Interview With the Director
Documentary Director is Getting His Moment
By Paul Willistein
Features Editor
A move to New York. A wife. A friendship. Cabaret. A brother-in-law's belief.
From these was born the documentary, "Wallowitch & Ross: This Moment," screening tonight and tomorrow night at the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema..
The documentary is the first film directed by Richard Morris, who, after working in the oil and trucking industry, moved east on the recommendation of his sister, Roberta Morris-Purdee, who lives in Williams Township with her husband, Nathan Purdee (Hank on "One Life to Live"). Morris-Purdee has been a film and video producer for many years, having worked frequently with Lee Grant , most recently on the Lifetime documentary, "Confronting the Crisis: Childcare in America."
"This Moment" tells the story of cabaret performers John Wallowitch, composer-pianist, and Bertram Ross, singer dancer. Wallowitch's songs have been performed by singers such as Tony Bennett and Shirley Horn. Ross was Martha Graham's leading man and co-director of her company for more than 20 years.
"This Moment" made its debut at the Palm Springs Film Festival, where the audience voted it one of the Top 10 films from among 168 shown. The film was given its moment again with an encore screening. It also was shown at film festivals in Malibu and Sedona, Ariz. Daily Variety called the documentary "honest and intimate, straight-forward but not sentimental."
Morris, 47, has been in the movie and television business for 10 years, starting as a production assistant. "'Do you want milk in that coffee or not?' kind of thing," he laughed.
He went on to be a segment producer, assistant editor and second unit director. He was researcher/producer and supervised the post-production on director Vladimir Pozner's series for Russian television.
Before that, Morris taught diesel engine repair, starting a business that sealed empty oil wells and studied accounting. He and his sister grew up in Columbine Hills, Colo. He said, "My sister and I have been talking back and forth. She graduated from Columbine High School," site of last week's shooting rampage.
His sister had started a career in movie business well before he did. "She's the one who invited me, when I found that I had the time and could change careers if I wish, to come to New York."
While Morris has worked on numerous films, many have had limited, if any, distribution. "The movie business, you know, it's a lot like any other business. There's a lot of work done that doesn't get any noted attention." One movie he worked on that was released was "Jeffery."
In Manhattan, Morris saw Wallowitch and Ross's cabaret show, which Lehigh Valley area audiences may recall from performances at Odette's in New Hope, where the duo appeared.
Morris's second wife, costume designer Sue Gandy - she was assistant designer for the movie "You've Got Mail" and associate designer for Broadway's "Guys and Dolls" revival - was a student of Wallowitch's.
"I saw their cabaret routine about 6 years ago. I was really intrigued at that point, and then, just running into them at various functions, I put together who they really were," Morris said.
"That's when the idea of a documentary came to mind. (It was)'Let's make a documentary that explained what it was that attracted my interest.'"
Pre-production began in 1997. Shooting commenced in January '98. "I gathered 30 hours of footage over a three-month span. We, at most, shot three days a week. We had all the elements - some interview material, some events. The cabaret act became a connecting piece.
Morris shot on digital Beta. He posted 10 hours of digitized footage onto an Avid editing system and, working with editor Marsha Moore, did his pre-cut from there. He then transferred it to 16 mm celluloid. The sound edit, including dialogue, followed, with four separate tracks. "It has, in some respects, a movie soundtrack, even though it is a video format in origination," said Morris.
His sister came on board as producer. His wife became co-producer. His brother-in-law was executive producer and financed the film, which cost several "hundreds of thousands of dollars," Morris said. "If it was a feature, it would be a very, very low-budget movie."
The film is without a distributor, although Morris hopes to have it aired on PBS or a similar outlet. "It's truly an independent production. Nathan put the money up and we did it."
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