Jesse James Trailer 720 TBTN from Josef Steiff on Vimeo.
JESSE JAMES
“Jesse James” is a short film about domestic violence. Spilling out into their front yard, Jesse and his lover test the boundaries of their relationship and come face to face not just with what they are losing but with what they have already lost – when Jesse can no longer save his relationship but only himself.
Just as in heterosexual relationships, domestic violence in queer relationships is often hidden, at least until it can be no longer. My hope is that “Jesse James” serves as a reminder that love is complex and complicated; that certain facets of our relationships are withheld from public view; that domestic violence among lgbtq+ couples does exist even if it is not readily visible.
The film weaves Greek mythology with other types of cultural stories, such as the fable of Jack and the Beanstalk and the outlaw west of Jesse James, while the images reference baseball, pickup trucks, the military, and pride among other representations of Americana and masculinity. These allusions form a child-like world as the young boy in the film might perceive it, but just as it is in those folktales and legends, the world is fraught with danger and risk. More importantly, it is a world where strength and goodness can prevail.
STATEMENT:
“Write what you know.” That’s the mantra, right? When I started film school, “Jesse James” was the story I knew. But I wasn’t ready to tell it. Instead I wrote and directed films about war, AIDS, sexual assault, and the aftermath of a school shooting, while I produced films for other writer/directors on addiction, coming out straight, monogamy, and fidelity. All issues important to me. All issues informed by my years as a licensed social worker. All issues that touched on my life. But all issues held at a safe distance. Until about 15 years ago, when I circled back to this idea of “write what you know” and began writing more directly and personally, exploring a variety of forms: essays, plays, solo performance, and ultimately back to screenplays and film.
Though shot before my last feature, “Jesse James” has in effect become my follow-up, my return to the film festival circuit. When COVID scrapped my research travel plans for a new feature screenplay, I used the unexpected free time to finish the postproduction on “Jesse James” with the assistance of a faculty development grant and an amazing postproduction team that included Columbia alumni, teachers, and staff. Even though certain aspects of completion were challenging because of COVID – sound mixing in particular does not work well remotely or through notes – and I as a filmmaker can always see things I would have done differently with the insight of hindsight, the film has proven to be, as one of my actors calls it, “the little film that could,” screening and accepted at film festivals in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.
The film itself fits comfortably within my body of work by continuing my thematic interest in how we make sense of situations that are out of our control, where “How Will I Tell” is not just the title of my first film but a consideration in everything I make, especially as my work becomes more overtly rooted in the personal. This film has reminded me that it’s not just knowing the story we want to tell, but knowing when we’re ready to tell it. Part of being a storyteller is patience, which resonates with my interactions with those students who are sometimes too close to the material they want to shape into stories and a reassurance that the distance provided by time can be a good thing.
The process of submitting the film to festivals during COVID has raised new dilemmas for both festivals and me. Some festivals ultimately cancelled or postponed their screenings, and many screenings became virtual. This raised a number of issues such as whether or not to geolock the online access, whether to charge “admission” or provide access to the films for free, and whether to schedule films on certain days of the festival like would happen with in-person screenings or whether to allow access throughout the entire run of the festival. Each festival arrived at their own answers and strategies, which also affected the kinds of deliverables they wanted. For me as the filmmaker, one of the challenges was how to promote festival screenings on social media that would never be in competition with each other for in-person screenings due to their location, but with the move online now vying for the same viewers. On the plus side, virtual festivals allowed me to attend and see programs from all over the world, something I could have never done in person even in the years before COVID. This has actually resulted in more sustained connections with other filmmakers than I might have accomplished in person.