RBG: The Iconic American Supreme Court Justice

Factual America

6 Oct

Written By

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September 18, 2020. She had a long and illustrious career as an advocate for gender equality, a jurist and most famously as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court.

Joining us to pay tribute to this true American icon is Julie Cohen, together with Betsy West, the co-director and co-producer of RBG.

RBG is a documentary that beautifully captures the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The film itself premiered in 2018 at the Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for an Academy Award, and is one of the top grossing documentaries of all time.

We caught up with Julie from her home in Brooklyn as we revisit her work on RBG and her memories of this powerful woman.

“Justice Ginsburg was a very intimidating woman. Tiny, though she might had been, and with her quiet little voice, she just had this whole force and this penetrating stare - everything about her was quite intimidating.” - Julie Cohen

Time Stamps:

3:13 - Introducing our guest Julie Cohen and the reason we are revisiting RBG.
5:48 - Where people can see RBG in 2020.
7:24 - Julie’s memories of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
10:58 - Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s humble background.
12:33 - What it was like for women in the 1950s and 1960s.
16:56 - Why RBG had to transfer to Columbia to complete her law studies.
19:49 - How RBG’s workday looked like and how much she slept.
22:17 - RBG as a leading figure behind the women’s rights movement and gender equality.
25:11 - RBG’s strategic thinking in choosing and building cases and case law.
29:40 - Where Julie got audio recordings and transcripts of case materials for the documentary.
32:30 - How RGB became Supreme Court Justice.
37:00 - The role of activists for civil rights, disability rights, women’s rights, etc.
38:38 - The story of Justice O’Connor, the first women on the Supreme Court.
42:40 - Why Justice Ginsberg didn’t retire during Barack Obama’s presidency.
48:15 - How RBG became such a media and cultural celebrity.
55:00 - What legacy Julie would like to leave with the RBG documentary.
57:14 - Discussing Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett as Supreme Court Justice.
1:00:55 - Where the idea for the RBG documentary came from.
1:05:40 - What success RBG the film achieved and how it changed Julie’s career.
1:08:33 - What Julie’s next projects are.

Resources:

RBG (2018)
Oyez - Multimedia Supreme Court Archive
Crip Camp: Cradle of the Disability Rights Movement
Alamo Pictures
This is Distorted

Transcript for Factual America Episode 31 - RBG: The Iconic American Supreme Court Justice

Julie Cohen 0:00
Hi, I'm Julie Cohen and I'm one of the director producers of the documentary RBG, as well as a documentary filmmaker on a host of other films.

RBG 0:09
I asked no favor for my sex. All I asked of our brethren, is that they take their feet off our necks.

Speaker 1 0:26
We welcome today, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Speaker 3 0:31
She's become such an icon.

Speaker 4 0:33
Would you mind signing this copy?

RBG 0:34
I am 84 years old and everyone wants to take a picture with me.

Speaker 5 0:38
Notorious RBG.

Speaker 6 0:40
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 7 0:41
When you come right down to it. The closest thing to a superhero I know.

Speaker 8 0:46
Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed the way the world is for American women.

RBG 0:51
I became a lawyer when women were not wanted by the legal profession.

Speaker 3 0:56
Thousands of state and federal laws discriminated on the basis of gender.

Speaker 9 1:02
She was following in the footsteps of the battle for racial equality. She wanted equal protection for women.

RBG 1:09
Men and women are persons of equal dignity and they should count equally before the law.

Speaker 10 1:15
She captured for the male members of the court what it was like to be a second class citizen.

RBG 1:19
The point is that the discriminatory line almost inevitably hurts women.

I did see myself as kind of a kindergarten teacher in those days, because the judges didn't think sex discrimination existed.

I have had the great good fortune to share life with a partner, truly extraordinary for his generation. He was the first boy I ever knew who cared that I had a brain.

Speaker 11 1:50
She is a center of power on and off the court.

Speaker 12 1:53
Every time Justice Ginsburg wrote a dissent, the internet would explode.

Speaker 13 1:57
I came up with a couple of slogans. You can't spell Truth without Ruth.

