Transcript:
CHRISTOPHER BLANK, HOST: Willy Bearden is known around Memphis as a documentary filmmaker and also a contributing voice to this station. His subjects are often matters of local history, but last week, the tornado that devastated Rolling Fork, Mississippi also crossed paths with his own history. Rolling Fork is his hometown. Willy Bearden joins us today. Thanks for being here.
WILLY BEARDEN: Thanks for having me, Christopher.
BLANK: You did, I guess, what any documentary filmmaker would do. You grabbed your camera and you headed down there. What were you thinking as you were en route?
BEARDEN: I'll tell you... On Saturday and Sunday when I was watching the footage on the national media, I didn't know what I was looking at. Everything was just gone. It was an apocalyptic view. The thing that I know is that we live in a time where the what they call the "news cycle" flips about every four or five days and I knew that the national media would be there. I knew was bad enough for that. And I knew they would cover it, but after four or five days, they would be long gone and this would never be spoken of again on the national media. But I have too many friends there. I sold my house there about three years ago. And so, I want to keep their story alive. And I want to follow them over the next months and maybe years in the rebuilding of that place we all love.
BLANK: How would you describe Rolling Fork to someone who has never been there?
BEARDEN: You know, Christopher, I get the opportunity to talk to groups. Friday, I was in Oakland, Tennessee talking at the senior activity center, 12 hours before the tornado hit. But I talked about Rolling Fork. Everywhere I go, I tell them that I'm from Rolling Fork, Mississippi. You know, it's the home of Muddy Waters, where the bluesman Muddy Waters was born. I've kind of spent my career talking about Rolling Fork, so if I can be the proxy and if I can be maybe a conduit through which people make a connection to Rolling Fork, then I've done everything I need to do.
BLANK: When you see that type of devastation and you see what tornadoes can do and sort of the randomness of how it can hit a place, what kind of emotions go through your head?
BEARDEN: It's heartbreaking to see people standing in front of what used to be their house, and I can't tell you how many times I saw that scene the other day in this little town. People
just kind of walking around, trying to find things in the rubble. And it will break your heart to look where your house used to be and there's literally a pile of sticks. I would say that probably 70 percent of the structures in that town are damaged, and probably more than half of those are simply gone.
BLANK: As a member of the media, sometimes when you show up after a tragedy people don't want to talk to you, especially when you're holding a microphone or a camera. As a documentary filmmaker — somebody who is also a member of the media, just with a different job — do you feel that you might be intruding on these people's lives?
BEARDEN: Yeah.
BLANK: Do you worry about that?
BEARDEN: That was the real concern of mine. I didn't want to just, you know, "Okay here's Willy blowing in from Memphis." You know, I'm a 72- year-old man, and I can't go down there and drive a track hoe and I can't go down and pull two by fours out and do things like that. So I was thinking what can I do? What I could do is give those people's story the dignity that it deserves. And a couple of people, I said, "Hey, do you want to tell me what was going on?" They said, "No, I really can't talk about it." You know what? That's just fine. But other people and most people were going, "Hey Willy, how are you?" And I would say, tell me what happened, and so people were so willing to come in and talk about what happened.
BLANK: What role does a documentary filmmaker have or can play that maybe a reporter or somebody in the mainstream media can't do?
BEARDEN: I have the luxury of time. I will keep going down there if it takes a year or two, or whatever, because it's gonna take a long, long time.
BLANK: What do you think is the long-term story to be told of Rolling Fork?
BEARDEN: You know, I was talking to a friend of mine when I was down there on Monday. And he's the County Attorney. He said I'm thinking we're going to be able to build back even better. Probably 35 percent of the people down there live below the poverty line. There's a lot of poverty. But if you have the full weight of the government coming in and building people good housing — you know, reasonable housing — and that's what I think everybody down there believes. If they're given a chance, then this place could thrive. I'm hoping for a great outcome. And, if nothing else, I want this film to be in the Mississippi State Archives, in the Memphis Room at the Public Library where most of my stuff lives and will live. Because somebody in 50 years, I want them to be able to understand what this story was.
BLANK: Willy Bearden is a documentary filmmaker in Memphis whose hometown Rolling Fork, Mississippi was hit by a tornado last week. Thank you for joining us.
BEARDEN: Thanks for having me.
