08/03/2006

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
Documentary filmmaker Malik Bader, who co-directed “Street Thief,” was one of six movie makers who discussed the theme “Dangerous Docs” at the free panel discussion Wednesday morning at the City Opera House.

Film Festival Q&A

... with Malik Bader

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

Malik Bader's first feature film, "Street Thief," ventures farther into reality than any reality TV series. It follows a professional burglar as he commits his crimes.

The film festival guide calls it "a look at a despicable, profane individual who is an expert thief who knows how not to get caught."

Bader grew up on the south side of Chicago and his previous work includes short films and music videos that have screened at the New York Film and Video Festival, the Ramallah International Film Festival and the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival. He spoke with Record-Eagle staff writer Tom Carr following Wednesday's Traverse City Film Festival panel discussion.

Record-Eagle: This sounds like a different sort of documentary.

Malik Bader: It was kind of a good and a bad deal. We had a police department in Chicago which has never let any film production film in any police stations around police property. We were the first people to achieve that and we were to film around police stations and interview detectives and do things like that. We decided at a certain point that that's not we wanted to make. So we had to change our complete — you know our original idea was to go sit down with a real burglar, you know, guys that have been arrested to give people an idea of what it's really like.

But you can't do that. You can't feel what a burglar goes through unless it's shown to you the way it really happens. And to us, it was less about being true to the documentary genre or style, than it was about giving people a true sense of the essence of a burglar. The true kind of darker side. And even how a man, even on a simpler level, how do you feel if that's your profession and that you're in such strict coherence with it that you're not going to make friends, you're not going to have long-term relationships, and you know, looking at this goal that you've set up for yourself.

There's people that we met out there that are like that. These guys build a life around their profession as burglars.

RE: I couldn't help thinking about "Cops" and those TV series when I heard you talking about it. You went to the other side, kind of like the antidote to "Cops" or the other side of "Cops."

MB: Yeah, it's kind of like, exactly, the other side. And you know, when you watch "Cops," do you know anything about those burglars? Do you see their lives? Do you feel what they feel? You have no connection with them and you only have a connection with the cops in this sense.

You're actually feeling what this other side of society or the other side of the coin is going through and feels like, you know, kind of a day-in-the-life-of type of scenario.

RE: You talked a little bit about the ethical dilemma, what was the, what were your thoughts about 'should we be showing this guy actually robbing people's homes?'

MB: I thought, when it came to the ethical dilemma, I thought it might be a problem with the way people perceived it. For me, I don't really have a problem with it. I think it's a part of society that's out there, but I thought people would kind of look at it like it's wrong and that we're making this look so cool and glamorizing a life of crime.

But it's kind of in our nature to be attracted to this type of stuff. And the biggest Hollywood films, if you think about it, all revolve around crime and most of the time that crime is burglaries, stealing or the cool twist. And I thought that because it's so real and that people would relate to it in a different way and that people might feel that maybe we're glamorizing it and you know, start this whole rash of new burglars that are born because of our film.

It was worth the risk in bringing out what we wanted to bring out in a realistic way.

RE: Do you think there is that danger, to over-glamorize it and make people want to choose it as a profession?

MB: I think if you have that criminal tendency, this is just an aid to that. I don't think it's going to make an honest guy who's never thought about it before, you know, decide to be a burglar.

But I think a guy who's already a thief or already steals things may take it to a higher level because he's inspired by it. People get inspired by the weirdest things, right? So, it's a small possibility and I'd hate for that to happen, but it's part of the risk.

RE: How did you ever get this guy to agree to let you go along with him?

MB: Well that's kind of... are you planning to see the film?

RE: I'd like to.

MB: I don't want to ruin the ending for you, and the type of story, that was kind of part of what I told (the panel) about mixing of genres and styles. It was us in the beginning realizing that for us to do the film we'd have to break some rules and kind of look at it as a whole.

Our goal was to bring out these events in as realistic a way as possible. So it's part of that. The guy who wrote some of the ideas for where we wanted to film, what we wanted to do, really went through things that we kind of dramatized in the film in his real life.

For instance, the story of the guy in prison with the court cases and all those things that already happened. We had to bring it in kind of a more today, happening type of way. And so it was kind of hard getting everybody to agree to do what they did, and some of it was happening in the moment and some of it we had to go back and redo or show, you know, to dramatize.

RE: Do you consider yourself a journalist or an entertainer or some cross between them?

MB: I think a cross between it. Something more toward the filmmaker side than the journalistic side. I'm kind of more into just the personal elements of it and the feelings. I think I'm more on the entertainment side.

RE: Are you having trouble reaching an audience with this? You'd think that with reality TV, this would be an ultimate reality.

MB: I think it makes it harder though, because it's so much out there, that it kind of gets drowned out in the sea of reality and this and that. And because it is more entertainment-focused so it has a harder time reaching its audience. But it's doing great at festivals. People that have seen it have had a strong reaction to it and have liked it for its entertainment value. But I think it's harder to reach that audience and have people notice you when there's so much going on.

RE: Is this a more realistic reality than you'll see on reality TV?

MB: Oh, absolutely. I think what you see on reality TV is a little different because it's real, but it's people acting. And in this, it's people acting but it's the way it's always done and it's kind of deducting the camera from the experience and letting you watch things the way they really go down.

RE: Do you think that he was doing what he would be doing regardless, or was he kind of playing to you a bit, with the camera?

MB: He kind of interacted with the camera and we tried to have a little bit of interaction with the camera. But the act and this guy's life were in strict coherence to the way things really go down. We paid a lot of attention to that to make sure it was as real as possible.

RE: So he was doing things that, for the most part, he would be doing whether you were there or not?

MB: Right. I mean what you're seeing in the burglaries, in the crimes, are real burglaries that would happen the same way that they'd always happen. The safe-cutting was cut open the way a safe gets cut. It wasn't fancily picked, the way you see in Hollywood movies. All those things, we made sure, were real to give you that real experience.

RE: Has anybody reacted with revulsion to this?

MB: People are upset at some points and people aren't into the character and into this guy, but I think, for the most part, yeah we've had a few people that are upset or find it a little too personal or that they're revolted by the character and the guy. I mean, he's foul-mouthed, and, yeah, there have been some people, of course, that have reacted pretty strongly to it.