RBG 2:03
I surely would not be in this room today without the determined efforts of men and women who kept dreams alive.

Speaker 5 2:18
I've heard that she does 20 push ups three times a week or something. I mean, we can't even get off the floor. We can't even get down to the floor.

Speaker 6 2:27
That's true.

Matthew 2:29
That is the trailer for the documentary RBG. And this is Factual America.

Intro 2:35
Factual America is produced by Alamo pictures, a production company specializing in documentaries, television, and shorts about the USA for an international audience. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood, and every week we look at America through the lens of documentary filmmaking by interviewing filmmakers and experts on the American experience. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Alamo pictures to be the first to hear about new productions, find out where you can see our films and to connect with our team.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September 18 2020, after a long and illustrious career as an advocate for gender equality, a jurist and most famously as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. Joining us to pay tribute to this true American icon is Julie Cohen, the co director of RBG, the 2018 documentary that beautifully captures the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The film itself was nominated for an Academy Award and is one of the top grossing documentaries of all time. We caught up with Julie from her home in Brooklyn, New York. Julie Cohen, welcome to Factual America. Julie, how are things there in Brooklyn, New York?

Julie Cohen 3:58
Ah, things in Brooklyn and throughout my beautiful United States are, you know, pretty insane right now. I guess would be the best word I could use to describe it, with events unfolding minute by minute in such a way that I expect that the world, when this goes up, in three days from now, it's going to be a completely different world than the world we're in right now. But that's how 2020 has been in a lot of the world. But I think particularly in the US.

Matthew 4:29
Yeah, indeed. And just for clarity sake, for our listeners out there. Today's October 3, I think it's important to put a timestamp on this. So you know, no big surprise. Well, this is a surprise. But what's happened is we know Donald Trump's been diagnosed with the COVID-19. But that's not the main reason or a reason really why we're here and asked you to come on Julie. As most of our listeners will know, is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September 18 2020, after a long, illustrious career, she was an advocate for gender equality, sociate justice to the US Supreme Court. And you're the co-director and co-producer of the film RBG, which came out in 2018. It's premiered at Sundance, it's nominated for an Academy Award, one of the top 30 grossing documentaries of all time. So thanks so much for coming on to the podcast.

Julie Cohen 5:35
It's great to be here.

Matthew 5:37
I think, I gathered, I know I saw it on Netflix. I know CNN was streaming it for free, a few weeks ago. Is Netflix the best way for people to see it if...?

Julie Cohen 5:48
In England, I think that's true. In the UK at large, as you know, with film distribution is pretty complicated. And it depends where you live. But you know, I actually noticed on Twitter that our British distributor Dogwoof, was bringing it back to some theaters this past week. So it is actually in some theaters, even it's been, it was re released in theaters in the US last week. And I know there are some theaters in Great Britain that are either playing it in person or virtually, as well.

Matthew 6:21
Yeah, I saw that, I saw Dogwood credit, I saw BFI was on there. That's a very good point to make. We also have listeners from around the world. So, I'm sure if you do a Google search...

Julie Cohen 6:35
Yeah, it really varies country by country. In the US right now, it's on CNNgo. But it's also on Hulu. And you know, I think Itunes, Amazon, almost anywhere. It just depends. Google it, you shall find it.

Matthew 6:46
It goes without saying, whatever your political persuasion, or none, please watch it. It's a wonderful film. There's a reason it was nominated for an Academy Award, I can tell you. And I had a chance to watch it again in the last 24 hours. So thank you again for making that film. I mean, let's take this opportunity to have a bit of a looking back on Ruth Bader Ginsburg's life. And Julie maybe you can start so, you got a chance to work with her closely on the doc. Seems like you had all access interviews. What are your memories of Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Julie Cohen 7:28
I guess my main memories of Justice Ginsburg, are the personal ones. Her persona is of being quite a serious, quiet, soft spoken intellectual person. And she was all of those things. But she also had a different side to her. She had a real kind of glimmer in her eye, a real spirit of joy, a great sense of humor. You know, some of the moments I'll remember most clearly are having the opportunity to see her both watch and perform in operas at the Washington National Opera in DC at the world famous Kennedy Center. She had the, she played a speaking part in an opera called "The Daughter of the Regiment". The role she played was the Duchess of Krakenthorp and she really loved to say the word Krakenthorp. And, you know, seeing her in those settings. We also were at the Santa Fe opera with her, when she was an audience member for two separate operas. And just seeing the level to which she was entranced by art in general and opera in particular. We also went to a museum with her, something we filmed but didn't end up included in the film. Or just any time one talked to her about books, movies, Broadway or opera, she just loved those things. Or even actually being in her home, she has some works of art on the wall, and she will tell you the provenance and every single thing about any work of art she had. She was just like a deep, deep art lover. And, you know, someone who would just get completely engrossed in something that she loved. And I guess that's a side to her that I think fewer people saw and that was really lovely to behold.

