It was difficult getting access to the Ellis Island Hospital complex, located on the south side of the island, the street artist and photographer JR said in a recent conversation. “Nobody had ever shot on that side of the island,” he explained. “Even when they shot James Grey’s ‘The Immigrant,’ they could not shoot there. So when I [initially] asked about filming there, they said there was no way — you can’t bring plugs, you can’t bring lights, you can’t bring anything. So I thought making a fiction film there was impossible.”But after repeatedly requesting access for a few years, he was finally given permission. The first thing he did, after walking around the building, untouched for many years, was a large scale installation, part of his UNFRAMED project, in which he wheatpasted images of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island on the deteriorating walls of the abandoned hospital. For a project like this, JR typically documents the work through video and still images because it’s not permanent (in this case, the buildings at the complex are falling apart, essentially erasing the artwork). But here, because of the deep history of the island and the many stories that have passed through, he decided a different type of documentation might be interesting.The result is “Ellis,” a short narrative film directed by JR, written by screenwriter Eric Roth, and starring Robert De Niro. The film is currently screening at the Galerie Perrotin Pop Up Space in New York through November 8, and will available to anybody who wants to organize a screening in their community from November 9 through 16. It will also screen December 2-7 during Art Basel Miami Beach at the Melin Building, in the Miami Design District. In a recent conversation, JR spoke with ARTINFO about his first narrative film and what Robert De Niro taught him about the filmmaking process.How did this whole project begin?A good friend of mine, Jane Rosenthal, gave me a book about the unrestored part of Ellis Island by [the photographer] Stephen Wilkes. And I just love that kind of space — if you look at my Instagram, each time I can go to some place like a roof of a building, some place where life has stopped, I’m excited. At Ellis Island, in the middle of the water, is a place where life stopped years ago. But from there it took me a couple of years to get to the project, but after three or four years I managed to start walking around the island. And then when I realized that a lot of those pieces that I would do I would document them, but the place would slowly disappear — the structures would fall down, and nobody would see them. The idea of making a film, another documentation, something that could stay forever, started to happen.The space where you did the initial work and where you made the film, as you said, has been untouched for years. What interested you in this space? Two things — the presence that you feel when you go there is different from any museum, because it has been untouched for years. And then the walls, the decaying walls tell us everything. That’s why there are a lot of rooms I haven’t touched, because the walls say it all. Nothing I could have done would have added anything to that. That’s what attracted me to explore every single room there. I kept finding things, even right up until we were making the film. After we did the wheatpasting, we kept finding stuff on other floors, and other hidden spaces. I remember opening doors and you could tell nobody had touched that door in 80 years. You could feel like you were breathing the air of another time.Were there spaces that were too dangerous to enter?Yeah, technically there were a lot of spaces that were not safe. Sometimes I was walking on some floors and I’m not even sure how they were holding me up. And since we shot the film there are a lot of spaces that fell down and are not visible now. The film is the only documentation; they are not accessible.What can a film say about the space that the images and wheatpasting couldn’t?In this case, it was not only that we were trying to document the work and the space so we wouldn’t forget, but we were trying to recreate a story that connects the past and the present, and start a new discussion. This was the first time I thought using fiction actually helped take my story further. I think that was the hardest part for me, because I’ve never used fiction before. But even if it’s fiction it’s based on reality, and it’s connected to reality — the portraits you see at the end [of the film] are of people today with no papers in the United States. I really wanted to connect all those elements to create that story that’s spoken by De Niro.Let’s talk about Robert De Niro. How did he get involved in the project?I got to know him over the last five years, and we have worked together on different projects and became friends. He has been a great supporter of my work. For me, it was like, you’re an actor and we’ve never worked this way together — if I did a short would you be interested in working together? I actually didn’t think he would say yes. So when he said yes he said, you need to get a proper writer, and I took it as a challenge. And to be honest, once we were on the island he taught me so much about the [filmmaking] process. The film couldn’t have happened without him.What kinds of things did he teach you?How to deal with the acting and making sure that the story is being told not by overacting but through simple gestures. You see how he is in the film, how he just moves through the space and looks at it, how he looks at the [images of] people — the emotion is conveyed in ways I could have never expressed. He helped me getting there. I learned a lot in the process.Is the script he reads completely fictional? No, it was based on research, the stories of people who came through Ellis Island. Also, De Niro’s family came through Ellis Island, so I think it meant a lot to him to walk around that space.So De Niro had his own personal connection to the project?I’m sure he did. It was really interesting to see someone whose family came through Ellis Island and became one of the most successful actors in the world tell the story of what it means to migrate and start again in a new place. It’s like coming full circle.Why did you decided to make a short film instead of making a feature film out of this story?I liked the idea of doing a short poem that I would film there. I didn’t need more than that because, with what you see in the film, you get a sense of the space even though we didn’t show everything. It wasn’t supposed to be a tour of the space.Do you have other films you want to make?I like the form and maybe I’ll do longer films one day. I’ve done a few longer documentaries before. So I guess the question now is when.But you’re thinking about it?I’m really curious about the process of making a film. Sometimes I try to incorporate the filming process into the art world.
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