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tough enough to do something that in the long run would be good, even if in the short run it was bad. And I think your father's generation felt this even more strongly.
Did you talk with your siblings when you were making this film?
Friedrich:
Yes. My sister is a year older than I, and my brother six years younger, so I was interested in their different memories of childhood. My sister and I shared a lot of the experiences I mention in this film, and we lived longer with my father, so she was able to confirm many of my stories. She had other stories she wanted me to include in the film, but I stayed with those which had the most resonance for me. Since my brother was much younger, and was only five years old when my parents got divorced, he didn't know about, or hadn't shared, some of the events in the film, but I valued his perspective a great deal. He has slightly more distance from my father and was concerned that the material be presented fairly, that it not function simply as vendetta, which was also a concern of mine. In fact, he had a funny reaction to
The Ties That Bind
. He said, "Jesus, I hope you never make a film about me!" I certainly can't blame him for that sentiment; it's a weird and suspect process to make films based so openly on one's own family.
MacDonald:
It seems inevitable that at some time or another your father will see the film. What do you think about that?
Friedrich:
I dread it. When I first started working on the stories, I had a lot of anger, obviouslyI even thought about sending a script to him. I had vengeful feelings. But the longer I worked on it, the less I wanted to punish him, and the more I felt I was not doing it so that he would finally acknowledge my experience, but so that I could acknowledge my experience.
The nuclear family is based on a relationship in which one person (the parent) has a lot more power and control than another (the child). Because of this, I think children are constantly having their feelings denied by their parents. If the child is unhappy and the parents can afford to acknowledge the unhappiness, they do it; but if the parents can't acknowledge the unhappiness because it reflects badly on them, they won't. For me, it was a matter of writing these stories so that I could finally say to myself, "This
did
happen to me, and this is the effect it had on me," regardless of his experience. I'm sure he has a very different interpretation of a lot of the stories, which is understandableeveryone sees things from their own perspective, their own history.
By the time I finished the film, I really felt that I was making it so I could understand what had happened
and
so other people who had the same experience could have that experience acknowledged. I don't think the sole purpose of art is to provide acknowledgment for people, but I think that's one of the things art can do. You can see a film or read