cannabisnews.com: Marijuana Documentary a Drag for Filmmaker





Marijuana Documentary a Drag for Filmmaker
Posted by FoM on September 14, 1999 at 06:23:33 PT
By Craig MacInnis
Source: Ottawa Citizen
Ron Mann senses that the forces of temperance are mobilizing against him as he prepared to unveil his latest effort, Grass.
Ron Mann still remembers the scorched-earth rejection letter he received from Herb Alpert. For the sake of decency, Mann, the soft-spoken Toronto filmmaker, offers an edited account of Alpert's written reply, which went something like: "I hope you burn in hell, you $%%***!!" Mann had asked the former leader of the Tijuana Brass for permission to use his hit '60s song, Tijuana Taxi, in the soundtrack to Grass, Mann's spliff-sized opus on the history of marijuana prohibition from the early 1900s to the present. "Yeah, he didn't like the idea," Mann smiles, his eyes glazed from squinting, frame-by-frame, at Grass's 80-minute medley of cannabis-fuelled image and sound. It is just days before his pot documentary -- four years in the making and distilled from more than 400 hours of archival material -- is scheduled for its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Mann is still at it. In a downtown editing theatre, Mann and a technician tinker with the volume levels on narrator Woody Harrelson's voice. It is 5 p.m. and they will be here until at least 3 in the morning, with more wakeful nights stretching through to the Sept. 15 premiere. "I honestly don't know if we'll make it," says Mann, who has never had an easy relationship with deadlines. "No one in their right mind should do what I do," he says later over coffee and a bowl of French onion soup at a downtown restaurant. "I am not a role model as a filmmaker." Widely regarded as Canada's greatest living documentarian, the 41-year-old is noted for his obsessive regard for detail and for editing up to the last possible second. Twist, his 1992 documentary on the Chubby Checker-induced dance craze, also went to the wire before its unveiling at that year's festival. "There are over 200 contracts on this film, which is an unbelievable nightmare," says Mann, referring to the procedural wrangling involved in obtaining permission for song rights, movie footage, newsreels, comic books, posters and other artifacts used in the film's dazzling narrative collage. The good news is that for every Herb Alpert, there have been countless strokes of luck. After seeing a rough cut of the film, the famously unco-operative Bob Dylan gave Mann permission to use his classic Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (with its chorus of "Everybody must get stoned!") for "practically nothing," says Mann. Harrelson, the Hollywood actor and hemp activist, "donated his time for free," Mann adds. "We went down to L.A. in June and did the whole (narration) in 61Ú2 hours. Woody and I played ping-pong between takes." Coolest of all, perhaps, was the fact that Mark Mothersbaugh, the former lead singer of new wave legends Devo, agreed to contribute an original song for Grass's opening and closing credits. As it stands, the film's 40-song score runs from Cab Calloway's Reefer Man to John Prine's Illegal Smile to Merle Haggard's redneck classic, Okee From Muskogee. Meanwhile, the stoner-culture graphics that swirl and turn through the opening segment were designed by Paul Mavrides of Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers fame. Mann, it would seem, has marshalled a counter-culture Who's Who to support his exhaustive chronicle of drug laws, government propaganda, social upheaval, cool tunes and cultural themes on the subject of marijuana. Still, he is scared. A father of four, he senses that the forces of temperance are mobilizing against him. You could joke that Mann's misgivings betray the paranoia of someone too well acquainted with the mood-altering capacities of pot, but he's certain Alpert isn't the only one who will find Grass objectionable. In certain jurisdictions, mere possession of a "joint," never mind trafficking, can send people to jail for years, Mann points out. In one wrenching scene, the film revisits the case of former Vietnam soldier Don Crowe, who was sent to prison for 50 years for selling an ounce of grass. "I think it is a little severe penalty," Crowe's distressed mother says in an obvious understatement. "I made the film for the kid in Nebraska who smokes pot," says Mann. "To tell him he's not a criminal." He adds that Grass "is an American narrative that tells the globe a universal story. It's really not about pot. It's about a temperance outbreak. "It shows how there's a cycle of how people impose their way of life, how they want us to walk the same line and go to the same church. "I'm very resistant to repression of any kind. More importantly, I don't believe pot smokers should go to jail for a victimless crime." All along, Mann has said he wanted Grass to be a "pot version of Atomic Cafe," the 1982 film that recycled archival footage from America's Cold War past. Grass is chock-a-block with similar siftings: the piano scene ("Faster, faster!") from the 1936 "warning" film, Reefer Madness; newsreel footage of U.S. troops inhaling marijuana -- literally through a shotgun barrel -- in the jungles of Vietnam; and a heavy-lidded, stoned-looking Sonny Bono advising against the pitfalls of drug use in an ancient public service announcement. In another archival segment, junior narcs are urged to be on the lookout for telltale signs of marijuana when they search a suspect's home. "Ashtrays are logical places" to find the stubbed end of joints, a narrator advises, before shouting the film's recurring slogan, "Use Your Eyes!" (Shades of the "Duck and cover!" refrain from Atomic Cafe.) If there is a through-line to Grass's helter-skelter content, it is the story of anti-pot crusader Harry Anslinger, a hard-ass temperance man and America's first head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Anslinger used his influence to put marijuana use on the books as a criminal offence. He also suppressed the findings of a study by 31 independent scientists (commissioned by renegade New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia) which concluded that marijuana was a relatively harmless relaxant. The film also examines how racism played a role in the anti-marijuana crusade. First, in the early part of the century, when Mexicans were suspected of smuggling the weed north across the U.S. border, and later, in the 1930s, when reefer was the cigarette of choice for black musicians in New Orleans. While maintaining, as best as possible, an ironic distance from his material, Mann nonetheless lets it be known that he hasn't much time for double-dealing American politicians. Bill Clinton, he says, is just as bad as his Republican predecessors. "It's worse now than ever before, under Clinton. He'll pay lip service to the left, but this is someone who, well ..." Mann's voice trails off. "I saw a T-shirt that says, 'Clinton doesn't inhale, he just sucks.' "I don't think people today realize how bad it is," Mann concludes with a frown that gives way to a smile. "I told my crew that after the film comes out, they'd better all hide their stashes." After its Toronto premiere, Grass will be screened at fall festivals in Halifax, Sudbury and Vancouver. Tuesday 14 September 1999Copyright 1999 Ottawa CitizenGrass - 9/11/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2845.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by spartan11 on December 19, 2000 at 08:16:56 PT:
Grass Documentary
I have friends who were in one of the shots of a parade in the film. I would dearly love to get a vidoe of this film if it is available anwhere. Any info on the availability of this film on video would be greatly appreciated.
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Comment #2 posted by STAN DUP on September 14, 1999 at 19:43:05 PT:
"GRASS" Documentary
SOMEONE, PLEASE tell us how we can obtain a copy of this movie!
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Comment #1 posted by Josh Myers on September 14, 1999 at 13:05:36 PT:
Documentary,Cannabis,etc
I was wondering will this documentary be availible in the United States? Obviously a great deal of time and effort went into this film and can be very helpful in spreading the good word, not to mention the bad and distorted by the likes of the devil,Anslinger, and the ever present  $$hole Mcaffery. Also anyone who can help me find a group or something of the sort to help support in my neck of the woods i would appreciate it. My part of the country is not especially known for cannabis supporters.Just drop a line to my e-mail.                        Sincerely a smoker  
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