Interview: Rob VanAlkemade – director of What Would Jesus Buy?

[Editor's note: When Laura Newman joined up our team of New York based writers little did I know that we'd find ourselves in such a predicament. Apart from being a short film filmmaker (she has something very cool coming up in early 08'!), she had mentioned her involvement as part of a unique traveling gospel. Traveling gospel? It is one that I was already familiar with due to a fervent documentary short film on a figure named Reverend Billy that I had caught at the Sundance a couple of years back. As fate would have it – we are now showcasing a documentary film release with one of our own writers featured in the film itself. How peculiar. I've screen capped &  circled the interviewee below. Enjoy the interview!]

What Would Jesus Buy? is a docu-comedy, gift-wrapped just in time for the holidays by producer Morgan Spurlock and director Rob VanAlkemade. It features Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping on a month long crusade across America to save Christmas from consumerism.

I’m a big fan of the Church of Stop Shopping, so much so that in 2001 I joined their fabulous choir. In the 6 years since, I’ve traveled the world, been arrested in front of Starbucks, sung a gospel rendition of the First Amendment to thousands and fallen in love with an incredible community of activists and artists. The choir itself is made up of filmmakers like myself, singers, scientists, recovering corporate types, painters, teachers and preacher’s kids. Led by Reverend Billy and our director Savitri D, we passionately protest the demonic corporations that are destroying our environment, our communities and the economy. Through our theatrical services and exorcisms of Wal-Mart cash registers, we are waking people up to the horrors of the Shopocalypse!
 
On our first big tour of California back in 2004, Rob VanAlkemade showed up on our bus with a video camera and a quiet sense of humor. None of us knew the shy documentarian but within days we had him laughing and drinking with us. He became a dear friend of the Church and when his short film “Preacher With An Unknown God” won special mention at Sundance, he became the clear choice for director of a feature documentary that Spurlock had been developing. Two years later “What Would Jesus Buy?” premiered at SXSW to a standing ovation and has received great acclaim on the festival circuit.

Laura Newman: Tell me about the path that took you into documentary filmmaking.
Rob VanAlkemade: “The path that took me” is well put, since there were a lot of seemingly random events and inspirations that eventually led me over to documentary production and then kept me there. And I’m not sure what they were. As a tiny kid I drew portraits and wrote bizarre human-interest stories. In junior high school I was a photographer. In college, I interviewed Holocaust survivors. And after college I remained too restless to hold down a real job.
        
LN: When did you first start filming Reverend Billy? 
RVA: My involvement with the Stop Shopping Project started in 2004. I was shooting mostly inane TV stuff at the time and was intensely anxious to go deeper into debt working on something personal in my spare moments. So, I figured I'd cover the Republican Convention coming to New York in some way.

LN: What made his style of activism stand out from other groups you were filming during the RNC?
RVA: Not to say there’s anything wrong with a good protest, but my relationship with most activism, and politics, and even the filmmaking process became difficult that summer. As in most difficult relationships, of course, I took a good share of the blame – specifically for dwelling on what I perceived to be my limited role as a camera person, which so often seemed to inspire obligatory chants and sound bites from strangers.  They started to seem a bit like actors playing the role of protesters, which in turn made me feel still more like a character playing the role of myself (but with duller ideas.) So it only seemed logical when an actor playing the role of a Preacher began to move me spiritually. I'd periodically bump into the Church of Stop Shopping singing in an otherwise predictable march, or exorcising a Fifth Avenue cash register, or performing a forbidden wedding in Central Park. At the first Stop Shopping performance that I documented, the Reverend stopped his sermon abruptly at one point, stomped off stage, grabbed my skull in one hand and exorcised “the devils of half hearted journalism” from my soul. (Seriously).

LN: What inspired you to jump on a bus with the group in 2004?
RVA: The “Stop Big Boxes” tour across California sounded like an irresistible way to see the Church at their best, but I didn’t jump on the bus. I sort of dragged myself on, after very nearly bolting in the other direction and calling the entire thing off at the last second. But once on the bus, it took no more than a few hours to feel entirely at home, and I had one of the happiest times of my life on that trip, simply by being in a beautiful country with creative, intelligent and loving people doing precisely what they all believed in.

