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  A Candid Conversation with the People Who Made 'Twist of Faith'

By Christopher Borrelli
Toledo Blade [Utah]
June 26, 2005

PARK CITY, Utah — "I can't let anyone know I am going through this right now." Filmmakers Kirby Dick and Eddie Schmidt heard that a lot. When they first came to Toledo in 2002, they had decided to make a documentary about the sexual abuse allegations in Catholic dioceses around the country — initially in Boston and eventually, Toledo.

With the backing from HBO and a heralded track record as documentarians, they first met with a number of survivors in northwest Ohio. The response was receptive, they say, but hesitant.

Then abuse victim Tony Comes came forward, and they had the sort of story (first reported in The Blade) that any decent screenwriter would consider shamelessly contrived — if it weren't true. Comes, a Toledo firefighter, filed a lawsuit against the Toledo Catholic Diocese alleging that former priest Dennis Gray sexually abused him repeatedly in the early '80s.

What helped prompt the suit was, incredibly, the fact that Comes and his wife Wendy had moved into a neighborhood where Gray happened to live.

Dick and Schmidt shot in Toledo for two years; and when they weren't here, they gave cameras to Tony and Wendy and asked them to record their lives. The result is Twist of Faith, an HBO documentary about Comes and his lawsuit.

The following are portions of a conversation with Tony and Wendy Comes, along with Schmidt and Dick, from the Sundance Film Festival, where the film premiered. We talked over breakfast, and the next day, Twist of Faith was nominated for a best documentary Academy Award (but lost to Born into Brothels).

How did the film start?

Dick: The Boston Globe stories on it got us interested and thinking of what the stories might be behind those stories. There were so many facts and figures out but there weren't a lot of survivors telling their stories at that time, not in the news reports coming out. In a meeting at HBO with Sheila Nevins [the executive producer, as well as network's president of documentary and family programming], she proposed to us that we make a film on the subject. Eddie grew up Catholic. I didn't. But we were both interested and dove straight into it.

You've said before that until you made 'Twist of Faith' you weren't aware of quite how much a community can be bound together by its religion.

Dick: Well, again, I grew up Protestant. But it's much looser, especially liberal Protestant. There actually is a very tight community, but it's not about schools and things like that. I had positive feelings about Catholicism but wasn't aware of it much until meeting with Tony and Wendy and seeing how important it was to them. Meeting with Tony's mother was when I finally saw how religion is the fabric of the community and holds it together. There is a social responsibility involved, and it takes care of its members.

Wendy, I assume one of the things you guys discussed before doing this was that, here is this permanent record of our lives during a very tough period and the world will be seeing it.

Wendy: It was a hard decision. But before Kirby and Eddie came to talk to us, loads of our conversations were about our fears [of going public] anyway. But we also had so much support we felt people would be compassionate about the story and understand better if we did it. The primary reason was to help other victims out there and stop it from happening again.

But still, did you find the cameras intrusive at first?

Wendy: Obviously. But really, when the story broke in Boston, that's when it started to feel hard. Things were very difficult before they got there. But first, it was very odd. You go through your everyday life, and you have struggles, and even the good times with our kids - to have a camera on was difficult. I think when it started to get easier for me was when Tony started to use the film as his outlet for talking about his concerns with people judging him. That's when I started to see this differently.

Tony, was there anything you wouldn't film? Anything you shot and erased?

Tony: There are aspects of my life that will remain quiet. Different emotional issues. Questions a psychologist might ask. I won't go into those. Certain things are private. My job is to help people, not to set myself up to be a target for things that I am uncomfortable getting into. My son will not pay for the sins of his father.

Kirby and Eddie, did you explain to them how to use a camera? Give tips?

Schmidt: Well, the cameras were very easy to use. And the cameras were small, too. Really, we just showed Tony and Wendy how to load a tape and turn it on. We explained basic things like turn your televisions off and turn all your radios down. The sound can get muddled if you don't.

Nothing else?

Schmidt: We didn't really get into how to compose a frame or anything. The idea is that someone should feel comfortable talking into the camera. If you tell them to compose the shot in a certain visual way, that will get in the way of them being comfortable. Besides, however someone chooses to set up a shot is reflective of that moment. If they're not self-conscious, you feel like you're getting something extra. You feel like you're in the room. If it's not perfectly framed and the lighting isn't perfect, that lends an intimacy. You'll see this technique on reality TV, but it's clearly shot by a crew person and intentional. It's not the same.

Dick: We encouraged them to shoot whatever they wanted, not only the times that are most reflective but the good times when they're just having fun. You want to get a whole picture of a life.

Schmidt: For example, at the end of the day, if you're ready to go to bed and thinking about something, turn on the camera and get that something off your chest for 15 minutes. That's a good time to do it. Like Kirby said, we want them to film as much as possible. That way, we can see your world through your eyes, but also when the camera is turned around and facing you, we can see you in your world.

