Roberta: I'm Roberta Pyzel and I'm talking today to Nanette Natal. Thank you, Nanette. 

Nanette: I'm happy to be here. 

Roberta: I'm happy you are here. Nanette is the producer and the music and sound designer for a new documentary, which I directed about Andrea Dworkin. I was thrilled, thrilled to work on this project. I love Andrea Dworkin. I have loved Andrea Dworkin’s thinking and writing since the 1970s, and I was really excited to work on this project finally, after so many years.

It's had a funny long history. I approached Andrea Dworkin in 2004 about taping an interview with her and she very kindly agreed. I was thrilled and during that year of 2004 I interviewed her on three separate occasions, and it was a wonderful experience for me. The interviews were very interesting. They covered so much about her life, her childhood, her experiences as an activist, her writing, her thinking about prostitution, about pornography, all the things that we know Andrea was so articulate and passionate about. These were wonderful interviews and I intended to make a piece about her at that time. Suddenly she died in April 2005, a few months after the last interview that I did. It was a shock and I think that's part of the long delay for me to really work on these tapes. Initially it was also such a shock to think that she died, that the thought of looking at the tapes and working on them and editing was just too painful. I just I couldn't bring myself to it. And then, of course, life intervenes and various projects and work that I've done has intervened and many years have passed, obviously. But now with the incredible pushback against women's rights and the terrible reactions and legal reactions that are happening, especially here in the United States, in these last 10 years or so, it's clear to me that Dworkin is someone who needs to be out there again, needs to be heard again. People need to be reading her again. Really important, and so I opened up the tapes and started working on them. I was very excited to ask Nanette to produce this and then to work on the music and sound design. To give a little introduction before I allow you to speak, just so people can know about who you are. Nanette is a multi-talented artist. She's first and foremost, recognised internationally as a jazz vocalist and composer, and she's also a very sensitive and creative producer. We've worked together on a number of film projects together, with her designing the music and sound. She has an amazing ability to use music and sound effects to energize a film without ever overpowering the narrative, without ever overpowering what the story is or what the actors, in the case of a drama, are doing. She is very sensitive and smart, and I think she's done a terrific job with this film and energizing what otherwise is a talking heads kind of documentary, which can lay flat even when it's very interesting. So, maybe you want to talk about that process of how you approached the film? 

Nanette: Yes, and I wanted to mention that I wasn't so familiar with Andrea many years ago. I read Letters from the War Zone and a number of her articles over the years in The Guardian, but in no way was I as informed as you were. In a sense, as a producer also of the project, I was very aware that it was valuable that I wasn't on the same plane that you were in terms of my exposure to Andrea. I was present at the memorial, and that was very informative for me too, but in terms of the writing, the literal part of all of this, it was going to be fresh for me. I thought that as a producer that was a good thing because then, when we approached the footage and the sound behind it, I would be a good observer because my reaction would be somewhat similar to someone that never knew her or was just beginning to know her. So, what was I feeling? What was I getting from this? What was I getting from the footage that we were looking at? I was very excited to work on it also and it was a big challenge musically because there was a real need to keep the passion that she had alive and not have this just be, as you said, flat, the talking head kind of experience. 

Roberta: Yes, that's so true because a great wish for the film was first for people who knew Andrea and were friends or colleagues. I hope that they see, and I've certainly gotten the reaction that people feel, it's a very real and truthful representation of her and her thinking.

But my greatest wish is for the people who don't know her, or only know her slightly, who maybe know some articles or quotes here and there that people put up on the internet. I wish for them to be really drawn into this film so that they get to know her. Come see and listen to this woman who was so powerful, passionate and compassionate and so inspiring. That they come to this and to be moved and to take the next steps to get involved with her.

Nanette: That was exactly my reaction when I watched some of the clips. I didn't really want to see it, and I don't think you wanted me to see it, from beginning to end after the editing, because certainly there was a lot of editing. But after the first round, I saw clips and the first few clips, I was just so taken. I was so surprised to see this gentle, tender, warm woman, very vulnerable, but empowered in her vulnerability. The experience was so intimate for me that I felt like after seeing a couple of clips, I felt like we were all sitting in a room together and listening to her respond to points. It was a big surprise for me. 