Matthew 9:30
I think you, it makes me think of a scene from the film, actually. I'm assuming that's her office, was her office as a Supreme Court Justice. You know, we talk about men and their man caves but she had her sort of woman cave. I think about it, some of this works of art you were talking about or just, it looked like a lovely, lovely place to work for 20 odd years.

Julie Cohen 9:55
Yeah. You know, in the film, we both show a conference room at the Supreme Court, that is where the interview was done, which is kind of a grand thing with old portraits of justices from centuries gone by. But in her own private chambers, which is a sort of a large office with an anteroom. Most of the art in there actually are things that were sent to her, often from just fans who she didn't know. All kinds of posters and quotes, a lot of them have her own image on them. And if she found them amusing and interesting, she tended to put them up on the wall.

Matthew 10:30
It's interesting. So I mean, there you are in Brooklyn. She's from Brooklyn. I mean, the first half of the film is what I deemed her early life, but actually, it takes her up to the age of 60. But you know, it's a very interesting background. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that, from being this, what I would assume, sort of poor background, from Jewish, Polish and Russian immigrants and making it from there, from the streets of Brooklyn all the way to Cornell and eventually Harvard Law School.

Julie Cohen 11:06
Yes. You know, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's family did in fact come from a humble background. Something which she was very proud of, you know, unlike some people from similar backgrounds, who sort of are trying to keep it quiet that they are from kind of a not so privileged and not so educated family. Justice Ginsburg was extremely proud of her immigrant families on both sides. She liked to talk about a smoked fish store on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which is the area where Jewish immigrants came and lived in packed tenements. And both her parents had lived there as children. And when she was growing up in Brooklyn, her parents used to take her to that neighborhood, basically, just to show her, to remind her where she came from. And it was a lesson that she really never forgot. And the fact that she was able to achieve things that her parents, particularly her mother, would have been unable to, through her own hard work and education, was something she was really proud of as I think and rightly so.

Matthew 12:17
Yeah. And for those who, it might be difficult for some of us who grew up basically in the world that she created, or some of us may not remember, we're a little bit older. I mean, what was it like for a woman back in the 1950s and 60s when she was first starting off?

