At one point in the editing of their documentary “RBG,” directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen realized they had a problem:
Too much praise.
“People were slobbering praise on her!” Cohen told me. The filmmakers came to town recently for the Doc 10 festival at Lincoln Square’s Davis Theater; we shared a corner booth at the adjoining Carbon Arc restaurant. “Truthfully, so many people we interviewed had so many really nice things to say: ‘She’s so great, she’s so tough, she’s so this, she’s so that.’ We had an editing round where we weeded out a lot of the superlatives.”
Among them, director West said, was a choice statement from Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who was prominent among those questioning Ginsburg during her 1993 confirmation hearings. Once their cameras were rolling, the filmmakers said, Hatch went on and on about her skills and qualities. Then, West recalled, he paused and blurted it out: “I love Justice Ginsburg!” Times were different anda little less politically psychotic then. Ginsburg sailed through the confirmation vote 96-3. Imagine that happening today, whoever the Supreme Court nominee was.
Cohen calls Ginsburg a “little mega rock star.” She is indeed both those things: small of stature (5′ 1″) and an improbably fantastic judicial celebrity.
“I wasn’t aware of the full story,” West told me. “The role she played in bringing important legal cases to defend the rights of women, particularly Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld in 1975, where she utilized the persecution of her male client to illustrate the depths of gender discrimination … it wasn’t on my radar. And I was living through it, in a way. I started my career in the mid ’70s at the same time she was arguing all these key cases. She really did change the world for American women.”
So: Can a documentary such as “RBG” be experienced as anything other than a liberal pep rally? “The current political environment,” Cohen said, “is such that it’s hard to look at anything without politics suffusing everything. But with Justice Ginsburg’s historic accomplishments in the 1970s on forward, there’s actually fairly broad societal agreement on the results.”
Ginsburg’s uncharacteristically blunt remarks in mid-2016 regarding then-candidate Donald Trump (“a faker”) led to an apology for what she acknowledged were “ill-advised” statements in interviews. Clearly, West said, “that was something we had to include.”
By the time Ginsburg apologized, their documentary was well underway. The directors shadowed various public appearances made by Ginsburg, cameras in tow. Months later Ginsburg agreed to some limited one-on-two time, at her gym (she’s seen doing a wicked plank), at the opera, at home. All the while Ginsburg was becoming extra-level famous. Ginsburg memes were going viral, and “Saturday Night Live” was loving her, and “Notorious RBG” T-shirts came on the scene.
As West put it: “We hope our movie is more than, ‘Oh, isn’t this cute, this woman is speaking truth to power, writing these great dissents’ and all the rest. There’s a meaty story to be told about the entirety of her life. She had a fabulous feminist marriage at a time when that was fairly rare.” She leveled playing fields and lived a great love story.
In the prologue, Ginsburg quotes 19th century abolitionist Sarah Moore Grimke: “I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” Then Ginsburg smiles, as if to say: Some things take longer than they should.
“RBG” opens Friday in Chicago.
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @phillipstribune
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