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Somewhere buried in the annals of my mind and other life in law, I recalled the chilling story of Cameron Todd Willingham, a man charged with triple homicide and convicted for the murder of his three young daughters on December 23, 1991 when he allegedly set his home on fire with his daughters left inside to die.\u00a0 Willingham was convicted by the Texas courts and sentenced to death.\u00a0 He was executed in 2004.\u00a0 But it’s what happened after his sentencing and incarceration that makes Willingham’s story so unforgettable and so powerful.\u00a0 Was an innocent man put to death?<\/p>\n
In 2009, the article “Trial By Fire” by David Grann appeared in the New Yorker.\u00a0 For the layperson or anyone who had not followed the Willingham case over the prior almost 20 years, Grann’s article was an eye-opener into the injustices and corruption of the justice – and political – system, a woman named Elizabeth Gilbert, and the truth found in science.\u00a0\u00a0Picking up the mantle from Grann’s original work, screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher and director Ed Zwick now bring this story to the screen with TRIAL BY FIRE.<\/p>\n
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The chances that in the course of everyday life Todd Willingham and Elizabeth Gilbert would meet, let alone develop a deep and meaningful friendship, are slim to none.\u00a0 But miracles do happen and the case of Willingham, Elizabeth Gilbert was indeed an angel from heaven.\u00a0 Willingham, poor and uneducated, had a criminal history and an admitted violent temper.\u00a0 He also loved his three daughters with every fiber of his being,\u00a0 Elizabeth Gilbert was a divorced mother of two, a playwright, and had a social conscience.\u00a0 While Willingham was on death row, the stars aligned thanks to various social innocence and prisoner outreach projects, Elizabeth Gilbert began a correspondence with him.\u00a0 Curious to know more about him, she travelled from her home in Houston to the prison where he was incarcerated.\u00a0 One of the most unlikely friendships began to develop.\u00a0 The more Todd and Elizabeth corresponded and met, the more she came to know him.\u00a0 In her gut, Elizabeth Gilbert was certain that Todd Willingham did not murder his three babies.\u00a0 Inspired by Ponchai, a fellow death row inmate, Todd had been educating himself and doing his own legal research inside the prison, seeking an appeal on his conviction.\u00a0 The more Elizabeth learned about the case and the appellate process and the underlying trial, and the more she got to know Todd, the more she uncovered about the suppression of evidence, false statements from a jailhouse snitch, and basic legal malpractice by Willingham’s attorney at the time.\u00a0 Doggedly, Elizabeth pushed onward, going all the way to the governor’s office, seeking justice for Todd.\u00a0 \u00a0And in so doing, she gave Todd something he had never had.\u00a0 Hope.\u00a0 Cameron Todd Willingham was on death row for 12 years.\u00a0 Elizabeth Gilbert still fights till this day on his behalf.<\/p>\n
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TRIAL BY FIRE would be nothing without the storytelling eye of director Ed Zwick, lensing by John Gulesarian, and perfect casting with Jack O’Connell as Todd Willingham, Chris Coy as Prison Officer Daniels, and Laura Dern as Elizabeth Gilbert.\u00a0 As Gilbert, Dern imbues the character with such intense emotional conviction and caring that one cannot turn away from the screen.\u00a0 Just one look reminds you what an emotional powerhouse Dern is.<\/p>\n
Always a joy to speak with LAURA DERN, we had a chance to chat about TRIAL BY FIRE.\u00a0 I’ve heard Laura speak passionately about a project before, and equally as passionate about social issues, but hearing her voice this time, with its inflection, strength, conviction, and compassion, speaks volumes as to the importance of this film, this story, and the kind of injustices faced all around the country by individuals like Todd Willingham.\u00a0 It all speaks to her connection with Elizabeth Gilbert, whom she got to know over the course of this production.\u00a0 As Elizabeth Gilbert, LAURA DERN is the eyes, and the heart, of the audience.<\/p>\n
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It’s great to be talking to you, Laura, when we’re not at a Film Independent event!<\/strong><\/p>\n Which we love too, but now we\u00a0can actually have a conversation!<\/p>\n I know!\u00a0 I have to tell you, you have blown my mind.\u00a0 First I saw “JT Leroy” and a week later I saw TRIAL BY FIRE.\u00a0 WOW!\u00a0 You blew me away with both performances.\u00a0 As different as night and day.\u00a0 First, you’re going bat shit crazy in “JT Leroy” and then there’s the heart and soul you bring to TRIAL BY FIRE.\u00a0 Absolutely amazing.<\/strong><\/p>\n Talk about it, right?\u00a0 How kind of you, thank you so much.\u00a0 It’s funny, I feel a level of deep detachment with TRIAL BY FIRE only because my focus in many of my interviews that we’ve been doing, our focus is to continue the conversation for The Innocence Project, and to get Todd Willingham’s memory exonerated, and to try to abolish capital punishment.