“Bullying is not black and white. A lot of people, including myself, have been on both sides,” explained Jay Rosenblatt, director of the Oscar-nominated short documentary When We Were Bullies, an autobiographical journey of guilt and contrition in which Rosenblatt reminisces about an incident of bullying that occurred decades ago while he was in fifth grade. He was not the victim, but one of the many perpetrators.
“In this particular instance, the whole class was part of it. Some people were more involved but we all watched and we all took part in it on some level,” said Rosenblatt who used delightful stop-motion animation, archive materials, and interviews with former classmates and teacher (now in her nineties), to take a cinematographic trip down memory lane to try to shine a light on the bullying episode.
The film took four years to make, but the final product was worth the wait. After screening at prestigious film festivals such as Sundance and Telluride, When We Were Bullies was nominated for the 2022 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. Before the big night and the short’s premiere on HBO Max on March 30, I spoke with Jay Rosenblatt about complicity in bullying, the role of vulnerability, the animation workflow, the difficulties of creating short films, and the Academy’s controversial decision to exclude the live presentation of short categories from the live broadcast.
Film Cred: What was the workflow like with Jeremy Rourke to create the animation? Was that something you had in mind before contacting him? It’s gorgeous and gives the film a unique identity.
Jay Rosenblatt: The animation is one of the strengths of the film. It’s stop motion analog animation, it’s all frame by frame, it’s not computer animation which, to me, makes it even more amazing because of the kind of time and energy that goes into that.
I knew Jeremy because he used to teach at my daughter’s after-school while she was growing up, and then he gave her some guitar lessons. One day, I found out that he made little short animations. It was similar in style to what you’re seeing [in When We Were Bullies] but a lot of it is cut-out animation using old photos. He writes his own music and sings the scores to his films. They are these delightful short little beauties. So, when I was starting this film, I contacted him and invited him to collaborate. He was very open to it. He does different styles of animation, so he gave me some other options, like line-drawing animation and rotoscope animation. They were good but at some point, it hit me that we should really try to stick to the class photo. Let’s keep that as our limit and that will force more creativity. And that’s exactly what happened.
We would go back and forth in terms of our workflow. I gave him free rein to come up with what he would do on his own and so many times he just surprised me in the best possible way. It was a lot of back and forth. I would say we worked together for two and a half years. The entire film took about 4 years. It’s very time-consuming the kind of animation he does, so I would meet with him and two months later I would get a couple of shots because he had other work to do also. It was a long process, but it was the best collaboration I’ve ever had in my filmmaker career.
FC: During the film, you mention that “you can’t stand the sound of your own voice” or at least you did many years ago, so how did you convince yourself to do the voiceover? Did time help you overcome that?
JR: Time did help for sure. I was making The Smell of Burning Ants when I felt that way, but I’ve made a lot more films since then, and I have used my voice a couple of times. There was no question I was going to use my voice in this film because it’s first-person, it’s very personal and I’m in the film so I might as well use my voice as the narrator. At one point I thought “should I use Richard’s voice again?” but I decided not to do that. My filmmaker friend Caveh Zahedi directed my delivery and helped a lot with bringing more emotion into it. I’m actually happy how that turned out. I probably wouldn’t have been 25 years ago, but I’m over that for the most part.
FC: Can you tell me a little about Erik Ian Walker’s score for the film? I think it’s key to strike a perfect light tone for a serious issue. It’s a playful score, but it is also mysterious and suggests that there’s something serious hiding in the plot.
JR: Erik did an amazing job. I’ve worked with him and my narrator Richard in other films too, so I kind of know his style of working. I would say “this is what I want for this” and he would come up with something wonderful like whenever Richard and I appear on the screen, there’s this bouncy music of two buddies being together. I loved that. It does help with the tone of the film which was one of the biggest challenges. I think Jeremy’s animation added to the playful tone because he does fun things with those photos and then Erik’s music at times is playful and at times is more serious and I think that helps with that fine line that I was walking. It is a serious subject and I didn’t want to make light of it at all. At the same time, I didn’t want the film to be heavy. It’s fifth grade and I’m doing things like climbing a fence gate which is kind of comedic, so I had to balance that. So the music does help in that aspect.
