Portland filmmaker Lindsey Grayzel talks about making her documentary, 'The Reluctant Radical'
On Feb. 4, four people used bolt cutters and a cell phone to shut down two tar sands pipelines in Itasca County, Minnesota.
In a signed statement released the same day, the group said it was compelled to act by the latest United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report showing that “the threat of irreversible damage and destruction to our planet is imminent,” and because alternative methods to curb fossil fuels had proven “lethally inadequate.” The group objected to the expansion of fossil fuels industry as a whole and to the proposed Line 3 expansion in particular, which would carry tar sands oil across Minnesota and Wisconsin and Ojibwe lands.
All four were arrested and later released, facing felony charges. They have identified themselves as part of the Catholic Workers Movement, which aims to promote justice and non-violence by following the example of Jesus. Both pipelines that were disrupted, Line 3 and Line 4, are owned by the Enbridge Corp.
Their action turned many heads, but it was not the first time activists closed Line 4. On Oct. 11, 2016, Line 4 was manually closed by two women from Washington state: retired attorney Annette Klapstein and poet Emily Johnston. Together with three other activists, the two pulled off the largest single disruption of oil infrastructure in U.S. history, spanning five pipelines in four states. The group also sent a letter to President Barack Obama, asking him to keep the pipelines shut down and to declare a climate emergency that would transition the country rapidly to renewable energy.
Both Klapstein and Johnston were acquitted in October.
Three filmmakers documenting these actions were also arrested, including Portland filmmaker Lindsey Grayzel. Last year, Grayzel released her feature-length documentary, “The Reluctant Radical,” which chronicles the life and activism of Ken Ward, an Oregon local and former deputy director of Greenpeace USA who shut down the Trans Mountain pipeline in Washington state. Since its release, “The Reluctant Radical” has screened in 26 states around the country, as well as in Canada, Australia, Spain, England, Germany, Austria, Italy and New Zealand.
FURTHER READING: Portland Valve Turner Leonard Higgins spared prison
In the film, Grayzel follows Ward as he grapples emotionally with the climate crisis, inviting viewers to see the meaning of the crisis through his eyes and providing insight into the latest actions in Minnesota. Grayzel documents how Ward’s fears and dread ultimately gave way to determined efforts to stop coal barges in Massachusetts, oil trains in Washington state, and Shell’s arctic icebreaker in Portland. Despite his continuing grief, the film shows how Ward increasingly took matters into his own hands – culminating in his decision to personally shut down an oil pipeline in Washington, where Grayzel and her cameraman were arrested.
Street Roots sat down with Grayzel to discuss her process making the film, the latest valve turner action, and the challenge of telling stories about climate change.
Stephen Quirke: What motivated you to make “The Reluctant Radical"?
Lindsey Grayzel: I’ve been making films for 20 years, and I’ve always wanted to make my own independent film, and so I saw this as an opportunity to make a short film about something that I had a lot of interest in. I was concerned about climate change, but I was in no way, like, freaked out about climate change at that time. All those conversations with Ken make you think about the crisis in a different way – just the way he doesn’t ever turn away from it. It’s always front and center for him. I thought it was impressive, but it takes a huge toll on a person, so I wanted to share that story.
S.Q.: How did you first meet Ken?
L.G.: Socially. We were honestly just chitchatting, like "How do you spend your time?’" And he started talking about his climate change work. I learned about the lobster boat action, which was really intriguing, and he told me about his experience being diagnosed as bipolar, being put on lithium. That experience, for me, really encapsulated what the problem is with our society – in terms of recognizing the danger and actually dealing with it. Here you had someone who was actually thinking about it all the time and dealing with it, and he’s the one who’s diagnosed as delusional, right? When the rest of us who are like, well that’s too difficult to think about, I’m gonna just brush that aside. We’re supposedly the sane ones. It doesn’t make sense. It’s backwards.
S.Q.: Did that connect with the mental health films you’ve worked on before?
L.G.: Yeah – grief films actually, not so much in terms of mental diagnoses, but just the very human experience of grieving, and trying to help people get through that and feel heard. That was work with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, where those videos were aimed at the friends and families of people who had died, helping them cope after the death. In a lot of ways, I feel like that work provided me with a pretty good foundation for talking with Ken, because he’s in grief all the time.