Tony, when you started filming, I'm curious if you were influenced by reality TV, if certain cliches seemed inevitable or if you ever looked at how other people had been filmed.

Tony: Two or three years ago when we started, reality TV was blowing up. So yeah, at first I did see this in those terms a bit. But mostly, I thought I could talk for 20 minutes and they would just use 10 seconds. That sort of thing. So it was a big leap for me to do it. But once we started I didn't think of it as reality TV in the sense of how we think of reality TV - a lot of reality TV is not reality. But this is.

How did your friends and family react to the cameras?

Tony: Some were very receptive. Others of my family members said we support and love you, but we are not comfortable being on camera. Now I see it as one of the greatest aspects of my family's acceptance of all this. I did this for my and my wife's reasons. My family chose to do it for their own reasons. Those who participated and those who didn't - I don't walk in their shoes. But it was hard at first.

There's a scene in which you have a big argument with your mother. She wants you to drop all of it. You can't believe she would still put money in the collection basket on Sunday. Did you have a falling out with her?

Tony: The thing about my mom and I was that growing up there were no secrets. Fights were commonplace. We were good at working things out by arguing or yelling, but we understood things as a family. She is my mom. I might not agree with what she tells me. You say, "falling-out." We came instead to a kind of acceptance: "These are your beliefs. I am not asking you to choose between your beliefs and mine. I just want you to listen." We had a hundred conversations like the one in the film.

Maybe the most striking scene features you walking alone at night in the snow, standing in front of Gray's house.

Tony: I had not slept that night. One of the results of all this is I don't sleep well. I am afraid to go to sleep. Twenty years ago I woke up and something was happening to me, and it happened to me a number of times. That is the one part of this I am unable to overcome. We moved in the beginning of summer. That scene is wintertime.

As usual, it's the middle of the night and I am staring at the walls. I wanted people to be able to see that. It's not like this guy lives in Perrysburg, miles away. He's right there, and all the anger and shame and betrayal and hatred, and, honestly, moments of fantasy, of going and rectifying this myself - five houses away! I wanted to show it in that light. It was so peaceful and quiet, and this is my new neighborhood with fresh snow, and five houses away, the man I fear the most lives. And I am expected to be able to be asleep, and I am not.

You had gone to his house once before any of this.

Tony: Three days after we moved in. My brother-in-law asked me to help install a counter top at his house. In my typical fashion, I was late. As I was pulling around the corner, there was a guy cutting grass. It must have been 90 degrees. My dad would have rolled down his window and said, "You picked the wrong day to cut grass" and then, "Hey, I'm your new neighbor!" Since I had cut phone service to 50 people in the neighborhood the previous day while putting in a fence [the table erupts in laughter], I thought "What else I can do?" I rolled down my window.

He turned around and I saw him and … I can't find the right word. When my brother-in-law and I met up I told him, "I think I just saw a ghost." I said, "I want you to be with me when I drive back by again - in case I do anything irrational." We drove by and I told him to stop the truck and stay, unless I get into a physical altercation. I approached Denny and he shut the motor off and gave me the "Holy Smoke, Tony Comes! Glad to see you!" I said, "Denny, do you live here?" He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Do you live here or are you just cutting the grass?" He says, "Why?" I say, "Because I just bought the house five houses away from you." He began to back away. My hands were shaking. He fell down on his rear end and said, "Tony, I am so sorry." I said, "Stay away from me, stay away from my children." And then I told him, "I die every day for what you did to me."

Kirby and Eddie, is it ever an issue about how a place comes off? Do you discuss if Toledo comes off accurately? Since not many movies are shot in Toledo, I can already hear the complaints: "They didn't shoot this neighborhood, the museum …"

Schmidt: I'm sure some people will complain. The thing is when you follow's people's lives, you follow what they do, and what they do in their daily lives is not necessarily what the tourist bureau would hope. They live there, so they are not necessarily going to pass by landmarks. We make our films very organically. There aren't many opportunities for that sort of stuff to come up.

Tony: I think Toledo was portrayed very well as a very blue-collar town. But I don't think skipping through the park would fit the mood of the film, either. Some of the brick-and-mortar city attitude fits the film and the reality of what Toledo is. Until recently, downtown was just a ghost town. It's accurate to the degree that it provided a foundation for the film and my overall mood during that time.

Are you concerned with how the film will be greeted when it finally plays in Toledo?

Tony: I think I would be lying if I said I wasn't concerned. I'm human. But along those same lines, if I hadn't been in this suit, none of this would have happened. For 20-something years, even when I had every right to be proud and euphoric, even at the birth of my children, even when I got married, got on the fire department - there has always been a hole. That's because I've always felt guilty about being proud of something I've done. But after yesterday's screening, after that first one, if someone doesn't like it, that's their opinion. The opinion that matters for the first time in 24 years is mine.

It's what I think of myself.