Roberta: Yes, and I've gotten that reaction from a number of people who've seen the film, that they felt like they were sitting at a table with her. It was that close and that intimate. For many people, it's almost a shock. This woman that was called man hating, nasty, raging, all of this, then they get a picture of her and they're shocked. It is exactly true. She was kind. She was gentle. She was very confident in her beliefs and very firm in her beliefs. 

Nanette: Very grounded. 

Roberta: Yes, very grounded. That is the better word. She was very grounded in the truth as she knew it, as she personally knew it, and as she saw it through what she saw in the world. But at the same time, extremely vulnerable, extremely open, very kind, and very gentle, and people are shocked. People are shocked. I get emails all the time. ‘I can't believe it.’ ‘This is amazing.’ It's very interesting and it says a lot about the way she was attacked and how disturbed people were who are invested in this patriarchy, in this hierarchy, and in this kind of a world. A person like her is very, very difficult to argue against. It's very difficult to brush her aside, so they did everything they could to just silence her. Get her to the side. She was threatening, so their whole program was not to say, okay, bring her on a show. We'll debate. We'll have her talk. We'll publish her books, her articles and debate with her. No, it was all about let's get her out of the room and the way to do that was to create these caricatures of her being hateful and odious so no one would want to go near her, and if you're a woman, you don't want to be associated with her.

Nanette: One thing comes to my mind and that’s the word empathy. She truly was empathetic. She truly reacted to the suffering of others, not just her own suffering or her own story. She understood how other people felt and I think that’s why so many people have such a deep reaction to her. They follow her, they feel that they love her. They love her work. They love how she changed their lives because she was empowered. She recognised her own pain and could then therefore recognise the pain of others and be empathetic. We live in a society that doesn't like empathy, a society that lacks it tremendously. It's all about one up and ridiculing, and especially in this very male oriented environment. Certainly, we in the United States are living in shame. Shame is the name of the game. She, again, being true to herself and her own recognition of her own struggle, she was able to also then embrace millions of people. Millions of women and some men. 

Roberta: Another thing I think that's very interesting is about her is that she was very revealing about her own experiences. In her writing, in the interviews we did, and in all kinds of writing she's done in other interviews, she's very revealing about traumas that she experienced in her personal life, in her marriage, her early marriage, and then later at the women's house of detention. She's very upfront about the kind of things she experienced, but, one thing about her is that she always seems to examine those experiences, taking in what she learns from them. Besides feeling them, expressing them and honouring the experience that it needs to be said and be recognised, the suffering needs to be expressed. But then, it's about what do you learn? Where do you take that learning? When you've experienced something and you learn from it, what do you do with that? I think you had made some comments about that.

Nanette: That's true. She was very balanced. As I said, grounded. But also, it wasn't just about her talking about her. She wasn't just talking about herself and the things that happened to her. She was never a victim. She was never presenting herself that way. She talks about some things that happened to her in the film. She's very clear about them and they are very disturbing. A number of experiences that she expresses, but then she also says, in other words bad things happen in life. But what do we do with that? What do we learn from that? And, often in the course of her responding to questions that you presented she's making that point: ‘But what I learned from it…’ That's a very important thing for all of us to understand because life is not easy. 

Roberta: It is. It sort of goes beyond and it encompasses all of our lives, that we all go through things that cause us to suffer and to experience pain and some people way more than others, more horrific situations. But nevertheless, we all face those challenges. The question is, do you see yourself and hold yourself up as a victim, that you're just defeated by whatever happens to you, or do you take what happens and, if you possibly can, turn it into action? As Dworkin talks about that, it’s your personal empowerment and then turning that into political activism. In the case of women, the fact that women all over the world suffer in the most horrific ways. Once you recognise that and understand that, you can relate your own suffering and experiences to that broader situation and then do something about it. Whatever it is, you can do something about it and there's a certain amount of healing in that and it's terribly important. 

Nanette: Some of the power that she exudes comes from her ability to trust being vulnerable. Trust vulnerability because, again, there's tremendous power in vulnerability and therefore people, how can you not believe her? Her truthfulness, her vulnerability is part of what makes it so you can't argue with her. It's very clear.