FC: During the film, you reflect on the hypothesis/question “Are we hardwired to pick on vulnerability” Do you still think so? If so, do you think you became a bully as a method of self-protection because you felt vulnerable during that time?
JR: I do think we are hardwired to pick on vulnerability, I think it’s kind of a survival skill, but I also think that when we do that we’re really keying into our lower self — our more reptilian self. And I think we also have a higher self, all of us. My hope is that we can enter our higher self more often than we enter our lower self. I think part of the complicity is that it is self-protection, part of that mob mentality is that if you don’t join it in some way then you could be next. I think that happens a lot, especially at that age. The bullying complicit dynamic is happening right in front of our eyes now on the world stage, right? We’re seeing what’s happening when a fascistic bully just decides to commit atrocities on people that are not looking for that at all.
This specific incident happened way back when we were young and I was vulnerable at that point in my life with my brother dying the year before. But bullying is not black and white. A lot of people, including myself, have been on both sides. And, in this particular instance, the whole class was part of it. Some people were more involved but we all watched and we all took part in it on some level. I was bullied as a kid too, but that was an incident where I was the bully, the collaborator… A lot of people I’ve talked to said the same thing, that they’ve been on both sides. It’s very easy to think of bullying as black and white but it’s not.
FC: The film has gotten many raving reviews, so I was surprised when I logged into Letterboxd and saw people passionately hating the film, saying that it’s malignant and you were trying to clear your conscience. The hate seems to stem from the choice of not interviewing Dick. What do you think of this response? Why did you think people saw this as if you were painting yourself as the victim?
JR: One thing I learned is to not go to Letterboxd. I hadn’t even heard of it. There’s been a few emails I’ve received that have been negative, not a lot, mostly positive. You can’t control how people respond, I don’t think it’s malignant. I do say in the film that perhaps I’m doing this because of my guilt. I acknowledge that, so to me a lot of these comments are coming from people that are not really watching the film carefully and not really letting it go in, they are just having a very quick response, not a thoughtful response. I like when people are passionate about it, of course, I like when they are passionate in a positive way, but even if it’s negative it means that something got into them.
It wasn’t an easy decision to not interview Dick, and I say that in the film. I thought I would do the interview but while making the film I realized that I didn’t know how he would feel about it, and didn’t want to bring him into it. Look, if he contacts me, I will be happy to talk to him. I didn’t feel like the film was really about him and I didn’t want that to be the focus. It also felt that, by not showing him and keeping him anonymous, not only was I being respectful of his privacy but I also made the film more universal where people could put their own person, or themselves, into that space. I stand behind the decision.
FC: How is the world of short films at the moment? Are there more opportunities for unconventional stories? Are short films harder to distribute than features?
JR: I think they are harder for the most part. I think the only advantage of short films is that they are short and don’t require the same commitment from the viewer. They’re harder. When We Were Bullies is unconventional in its whole approach and those are particularly harder. It didn’t even have any distribution until two weeks ago, I’ve been doing this all myself. You can’t make a living doing this, I have a full-time day job. I’ve had to have a day job for my entire film career. So I make films whenever I can find time.
FC: What do you think about the Academy’s controversial decision to not present live eight categories, including Best Documentary Short?
JR: Nobody in those categories is happy about this. I’m glad that they are going to cut the speeches into the live show but our particular parts will not be live, people will already know the results and that takes away the thrill of the Academy Awards. I understand from their point of view why they feel they need to do this but I don’t think they are going to save a whole lot of time, and I think it’s going to take away a little drama off the show. To me, it’s better to have drama throughout the show than to have a shorter show. Selfishly it’s too bad that it started this year, but what can you do? I’m still very honored and I feel very privileged to be in this situation. It’s hard to complain when you get nominated, but obviously, it’s not great that they’re doing this.
When We Were Bullies will be available to stream on HBO Max starting Wednesday March 30 at 9 PM ET/PT. You can find out if Jay Rosenblatt takes home the 2022 Best Documentary Short Oscar on March 27.
