Category: News || By

Editor's Note: This story was edited after publication.

. . .

The trailer for a still-unseen documentary about McKeesport asks whether the city can "rise from the ashes."

Now the producer and director are embroiled in a nasty dispute, and it's not clear when the project itself will rise from the ashes.

Director Mike Wilson told the Almanac this week that producer Jim Hubbard seized control of the film, and pressured him to slant the movie to suit his own conservative ideology.

But Hubbard says the footage that Wilson shot last year was "terrible," and that's why he and Art Rupe, who's financing the film project, fired the director.

Rupe, a McKeesport High School graduate who now lives in Santa Monica, Calif., is a millionaire philanthropist and the founder of Specialty Records.

"Clearly if I felt we had a good film there, I wouldn't have fired him," Hubbard says. "At the end of the day, it's my film, not Mike's."

. . .

Wilson is the second director fired from the project. The first, Sarah Whalen, has since become a supervising producer on the History Channel television series "Ax Men."

"Art seemed to indicate to me that this was Jim's decision, and Jim indicated that it was Art's decision," Wilson says. He bristles at Hubbard's accusation that the footage shot in McKeesport was sub-par.

"It had nothing to do with the (quality) of stuff we were creating," Wilson says. "The cut that I turned in was the film that I felt needed to be made."

Wilson, a Missouri native who now lives in Minnesota, first came to prominence for the 2004 film Michael Moore Hates America.

Shot in the same cheeky, irreverent style that characterized Moore's controversial movies like Bowling for Columbine, it pointed out inaccuracies in Moore's films and asked whether he betrayed the principles of documentary filmmaking. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, including Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and Robert Koehler of Variety.

Michael Moore Hates America was one of the featured selections in the first "American Film Renaissance" film festival, which was organized by Hubbard and his wife as a conservative alternative to what they viewed as left-wing bias in Hollywood feature films.

. . .

Although much of Rupe's philanthropy has been non-partisan, he has also supported organizations like the Young Americas Foundation, which calls itself "the principal outreach organization of the Conservative Movement," and the Media Research Center, which is an opponent of what it calls "strident liberal bias" in the media.

Wilson says "his gut" tells him that Hubbard and Rupe want to make a film that blames Democrats and trade unions for McKeesport's decline.

"Look, I'm a libertarian and a capitalist, but I tried to be fair," Wilson says. Throughout the film, he says, he juxtaposed stories about government programs with comments from people such as Jerry Bowyer, a conservative author and commentator from Elizabeth Township, who says local and federal officials have turned McKeesport into "a welfare state."

"Then I talked to (Mayor) Jim Brewster, who told me (the government) has to tear down (abandoned) houses, for instance, because who's going to want to invest money and move into a neighborhood with abandoned houses?" Wilson says.

"I was in love with the story, and I was in love with what I thought we were going to create," he says. "The worst part about this is to have it stripped away --- for really nefarious purposes ... I just hope people know that this isn't us, and it isn't right."

. . .

Allegations that political bias motivated Hubbard and Rupe to remove Wilson from the project are untrue, Hubbard says.*

"Clearly we had some creative differences with Mike," he says. "What we want to do with the film is pursue the truth ... We don't have an axe to grind here."

The film is solely motivated by Rupe's desire to find out why the Mon Valley's economy collapsed in the 1980s, Hubbard says.

"Art just wants to help the town he grew up in," he says. Rupe has donated tens of thousands of dollars to charities in the McKeesport area, including the Consortium for Public Education.

. . .

Yet privately, several people who met with Rupe and Hubbard last year to discuss the film have told the Almanac that they were concerned by remarks made by both men.

One person says he warned other prominent local residents to be careful when dealing with the film crew. This source says he was worried that the film was going to do a "hatchet job" on the city.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I met with Rupe and Hubbard last year, and declined to participate in the project because of similar concerns, which I wrote about on two occasions, here and here.)

Hubbard denies that he or Rupe pressured either Sarah Whalen or Mike Wilson to slant their work.

"Did the unions have some culpability?" Hubbard says. "Maybe they did. But it's so much more complicated than that."

. . .

Since his earliest discussions with McKeesporters about the project, Hubbard says, his opinions have changed and evolved.

"Look, there was a time in this country when most people were involved in agriculture," he says. "Economies change, and there are new competitors, new players.

"At the end of the day, we have to be fair with the film. If we're not, we're going to be shredded alive ... with our first two directors I just don't think there was the level of quality we wanted with this film, and that's the bottom line."

Wilson notes that Hubbard has no experience in the movie industry beyond organizing the film festival, and questions whether he's qualified to evaluate the footage.

. . .

Wilson also worries that Hubbard and Rupe might betray McKeesporters who have cooperated with the film crew so far.

"We'll do whatever we have to in order to preserve the integrity of what we did while we were in McKeesport, and make sure that the people we came to know and love there aren't damaged by any of this," Wilson says. "We had a really good relationship because they trusted us and he's violating this trust."

Hubbard says he has no intention of sabotaging the city for political gain --- he just wants to tell the city's story.

"Look, we did consult with documentarians in your area, quite frankly from all political persuasions," he says. "I'm not saying we want to go and softball things but we want an accurate portrayal and we want it to be artistically solid."

. . .

A search for a new director is underway, Hubbard says, and filming will probably resume next year. It's unlikely that any of Wilson's footage will be used, he says.

"I wish Mike the best, and I hope he has a successful career," Hubbard says. "It wasn't anything personal with Mike."

According to reports on various websites, Wilson is presently working on a documentary about boxing.

Though he declined to talk about his current project, Wilson hopes McKeesporters will understand why the film he shot in the city might never be seen.

"The people who know about this project know what we were trying to do and that's what we were contracted to do," Wilson says.

. . .
* --- Editor's Note: This story was edited on Aug. 18, after publication, to clarify one of the points made by Hubbard.