Roberta: Yes. That is very clear. I think that goes to the fact that people had to turn her into something, a big caricature. It's something she wasn't at all. So that you could just get her out of the picture, not invite her to the party of life and you're not going read her, you're not going to hear her. Because the minute you're hearing her, she is terribly convincing because she is so honest and so vulnerable. Courageous. And what she's saying is so obviously true. And it's without any vindictive, angry edge to her. She just has a very pure anger, it’s the anger when you see injustice. It's appropriate anger. It's the thing that says this isn't right and it needs to be made right, and it can be made right. That's where she comes from. Of course, they had to just keep pushing her to the side because it was so powerful. I wanted to just mention or get into the idea that when I was editing the piece finally after all these years, I did a first draft that was really based on the interviews and the memorial service. Cutting back and forth with a very powerful rally speech she gave in 1995 at an anti-violence rally. I had a first draft, and then Nanette came in to the editing process as the music and sound designer. That was a really crucial contribution to the power of this documentary because again, you're looking at a talking head documentaryand that can lay very flat. When Nanette came in, it was very exciting for me. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how you saw that and how you did that. It was brilliant work. 

Nanette: Oh, thank you. 

Roberta: A number of people have commented on the unexpected, Vicky Craft said something about the unexpected and extremely effective use of music and sound.

Nanette: I think the first thing was I came in and you set it up and I looked at it from beginning to end. Even though what she was saying and what was presented had all the power that it has, it wasn't moving me. That’s a criteria that I’ve recognised by getting involved with film in these last few years and working with you on a number of projects. It's been really very interesting. As a vocalist, as a musician, for me it's always been about coming to a place where I can really let go and feel something, actually feel it, get goosebumps, feel it within my own body. Then I know that I'm there. If that doesn't happen, I'm not there. When we've done other projects together and worked with some actors, for example, and if what they're doing in a poignant, dramatic setting didn't give me those goosebumps then that something special wasn't there. The goosebump test. So I sat there and it was like, I'm not feeling this. There's so much to feel, but I'm not feeling it, why? It was because that indefinable something wasn’t there. You had to change the sequences or not edit her words, but it was the way it was presented. We wanted everyone to really look at this film. We wanted people who don't know Andrea's world, young women, not just older people that have followed her for 20, 30 years. That became the project for me, and that became the idea for the music, and sound, and no sound. When you're working with sound, it's to create sound and then no sound. It's very powerful with silence. That was very challenging and great fun also. What did I get from listening? I didn't want this to be an intellectual experience, and it was starting to feel that way. Andrea generated so much excitement in the rallies just in her words, in her soft-spoken words. And she was motivating. So that's where I started. I started with kicking into some real kind of, what do you need? You need drums and you need bass. You work with a strong bass, almost rockish kind of sound to show how much punch she had. Mm-hmm. And that's how I approached it, it was a process of matching the excitement that she created in a live experience. You heard those rally tapes or you saw videos of her, in crowds: very passionate, very powerful, very strong. And then of course, we have this very soft-spoken version of her from the interviews in which she's very soft and reading from her own work. She was soft in her presentation, but the words were also powerful, strong, motivating. That was my task, to create a track that matched the motivation, and help people to feel it. 

Roberta: And you did. I just couldn't, I can't, sing Nanette's praises enough. She did a beautiful job with this and without it, the film wouldn't be what it is. It really pulls you in. Music moves us, and sounds move us. When you watch a good film with good sound design it doesn't call attention to itself, but it absolutely energizes and underlines and pumps up the volume, whatever the emotional content is. You did that and I love it. I love what you accomplished with this and, as I said, I've gotten comments from a number of people that it was unexpected sounds and unexpected music here and there and just really makes it work. It drives it forward, and the silence, absolutely. It’s scary because it allowed the words to be presented also. 

Roberta: It's a very interesting marriage of all of that. 

Nanette: It was a lot of fun, believe me. 

Roberta: Well, we must work together again sometime. Another thing that we put into the film was, as Nanette said, she was at the memorial service for Andrea Dworkin in 2005, and one of the takeaways from that memorial service was just how loved Andrea was. Her friends and colleagues spoke about how it wasn't just how courageous and what an important activist she was. There was such love, personal deep love and huge and profound gratitude for her courage. They spoke about who she was and how she stood out front. For a lot of us, it's too scary to stand up and say some things and Andrea really led the parade, and she continues to do so in her writing which is as relevant today as it ever was. Maybe it's even more relevant because we see what has happened since all the progress and movement during the seventies and eighties and even early nineties, and we see the pushback. Andrea really stood up for human beings and particularly women who were suffering all over the world. She had the courage to do that. At the memorial service you just feel that love from so many different people. Today, when you go on the internet, of course they've republished three of her books, which is wonderful. There's a lot more buzz and interest. People are reading and you go on the internet, you search for Andrea Dworkin and you're going to see lots of articles. People from all over the world are writing and saying, ‘Andrea saved my life.’ ‘Andrea changed my life.’ ‘Without her, I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today.’ ‘She spoke for me, she spoke for my pain.’ There's a passion for her that is exceptional and extraordinary. 

