Joe Berlinger’s “Crude” New Film

The co-director of "Paradise Lost" gets his hands dirty for a new doc on the oil industry.

A lot of advocacy docs feel impotent to me. They raise awareness about great atrocities, but then we watch the film, talk about it for a little bit afterwards, and go back to our fast-food, “American Idol”-watching apathy. How far can filmmakers go in bringing issues to light?

I definitely believe films can have an impact, but can’t change the world. The “Paradise Lost” films are very successful on the one hand. There’s a worldwide movement with a lot of celebrities [attached], like Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins, Johnny Depp and Norman Lear. A number of people have contributed significant amounts of money to try to bring relief to Damien. He would’ve been dead if it wasn’t for that attention. And yet, he’s still in prison, so it’s been effective in that the state of Arkansas doesn’t have the guts to actually pull the lever on this guy. There’s so much attention on the case, but they have dragged the wheels of justice down and made things move at such a glacially slow pace. I’m not sure these guys are ever going to see the light of day. So, on the one hand, there’s been a very positive act on Damien’s life; on the other hand, there’s still no justice.

I’m not sure what this film is going to do. It depends on how you define your goals. This film has had a tremendous impact in terms of, for example, the Water Project. Trudie Styler got involved in this case, brought water down, and we’ve now used this film to raise money. So on a more tangible level, this film has delivered and will continue to deliver this band-aid solution of fresh water. Will it bring Chevron down? Probably not. If we were a different kind of society that valued these films more, and this film could do huge numbers and bring public outcry, it could possibly embarrass Chevron enough to settle the case, but I’m not sure that’s realistic.

The film, to me, is about my own personal desire to try to do something for people who have been fucked over by white people for five centuries. I’m not just talking about the Cofán, but indigenous people in general. How white people in the Americas treated indigenous people is a shameful chapter in our history. We all know somewhere that hey, Indians used to live here, and now it’s a Jack in the Box. It was an epiphany for me. The Cofán and the four other tribes involved in this lawsuit, we forced these people into a Western lifestyle because we took away their ability to sustain themselves. Will this film send a message to sensitize people, and is that worth something? Yeah, and it makes me feel better for putting out a statement that reflects how I felt making this film. It’s about the intersection of celebrity culture with social activism. It’s about the inadequacy of the legal structure to bring relief to people in these kinds of crises. And yes, of course, it’s about the lawsuit, corporate doublespeak, and who controls the message. I hope to raise awareness that we need to address these activities all over the world, and in particular, there.

Both this film and 2004′s “Gray Matter” were directed on your own, without your frequent collaborator Bruce Sinofsky. Are there any advantages to working alone?

It’s very hard to have a partner. To be brutally honest, when we collaborated on “Brother’s Keeper,” we were two would-be filmmakers who wanted to make a film, pooled their resources, and conquered the world. That led naturally to “Paradise Lost,” which led to a sequel. We were having serious issues working out our collaboration, left each other, and when ["Metallica: Some Kind of Monster"] happened, I invited him to be a part of that because we met Metallica together through “Paradise Lost,” and I had handled our “break-up” badly. The irony of doing that film together was that, at the same time Lars [UIrich] and James were working out their relationship, we used this as an opportunity to heal ours. What emerged was an understanding of our mutual needs, and today, we’re close friends. When it makes sense to collaborate, of course we will pursue it. We both do the [Sundance Channel] series “Iconoclasts.” I’m an executive producer of the show, I direct my episodes, and he directs his episodes. But we haven’t really collaborated in a traditional way since the Metallica film, which, shooting-wise, was six or seven years ago. I was feeling like we were joined at the hip, victims of our own marketing, and one person couldn’t get hired without the other. I didn’t think that was a healthy way to pursue a career.

“Crude” opens in New York on September 9th and Los Angeles on September 18 before going into a limited release on September 25th.

[Additional Photo: "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster," IFC Films, 2004]

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