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Clemency, the 2019 film directed and written by Chinonye Chukwu, is a masterwork.
[…] The crown jewel ofClemency, however, is undoubtedly Alfre Woodard.
Chinonye worked in the prison system for over eight years.
She taught screenwriting in womens prisons in Ohio, so she was there.
She worked on clemency cases.
She came to this story, our film, after Troy Davis was murdered by the state in Georgia.
She took me on a prison tour.
We went to about four prisons in Ohio: womens medium security, mens medium and maximum security.
I met with about four wardens and the director of corrections for the state of Ohio.
When I say met, I mean I had meals with these people.
Bronwyn Cornelius is our intrepid producer.
I went,what?Because I had never thought of a woman as a prison warden.
And what kind of little girl says thats, you know, what I want to do?
Once I take these ribbons out of my hair, I want to be a death row prison warden.
They come to it from social services or public-health administration.
Theyre the bang out of people that youd want in an emergency.
Because we start either screaming or laughing depending on what the thing is that were reacting to.
And I realized that who is doing that job matters a whole lot.
Yes, we work to abolish it.
Yes, we work toward more civilized ways of resolving our appeal system.
And, frankly, we hope to get it right when we do.
But is it reformation or is it just penalizing people?
How did you set out to establish the physicality of your character, Bernadine Williams?
There was a stillness about them.
There was an openness, and there was a calm about them.
So I was getting these cues about economy of movement.
I took Bernadine to an economy of expression as well.
Our story starts with her in a crisis situation.
Nobody wants to have to go through it.
Because thats the person you see.
Its such an audacious choice to be silent and just totally focused on the actors face.
Can you talk about filming the ending?
We thought it would be somewhere else in the film.
But we just kept going, shooting on our schedule.
[Chinonye] knew that there was a moment, a Bernadine moment of abandon.
Then she was on my face.
She let it roll.
You are the person youre inhabiting and bringing their voice forward.
So theres no moment that you stop being Angelica.
You just keep doing it.
Whatever just happens to you in a moment, in a day.
Once I find my character, then thats all I can be.
Im not waiting for a cut.
Im not waiting for anything.
It even has the charade of justice because there is a gallery watching.
You pull the curtains back and let them say something: Do you have any last words?
Because youve gone there.
[Chinonye] couldve kept that camera rolling for another hour.
If Im Bernadine, Im Bernadine.
[Chinonye] decided to kill the film that way.
And Ive had a lot of good directors.
The experience is youre making love, but theyre all really different.
Filmmaking and being directed is the same way.
And Im not talking about the directors who are fine; Im talking about the exceptional people.
And she is one.
They were petroleum engineers at the University of Oklahoma.
I also came from Oklahoma, from Tulsa, years before.
But then she spent years in Alaska, of all places.
In Alaska, from the ages of 8 to to 18, experiencing the culture there.
Everything about her shaped the way that she looks at the world.
Aside from her skill and ability, Chinonye cackles and laughs so loudly.
She is one of the most ridiculously joyous people.
Everybody on that set in every department … it was hard for them.
It was very hard.
Shed come in just full of brightness and energy every day and cackling.
I know I kept myself away from her, because I had somewhere else to be during all this.
She is such a great collaborator; our trip together solidified our friendship for life.
And it actually gave us a shorthand for working on set as well.
Ive been around; I dont have to be told what to do.
So we had a good partnership that way.
They dont even know theyre breaking rules.
And thats the way every artist should work.
Can you talk about how you crafted Bernadines marriage with actor Wendell Pierce?
Because that is very central to understanding her character.Chinonye knew the statistics.
If theyre married, theyre on multiple marriages.
Family situations are blown apart.
Wendell and I both are way grown and have been in lots of grown relationships.
I have been married for almost 40 years.
Wendell and I, we would improvise and just talk.
That sounds like an amazing working experience.
Okay, my final question before we get off the phone.
And so this is something that we thought was missing.
How it affects the people doing it.
Unless youre one of those people who is signing petitions, writing letters, trying to stop it.
So its opening up a conversation about our criminal justice system.
It is an industry for unpaid labor.
It is not intended to rehabilitate anyone.
Because it at least started out for us, African Americans, as policing us on the continent.
Thats how you kept slaves.
Boys will be boys, or whatever.
But we have here in California three strikes.
It is all those things.
