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HBO: When did you meet Granny D? And what
compelled you to make a movie about her?
Marlo Poras: It was in 2004, I was online and a banner ad
caught my eye. This group wanted to fund
limousines to go into low-income housing
complexes on Election Day, to chauffer people
to the polls and make voting a hip event.
I thought, this is one of the wildest things I've
ever seen. And so I clicked on the link, and it
was one of Granny D's campaigns.[LAUGHS]
She was on a yearlong voter registration drive,
touring swing states across the country,
trying to register working women and
minorities to vote, at the age of ninety-four.
On her website, there were pictures of Doris
wearing a full mermaid's outfit, you know,
with her legs wrapped up in a glittering
mermaid's tail. Her schtick was she would go
and do a woman's work for her, so that
woman could take time off to register to vote.
She was up to all sorts of antics. She seemed
so sassy and adventurous. And then I started
researching Doris, and I found out she walked
across the country when she was ninety, ten
miles a day for fourteen months, all to raise
awareness about campaign finance reform.
She'd been hailed by everyone from Carter to
McCain for her dogged determination to
reform the electoral system. Then I read her
speeches, which are in a class of their own.
And she seemed so substantial, not just old
and brave and ballsy, but so substantial, and
articulate and clever. And successful. She
brought a wave of national and international
attention to campaign finance reform at a time
when the media didn't necessarily consider it
a sexy issue.
I was so deeply touched that this ninety-four
year old woman was putting her life on the
line for her vision of democracy, time and
again, I had to meet her. So, I called Dennis
Burke, who later became her campaign
manager. Dennis was very open to me visting
them, and I hopped on a plane to Chicago.
HBO: What are some of the things you discovered
while you were making the film that you didn't
expect?
Marlo Poras: I wasn't expecting to make a campaign film!
When I began, I planned on making a road
trip movie with a ninety-four year old activist
who was crisscrossing the country. And we'd
get a view of America in a pivotal election
year, through her eyes. I followed her in
Chicago, Detroit, North Carolina, Virginia, and
then back to New Hampshire, where she's
from.
She'd been on the road for about eight months
and wanted to take a short vacation, and I
filmed her up in New Hampshire with her son,
I fell in love with him as well, and he became a
pivotal part of her campaign later on.
I was still planning on being on the road with
her through the election. But when I left New
Hampshire, I was on a bus from Boston to
New York, and Doris' son Jim called me and
said, "Marlo, can you get up to New
Hampshire right now? We're going to go meet
with the head of the Democratic party. Ma's
running for U.S. Senate." [LAUGHS] So that
was completely unexpected. And I ended up
spending four months in New Hampshire
filming her during the campaign.
HBO: What did you discover along the way?
Marlo Poras: Well, the film is first and foremost a portrait
film. It follows Doris very intimately through
the campaign. And what was so remarkable
to me about what she went through during
that time was how she challenged herself on
every imaginable level.
Physically, she was ninety-four years old.
She'd been in a van, driving around the
country, so she wasn't in the best shape. But
she decided that she was going to do a two
hundred and fifty mile loop around the state,
walking five miles every day. She would get
up at four o'clock in the morning, drive two
hours to where she'd left off the day before,
and walk five miles, waving at voters, holding
a sign, and then she'd make a couple
speeches, and shake hands at ice cream
socials, followed by a few interviews and then
some homework on the issues and she'd be
lucky if she got to bed before midnight. It was
exhausting. But when people saw her walking
or speaking at events, she made it look easy.
In reality, what she was pulling off was incredibly difficult. And it became important to me to show how committed she was, how hard she worked to achieve her goals, because if people don't see that, she almost becomes an exception to the rule, some sort of alien species. And after following her for a while, I was able to capture her ups and downs. There were times at the beginning of the film, like when she was practicing for her walk, she was breathing so heavily I thought she was going to pass out on the spot.
And she got testy with her campaign strategist
and I was thinking, how the hell is she going
to do this? And, her campaign strategist,
Dennis, asked, "Do you want to take a break?"
And Doris said, "No, no, I'm fine. Let's keep
going." And she kept on going, and she slowly
gained her speed. After training for a couple
weeks, and remembering to use her inhaler,
she was walking and talking with ease. And
that same indomitable spirit seemed to propel
her through every conceivable challenge
throughout the campaign.
So what happens in the film is that you see
her trajectory, you see her curve of struggling
to do things, and then finally being able to
achieve something extraordinary.
It all culminated in her live, nationally
televised debate against Judd Gregg, a two-
time incumbent Republican senator, and very
close friend of George Bush. He played John
Kerry in George Bush's mock debates. Doris
had to go head to head with him in a debate,
and she'd never debated before! She was
absolutely terrified. She trained for a month
and faced her fears and did it. Her
performance at the debate was one of the
most heroic things I've ever seen.
And at the debate and throughout the
campaign, Doris offered herself as an antidote
to the Washington establishment. She
wouldn't accept any PAC or special interest
money. She was fearless on the issues. Her
politics were risky but rewarding. With very
little money and only four months to
campaign, she picked up 34% of the vote.
HBO: What do you hope audiences will take away
from the film?
Marlo Poras: There are so many things. I hope people are
inspired. There's so much cynicism and
frustration right now about politics. And I
think that Doris offers a striking, refreshing
example of civic engagement. With her
seemingly quixotic commitment to breathe life
into her ideas, Doris has proven again and
again that the impossible is possible, in
politics and in life, and that if you don't at
least try, there will be no results.
She provides an example of how to live a rich,
full life and to never give up, and never stop
hoping, and never stop working toward your
goals and your dreams. One of the interesting
things about Doris is that she makes everyone
seem young. If thirty is the new forty, and
she's doing this kind of work in her nineties,
what does that mean for someone in their 80s
or 60s or 20s? I mean, she's ninety-seven
now! She spent most of her life as a
housewife, and she worked at a shoe factory
for twenty years. She didn't become a full
time activist until her late eighties. Her
example gives us all time and inspiration to do
things we never necessarily thought we might
be able to pursue or accomplish, it opens up a
world of possibility for people of every age.
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