Julie Cohen 12:35
Right. I mean, in the 1950s, and 60s, even into the 70s, the world for American women was very, very different from the world today. In a way that a lot of young women either don't remember or, you know, or don't know about. A woman couldn't get a credit card or mortgage in her own name. You had to have your husband sign off on something. You could just be fired for being pregnant. Actually, it happened to RBG herself, early in her life, such that when she lost a job for being pregnant on her first pregnancy, in her second pregnancy, 10 years later, she chose to completely hide it. She just wore really loose fitting clothes in the hope that her bosses wouldn't figure it out, which they apparently didn't, or at least they were polite enough not to mention it. You know, husbands, either by law or by custom display, depending on the state, were never prosecuted for raping their own wives. It was just viewed as like, that's the prerogative of marriage. You know, the state of womanhood in the country was very different and RBG very much experienced that herself. She was one of nine, only nine women in a class of 500 at Harvard Law School. The Dean of the Law School at the beginning of the year, as we mentioned in the film, invited all the women to his home for a dinner, the women in the class, and went around the room asking all of them, like, explain why you're here taking a place that could be held by a man. When we heard that story from her, it seems so extraordinary. Subsequently, I've learned from basically any woman who went to law school, medical school, any kind of postgraduate program, told stories of professors asking them that exact same question. That was basically asked of all women, like, what are you doing here? You don't belong. A pretty harsh way to be treated. Of course, she was a great student, she made Law Review, she ended up transferring to Columbia Law School to follow her husband when he got a job. He was a year ahead of her and got a job as a lawyer in New York. She graduated tied for first in her class at Columbia Law School. So, such a prestigious way to launch and yet couldn't get a job at the big New York law firms because they just weren't hiring women as lawyers. You could get a job as a receptionist or somebody's secretary, but getting a job as a lawyer was extremely difficult, if not impossible. Made a little more difficult for Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself as she would point out for two other reasons. One was that she was Jewish, and many of the, basically the big New York law firms were kind of divided into Jewish and non Jewish firms. And the other being that she already had a child. And like, that was viewed as oh my god, how could, you know. In fact, she had already got the child when she went to law school, she managed to, she managed to really excel as a law student while raising a toddler. But, you know, the idea that you could manage to be both a clerk to a judge or associate at a law firm and be raising a child, seemed, you know, the men who were hiring just kind of couldn't process that. So discrimination was definitely a thing. And if Ruth Bader Ginsburg hadn't really intended to go into her career to fight gender discrimination, which absolutely was not her intention, life kind of brought that to her.

Matthew 16:18
Yeah, I mean, it's a very good point. I even have a note here that because of that discrimination she faced, in terms of no one would give her job despite having these Harvard and Columbia Law classmates vouch for her. Her husband and friends saying that you have to hire this person. I mean, they would have been a power couple. I mean, they were a power couple, her and her husband, but I mean, they would have been like, top of the, top dogs in New York. And yet she, no one would give her a second look. I mean, did she ever say anything about having to transfer from Harvard to Columbia? Any sad feelings?

Julie Cohen 16:55
Oh, yeah, she was really, she was really mad about that.

Matthew 16:58
Yeah, I was wondering.

Julie Cohen 16:59
She went to, you know, she actually didn't mind following Martin. I mean, they had a child at that point. So there was really no thought in her mind that she was going to stay in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was definitely going to move to New York for her final year of law school. But she had gone to Harvard saying, could I still get my Harvard degree? Even if I finish out my third year at Columbia? And they were just like, no, that's not the policy. Now, you know, in my mind, that was their policy, and it applied to both men and women and like, nobody was gonna make an exception for her. So, that's just kind of life. I mean, she had a good legal argument, which is that there were people who transferred in to Harvard after two years somewhere else, that got a Harvard degree, but their rule was, it's where you end up. So, ironically, many years later, after she was already a Supreme Court justice, Harvard actually tried persistently to give her a law degree and she wouldn't take it. I think she did at some point, get an honorary degree from them. But she didn't go for the straight out JD. She kind of felt, like, you missed your chance, guys.

Matthew 18:09
I did wonder about that. Because, I mean, she seemed very, rightfully so, Law Review at in the second year at Harvard Law. I mean, that's quite an accomplishment. And then have to leave that. But that's also because Martin, her partner in life, he'd been very sick, hadn't he? And she was looking after him and a child and going to law school.

Julie Cohen 18:32
Yes, it was while they were in law school together at Harvard with, Martin, a year ahead of her, that he developed testicular cancer. This was before the era of chemotherapy, and he had very serious, I believe, radiation treatments and all, and was hospitalized and wasn't able to attend classes. So she went not only to her own classes, she also went and sat in on all of his classes and took notes on them, and came and helped him. Basically for a year of their law school, sort of did law school for the both of them, with little or no complaint while also raising their two year old at that point child. So when people look at how incredibly supportive he was of her later in life, I think you do have to remember that period. Because I think, you know, aside from being a great progressive feminist husband, I think he was just forever grateful for the fact that she really... You know, he wouldn't have had a career at all if not for her, because she had helped him graduate from law school.

Matthew 19:38
And I put her in this category of people that often have this, let's call it greatness. I mean, how many hours of sleep was she getting a night, and that seems to go on way in until...

