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Director Sarah Goodman
was living in New York when September 11th happened.
It was the reaction of New Yorkers afterwards that
provided the genesis for Build
Me Up, Break Me Down. She heard stories of
people lining up at recruitment offices to join the
Army. "I was interested in why people would want
to join the Army during wartime," remembers Goodman.
So Goodman visited a recruiting
station in the South Bronx. "And, of course,
they tried to recruit me. They told me that I could
make films for the army. But, somehow, I managed to
convince them that what I really wanted to do was
make THIS film."
Her ideas finally came together as she watched the
recruiters try to persuade prospective young people
to join. "The army was promising a quick solution
to directionless youth searching for purpose and a
career. I questioned whether basic training would
be the meaningful rite of passage they yearned for
or whether the constrictive world of the military
would only magnify the problems they were desperate
to solve."
It was through sheer persistence
that she managed to get the Army's co-operation. At
the time she had no credentials, no producers, no
sales on the film. There was nothing to indicate that
it would ever be seen anywhere. "I kept bugging
them about it. And this was unlike any project they
had ever agreed to before because I had to have access
to these characters over a long period of time,"
says Goodman, "and in the end, it's a bit of
a mystery to me, why they agreed to go along with
it."
PERSONAL
ACCOUNT:
Read about director Sarah Goodman's first day on an
army base. More
Goodman and her crew traisped
through several army bases over a period of two years.
She spent all of her savings, the better part of her
salary from her New York advertising agency job and
maxed out her credit cards. "I had never made
a film before, had little experience and no financial
support. But I never thought that I would fail. I
was so excitied to have found a story I was passionate
about."
She threw herself into the making of Build
Me Up, Break Me Down. The army public affairs
department had never dealth with a director that wanted
to spend day after day in the barracks shooting mundane
tasks such as privates cleaning latrines. "They
thought I was a little nuts, but also a refreshing
change from the regular media. I was friendly and
patient and never became annoyed at the army's snail's
pace."
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"They are all trying
to find themselves and joining the military
as a tragic effect on their lives."
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Goodman was interested in filming
the psychological journey that people embarked on once
they made a commitment to join the Army. She found the
characters herself and choose people whom she thought
would be engaging on camera. "Each character was
quite different from the other and I think it's important
to note that these three characters where the only characters
I followed." All
three characters are lost American youth who turn
to the military for a solution to their problems.
"They are all trying to find themselves and joining
the military has a tragic effect on their lives. The
military only magnifies their problems and throws
them right back." One of Goodman's characters,
Nelson goes AWOL during
basic training and another, Thaddeus,
is trapped in the army and now desperate to get out.
In the process Goodman
captured some interesting moments. "I was honest
in how I portrayed their experiences and let the stories
unfold of their own," says Goodman, "The
film doesn't paint a flattering picture of the Army,
but I think that most people would agree that it's
realistic." So far, no one in the army has followed
up with her in official capacity to see the film.
Sarah Goodman graduated
from Concordia University’s Fine Arts program,
where she studied painting and drawing. She was assistant
producer for renowned playwright Israel Horowitz's
film Three Weeks After Paradise,
which won the award for Best Documentary at the Back
East Film Festival, Jersey City, NJ, in 2002. The
film aired on Bravo in 2002. She directed the short
films Concoctions (2000) and The
Juice Man's Daughter (2001), and was assistant
director on the feature film Acceleration
(2000).
Build me Up, Break me Down is Goodman's
first full-length documentary.
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