
“A whistle blower?” he smiles. “No, that’s such a negative. Just some guy that tried to wake up the conscience of a bunch of people.”
In an astonishing sequence, a young woman, rail-thin and ragged, is frantically sweeping the muddy ground in an instant refugee camp. Having escaped a raid on her village in which her brother, uncle, child and mother were killed, she sweeps and sweeps then looks at the camera, pleading: “Would you believe me that I am a teacher?” And again, “would you believe if I tell you I am a teacher? I have nothing, I have nothing, nothing ” she wails.
Near the end of the film Brian is on a bus in Sudan passing through scenes of total devastation. He weeps uncontrollably. “I stood there for six months and watched people die, and I took pictures of them.”
The gift and burden of true documentary filmmaking is the unpredictable demand each film throws at the filmmaker -- exposing her motives, intelligence, weakness, and/or strength. How far is she willing to go to get the story/shot? What skill or cunning will it take to wheedle the truth from a less-than-willing subject? Is her presence in her subjects’ lives a blessing or a curse? Unlike a writer’s solitary process, a doc-maker has to “get it on film” - in collaboration - relying on the relationship between subject and filmmaker at the moment of shooting. It’s a tricky proposition: you have to use yourself in order to make the fullest use of your subject. There are no retakes.
Doc-making hasn’t historically been a sport for dilettantes or cowards, regardless of the terrain. “The Devil Came on Horseback” is one of the brave achievements.
Credits:
Directed and Produced by: Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern
Produced by: Ricki Stern, Annie Sundberg, Gretchen Wallace, Jane Wells
Edited by: Joey Grossfield
Music by: Paul Brill
Cinematography: Jerry Risuis (?), Phil Cox, Tim Hetherington, William Rexer II (?), Annie Sundberg, John Keith Wasson.
Made in association with
BBCt
Three Generations
Sundance Institute Documentary Grant Program
TV2 Denmark
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