At 97 years old, filmmaker Michael Roemer is seeing his work at last discovered and embraced.
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Michael Roemer remembers the first time he saw himself in a mirror.
He was already 12 years old.
And suddenly, here I was, in the bathroom.
I looked up, saw myself, and I said, Thats me.
He adds, with a chuckle, Until that moment, I didnt think I was real.
In 2022, The Film Desk also restored and released his long-forgotten 1984 featureVengeance Is Mine.
(Malcolm X was reportedly a fan.)
You might find yourself crying, but you wont find many tears onscreen.
Still, Roemers camera remains close, unswerving, privy to startlingly candid moments.
Kate (Elizabeth Huddle) is alternately bitter, cutting, cavalier, distraught.
Bleak though his films may be, talking to Roemer is a consistently enchanting and enlightening experience.
His spirited fondness for strange stories and his raconteurs ability to conjure a scene are unmatched.
And at the time of our conversation, he informs me hes still hard at work.
How much do you remember of Germany before you left?I was 11 when I left.
My parents were very sad people, so some of that left a mark on me certainly.
I think I was the only child who didnt cry.
I was probably quite numb.
I do remember crossing the border into Holland.
In Holland, we all got on a boat, at a port outside of Rotterdam, I believe.
We crossed to Harwich, on the east coast of England.
It was an overnight trip.
All the children were sitting on the stage.
I remember looking out into the dark auditorium.
It was a big manor house in Kent, in southern England.
On my bed, I could sit up and look through the keyhole into that bathroom.
I never saw anything very revealing, but of course I was curious.
One day, as I looked through the keyhole, I looked into another eye!
It was a little girl with whom I used to play all day.
She was in that other suite, and she was looking through the keyhole as I was.
This girl!And she and I never exchanged one word.This was a boarding school of 120 children.
We all knew each other.
Over the years, we would talk to everybody at one point or another.
But she and I just stayed away from each other.
Its like we knew this secret about the other person.
So, I was very lucky.
I never really knew my father, and I barely knew my mother.
I remember I just decided he was my father.
It was he who showed me how to work.
I was a terrible actor.
Everybody else seemed very good in the rehearsals, but I didnt know what to do.
We did these scenes over and over and over.
I was totally lost.
I was probably 14.
And he said, Well, thats what it should say when you perform inSaint Joan.
I said, I dont know how.
And he looked at me, and he said, Thatshow.
And from then on, I could play the part.
That gift, I think he woke up in me somehow.
It is hard to describe.
I often felt like this person who had never seen himself and who had no identity.
In a funny way, that allows you to become anybody.
Youre not very clearly defined.
I think it goes back to the whole experience of not existing.
It triggers something in you.
Youre either going to go under or youre going to survive.
You have to keep proving that you exist.
I think thats why I tried to paint.
Thats why I wanted to make movies.
It was shown by a political organization at Harvard that raised money for various causes.
But I had no idea how I would go about it.
One day, there was an ad in theCrimsonthat said, Anyone interested in film?
There was no activity on film at all other than these screenings.
So I went to Leavitt House, and there must have been about 50 undergraduates there.
Then came the decision of who was going to direct the movie.
Whos directed a film yet?
And they all agreed!
So thats how I got through.
Its the old Woody Allen joke about how most of life is just showing up.
My life has been just like that.
We went into the city, and we just stopped traffic.
Nobody stopped us from stopping the traffic.
We all looked like children, of course.
How did you get into Harvard in the first place?Oh, another weird story.
My aunt had come to the United States in 1932, and she was a doctor.
She in effect saved all our lives.
So, early in 1945, my sister and I went to the United States.
When I came to Boston, my aunt said, What are you going to do?
I said, I would like to work in theater.
She said, Thats not very realistic.
You better go to college.
I said, Where should I go?
I had never heard of that school.
He sat facing the corner at his desk.
He said, Well, why dont we meet in the Harvard Yard?
Id never even been to Cambridge.
I got there taking a couple of street cars.
He took me into a building.
There was a man behind a desk.
And I was in.
Much later, I found out that that was the Dean of Admissions.
I mean, this is a terrible story in many ways.
Oh, my God.And the man who had introduced me was the secretary of the Boston Harvard Club!
I had no idea where I was.
The United States was totally incognito to me.
It took me years to understand how things worked.
I had no money at all, so I had three jobs during college.
The first day, I was in my dorm room, which was right on the ground floor.
My aunt said to me, Itll take you 20 years to live like this again.
She was absolutely right.
Three meals a day, seven days a week, and you could order seconds.
I came from rationing.
We never saw an egg in England.
At Harvard, I couldnt afford the undergraduate uniform, the three jackets and all that.
People brought me clothes that they didnt want.
It feels like a posthumous thing, like dying and seeing whats happening to your work.
The thing that makes me happiest is the response toVengeance is Mine.
The young people really like it.
When I showed it to my colleagues at Yale, they didnt understand it.
They werent being mean or anything.
And then of courseThe Plot Against Harrywas a complete disaster.
I was convinced that I had made this terrible mistake.
I asked them afterwards, Did you understand it?
And they said, Yeah, sure.
Actually, Im afraidPilgrim, Farewellis the one that people have the most trouble with.
Its more arms length.
We dont want to know the dark side of ourselves, and theres some dark stuff in that film.
But thats one thing about theater or film thats useful.
But people have really hated that film.
Im not looking forward to that screening.
They said, Well, what would you do?
It got harder and harder.
You didnt become immune to it at all.
Because when we go into a room, we can do something, and you cant do anything.
We can pour water or adjust the sheets or help the man up or whatever.
It was the hardest project I ever did.
She said, You dont know how to write.
Thats howPilgrim, Farewellcame about.
It took me a year and a half to write that script.
I wrote it for four people.
Its a chamber piece.
I wrote a lot of it up here in Vermont.
I wanted to have such a small production that they couldnt stop us.
Pilgrim, Farewellis a small cast, but its also a great cast.
And we said, Fine.
He came back, and he was onTaxiimmediately afterwards.
In many ways, it was the happiest, most unusual film crew and production.
People would come and visit the crew, and theyd always say, Can we work with you?
Can we stay here?
But there really was nothing for them to do.
There was just something about that small unit working very intensely in the woods.
It all just happened.
It wasnt that long ago that I came up with that title,One of You.
But its how I feel.
Ive become an American and Im one of many now.
Im no longer part of an elite or part of a special community.
Im just like everybody else.
Thats very important to me.
