They Found Themselves in Their Own Documentary

When Shainee Gabel and Kristin Hahn hit the road in a borrowed Saab in the summer of 1995 to make “Anthem,” a documentary about the American Dream, they never thought that they would become characters in their own film.

They had an impressive list of interviewees lined up--Studs Terkel, Michael Stipe, George McGovern, Willie Nelson--but were unsure about what would thread the narratives together.

“We knew we were going to have these little stories, the beginnings, middles and ends of different people’s stories, but we had no idea what the overall story would be,” says Gabel. “What binds them? What’s the glue? But after the 99th person said, ‘Who’s making the documentary about you two making the documentary?’ we were like, OK, maybe we’re the overall story. We’re the glue.”

But “Anthem,” which opens at the Nuart in West Los Angeles on Friday, is no vanity project. Unlike the recent glut of young indie filmmakers whose projects reek of self-indulgence and Gen-X angst, Gabel and Hahn, both 28, had loftier pursuits.

“We wanted to chronicle something,” says Hahn, “to create a time capsule as told through the trip of two young women seeing the country and meeting its people and hearing what people had to say and how people felt about America right now.”

“There was a lot of inspiration from people like Studs Terkel or John Steinbeck. But it’s a very male legacy--from Lewis & Clark to Jack Kerouac--the whole heading west and traveling thing,” says Gabel.

Hahn adds: “We felt it was time women took a little snapshot of America.”

The two met in 1992 while working on the independent film “Ed and His Dead Mother.” “We met at the craft service table and became friends,” says Hahn.

“ ‘Anthem’ was kind of born of a need to make a film primarily, and a need to make a film that we felt we could actually get done ourselves without waiting for someone to let us get it done,” says Gabel. “And we both wanted to travel and do something that was very hands-on and experience every aspect of the filmmaking process.”

And travel they did. The numbers: eight months, 33,000 miles, 40-odd states, two Sony High 8 video cameras, 60 interviews, 200 hours of film, and lots of 59-cent Taco Bell tacos.

The budget, which ended up being close to $300,000, came largely from their deal with Avon Books to write a companion book to the film. “We got the movie shot for less than $50,000 and the book [money] went directly into post-production,” says Gabel.

But if the two lacked in resources and experience they were blessed with an ample dose of serendipity. They were with Hunter S. Thompson when Jerry Garcia died, they were at CNN when the O.J. Simpson criminal verdict came in, and they were in the Senate Building the day Sen. Bob Packwood resigned.

And their guilelessness paid off in other unexpected ways. One of their first interviews was with George Stephanopoulos, then chief aide to President Clinton, and the self-described “White House-impaired filmmakers” didn’t know that cameras are prohibited in the West Wing.

“You’re not allowed to shoot in the White House,” says Gabel. “We found out later that when they made ‘The American President’ and all those presidential movies that they had to re-create the interiors using just a few [authorized] stills. The only reason we got to shoot was because George’s assistant was new.”

But the White House interview was ill-fated because they were interrupted--by the president, no less, who whisked Stephanopoulos away for an emergency meeting.

The episode was just one of many that taught Gabel and Hahn to think on their feet and roll with the picaresque pace. Indeed some of the most vivid moments in the documentary are from the spontaneous interviews; the 65-year-old coffee shop waitress in Ames, Iowa, the 19-year-old gas station attendant in Bloomsburg, Penn., the fisherman in Gloucester, Mass.

And all expressed that their belief in the American Dream lies somewhere in the buffer state between idealism and skepticism. “We found skepticism more than pessimism. But I think it was probably a balance in most people. We didn’t find anybody who was completely defeated or completely deluded either,” says Gabel.

The two also found that seemingly unlike people would make strikingly similar points. “That was one of the biggest discoveries for us, that Chuck D and Geraldine Ferraro actually have a lot in common,” says Hahn. “Totally disparate voices, totally disparate people from completely different worlds in America, but sharing this country, actually do have something that is uniquely American.”

“That was kind of our hope, that people would echo each other and complement or finish each other’s thoughts,” says Gabel.

And what do the two think nowof the American dream?

“I definitely think there is one,” Gabel says, “but it’s so different for different people. But at its essence, for some reason, whether people are cynical or optimistic, and whether they fight against it, most people feel this sense of possibility, and they feel a right to be able to move forward.”

“We interviewed Dr. [William] Foege [then director of the Carter Center in Atlanta] and his hope is that this is the age where freedom and equality can truly have a reciprocal relationship, which they’ve never had, in our history, and don’t today,” says Hahn.

To try to truly hear the voice of contemporary America, the filmmakers talked to a wide range of people--from pioneers of the Internet to political leaders, from poets and novelists to farmers, environmentalists and journalists. But no sports figures.

They nod and sigh in unison and Hahn says, “We tried to interview Michael Jordan and we could have if we had $30,000. You could buy an interview, but you couldn’t have one. Cal Ripkin, Hank Aaron, everyone. We could not get near any of the sports people.”

But with both the book and the movie about to be released, the women have no regrets about the months on the road, the separation from friends and boyfriends, the lack of privacy, the grueling hours. “It was a huge dream,” Hahn says. “We wanted to make a movie, we got to do it our own way, it was totally do-it-yourself, and it was a miracle that it actually worked.

Their distribution deal with Zeitgeist Films is also owing to the women’s grass-roots brand of volition. Without an agent or manager, they cut a three-minute trailer in New Orleans, sent it to distributors, and then headed to New York to finish their post-production. The film will be released in Seattle, San Francisco and San Diego later this month, and in New York in August.

“Documentaries are a great crash course--it’s boot camp. You have so many possibilities of how to tell the story and there’s no rewrites and there’s no reshooting. Documentaries structurally, dramatically, are really challenging. But every filmmaker should make at least one because it’s an amazing experience.”

Hahn reminisces wistfully: “It was a mad, passionate affair with every single state.”