\u00a0 So you forget about the work part of things.\u00a0 So it’s lovely to hear your compliment and I really appreciate it.<\/p>\n You turn the tide for the audience in TRIAL BY FIRE.\u00a0 Ed [Zwick] does such a great job with the structure of the film to build up it up so that we are all convinced that [Todd’s] guilty.\u00a0 It’s not until we see this man through Elizabeth’s eyes, and through these beautiful letters,\u00a0 that we realize this is not only a person, but this is a person who was wrongly accused and convicted.\u00a0\u00a0That’s thanks to you and your performance. You become our eyes in this film, and our heart.<\/strong><\/p>\n That’s so kind and beautiful. I have to give all the credit to Liz Gilbert and to David Grann for capturing the story in the New Yorker that inspired everything.\u00a0 What I love is that Liz didn’t try to be pious and a hero here.\u00a0 She shared her regularity with me, to say, “Look, I was a regular person in my own life dealing with my own stuff and my own loneliness and my own writerly, as a playwright, sense and finding my way, raising kids as a single parent, and I had the opportunity to write an inmate, and I knew what he’d done and it was this heinous act, but he’s a human being and he deserves to have human contact and I’m going to write a letter.”\u00a0 Coming at it from that place, and then to talk me through her doubts, her suspicion, her clarity that he was guilty, into doubt, and into ultimately believing he was innocent, was a long journey.\u00a0 \u00a0Despite the fact that she was connecting with the man, she didn’t necessarily connect it to innocence.\u00a0 She only connected it to innocence once it was very clear, and she confronted Johnny Webb, and then he wrote his recanting letter.\u00a0 And she learned more about the fire science when she reached out to Dr. Hurst.\u00a0 It was a real journey, and I love that what Ed wanted to capture while he, as you said, so intricately built the story for any layman to understand the margin of error in a case like this, and how unjust our “justice system” is, and can be; but also, he wanted a parallel narrative, which is about one person’s simple act of kindness.<\/p>\n The whole film boils down to being a metaphor about life and how you choose to live it; be you Elizabeth, be you Todd. Be you Stacey, be you the guard, Daniels.<\/strong><\/p>\n I think [Daniels], that’s one of my favorite characters. Chris [Coy] is such a wonderful actor. Because we feel that, right? In all of us, we feel the part of us that comes from judgment and comes from the horror of what someone’s done; from a news blurb.\u00a0 You know what I mean?\u00a0 We see it, and we go, “Oh my God, what a monster1”\u00a0 \u00a0We are really, especially at this moment in our history, I think more than ever, we’re really trying to reconcile that both things can be true.\u00a0 You’ll know very well who I’m talking about, but “He’s so brilliant.\u00a0 He’s such an amazing filmmaker, musician, comedian.\u00a0 How can he have done these things?\u00a0 People can be all things. He was such a good father.\u00a0 How could he have done this heinous act?”\u00a0 People are complicated, and they’re dark, and they’re light, and they live amongst us, and they’re even inside of us. To come at life with compassion is going to make the gray a really integrated place to live, because the black and white has not been serving us, particularly in politics.<\/p>\n I’m curious, Laura, because a very powerful part of this film, is the voiceover.\u00a0 The bulk of it is done in voiceover, the reading of the letters.\u00a0 And I know that Elizabeth turned over the letters, her letters and Todd’s letters for the film.\u00a0 Were those the actual letters that you were reading?<\/strong><\/p>\n They were. They’re all their real letters, and there are so many more, and very generously offered.\u00a0 I was very moved that Liz gave both myself and Jack [O’Connell] the letters to share, so we read all their letters.<\/p>\n How did you get through it without crying?<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh, I never did!\u00a0 They’re personal.\u00a0 They’re intimate.\u00a0 They’re filled with longing, they’re filled with transparency about their flaws, about who they are, and on the subtlest of levels – not to make it commonplace what I’m about to say because this is a story of true life and death stakes – so there’s an urgency to the letters that are unparalleled.\u00a0 And there’s an unconditional love to the story that’s unparalleled.\u00a0 Just in a simple way, to listen to my children, a 14 and a 17-year-old talk about the value of deeply getting to know someone through letters and that that is a lost art of communication, they’re used to connecting with friends on Snapchat, and for people to correspond and take the time to get to know each other, that’s something deep.\u00a0 \u00a0So, I’m going to share with you here and now, I am looking to be a mail-order bride. [laughing]\u00a0 No, I’m kidding.