At the beginning of 2015, filmmakers Julie Cohen and Betsy West first had the idea of making a feature documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They had both interviewed her (separately) for other projects in the past and came away with an admiration for her trailblazing work on behalf of women’s rights. But then they began to notice her elevated online status as “Notorious RBG.”
She had become a virtual rock star, with her Shayna punim emblazoned on t-shirts, tote bags, and even tattoos. And they knew they needed to make a documentary about Justice Ginsburg and they needed to make it NOW.
The film is a flattering, often funny portrait of a woman, who against all odds, becomes a judge of the highest court in this land. Interviews with Gloria Steinem and Nina Totenberg are interspersed with chats of childhood friends and family, among others. All speak in glowing terms of this diminutive woman who was instrumental in securing equal rights for women in the United States.I was fortunate to speak with the film’s directors, Julie Cohen and Betsy West, in advance of the film’s release this week.
Susan Kandell: Good morning, I’m thrilled to speak with both of you today.
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: We’re happy to be here.
Susan Kandell: Julie, I’m most familiar with your work, since I am the program director of a Jewish film series here in Dallas and a few years back we screened your film, “Sturgeon Queens.” I remember it was quite a crowd favorite!
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: OK, good. Well, I think this one is going to be even more so.
Susan Kandell: I agree! So, let’s start there; both films were about strong women who weren’t mired in traditional roles. This film is so very timely, why did you select Judge Ginsburg? And maybe more importantly, how did you get her to cooperate?
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: Well, as you know, Betsy and I had each interviewed Justice Ginsberg in the past. And around early 2015, we took note of Justice Ginsburg’s rising celebrity status among millennials and just felt like we knew there were so much more to her story and someone ought to do a documentary about it. So why not let it be us? That led us to approach her to see if she would be open to the idea of us making a film about her life story.
Susan Kandell: And obviously she was because she really gave you, I think, unprecedented access.
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: Well, it didn’t happen right away. Her initial response to our letter was ineffective. “Not yet.” We were a little disappointed, but we thought not yet is not a “No.” So we tried another approach. A couple of months later we wrote her again and we told her that we didn’t need to talk to her right away, but we’d love to get started talking to her former clients, colleagues, and friends. We put together a list of people and she wrote back and she said she still wouldn’t be ready to talk to us for probably two or more years, but, if she said that if you’re going to be talking to others, here’s a list of three more to talk to. So at that moment we knew………and it was time to get started on the project. So we went out and looked for a financial partner and began filming in May of 2016.
Susan Kandell: I know documentaries can sometimes be a little dry but there’s a scene in the film where she watches, for the first time, Kate McKinnon’s parody of her for “Saturday Night Live.” This is certainly one of the film’s highlights! What was that like?
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: Well, as your question suggests, you know, documentaries, especially ones about someone as serious as she is, could be a dry subject. We went out of our way to make it as fun, entertaining and lively and dare we say occasionally, hilarious as humanly possible. The favorite moment of ours was we are giving Justice Ginsburg the chance to watch Kate McKinnon’s impersonation of herself on “Saturday Night Live.” We played that for her in a big, serious conference room in the Supreme Court, surrounded by court staff. She did not know what we were about to show her. We didn’t know exactly what to expect, but as you see in the film, she sure did seem to enjoy watching, particularly when Kate McKinnon says, “Ginsburned” and does a little dance. Justice Ginsburg thought that was really, really funny. And when asked about it later, she actually mentioned that she likes to tell her colleagues that they’ve been “Ginsburned” now and again. Maybe that language will find its ways into a dissent and that will be the lasting legacy for us as filmmakers.
Susan Kandell: Could be a new word for the Oxford Dictionary!
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: Exactly!
Susan Kandell: It seemed that she had two loves; the law and her husband and you capture a very tender love story. They seemed to have an amazing marriage. Was she at all reticent about talking about him or life outside the courtroom?
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: You know, when you bring up the name of Marty Ginsburg, Justice Ginsburg’s face lights up. She loves to talk about him. It began when they were both undergraduates at Cornell University. And as you see in the film, she was a very beautiful woman. She said Marty was the first boy who loved her for her brain. And his admiration for her continued throughout their life. I mean, it’s really a feminist love story. He bragged about her when they were at Harvard Law School. And when her work really took off in the 1970s, he began to take over more of the household responsibilities.
Susan Kandell: So let’s talk about feminism. I noticed in the credits (above the line) there was mostly female names. Was that deliberate?
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: It was deliberate. You know, here we were, two female directors, producers working on a film about a great woman, a great woman advancing women’s rights. So how could we not try to employ and bring in as many women as possible? There were some men on our crew, but in general, the women were in charge and that seemed to work out pretty well.
Susan Kandell: Before I watched the film, I wasn’t aware of the friendship between Ginsburg and Justice Antonin Scalia. You obviously felt that was very important to include (in the film), why?
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: She’s an extremely collegial justice who believes in the institutions of our democracy, believes in the rule of law and also believes in a civil discourse. What better example of that then her ability to have a genuine friendship with Justice Scalia? He was a very funny man and he cracked her up all the time. They also were intellectual equals. They had very different ideas about the US constitution but they certainly enjoyed sparring. And they both said that talking to the other person really helped sharpen their arguments.
Susan Kandell: And of course, they shared their love of opera.
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: They went to the opera together all the time. They would have these intense conversations about opera. I mean, they were both extremely knowledgeable fans.
Susan Kandell: You had a lot of ground to cover. How did you focus on just a few of her Supreme Court arguments?
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: Justice Ginsburg, when she was still a lawyer, she worked on pivotal cases for gender equality before the Supreme Court and she won 5 of out of 6 cases. Basically, we focused heavily on two of those for two reasons. One, her oral arguments were recorded and they were powerful, strong arguments to listen to. And listening to her voice was really a thrill! And also, they were cases in which the plaintiffs were still alive and were great characters themselves, so we could bring them in to be part of the story. As you suggested at the beginning, when you’re taking on these serious issues, you want to find a way to make it really lively and really human. And the way to do that is with great human characters. The two plaintiffs that we interviewed in the film were both fantastic in that regard.
Susan Kandell: What’s next for the two of you?
Julie Cohen & Betsy West: We are too busy promoting (the film)! We are having a lot of fun sharing the film with people and we’re really enjoying the reactions that we’re getting from different generations of women, men, everybody. She’s such an admirable person and really likable and it’s fun to get the film out there!
*I recently heard Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famed astrophysicist speak, at the Winspear Opera House in Dallas and he noted, with sorrow, that we often celebrate people who are not deserving. His message was clear; we should admire scientists, honor judges, and not emulate those who are not worthy. I think Neil deGrasse Tyson would appreciate this octogenarian’s rise to pop-culture stardom. And possibly wear a Notorious RBG t-shirt.
“RBG” opens at the Dallas Magnolia and Plano Angelika Film Center on Friday, May 11th