Julie Cohen 19:52
Justice Ginsburg wasn't a big sleeper. Well, that's actually, that's a little bit not accurate. She wasn't a big sleeper at night. She stayed up working until late into the night from the time, at least from the time she was in law school, all the way through well into her 80s. That was just her vibe. However, getting up early in the morning was also not her thing. We learned that during the making of the film. If you want to do something with her before noon, that basically was not going to happen. Only times that she got up before noon was when she was a sitting Supreme Court Justice. And they have arguments that start at 10 in the morning, but it's not like they're doing that every day. It's three days a week for two weeks in a row. And then there's two weeks where they're not having arguments. So basically, for 12 mornings, if I'm doing it right, or even for less, for like, depending on the month for 6, or maybe 9 or 12 mornings during the month, she was getting up to get to the court for the 10am oral argument. Other than that, she would basically be like, come in at noon, and then work till 9 or 10 at night at work, and then go home and keep working at home.

Matthew 21:02
And her poor clerks, did they have to keep the similar hours? Or was that an option?

Julie Cohen 21:07
Her clerks kept similar hours, it was a stressor to them. They often found and they would you know, those we talked to mentioned us, if they didn't, the general protocol of the Supreme Court is that under the guidance of the Justices, the clerks are drafting all or parts of the opinions, with what the Justice have told them to do. However, if she assigned them to do something, and say they went home a little early, like 8 or 830 at night, thinking that they were going to finish it in the morning. By the time they got it in next morning, she was like, I already wrote it. It's too late. She was like, you know, get it done kind of person. And of course that was seen as sort of a humiliation. So they learned to just stay up late and worked so she wouldn't beat them to it.

Matthew 22:00
Well, speaking of a get it done kind of person. I think many of us, I'm an American, but we all know her for being a Supreme Court Justice. But I think what's so great about the film is that it deals a lot with her leading role as an advocate for gender equality. And I guess you could say that she was the legal strategist behind the women's movement.

Julie Cohen 22:25
Yeah, I think that's absolutely a fair thing to say. And in fact, we thought of that really as being the central part of our film. Because while people were aware of her record as Supreme Court Justice, which was starting to get a fair amount of attention, by the time our film came out, many people, even people that were big fans of her as the notorious RBG, weren't aware of the role that she had played in America in the 1970s to secure equal rights for the genders under the US Constitution. As I say, it stemmed from discrimination that she had faced. That because she was unable to get the fancy New York law firm job that an Ivy League Law School graduate, particularly at the top of their class might expect, she ended up becoming an illegal academic. She became a professor at Rutgers Law School. And while she was teaching there, so now we're into the late 60s, early 70s. While she's teaching there, her students, her women students started to come to her and say, like, Oh, I'd like to learn more about the sort of the legal, what are the legal arguments for women's rights? This was a time when, in the US, the women's liberation movement, women's lib, as it was called at that time, was really all the rage. You know, people were out on the streets, you know, Gloria Steinem, very much a famous figure here was out fighting for women's rights, along with a number of other people. And just, you know, the public at large. So that it was natural that the law students, the female students said, like, oh, but what about, we've heard about civil rights cases, we've heard about fighting for the rights of black people under the Constitution, what about females? Like, what's the law of that? And asked about that by her students, she wasn't actually sure of the answer. And she went to the legal library and started looking like, oh, what's the case law in this area. And what she discovered was, there really wasn't much. There were a few cases, they had been largely unsuccessful. And, you know, sort of egged on by her students, she started a course in, kind of, gender and the law. It wasn't called like that, at the time, she was using the term sex and then she realized you'll never use the term sex and you're dealing with male lawyers and male judges. Everyone got very distracted by that term. So she thought, she was actually also a main person behind using the word gender to, you know, talk about those distinctions. So, she started doing some work first with the New Jersey Civil Liberties Union and then with the American Civil Liberties Union to fight for women's rights under the Constitution.

Matthew 25:10
And as you said, there was no case law. So she, what I think is very interesting about the film and her career, is that she didn't just say, okay, I'll take this next case, whatever. She was so strategic in her thinking, and she's saying, well, we need to build this case law. And what is the best way of building it? And then from her, well what she considered a defeat, but what really wasn't, in one of her first cases, she's like, no, now I know how I have to argue this in front of these nine men.

