Get On the Bus!

From counterculture chronicler to advocate for social change, Ron Mann is a documentary-maker whose films are engaging, thought-provoking and eminently watchable. He discusses his work to date and latest film, Go Further, with Ross Whittaker.

Ron Mann's new documentary feature, Go Further, received its first Irish screening at the recent Convergence Sustainable Living Festival in Dublin. Go Further follows Woody Harrelson and his 'Merry Hempsters' as they undertake a 2,000-kilometre road trip from Seattle to Los Angeles on a bio-fuelled bus to spread the message of sustainable organic living.

The goal of the trip, and of the film, is to show people that there are viable alternatives to the environmentally destructive habits that many of us have. Harrelson and his troop travelled to university campuses along the Pacific Highway giving large-scale yoga classes and seminars on sustainable living. Mann's film focuses on one of the travellers, Steve Clarke, who converts from junk food addict and smoker to vegan and environmental activist in the course of the road trip.

Ron Mann has always been a counter-culture chronicler, an award-winning filmmaker who has looked outside the mainstream for subjects that will entertain and enlighten audiences and encourage us to look at the world in a different way. Inspired by the work of his mentor, political documentary filmmaker Emile De Antonio, Mann's early films - Imagine the Sound, Poetry in Motion, Comic Book Confidential and Twist - set out to map cultural movements and hidden histories that were in danger of dismissal and disappearance during the Reagan era.

His 1999 film Grass, marked a new departure into activism for Mann. It has been his most successful film to date and it has become a cult movie in North America, persuading many people to change their view on marijuana prohibition. Like Grass, Go Further has the power to open audience's eyes, this time about health and the environment. As he did in Grass, Mann uses his sense of humour to engage the audience and, while the message is a serious one, the film sure is fun to watch. I met up with Mann in his home city of Toronto.

RW: What inspired you to become a documentary filmmaker?

RM: The inspiration for me was Emile De Antonio, a political documentary-maker who made Millhouse, Year of the Pig and Point of Order. I saw those films and was inspired. He was making films of his time; if you look at all of De Antonio's work it was the history of the Cold War from McCarthy to the fall of the Berlin wall. He was fiercely independent, and he was someone who had a different aesthetic from Hollywood. He called this aesthetic 'brute', because he felt that everything could be as slick as a beer commercial and his energy came from his style. I suppose what I admired most was his humour, because he was one of the first filmmakers who used humour to open people up to ideas. As we became friends he taught me important things in life; like how to drink and how to gamble and how to believe in my own voice. He was my mentor and made me want to make movies.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 98