“There Were Many Fragmented Aspects to Sara Jane’s Testimony”: Robinson Devor on “Suburban Fury”

Robinson Devor’s Suburban Fury, made in collaboration with writer Charles Mudede (who also co-wrote Devor’s 2005 acclaimed narrative feature Police Beat and 2007’s provocatively disturbing Zoo), is as counterintuitively intense as its title might imply. The unconventionally riveting doc takes us on a wild and winding (car) ride back in time, via the backseat reminisces of its enigmatic star Sara Jane Moore, who in September 1975 tried to shoot President Gerald Ford outside San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel. Eschewing recreations for cinematically staged interviews with the infamous nonagenarian (who passed away in September at age 95), along with evocative archival footage from the era, the film attempts to solve the riddle of how and why a social-climbing housewife became an FBI informant, radical leftist and eventual would-be assassin. And even more thrillingly, leaves us with more questions than answers as the stranger-than-fiction journey ultimately becomes the destination itself. A few days prior to the December 5th theatrical release of Suburban Fury, Filmmaker caught up with the Seattle-based director, whose Zoo made our 2009 list of “Top 25 Indie Films of The Decade.”

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.