Richard Wilhelm and Sue Arbuthnot discuss their new film, "Refuge," about the 2016 Bundy occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
What is a refuge?
Is refuge what we would call home? Are we fleeing from something – or someone – when we seek refuge? Should we consider national forests and other protected public lands the refuges wildlife needs from humans? These and other questions were asked and challenged throughout the weekend in Joseph at Winter Fishtrap, a three-day gathering that focuses panel discussions, conversations, readings and other events around a single word, theme or concept. The event is hosted by Fishtrap, the literary arts organization based in Enterprise.
With the theme of refuge, participants shared stories of family ancestors seeking refuge from poverty, or religious or political persecution on land that, for thousands of years, was the home of Native Americans.
The first thing many Oregonians are likely to think about when they hear the word “refuge” is the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the sanctuary in southwestern Harney County that was occupied for 41 days in January 2016 by Ammon and Ryan Bundy and their followers.
The occupation became a lightning rod for issues related to interpreting the Constitution, the relationship between the federal government and local communities, who controls public lands and how, gun rights, and the emergence of right-wing extremism in our nation’s political conversation and consciousness.
Winter Fishtrap was capped off this year with a screening of selections from a documentary film, still in production, about the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and its aftermath.
The documentary, titled “Refuge,” is produced by Richard Wilhelm and Sue Arbuthnot, husband and wife filmmakers who divide their home between Burns and Portland.
Arbuthnot and Wilhelm were cross-country skiing near their property on Jan. 1, 2016, after finishing touring with their film “Dryland,” a documentary that follows two young wheat farmers in Eastern Washington.
Arbuthnot and Wilhelm, exhausted, talked about taking a break from making films for a while. The next day, they drove up to the Safeway parking lot in Burns, where the Bundys held their first rally.
Without hesitation, they started filming with their iPhones.
The film narrates both the occupation and the larger issues faced by residents of Harney County, including managing public lands that protects the way of life, as Harney County residents now know it.
Arbuthnot and Wilhelm have interviewed nearly 100 people for the film, including Ammon Bundy, Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward, U.S. Attorney Billy Williams, and members of the High Desert Partnership, the group of ranchers, conservationists, elected leaders and members of the Burns-Paiute Tribe tasked with overseeing usage of public lands.
They also interviewed citizens of Burns and everyday people entangled with the events of the occupation. The words “us,” “we,” “them” and “they” were heard throughout the vignettes that were screened, showing how divisive public discourse has become.
Arbuthnot and Wilhelm expect the film to be released this summer. They’ve not yet decided it if will be feature-length film or a mini-series.
In their filmmaking, they emphasize deep, careful listening and empathizing with all their subjects. Throughout the three years they’ve worked on the film, they’ve come to discover that the story of the occupation and the political ideologies of the people caught up in it are not as clear cut as they would seem.
Amanda Waldroupe: It became so obvious during the occupation that a lot of people in rural America think that they’ve been completely left behind or are not being listened to by the federal government.
Richard Wilhelm: Right. Or by anybody.
Sue Arbuthnot: Or anybody, yeah. A lot more people were in sympathy with the occupation then will admit to it. There was a spectrum of whether they thought it was an OK thing, a great thing, or it was a bad idea, but they agreed with the some of the feelings and sentiments behind it. Even some of the more liberal or progressive ranchers and the people in town would say, “You know, we do have a problem with the way the government deals with a place that is 75 percent publicly owned.”
A.W.: One of the arguments Ammon Bundy made, to paraphrase, was to return ranchland to the ranchers, logging to the loggers, mining to the miners. He really tapped into 30 years of resentment of federal regulations.
Wilhelm: They saw this populist movement coming and they took full advantage of it.
Arbuthnot: I think you’re maybe reading more into what Ammon Bundy orchestrated. I think he was interested in his family and his rights. He wasn’t interested in being part of a movement or creating a movement. I don’t think he had the wider scope of projection or understanding, necessarily.
A.W.: Why do you think that is?
Arbuthnot: Because most people think about themselves first. I don’t think he really was involved in looking across the political landscape and (saying), “What’s a good time for me to jump in?” I think this goes with the idea that I personally don’t see the Bundy situation as being a tagalong or part and parcel with a white nationalist movement, or white supremacy. That’s not our experience.
A.W.: What is it, then?
Arbuthnot: It has to do with a sovereign states’ rights to some extent. Individual freedom. I think that the way they construed the parts of the Constitution that they refer to was out of expediency for what they wanted, which is that they just want to do what they want to do and be left alone. State’s rights is not a new idea, obviously.
But they did jump on that because it would benefit them, and it might benefit other people. I do think they believe that there would be a larger benefit to the country, or at least to the West as a whole. But I think that’s where it stops. Richard and I are careful, because in urban areas we hear that a lot. “Oh, they’re just white nationalists’” or … “they’re white supremacists and they just haven’t said so, but they are.” Well, no, it would be nice if everything was tidy, but it’s not.
FURTHER READING: The radical rural right: How the Patriot movement is organizing throughout rural Oregon communities
A.W.: This gets to your emphasis, as filmmakers, on nuance and of recognizing that people’s political ideologies and beliefs are far more complex than right or left, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. Tell me about the artistic philosophy behind that, why it’s important to you both.
Wilhelm: Doing it just binarily is blind.
Arbuthnot: We don’t want to see the kind of division that we are witnessing and experiencing right now continue. It doesn’t behoove us, in my view, to continue to label and to have a reductionist view of who people are. If we don’t break out of that … people are going to continue to say they’re not being heard. They’re not being represented accurately. There will be eruptions of other kinds of behavior and activities, actions, protests, violence.
Wilhelm: The outcome of the film could be a much more subjective look at what’s going on rather than a dialectic that happens between opposing views. That’s more of what interests us: We may not agree with everything you say, (but) we want you to remotely talk to each other through your ideas.
A.W.: One of the predominant narratives about the occupation is one of politics, that the story is about control of public lands, whether or not the Bureau of Land Management should exist, and so on. How do you think the film will argue with that idea?
Arbuthnot: We’ve grappled with this a lot. Is this film – our story – solely about the control of public lands? No. It’s a bigger identity kind of situation. There is a sense that people feel the loss of something that they may have had, or they thought they had.
Wilhelm: Or they think they deserved to have.
Arbuthnot: That’s commonly called white privilege, I guess, but I think those labels are so insufficient.
Wilhelm: We really don’t like using labels.
FURTHER READING: The Bundys vs. 'the real patriots' in Standing Rock
A.W.: Many of your sources, you’ve said, have been very welcoming and willing to tell their side of the story. Why do you think you got that reception? Because you’re residents of Burns?
Arbuthnot: I think with Ammon Bundy, getting the interview with him, that didn’t hurt. I think he was more deferential to people who lived in the community because that was what he was supporting – community empowerment, if you want to call it that. There are a lot of people who really want to be heard and they want to tell their stories. We can do a mass search in our transcripts, and people have said to us, literally, over and over “not being heard,” “not being listened to,” “being ignored.” This is across the board. If you show up and if you listen to people ardently or respectfully, that maybe will help change some of the complexion of what’s going on.
Wilhelm: We would explain to them that we live in the community. It’s our community too, and we care about it. We wanted to get to know what happened here, how it happened, what was your involvement in it, where did you come from? Basically we want to know what your truth is. (And we said) we’re talking to everybody on the spectrum. … And when they hear that, they realize, “OK, well maybe it’s my turn to tell what I feel about this.”
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