Julie Cohen 25:38
Right. So, she was very strategic, and very careful about choosing cases in a way that's actually quite common now, but was less common when she was doing it. There's a phrase that American constitutional lawyers and the Supreme Court barlick, say, which is that bad cases make bad law. The reverse of that, of course, is that good cases make good law. So the idea is to try to find good cases when she was trying to map out a strategy along with her colleagues at the so called Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, which she was a co founder. She, very deliberately, you know, you look at what succeeded before. And the very obvious, you know, role model to shape her career after was Thurgood Marshall, who in the 1940s and 50s, had argued a series of cases arguing for racial equality under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. I think he argued like 32 cases and 129 of them, he just had an incredible record, step by step had just really moved the ball forward, until there was all sorts of, you know, really strong Supreme Court law coming down for equality between the races. He, of course, later became a Supreme Court Justice as well. And was one by the time RBG was arguing her cases before the Supreme Court. So she started looking like how had he done it? He's not just taking any old case that comes in the door. He's thinking is this plaintiff gonna bring, you know, are the facts here gonna be really stark and clear cut? Is the person themselves going to seem sympathetic? And so she just found great cases that they thought could make it all the way up to the Supreme Court. And she argued six cases, one-five of those six. But in some ways that number isn't even quite high enough, because there are a number of cases, including her first case, which she actually, Reed versus Reed, which he wrote the brief on, but she wasn't the one that argued it, so we didn't count that in her batting record. But you know, it was really very much her field of law that she had bask, which in some ways made the arguments easier. Because when you're arguing a case before the Supreme Court, the justices are constantly peppering you with questions and trying to dig in to all the previous cases and like the facts and like, but in this case, you said that, you know, there was this and this and this. And normally, one of the things that makes it difficult for a lawyer to study for a Supreme Court case is learning all those other cases. In Justice Ginsburg case, they were largely her own cases. So she really knew the facts and the law and the precedents backwards and forwards. And I think that really helped. It was like she had a a specialty. I think that makes it easier.

Matthew 28:42
What I didn't realize was that these are tape recorded, these sessions in front of the court. Was it just that easy to get, because I think it's very effective what you did, with actually playing the words, you know, hearing her in the court with these different cases.

Julie Cohen 29:03
Yes. So since the 1960s, all Supreme Court cases, although cameras aren't allowed in, all Supreme Court cases have been audio taped. The battle has been kind of over when they're released. Generally they're not released on the day of, which has always driven news organizations crazy, because that's when people care to hear about them. Often they would be released, it's changed now. It's gotten much quicker, but it used to be like, you know, two months later they'd come out, and by that time like, who cares anymore? Yes, what you say was it easy to get them? I mean, yeah, they're on the internet. I mean, if you go to, so when the Supreme Court opens in the morning, the session every day, the Call to begin the court is a bailiff yelling Oh, yay! Oh, yay! There's a website called oyez.org on which all these audio tapes exist. And there's transcripts, there's even a transcript that follows along with the audio, like, could you skip to a place on the transcript, you'll hear that audio. Snd these are, these are public domain. So it was extremely easy. It's just that they're just aren't that well known because they're not played that often. Because by the time that they're released, the story isn't newsworthy anymore. And I actually had worked on a cable TV, producing a cable TV show about the Supreme Court in the 1990s, so I was aware of these tapes. And we just went looking for them and listen to all her arguments. We were like, Oh, my God, these are incredible, she's amazing. Like she was so, her voice is so quiet. But like she's so tough. And like, you know, that we decided pretty early on, oh, we want this audio to be a big part of the film. Even if you're not seeing her, hearing her voice is incredible.

Matthew 30:58
Exactly. And you're not just listening. I mean, the way you've company it with the words on the screen and other imagery, I think it was very well done. Yeah, I think it came as a surprise to me as someone who grew up in the States, and all we got were basically artists renditions of the court. And so maybe reading some of the...