\u00a0 I’m single, and if there’s anyone out west who would like to find a pioneer wife, he should start writing me soon.\u00a0 [laughing]<\/p>\n Because that’s all it’s going to take are some deeply heartfelt letters!<\/strong><\/p>\n Girl, it might be all that it takes!\u00a0 [laughing]<\/p>\n I’m right there with you, Laura. C’mon!\u00a0 I’m right there with you.\u00a0 [laughing]\u00a0 But one of the great things, and I’m sure as you were actually holding these letters and reading them, I would have to imagine the handwriting probably spoke to you and helped inform you as well.\u00a0 \u00a0The handwriting itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n That’s a beautiful question.\u00a0 Nobody’s asked that, and you’re right, actually.\u00a0 I was very touched.\u00a0 You feel both their education levels and their literacy levels her depth of empathy, but you also feel his deep interest about knowing about her life in ways that no one had ever asked her.\u00a0 The thing that really broke my heart, it’s gonna make me cry just saying this to you, because no one has asked about this, and now it’s coming back to me,\u00a0I read them in order and Oh my God!\u00a0 To see his growth, even his literacy, his writing growth, his emotional growth, his willingness to share everything with her.\u00a0 From a first letter, sharing a poem he wrote that he feels is crude, or poor writing with some misspells or things like that, to within a matter of a year, a man writing with such humanity and longing about having just read a man’s search for meaning, and reading poetry that she had sent, and it’s cracking something open, and him talking about his heart, and him writing about his girls and what he loved, because it was one of their birthdays that day.\u00a0 You can’t take it, you can’t take it.\u00a0 You realize how unjust the system is that we have of incarceration;\u00a0 of\u00a0locking people away without giving them the opportunity to grow and develop and be their full potential. Because reading those letters taught me a lot. It was really beautiful.<\/p>\n Then you compound the actual factual science on top of it all, and it infuriates and it breaks your heart.<\/strong><\/p>\n Totally.<\/p>\n I would be remiss not to ask you, how was it working with the lovely little Miss Jade Pettyjohn who plays your daughter in TRIAL BY FIRE?<\/strong><\/p>\n Do you know Jade?\u00a0 Jade Pettyjohn is one of the great people ever. She’s such a beautiful person, actor, musician, songwriter. She’s so lovely. She brings her heart to something with such depth. I love her so much. When my daughter was 13 years old, turned 13, she gave her Jack Kerouac. How can you not love that girl?\u00a0\u00a0She’s just incredible. She’s going to do so many great things in her life. I’m excited to witness it.<\/p>\n Absolutely. I loved her in “Bird Flu.”\u00a0 Of course, that was at LA Film Festival, the world premiere.\u00a0\u00a0I know she looks forward to these mother-daughter experiences that she’s having in films, and the one scene with the two of you sitting there in the window seat in the living room. Very, very powerful.<\/strong><\/p>\n That’s so awesome.\u00a0 She was beautiful and really brought her whole heart to it. Her mother is quite extraordinary, too.\u00a0 Lovely. Just really giving her daughter room to be the artist she is.\u00a0 And she’s off painting; she’s an amazing artist and doing her own thing.\u00a0 It’s a really healthy dynamic that I’m impressed by.<\/p>\n Laura, what did you personally, because this is such a special project, what did you personally take away from playing Elizabeth in TRIAL BY FIRE?<\/strong><\/p>\n That there is no day in your life where you can’t take 10 minutes. 10 minutes to consider another person. 10 minutes to turn all the noise off and just be with your kids. 10 minutes to write a letter to someone who’s incarcerated. 10 minutes to really look at what’s happening to children who’ve entered this country legally as their parents seek safety and asylum in our country and are imprisoned unlawfully.\u00a0 We all have 10 minutes.\u00a0 So I took the gift of Liz with me, and she’s with me all the time.\u00a0 I really feel lucky as a mother who complains a lot about being exhausted.\u00a0 I feel like I say “I’m exhausted” way more times a day than I should. So, knowing Liz, like my other hero this year, which is Marmee in “Little Women” which I have the privilege of playing, these are the women who really keep me going, keep me humble and remind me to be of service.<\/p>\n I am so glad that you took this role, Laura, because you really will open up a lot of eyes and hearts.<\/strong><\/p>\n That’s so lovely to hear. Thank you so much. Thank you for spreading the word, because these are not easy movies to see, but we really need, especially Americans, to see this movie.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n www.trialbyfirethefilm.com<\/strong><\/p>\n #TrialByFireFilm<\/strong><\/p>\n by debbie elias, exclusive interview 05\/14\/2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/behindthelensonline.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/trial-by-fire-6.jpg\")
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