Interview: Ricki Stern Talks About Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing and How Filming It Helped Her Discover The Strength Of The Human Spirit

It’s a moment in time where you all remember where you were when it happened and what you were doing. Or you know someone who was affected by the event. The event is the Boston Marathon Bombing.

Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing follows the tragedy of the Boston bombing, and its aftermath. The documentary which was submitted to content for Best Documentary this year follows the sentencing of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The documentary uses surveillance footage, news clips, home movies, and interviews with first responders, reporters, investigators and the survivors. Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg are the leading forces behind the documentary that airs later this month on HBO.

I recently caught up with Stern who was in Savannah, Georgia where she was about to show the film and talked about resilience of the human spirit and the process of filming Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing.

AD: What drew you to telling this story?

RS: Annie and I had a meeting at HBO, we were talking about terrorism, and this was back in March 2015, so we hadn’t had all these recent domestic attacks. The Boston Marathon trial was going on as we were having these meetings. It really grew out of this conversation that we noticed that it wasn’t front page news and in the aftermath of these attacks, we don’t hear much post the media blitz of the attack, about the survivors and victims.
It became an exploration about what has happened to all these people. What is it like for a family in the aftermath in this kind of attack?
We started to research and it’s not simple. It impacts families, and friends, and relatives, and cities. It doesn’t go away. Even if you think about the more recent attacks in San Bernardino, Orlando, and Turkey, these attacks have such reverberating circles of impact. It’s not just on the immediate circle of people that experienced it, but it impacts everyone around them and extends out.

AD: One thing that’s powerful is the amount of news footage that you show in the documentary. How did you manage to obtain that?

RS: We collected it. A lot of it was found in pieces online where people had posted phone calls and phone videos, and as we’re doing our research, we joined the Boston Globe. Not only were they local and reputable, they had stuck around and had really dug into some of the survivor stories.
John Tlumacki had photographs and videos of the Corcoran family that we otherwise would not have been able to get. We weren’t there right after. We had two years of documentation of their story, and we were able to document the third year.
As we got into the other families, we had to ask if there was any footage of the early recovery and that we were going to be following them now, but we wanted people to understand all the steps and the process of recovery.

AD: How did your vision change throughout the production process? You’re making this and getting great footage, speaking to the survivors?

RS: The more we lived with it and filmed, the more it took shape.When you watch it now, it seems so obvious the way it moves back and forth in time, and how we frame their personal stories against the capture and the trial of the bomber.
It was really obvious though. What was in front of us, was this event that so many people had such a personal relationship to the Boston Marathon bombing. All you had to do was ask a room of five people and one of them was there, had been to the marathon, and it really had impacted so many people that it was important for us to try to figure out how to tell this story.
The story evolved. One of the first shoots we went on was with Celeste Corcoran when she got her swim legs. That came from a two-hour phone conversation with her on a Sunday night and at the end of it she said, “You know what, I’m going to get these swim legs next Wednesday, would that be something?” I said to myself, let’s just dive right on in and do this because you had no idea where to start because it’s so massive.

AD: Was it easy to get them to open up?

RS: I think what Annie and I bring to our films is this intimate character portrayal that comes from spending a lot of time with the people we’re telling the story about. It’s a lot of phone calls, a lot of meals without cameras, really getting to know them. I’m with the Corcoran’s right now, and it’s about getting to know the dad, and the daughter, and the son. I’m getting to know their family dynamic and connecting with them all in different ways.

I think what they would say is they felt that because we spent so much time with them, it was different from any news piece that they had done, and there was a trust.

It’s a slow process of opening up to be honest with you, and you always worry that people will be afraid to show who they are, but in over time you do. In Kevin’s case, he was struggling with drinking, and it was something that I filmed, and I waited until later, as we were editing to know whether it was even important, and it was important.
It became a conversation for Tyler to talk about, and even Kevin to talk about.

AD: Well, one of the takeaways, and you say it, is that it gives you an idea of their resilience and their courage.

RS: We won the audience award. We only just finished a month ago, and Savannah was our second screening.
I think it’s exactly what you said. I don’t think we ever go in saying, “I hope the audience reacts this way.” However, they do react to what you said, it is a film where the human spirit, the resilience, and the perseverance is strong, and that’s what it’s about. In many ways, it’s also tragic too. You feel moved at the end, and the sense of the human spirit is strong, you see what they’ve been up against, you see how the community of Boston came together, and it’s so powerful to have witnessed that.

AD: What did you personally take away from it?

RS: I was in Paris at the time of the attack, and that brought it home for me. Terrorism is something we all face and it’s not just the USA, it’s a global issue. What has been incredibly moving is seeing how the communities come together, and that is very motivating. I experienced it in Paris, and just being there. I was asked, “Aren’t you afraid?” I said, “I’m not afraid, I live in New York City, and I take the subway on a daily basis.” I think it’s important to show a collective strength and show that we aren’t going to be intimidated, and we’re not going to be cowed by these random violent acts.

AD: With all that footage, how did you know that this was how you were going to end it?

RS: [laughs] Oh my, that’s a good question. My husband would say, “Ricki, you can’t film every event.” I would joke about going to Boston for birthdays. In this case, there was so much footage, and it was about editing it down early. We started shooting in May, and started with our editor in November, and finished in June. We brought the editor in early, so we could put cards up, and figure out how we’d tell the big story, and the news story, and how to balance that with the survivor story. It took a while to figure out that balance. At first, we weren’t telling things chronologically, and time jumping. Then we realized people needed to connect with the story.
Ultimately, when we heard that Patrick was going to run the marathon, and we loaded up cameras, all our survivors were there, so many people were there, and we knew that was going to be the end. It was also where all the stories were where we felt we understood where they were in their individual journeys even though it goes on.
Jessica, for example, is having an operation, and so it was important to show that it wasn’t all peaches and cream at the end and that people understood that she is still having to go through physical and emotional journeys.

We definitely wrestled with how much of the actual bombing to show. One of the first pieces we watched was on You Tube and posted by the Boston Globe was 22 minutes of uncut footage of the event. Your body just went numb with the rawness of it. It was something we all looked at, we don’t see this. The news cuts away after a few seconds, and we didn’t want it to feel exploitative, but early on, we confronted it with the survivors, but they wanted to show and know what it looks like to be blown up by a bomb because they have lived it. It was important to not do re-enactments and not glorify it. But it was important in the film to show what had happened to these people.