Julie Cohen 31:16
And you get someone often sort of trying to paraphrase, because a lot of the language that the lawyers are using is just way too inside. It's kind of hard to follow. One good thing about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, throughout her career, both as a lawyer and as a judge, she really thought of herself as an educator as well as an advocate. So more than most lawyers or judges, she tried to write some of her stuff in language that a regular person was going to be able to understand.

Matthew 31:47
So we've been talking about her being in front of the court, but then she starts her career as a jurist. And I thought, you know, she's the, well, US Court of Appeals for the DC District, which listeners may not realize is probably the second most important court in the land. And she's there, and that's where she actually first met Antonin Scalia...

Julie Cohen 32:13
And she became very close friends with him.

Intro 32:15
Yeah. And she also was on the same court with Bork, which is, it must have been an interesting combination of people. But then this Supreme Court position opens up. Bill Clinton seems to be hemming and hawing. And, you know, this is, even there, wasn't even a slam dunk, was it, at first? I mean, she was already 60 years old.

Julie Cohen 32:41
Right. And, she was already 60, which is considered to be like, you know, because the justices do have lifetime tenure, they like to appoint younger people, so that they can last longer. Of course, as it turned out, Justice Ginsburg ended up being one of the longest serving justices ever, she was extremely proud of that longevity. There was a certain date within the period that we were filming the movie that she became the longest serving Jewish justice. And she was super proud of that. And we talked about it all the time. But, yeah, she was not at all the obvious choice, not only because she was older than most candidates would be, but because she was virtually unheard of. Although I talked about like, that she played this major role in securing women's rights under the law. People didn't really care about that, it just wasn't a famous movement while it was unfolding. If you go look for articles of those cases, they're, although they seem like important cases now, they're buried pretty deep in the paper, they almost never mentioned her name, because who cared? She was like some, you know, random civil liberties lawyer. Nor were they in law school books. I mean, I was in law school in the 1990s. And these cases aren't in your constitutional law books, like they just weren't considered a big deal. I, actually, in the course of the film coming out, I went to a screening, where I met a judge in New Jersey. He just came as an audience member who had been at Rutgers law school at the time she was teaching there. He said, he was very much an activist, he was really into civil rights. And, you know, and Martin Luther King's movement for civil rights. He was really into anti-Vietnam War protests. But he said, when he learned that Professor Ginsburg was doing, was taking these courses on women's rights laws, he was like - me and my leftist friends, they were like, what is that? That is so stupid. Like, why do you need women's rights laws? As one of the, a good friend of Justice Ginsburg, judge Harry Edward says in the film, they just didn't get it. Like you don't even understand what these ladies are talking about. We opened the doors for them, we pay for their dinner on dates. Everyone's nice to ladies. Like what are they complaining about?

Matthew 35:05
What more do they want? You know, I think what's interesting, we had another, we had the people from Crip Camp on earlier.

Julie Cohen 35:13
I loved the movie.

Matthew 35:13
And it's amazing because that's what I think what's happening with documentary filmmaking. We'll talk about this after the break, but there are all these stories that you thought were told. But now you're realizing haven't been told, you know. And so that documents the disability rights movement, which, you know, you look back, these are amazing cases, but how much publicity did they get at the time?

Julie Cohen 35:41
Interesting that you mentioned that. Because I love that, I love that documentary. And I very much had the reaction seeing that film that a lot of people had to ours, which was like, how did I not know this story? Like, there's an incredible scene in that where the disability rights activists are doing like a sleep in, like they've sort of taken over a building in California and the Black Panthers come in to, like, support the movement and serve them, you know, dinner and like these little tins with a porno underneath them. And the story is incredible. And there's this amazing footage, it's like, I had no idea. Like, it's how the disability rights movement came to be. Why it is that there are ramps that allow you to get into buildings and like, didn't know anything about how it happened. And didn't know any of the people that had made it so.

Matthew 36:28
I mean, it's almost embarrassing, because I remember the first I remember hearing, I was living in Washington, DC in the early 90s. My first job and they, you know, they started doing work on the men's restrooms, because they had to lower the urinals. And I'm like, what's this all about? You know, now you would not even think twice, of course. The impediments we were putting in these people's lives, you know, they're not taking this into account.

