Head down to The Civic Theatre tonight for a one-night engagement of Ted K, the just-released feature film about Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a the Unabomber, with its director, Tony Stone, here in person for a post-screening Q&A.
Stone and his family spent the 2020-21 school year living here in Nelson from their upstate New York home. The film was actually test screened at The Civic in its final stages for an audience of eight, the PHO limit at the time. The Stones are now back in town for a visit and they, and we at The Civic, are very excited to be able to present the finished version of the film to the Nelson public at large.
This timely film explores its subject from a much-different tact than most true crime renderings. Using Kaczynski’s own words from his 25,000 pages of writing to build the script and shooting in the actual backwoods cabin Kaczynski lived his spartan life, the filmmakers elicit an intimate slow boil drama that focuses as much on the everyday intrusions of a world out of balance on one man’s ideals and choice to disengage from society than on sensationalizing his acts of terrorism.
I had a chance to ask a few questions of Tony as a primer for tonight’s screening:
Your film intimately delves into the mindset and allows room for empathy and identification with Ted Kaczynski that many filmmakers might be weary to tread. Even the title, ‘Ted K’, gives room for the man from the ‘Unabomber’ he becomes. Can you explain some of the motivation to approach the subject in this way?
“The story of Ted Kaczynski is usually overly simplified and told from the view of law enforcement. For me, the interesting part of the story was how did Ted exist day to day, living in a 10-by-12 foot cabin with no running water or electricity, but yet managed to terrorize the U.S. for over almost 20 years with his bombing campaign, eventually resulting in the strong arming of the Washington Post to publish his 30,000-word manifesto.
“In the film we are with him for the entirety, which allows you to have some empathy by being so intimate. The subjectivity allows the audience to see things from his point of view: that the world is on an insane unsustainable trajectory due to environmental degradation and an over-reliance and addiction to technology. But there is zero condoning of his actions. The closeness allows one to feel the contradiction of his violent acts but relating to some of his prophetic ideas. I think the result can be uncomfortable but allows the audience to draw its own conclusions without moral lecturing of how to think.”
What are some of the reactions you’ve had to positioning the viewer from his vantage point?
“It’s been pretty interesting and hitting a cord I had hoped. I think audiences and critics are sophisticated enough to understand the complexities and timeliness of this story. We were trying to be as honest to the subject and everything we show in the film is factual, from using his writings word for word, to filming on the exact location where his cabin once stood, to even using the real people that knew Ted in the film and adding their stories into the storyline.”
The film is very stylized and expressionistic with some almost science fiction elements that made me think of Blade Runner in sections. Can you talk about this aesthetic choice?
“While we were very obsessed with realism, we also didn’t want the film to be very dry and sterile. We got to know Ted very well from reading thousands of pages of his writings, which allowed us to attempt to translate his emotions and ideas into visuals and sometimes express them in non-literal ways. Ted saw the world as insane, so the visuals sometimes channel that feeling of psychosis, and the world was science fiction to him. We were always wanting a shot to say something. Most bio-pics are just a long litany of facts strung together, an overload of information. We did of course want his story to have a clear trajectory but also wanted to get to the essence of Ted, understand him through an experiential journey.”
You have a connection to Canada through your Quebecois wife and producer of Ted K, Melissa Auf der Maur, who really needs her own article, having started the band Tinker, played bass for Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins and many other creative accomplishments. What drew you and your family to spend the year in Nelson?
“Melissa understandably wanted to return home to Canada during the pandemic and a close family childhood friend of Melissa’s and her family had moved to Nelson. Having never lived out of the USA, it’s been an incredible experience being here. I’m amazed how warm and open the community is. Nelson seems somewhat protected or beyond the culture wars going on everywhere, stoked by the technological media plague. It’s a very refreshing authentic city of its own character.”
Visit civictheatre.ca to pre-book your tickets, and have your own questions answered tonight at The Civic Theatre. And for a look at another vengeful figure, but one who lived opposite to a spartan existence and embraced technology, look no further and check out Robert Pattinson as The Batman running from March 3 to 10.