S.Q.: Do you think grief is a common response to climate change?
L.G.: I think it’s becoming more and more common all the time, because there are more reports about how dire this situation is, and it’s getting more dire by the day, and the information is starting to be more easily accessed in terms of showing up in the newspaper, instead of having to dig in to the IPCC report. But I still think the sort of natural default human condition is to take it in, and try to immediately shut it out as quickly as possible. And I think it’s a rare person who doesn’t do that.
S.Q.: What surprised you the most as you continued to work on the film?
L.G.: The biggest shock to me was really understanding the tipping points, and how no one really knows how close we are to those tipping points, or if we’ve already gone over them. I believed Ken, but I didn’t feel it until I read and really digested those papers myself. And then I was like oh my God – we really are fucked here.
S.Q.: What was different with this film, compared to your other projects?
L.G.: I didn’t know how it was gonna end. When you’re working on a historical film, or a nature film, you write the script first, and you say these are the themes, and this is how I want it to end. (laughs)
I thought I was going to do that with Ken. I started out making a short film, so I thought I would talk about the lobster boat, and his work in Greenpeace, with interviews today, and that would be the film. And then right after he agreed to be part of the film, Shell announced that they were bringing the Fennica to town, and he was like “I’m gonna stop that ship.” And I was like, “I’m gonna film you stopping that ship.” And then I just kept following him whatever he was doing, and it turned into a much bigger project.
S.Q.: It can be very challenging to communicate the enormity of the climate crisis. What was your approach?
L.G.: I kept it personal. That was a creative decision, and it was a logistics decision in some part, because the data keeps changing very rapidly. Ultimately I decided that people having an emotional connection to Ken was more important to understand, and hope that if they didn’t know the situation themselves, it would inspire them to do some research and understand why he’s so freaked out.
S.Q.: This month, four more people shut down two oil pipelines in Minnesota. What was your first reaction?
L.G.: Yes! I think it’s incredibly admirable that people are willing to put themselves on the line. It’s a huge risk, and I have a lot of gratitude towards them. It’s only effective if there’s more than just five people doing it. If it’s happening over and over and over again, then that makes it a much bigger impact.
S.Q.: The president gave his State of the Union address just one day after those pipelines were shut down, and he failed to even mention the words “climate change.” Do you think that says something about our political situation?
L.G.: I’m actually spending a lot more time now thinking about the Democrats – the party that talks about taking action, and then waters things down in favor of corporate interests. I think that is the more important battle to focus on right now, honestly.
S.Q.: One of the recent valve turners in Minnesota, Michele Naar-Obed, said on her livestream video: “This is a small, small action. We know the really big action is turning the hearts and the minds of those people who make the decisions to keep it all permanently paved away.” Your thoughts on that?
L.G.: It’s a huge decision for her to take personally, but in the scheme of what needs to happen, it is one small thing. My whole hope with making this film was to get people to consider their own choices and their own path and how they can contribute – to sort of force that moment, that uncomfortable moment, when you think about what you know, and what you do, and the disparity between them, and then resolve to take action.
S.Q.: You’ve been screening your film for a year now. What has been the reaction?
L.G.: It depends of course on the audience. I think the most raucous was in Seattle, and it was also a welcome-home party for (2016 valve turner) Michael Foster when he got out of prison. There was so much hootin’ and hollerin’, you couldn’t even hear the film.
S.Q.: Why should people see the film?
L.G.: It gives you a front-row seat to actions, which is kind of fun, you know, to see what it is like when you’re camping out on the railroad tracks outside of a oil refinery. I worked really hard to include some humor and make it engaging and entertaining.
It is also unique in the climate change genre in focusing on one person’s psychological journey. There are a lot of people who are suffering this grief, and to see how Ken deals with it is inspiring.
I don’t think there are a lot of people who are going through the grief that Ken is going through, but there are a lot of people who have that cognitive dissonance of knowing that this is a really big thing, and not knowing what to do with that information. So this is one way to see what someone else does with that information, and to force yourself to actually think about it for a little while.
Watch the film
To rent or buy "The Reluctant Radical," visit thereluctantradicalmovie.com
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