Watch Clips from the Film
Making The Film
Forty-six million Americans live in rural, small town America. These towns were once the backbone of American life. While their number and populations have shrunk, the importance of rural America as a formative center of American politics and values was demonstrated in the 2016 presidential election. To understand more about American life, it is important acknowledge the unique and important contributions small towns make to American character and culture, in addition to providing most of our food, raw materials and drinking water.
The film explores the conflicting stereotypes and illustrates how values like community service, duty, spiritual life, generosity and authenticity are formed, experienced and lived. The film gives a complex and nuanced view of daily life in Monrovia and provides some understanding of a rural, mid-American way of life that has always been important in America but whose influence and force have not always been recognized or understood in the big cities on the east and west coasts of America and in other countries.
Frederick Wiseman describes his experience making 'Monrovia, Indiana’:
“I always have 6-7 ideas for potential films floating around in my head.”
“I mentioned to a friend of mine that I wanted to make a movie about a small town in the Midwest, and she told me she had a friend who worked at the University of Indiana Law School whose family lived in the same small town for six generations. The law professor said he would introduce me to his cousin, who was the town undertaker. He said she would help me out because she knew everybody. I visited for an afternoon, and when I came back a couple months later, I started shooting.”
“I filmed for 10 weeks and shot 150 hours. Filming is totally immersive. I was present and ready to shoot for 10-12 hours each day. Nothing was planned. Every shot is the result of chance, judgement and luck. The shooting is a collaborative effort between myself and my cinematographer, John Davey.”
“People have their way of life, they have their work, and they are very satisfied. They are not wildly curious about the external world outside of Monrovia. I tried to edit the film so that each sequence has enough information for the viewer to understand what’s going on. My point of view is expressed indirectly through the structure, i.e. the choice and order of the sequences.”
“I shoot everything that interests me and think I may need in order to edit a sequence. No sequences are staged. For example, the meeting scenes were all at least 8-10 times longer in their original form then in the final film. The sequences are shaped in the editing.”
“In the early 20th century, small towns were the backbone of America. There are still roughly 23,000 small towns sprinkled across the country. I would like people to compare and contrast their way of life in the big city to the way of life in Monrovia so that they can understand the similarities and the differences of life in a small town. About 600 people from Monrovia saw the film as soon as it was finished in the summer of 2018. Those that talked to me about it seemed to like it.”
'Monrovia, Indiana’ - is a production of Civic Film, LLC in association with WGBH, Atacama Productions, and Independent Television Service (ITVS), with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for Public Broadcasting.
Additional funding provided by JustFilms/Ford Foundation, The Pershing Square Foundation, LEF Moving Image, and from viewers like you. Fiscal Sponsorship provided by Utah Film Center. ©2018 Civic Film, LLC – All Rights Reserved.
MONROVIA, INDIANA is a Zipporah Films, Inc. Release.
Presented by GBH
