Interview
SLIFF Interview: Matthew Rice – Director of THE BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY
THE BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY screens as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival November 5th – 22nd. Ticket information for the virtual screening can be found HERE
The ambitious documentary THE BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY by St. Louis-based filmmaker Matthew Rice analyzes how an ex-slave became one of America’s greatest tall-tale heroes: John Henry. Based on Scott Reynolds Nelson’s book “Steel Drivin’ Man,” the film provides a fresh perspective on the song and folk tale by exploring a myriad of related subjects, including the convict-lease program, an unjust legal system developed after the Civil War as a replacement for slavery. Director Rice worked as an intern on Ken Burns’ “The Vietnam War” series, and his film shares some of that master documentarian’s sensibility. Rice’s debut film, the short “The Yodel Within,” played the 2011 St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase, and “The Ballad of John Henry” received the jury award for Best Editing at this year’s event.
Matthew Rice is a documentary filmmaker based in St. Louis, MO. He currently works as a videographer for the Washington University School of Medicine developing educational content for the doctors of tomorrow. Matthew began his filmmaking career at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and Television creating his first short documentary film, The Yodel Within. This documentary was selected by five film festivals winning several awards including “Audience Favorite” and “Best Credits Sequence.” This project inspired Matthew to dedicate himself completely to learning the craft of documentary story telling. He has collaborated with experts at the top of their field to develop video content that both engages and educates audiences.
Matthew Rice took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about his film
Interview conducted by Tom Stockman November 11, 2020
Tom Stockman: What inspired you to make this film about John Henry?
Matthew Rice: Like a lot of people, I’d heard about John Henry as a child. I read a book by Jack Keats with beautiful illustrations and that was my first introduction. Disney made a movie that had several Tall Tale heroes in it including John Henry as well as Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan. So I knew about the legend that way and I always thought it seemed like a fun story, and as I got older, I became increasingly more interested in how history played into it and whether or not John Henry was a real person and what inspired his story.
TS: What were some of the biggest challenges in making THE BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY?
MR: It was my first feature-length documentary, so just learning how to make that happen was a challenge. But really the biggest challenge was that there was not a lot of archival materials or photographs available. Typically when you’re watching a historical documentary, you’ll see a lot of photos and footage from a particular time period. A lot of these workers connected to the John Henry story were illiterate and the working conditions were terrible. This was a real dark chapter in American history that would have been forgotten if not for a lot of historians such as the Scott Nelson, who I worked with and who dug up a lot of the census records and Virginia state penitentiary records so we could try and figure out who John Henry really was and what were some of the challenges that he faced.
TS: And also you spend a lot of time in the documentary on the debate over where exactly this challenge between John Henry and the steam drill may have taken place. Talcott, Virginia claims to be the home of John Henry’s achievement and they have a John Henry Days Festival there. Did you travel to that?
MR: Yes, I went to two of those festivals. They have a big parade but the parade itself doesn’t feature much about John Henry until the end when there is a float with him. They also have an event there that explains how tunnel construction at the time was such a unique form of labor. That city does claim John Henry’s fame was there and to this day most of the residents that I talk to there, like Jimmy Costa, an historian who appears in the film, feel very strongly that John Henry did work on the Big Bend tunnel. But some agree with Scott Nelson who claims that Henry was actually working on the Lewis Tunnel. That’s totally fair and they are welcome to have their opinions. There’s always going to be a feeling that we can change our understanding of some things. I’ve looked into the research that was done at the Big Bend tunnel in Talcott and another tunnel in Alabama to find which one John Henry worked. When I looked at the research on both of those tunnels, I did not find the evidence that I found at Lewis Tunnel. The facts were that they had a prison inmate named John Henry and there are records of him working at Lewis Tunnel and there are records of a steam drill being used in the Lewis Tunnel, so all of the elements are there.
TS: How did that John Henry die?
MR: There’s no exact record but during that time most of the prison inmates that were working in the tunnels were dying from consumption, which was a general term for lung infection. Silicosis was not well known at that time but it’s likely that a lot of people died at that time from silicosis working in those tunnels. They did not have a good understanding of it nor did they know how to treat it, and ultimately they just kept forcing people to work in these unsafe conditions.
TS: Did they not even wear masks when they were working in these tunnels?
MR: No they did not wear masks during that time. I show clips in the film from a government-made documentary from the 1920s about silicosis and that was the first time alarms were raised that silica dust could kill you. Before that no one really worried about it. Now of course there are OSHA rules but back then there were no masks or protection. Records show some workers refused to go back into the tunnel after there had been an explosion there, so I think some of the men knew the danger but they just didn’t know it was causing so much damage to their lungs.
TS: I noticed some miniatures that you filmed, like a diorama. Are those in a museum somewhere?
MR: That was a diorama at Hinton Railroad Museum near Talcott Virginia that I used a couple of shots of. An artist carved those figures out of wood. He had passed away but I did speak with his son and got some of the history behind it. It took him 10 years to create that model. In addition to that, because there was such a lack of archival footage to use in the film, I tried my hand at creating some miniature sets as well. I used a miniature railroad model.
TS: I think the railroad models added a nice element to the look of the film. Let’s talk about you. I understand that you interned with Ken Burns. That sounds like a pretty prestigious gig. How did you get that?
MR: Partly luck. At that time I was a film student at Loyola Marymount University. The Dean of the film school had a lot of connections with documentary filmmakers including Ken Burns. Burns came and gave the graduation commencement and let us know that they were planning on doing internships and that I could be a trial student. So I drove all the way across the country to a small town in New Hampshire where Ken Burns works. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got there but I absolutely loved it. I learned so much about how to craft a story and I wanted to try it myself. That’s where it all started
TS: What else did you learn specifically from Ken Burns?
MR: Everything from digitizing archival images and footage to how to conduct interviews, how to organize a story based on interviews and narration. One of the main takeaways that I got was that it takes a really long time to make one of his television broadcasts and he spends so much time making sure everything is perfect and factually correct. That was a good lesson because when I left there and started working on this film, it took me a good five years to finish it. It’s a lengthy process.
TS: Has Ken Burns seen THE BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY?
MR: I don’t know. I worked mostly with his editors and I know they have seen the film. That was kind of the beauty of that internship that Ken Burns is always there it is always going to teach you stuff but he had a huge team of people working on his projects. They were ll very gifted individuals and I learned so much from each one of them and they’ve always been there to support me even after I left.
TS: You say this was your first feature film. What other kinds of films have you made?
MR: I’ve mostly worked on short documentary films. Some of them have been paid jobs, working with nonprofits, or with companies that want a documentary film online or for advertising. I’ve shot some of my own documentaries. The first documentary short I worked on was called THE YODEL WITHIN. I was trying to learn how to yodel, and that was my first introduction into the St. Louis International Film Festival and the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase.
TS: There’s a vibrant filmmaking community here in St. Louis. What’s your next project?
MR: Covid has made things a little more difficult but I’ve already started doing research and interviews for a project on the story behind Paul Bunyan and how that legend came to be. I’m sticking with the Tall Tale stories.
TS: Has THE BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY played at many film fests so far?
MR: Yes it’s playing this weekend at one in Texas and one in Virginia. So far it’s been in 15 film festivals.
TS: Great. How has it been received?
MR: Very well. It’s hard with Covid because you don’t get to go out and interact with people but it’s amazing how these films festival have transitioned onto the online format, and I’ve been getting a lot of positive comments about the film
TS: Good luck with THE BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY and all of your future projects
MR: Thanks!
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