Filmmaker’s focus: getting inside the outsiders
Fair Haven man seeks out society’s rebels as documentary subjects
BY GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer

GLORIA STRAVELLI Fair Haven neighbors (l-r) Alice Bullis and Peter Sillen have more than a neighborhood in common. Bullis is the subject of “Alice’s House,” one of Sillen’s documentaries.

The outsider is a popular folk icon, but a local documentary filmmaker’s work challenges viewers to confront the social themes that are revealed in the lives of people living outside the mainstream.

Peter Sillen’s spare, honest and unflinching film portraits document people as disparate as a speed-freak drag queen musician and a 90-year-old out of sync with her newly upscale community.

"A lot of the films focus on people outside the 9-to-5 environment. I honestly think these are all themes people care about deeply," explained Sillen.

"We’re all force-fed this mainstream culture. There aren’t that many films that make you stop and think. In this crazy life, there are moments when you really need to reflect on things," said the Fair Haven resident.

"I don’t mean to say that any of these films are so important. They’re not; they’re little films and they’re very forgettable. But, at same time, they hopefully evoke some emotion and leave you thinking a little bit."

"Benjamin Smoke," Sillen’s documentary about a speed-freak, singer/songwriter living on the edge of Atlanta society was screened locally as part of the Black Maria Film Festival presented at Monmouth University in West Long Branch and Brookdale Community College in the Lincroft section of Middletown recently.

"In America, we love the idea of a rebel when he looks like James Dean and he doesn’t live next door to you. There’s this romantic idea of the rebel," observed Sillen. "But, in reality, its hard to stomach the person who really is a rebel, and Benjamin was a rebel — no question about it. There’s no sugar coating his life and what he did."

The feature-length documentary about the HIV-infected punk rocker and his underground band will be screened May 19 at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park as a fund-raiser for The Center, which provides services to people with HIV/AIDS. Tickets are $10, $25 for the film and a director’s reception, and are available by calling (732) 946-2711.

"When you make a film like ‘Benjamin Smoke,’ you hope people are affected by it. We watched Benjamin, a friend, wither over the years," Sillen said. "It makes you realize the safety net for people in this country is pretty threadbare, and you want to do something to help because this is a devastating disease."

The benefit will include a screening of Sillen’s 15-minute documentary, "Alice’s House." The film about his 90-year-old Fair Haven neighbor, Alice Bullis, is a study of another outsider, of sorts, living independently and marginally within a town that has evolved into an upscale, bedroom community.

A 1984 graduate of Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, Sillen headed for New York after graduating from the University of Georgia, Athens, and began a career doing freelance production work for companies that produce commercials and music videos.

He is currently a director with Washington Square Arts & Films in New York, where his work on spots for clients including HBO and First Energy makes it possible for him to pursue independent projects.

"For a living, I direct commercials — that’s what supports me," he said. "You can’t make money as a documentary filmmaker. There are a few films that make money, every year there’s a documentary or two that breaks out. But it’s not a realistic idea that you’re going to do that."

Steeped in the classic work of important documentary filmmakers like Frederic Wiseman, Sillen prefers shooting on film despite the fact that it ups production costs.

"It’s expensive and hard to make film in film these days," he explained. "Most filmmakers have gone to video. I try to cling to the idea of making films with film, but it creates a situation that you have to be very resourceful.

"There are a lot of people out there making very passionate, important films on video," he continued. "But I like to think my films are a little more introspective, and it’s hard for me to shoot on video. It’s [video’s] easier financially but you don’t get the same product in the end."

Sillen’s first film was "Speed Racer: Welcome to the World of Vic Chesnutt," a 1993 documentary about a paraplegic singer/songwriter from Athens, Ga., that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994 and was aired on PBS.

Sillen was just 24 years old when he filmed "Speed Racer" and used credit cards to finance the 30-minute film portrait. With no formal film training, he didn’t fully appreciate the task he’d undertaken, he said.

"I didn’t have a clue. I’d never been to film school. I was naïve enough to think, ‘I know cameras, so I’ll make a film.’ If I ever realized how much work it was going to be, I probably never would have undertaken it."

Sillen met Jem Cohen, who co-produced "Benjamin Smoke," while filming the Vic Chestnutt biopic, and the two collaborated for more than a decade on the documentary about Benjamin’s life from childhood to his struggle with AIDS.

The filmmakers first saw Benjamin (his stage name) when he performed in Atlanta as lead singer with the Opal Foxx Quartet, Sillen recalled.

"We were sort of in awe of Benjamin. He had an incredible stage persona. Opal was an ensemble of 12 people, from Benjamin in a house dress to Deacon Lunchbox, a 300-pound redneck poet with a cap gun. You can’t make that stuff up. From that, we started slowly documenting Benjamin and his band, Smoke."

Short of funds for filming, the filmmakers shot footage when the opportunity arose.

"We started accumulating footage," Sillen recalled. "There was a shelf that just was collecting more and more stuff. We realized the pile was getting bigger at about the same time we realized Benjamin was HIV positive."

The realization added urgency and the filmmakers grappled with deciding on an approach to documenting Benjamin and the band, he said.

"At first, we thought it would be a three-song triptych, a sort of time capsule of this band," explained Sillen. "We were trying to scrape together funds and film to get down to Georgia and shoot.

"We had the makings of what we were doing," Sillen noted. "We also realized we had a lot of footage. As we started putting things together, it slowly grew into the film and it became ‘Benjamin Smoke.’ "

The filmmakers deliberately chose a format that uses film, video and photographs to tell Benjamin’s story.

"Sometimes things just make sense," Sillen said. "Benjamin’s life was this sort of a patchwork of worlds and things, and it was sort of tattered on the edges.

"And it spoke to our way of making the film, which was putting it together through this collage of things. "

The film premiered at the 2001 Berlin International Film Festival and was released nationally to critical acclaim.

For Sillen, making films about marginal people is almost a calling.

"I’m drawn, in subject matter, to people who don’t really have a choice and do what they have to and can almost do nothing else," he said.

"To me, that passion is really interesting, and I guess I fall into that category.

"The films are small, and I like them small. I like to be able to control them and do whatever I want. I hope, in the end, there’s a body of work that sort of has a point of view and sensibility that my kids or their kids’ kids might know where they come from."