Nanette: Yes. That's very true.

Roberta: Another thing in the film, a moment when I was interviewing her that I particularly loved is when I, I asked her directly, and I love her reaction which is in the film. I said, you know this idea that you're a man hater. Do you hate men? She paused and thought, and then she said, ‘first of all, I don't waste my time defending myself against slander. But this thing about hating men is really more about standing up to male dominance without apology.’ As Dworkin says, ‘without, oh, I'm just a woman and I don't really mean this. Or, I'm really sorry. Just love me. Love me, but please stop being so mean.’ Then comes the slur from men and women who are invested in patriarchy, that she must hate men because of the way she talks. 

Nanette: She stood up to that. There's tremendous male entitlement in this world. And her ideas, they thought how dare you disagree, express something that disagrees with them. How dare you challenge that? How dare you challenge that? And yet that's what she did. As a matter of fact, there's a wonderful tribute to her in the beginning of the film by a dear friend, a male friend of many, many, many years. It's so beautiful and touching. So this isn't the issue here. The issue was that I have things to express. I am not subjugated to you or to some kind of crazy setup that says I have to shut up because you are first. 

Roberta: Yes, because you're a male and I'm a female, that you need to be coddled. We need to apologise. We need to take care of you. That somehow you are the victim. Well, they have to be taken care of. The men are the victims.

Nanette: And that somehow you are a victim. It gets very twisted that the man is 

Roberta: It gets very twisted that the man is the victim here. 

Nanette: It’s very twisted, but incredible. That's what you get. You certainly don’t get that she hates men.

Roberta: Absolutely not. Today you look, you see in this country politically and all around what's happening. The idea that somehow the men are hurting and are being hurt, it's crazy. Her steadfast commitment to speak up to that kind of domination and abuse of power is exactly why. They tagged her with that label and they tried to push her aside. As any woman can tell you, most women have had the experience one way or another that you, if you stand up to something, you tell somebody, ‘no, I don't want this.’ Or, you're in a job and you try to speak up. The idea that that's brushed aside. They cut you down, and  tell you that it's not your place to be talking like that. To then turn around to them and say, ‘I don't accept that. I just don't accept that. My opinions are just as important. My thinking is just as important. My experience is just as important as yours. Anyway, it's a moment I loved. I loved the interview when she said it and did it. I think we had a break maybe after that, and I was saying to her, I just love that. I love you and I love that. It was just so clear and it was so without any apology. There's no apology for this. Just to say, kind of in wrapping this up a little bit, that of course I believe that she's a towering figure in American literature. She showed she was a beautiful writer throughout the film. She reads a number of passages that I asked her to read from various books, as I find her writing to be just so powerful. As her speaking is, and her speeches are clear. There's a poetry and a rhythm to her writing and vulnerability and fierceness. And anyway, I think she's one of the great American writers and of course a tremendous feminist activist. Throughout the interviews that I did, which covered the year 2004, they were a number of months apart, the three. She never stopped believing that another world is possible. She spoke honestly about her trauma. She spoke honestly about her own suffering, her own disappointments. So many things that didn't happen the way she would've wanted them to happen. But she never stopped believing that we can change the way things are. That we can and that we should. And that we will change it. And she didn't minimise the struggle, how much courage it would take, the commitment it takes to really fight when you're up against the powers that be and the fact that it is scary. There's also fear that we all have - fear of being shamed. Fear of being rejected. We have fear of being demonized the way she was, but she encourages and inspires us to do that work anyway. As we say in the film, we end with her saying, ‘you do that, you stand up. 

Nanette: You do it anyway because it's worth it. That's right.

Roberta: Thank you, Nanette. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. 

Nanette: No, thank you. 

Roberta: Thank you all and hopefully you will get to see the film and fall in love with Andrea. Thank you very much.