"The Riskiest Thing I Ever Did Was Make a Film About Taxes"

From documenting street kids to interrogating privilege at the dinner table, Justin Schein wrestles with truth and responsibility.

Today we have a guest post by Death & Taxes director, Justin Schein. Death and Taxes opens at the IFC Center July 17th with a wide range of special guests from mayoral candidate Brad Lander to sociologist Chuck Collins - then moving to Los Angeles July 25th and then rolling out nationwide August/September/October. Ticket links here.

You could say that I’m pretty risk averse in most aspects of my life. Rollercoasters make me sick. I refuse to get on a helicopter. I arrive early everywhere— just ask my annoyed children. But when it comes to the films I make, it appears that I have a split personality. I seem to be drawn to telling stories that are less than safe. It is not necessarily the physical danger of documenting rock climbers or snake charmers, but ethical and emotionally fraught stories that I am drawn to and that keep me up at night. And strangely enough, my latest film, which is about a subject that one would think of as the most benign and boring possible—taxes—might be the most fraught of all.

Maybe there is something about being behind the camera that gives me courage, but this pattern started early. My film school thesis documented the homeless teens living in the parking lots and vestibules of my Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco. Who were these kids, where did they come from, and how did they land in the literal gutter? The camera was my passport to explore these questions. Sure, there were some dicey situations in dark alleys with drug dealers and pimps, but the real danger that kept me up at night was moral. How do I tell this story of underaged kids, many of whom had been abused and were now addicted to drugs, without breaking the law….and more importantly without taking advantage of them?

The challenges of that first film, Down on Polk Street, came to a head when I was threatened with jail by the SF Department of Child Welfare for violating the Mann Act, which prohibits the transporting of a minor across state lines for an “immoral purpose.” Needless to say, my thesis advisor wished I had chosen a different subject. Still, I continued to document those kids. In fact, that was just the first of three films I shot about them, and I remain in touch with many of them to this day.

More than a decade later, back in my hometown of New York City, I was filming a profile of an aging anti-war activist who had been one of the original Yippies: the young, irreverent pranksters who led the opposition to the Vietnam war. I wanted to understand how this idealistic and brilliant activist ended up as a shut in, drinking and smoking himself to death. And what did he think about the world today? But those questions, the film, and my whole life were sent spinning when he confessed on camera that he was planning on taking his own life. I realized that if I were to continue making that documentary, I could not stay behind the camera and voyeuristically film his pain. The film needed to be about our relationship and the ethical questions involved. What was my responsibility to him as a film subject—and more importantly, what did I owe him as a friend?

I’m proud of that film, Left on Purpose, which screened around the world and generated many important conversations. And while I have been accused a handful of times of “death by documentary” in contributing to my friend’s death, that criticism has always been levied by those who have yet seen the film. Still, when I had finished making it, I breathed a sigh of relief. No other film could ever be as challenging…I thought.

And then I decided to make a film about taxes.

The impetus was to explore the issue of wealth and its effect on democracy, inspired by my years of arguing with my father about politics and his growing focus on taking advantage of all the legal ways in which the wealthy can reduce their taxes. But when I went out looking to talk to others about their own estates and the ways in which they, like so many people routinely try to avoid taxes, no one wanted to talk. I began to realize that for many wealthy people— good decent people who I knew and liked—talking about their own wealth and privilege was taboo.

Being an obsessive documentarian, I had filmed plenty of footage over decades …in some of which my dad and I debated taxes. And as I looked at his life, I saw that the history of these issues played out in parallel. From his childhood during the Great Depression to his rise as a top CEO to his embrace of “supply side” (aka trickle down) Reaganomics, to his lifelong obsession with reducing his taxes—particularly the estate tax sometimes known as “the death tax”—he story was there.

But the challenges were there too. The difficulty of talking about family and about money. The pitfalls of a rich white guy complaining about his “good fortune.”, but in the great documentary tradition, I had spent my career giving voice to other people’s misfortune, a well-meaning and ethically-minded pursuit. Thus, I felt it was my responsibility to try to tell this story from a personal point of view.

I could never have made Death & Taxes without the wonderful collaborators who had the distance and perspective that I lacked, including my co-director, editors, producers, and other partners. More importantly, I could not have moved forward without the love and support of my family, particularly my mother and brother and my wife.

The film has been well received and I feel good about the journey. Often people will come up to me after a screening and tell me that I am courageous for telling this personal story. In my mind, I wonder if they really mean that I was foolish. But that’s ok. Maybe my next film will be safe and easy.