When we first met he was wary of me and my camera, as most film subjects are. Moss: I had been filming with Speedo for about six months before he took me home to meet his family, when we had built that trust. POV: When did you see the narrative arc in Speedo's personal life? It was fortunate that I was able to film him over such a period of time because his life changed dramatically and very unexpectedly. I continued to shoot off and on after that and I finished the film in 2004. Moss: It took about five years, although the events in the film take place over about two years of Speedo's life, in 19. POV: How long did it take to make Speedo? I like making films about real people because I think that their stories are much more interesting than fictional stories. Plus, I think if you tried to write Speedo as a fictional character, you couldn't. The film has spoken to audiences beyond the male race fan. He's trying to be a good father, he's trying to be a good husband, he's trying to achieve his dreams, and those are universal ideas. I think that in a place that we least expect, in the world of demolition derby, we discover that Speedo is grappling with the same challenges that we all do. I never went to the racetrack, and with my camera I was able to access this fascinating subculture. I grew up in a community that was much different than Speedo's. Moss: One of the reasons that I love documentary is that the camera gives you extraordinary access to worlds that are so different than your own. POV: Do you prefer making documentaries to narrative films? It's one of the great privileges of documentary. And I think most documentary filmmakers who have been through a similar kind of process can say that about their subjects. It sounds sort of corny, but we are from such different worlds and we have this intense bond that I only have with people in my family. Documentarians are voyeurs and Speedo is the very opposite of me. I was always struck by how Speedo, in his tiny world, just Riverhead Raceway, had made himself a super hero of sorts. It may be a phase, but I made a film about a con artist and I made a film about a demolition derby champion. Moss: I've made two documentaries, both about anti-heroes, bad boys, outsiders. POV: What kinds of subjects do you find fascinating? I saw the struggle with those contradictions. But he is incredibly passionate about being a good person. He is crude and outrageous, very much in the moment, sometimes a little shocking. Following occupation, crime ran rampant and in the end city government simply gave up.Jesse Moss: Speedo is a man of such large contradictions. While the five-season series is pretty good, Le Vele is the star of the show even though it is significantly decrepit. Le Vele was designed by Franz Di Salvo in the early 1970’s and due to what has been termed “terminal corruption” the project was never fully completed but occupied anyway. But the whole tv series uses the remaining building as staging for the crime family about which the series is based. Le Vele di Scampia (Le Vele is translated as “the sails”) which was public housing for some 40,000 (reportedly up to 90,000 at one point) people in seven structures, six of which have been demolished. Cumbernauld has a record of self-destruction, but this current demolition of the iconic concrete megastructure seems particularly backward-looking, at least to me it does.Īnother post-WW2 megastructure is seen throughout the streaming Italian mobster series Gomorrah (think the Naples version of the Sopranos).
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