LN: Did your short “Preacher With an Unknown God” come out of the footage you took on that journey?
RVA: Yes, that ten day road trip became the bulk of a 16 minute short. After a full year on the festival circuit, “Preacher” won a Jury award at Sundance.

LN: Making this film has brought a lot of community into your life.  You’re a regular at The Church of Stop Shopping dinners, birthday parties and gatherings.  You’re part of the group really.  How has this closeness with your subject affected your directing?
RVA: In most circumstances I’d assume that a closeness to your subjects could compromise the authenticity of your documentation, but in this case that theory just doesn’t hold up. The affection, respect and trust that grew between most of us prior to the feature was simply a terrific bonus, and a serious advantage for the film, in my opinion, throughout all phases of production. 
        
LN: How involved were Billy and Savitri in the creation and editing of the film? I understand they in part have the role of producer on the film.
RVA: Bill Talen and Church Director Savitri Durkee were both instrumental in developing and refining the story, and of course the tour, sermons, and actions were theirs with some input by the filmmakers when relevant. Savitri has a producer credit in the film for her help on both the Church and the filmmaking sides, and they both provided extremely smart and helpful insights and opinions throughout the edit.

LN: Tell me about the very powerful moment in the film when three teenage girls for the first time in their lives begin to question where their clothes and products are made.  What led up to that moment?
RVA: That day started as a solo interview with Hadley, about her Christmas memories and thoughts on materialism, self-image and peer pressure.  When friends Tori and Ashley came over, I sat in on a casual conversation about related topics. Eventually, “the story behind the product” came up. Hadley decided spontaneously to sort through the many garments in her room, checking labels for their origins. After awhile I suggested they might want to pick a favorite designer and do some further research on it. In minutes, their relationships with their products had significantly changed.
        
LN: How involved was Morgan Spurlock as a producer and what influence has he had on the film.
RVA: Once Morgan got behind the film he never relented, whether he was motivating investors for days, weeks and months in a row, creatively collaborating on treatment after treatment, pitching in with feverish editorial epiphanies, advocating for the film like a wartime consigliere, ramping up his own additional investment or more – including, of course, stepping in to the field to direct for me when I broke a few ribs.

LN: How did you come to choose the title?
RVA: That would be one of Morgan’s feverish epiphanies.
        
LN: The film has been to a lot of Christian film festivals.  Reverend Billy is not a Christian, yet he uses the style of the televangelist preacher to get his message across.  What were the reactions of these Christian audiences, especially  fundamentalists and evangelicals?
RVA: We’ve been to three outstanding festivals with Christian audiences. The first was at Cornerstone, an annual liberal to mainstream Evangelical musical gathering of 40,000 or so in rural Illinois, with a strong selection of films screened all week. We enjoyed a sold-out house there with as many laughs as our SXSW premiere, followed by a long, lively and totally positive discussion. My friend Mike Hertenstein the fest Director there told me that he’d never seen as much interest in any film, aside from Bowling for Columbine. Our next fest was Windrider, in Colorado Springs, hosted by the magnificent folks at Fuller Seminaries. This was a much more mainstream to conservative audience, and the reactions and discussions remained terrific. Our final fest before hitting theaters was City of the Angels, at the Director’s Guild headquarters in Hollywood, and once again our sold-out screening was a resounding success.

     No fan has yet described themselves to me as Fundamentalist, but I’ll keep you posted. Of course there’s a solid likelihood that some folks are going to be insulted by Rev Billy’s character. What I’d hope cynics of any kind would appreciate is how absolutely respectful and reverential the film is; how sincere and legitimate the Church of Stop Shopping has always been, and how the message truly does transcend the messenger. That said, the messenger has certainly been embraced to a surprising extent. Let’s close today with an excerpt from an article out this month in Sojourners, by renowned Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann:

I have no doubt that Rev. Billy is a faithful prophetic figure who stands in direct continuity with ancient prophets in Israel and in continuity with the great prophetic figures of U.S. history who have incessantly called our society back to its core human passions of justice and compassion.

Warrior Poets releases What Would Jesus Buy? in New York and Los Angeles theaters this Friday!