The must-see documentary about a controversial pastor at the center of the Williston oil boom leaves its audience with questions. Director Jesse Moss gives BuzzFeed News the answers.
Jay Reinke in The Overnighters.
Alamo Drafthouse
Jesse Moss was on the hunt for a compelling subject for a documentary. Having recently suffered though "some bad television jobs," he wanted to find something of his own to do as his third feature as a director, and something to love. It was early 2012, and the story of the North Dakota oil boom, specifically in the town of Williston, was beginning to get national attention. There was something about the idea of Williston that appealed to Moss, he remembered over lunch recently. "What was the 21st century boomtown? It seemed kind of anachronistic," he said. "But also, kind of a romantic, seductive mythology — this is where you go to reinvent yourself."
Moss began to read the Williston Herald online. The whole region was experiencing increasingly ugly tensions focused on the flood of newcomers as a result of the murder of Sherry Arnold, a Montana schoolteacher. The suspects — who later pleaded guilty — had come to the area looking for jobs. "That crime, an In Cold Blood killing — a frightening, terrifying crime, a random murder — cast a pall of fear over the entire region," he said.
But Moss noticed that Jay Reinke, a pastor at a local Lutheran Church, used his monthly column in the Herald to "welcome the newcomer" and Moss decided to call Reinke. "He was really open on the phone," Moss said. "He said, 'You know, there are people sleeping in my church. Why don't you come see what's happening?'"
Moss traveled to Williston from San Francisco for the first of what turned out to be many trips. He went to Reinke's church, where he saw the Overnighters program: Reinke's makeshift shelter for men (and very few women) who had arrived in Williston looking for work, but were unable to find jobs or homes.
"When I set foot in the church, it was unbelievable — really electrifying and powerful," Moss said. "Jay was there. Men were crying who had just gotten off the bus and the train, and it was that intellectual, historical construct made real. All the fictions of Deadwood, all the men running from their burdens. Lost men, and desperate men. It was just powerful, and I recognized that. And I didn't think it would be a film. Because I thought, Who gives a shit about this crummy Lutheran church, and this pastor? That's not the story. The story is going to be a guy on an oil rig with a big piece of pipe jamming it into the ground. That's the mental image of oil."
He soon realized, though, that Reinke's story was compelling. "I was like, You're interesting. You're complicated. You're charismatic," Moss said. "He even told me the first week, 'I might lose my job for what I'm doing.'"
Reinke's painful, heroic, self-sabotaging journey became the center of Moss' documentary, The Overnighters. The film premiered (and won a prize) at Sundance, and has been expanding to new cities weekly in its theatrical release. It is one of the best-reviewed documentaries of the year. Whereas many docs tell you Everything You Need to Know about their subjects, The Overnighters leaves you with questions — and a surprise at the end. BuzzFeed News talked to Moss about 10 things to know about his movie, including answers to questions about the events at the end of the film. There will be spoiler alerts when necessary.
Reinke and some of the Overnighters in the church.
Alamo Drafthouse
"And it wasn't a stunt," Moss said. "The first place he put me was the snorers' room, a segregated room for snorers. There were, like, three guys in there who made more noise sleeping than I'd ever heard. It was a horrible place to be."
He was nervous about being there: both at the church, and in Williston.
"But that place really kind of grew on me, and, like many of those men, I began to feel like it was a home away from home, a community," Moss said. "You could bum a cigarette and have a cup of coffee and shoot the shit. And I did that."
Moss did not have an army of production people staying at the church. In fact, "it was a crew of one — Jesse. 100%. Just me," he said. "That was a hard environment to work that way. Especially when I first started going there, I was a little bit scared."
No comments:
Post a Comment