Julie Cohen 36:55
We tend to think of those kind of changes as something that come from legislators or maybe from the courts. But, you know, the American Disabilities Act didn't happen, because a bunch of members of Congress were like, Oh, you know, let's actually make buildings more accessible to people who have physical challenges. It's like no, it's because the people who were struggling with unfair systems went out incredibly aggressively against all odds, fighting for their own rights. And it is absolutely the same case with the civil rights movement, with the women's rights movement, with the gay rights movement, with trans rights movement. Like nobody gives you any rights until you go out and fight for them. That's just, just how it goes.

Matthew 37:40
Well, I think that's a good point to give our listeners a bit of a break. So let's do that. And we will be back shortly with Julie Cohen.

Factual America midroll 37:52
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter at Alamo pictures to keep up to date with new releases or upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program, our guests and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.

Matthew 38:12
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with Julie Cohen, the award winning co director and co producer of RBG, the film about Ruth Bader Ginsburg available on various places. Google it, I know you can find it on Netflix, I think Hulu in the States has it. Julie, we were talking obviously about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was the second woman to the Supreme Court. Sandra Day O'Connor being the first. Did you think about including her at all in the film? Did you reach out to Justice O'Connor?

Julie Cohen 38:47
Justice O'Connor, as she has subsequently announced, is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and was already at the time we were making a film. So it was not in a position to be interviewed. Something we regreted a lot because actually, that transfer, Justice O'Connor played a role in in RBG's career, including especially when RBG was a young Justice and what became her most famous majority ruling, opening up the Virginia Military Institute to women. When that case came before the court it was Sandra Day O'Connor's to write the majority opinion she was more senior, and she gave it to RBG to write. She was just like, you know what, the gender equality law is all yours, Ruth, you need to write this opinion. Even though RBG was quite quite new at that point, had only been on the court for three years. So it was actually an incredibly important role in the Justice's career, but we were unable to interview Justice O'Connor.

Matthew 39:53
Okay, well, I had heard that and I wasn't sure because certainly of the timings. I mean, it is probably the least importance of things to be discussed, but they did develop this new sort of uniform if you will, for women justices. The sort of the lace like color they put on. Is it true, you've got this iconic poster, but is it true that the poster originally just included an image of the, is it called a jabat?

Julie Cohen 40:23
It's called a jabot, yes.

Matthew 40:24
Jabot, yeah, you see?

Julie Cohen 40:27
And in fact, as the film does mention, that is another legacy of Justice O'Connor, you know. As a justice you have to wear a black robe. That's the uniform of being a judge. But there always has been, including for the male justices, the opportunity to embellish that a little bit. Chief Justice Rehnquist had, not nice, like to decorate his with little stripes, like Gilbert and Sullivan, kind of look.

Matthew 40:56
I remember that from the impeachment hearings, yeah.

Julie Cohen 41:00
And when Justice O'Connor came on the court, as the first woman, she was like, you know, I'd really like to add a little dash of femininity. So she started adding these like, nice white lace colors to her robe. And when RBG came in, Justice O'Connor was like, I think she may given it, hey, this is a way to kind of like jazz up your robe a little bit. Justice Ginsburg liked that. She kind of ran with it, she started wearing different decorative ones. And then as that became more of a thing, friends and law students and fans started sending her all different ones. And it was she herself, it seems who came up with the idea of, when she was going to read an opinion from from the bench, that she would wear a collar, signifying what she was going to read. She had a certain color that she wore as a majority opinion color, if she was going to read that. And she had this color, which was a little bit black and sparkly and spiky, that she called her dissent color. And you know, court watchers used to love it, because if you come into court in the morning and even before opinions were read, you'd be like, you knew that RBG was going to be reading a dissent because she was wearing her dissent collar.

Matthew 42:12
That's funny.

Julie Cohen 42:13
I'll add because it's relevant to the current political situation, there were those who noted that in the first court session, following President Trump's election, RBG came into the court wearing her dissent collar.

Matthew 42:29
Well, actually, now that you mentioned that. I've seen New York Times had a recent good article on this, about this issue. Did you ever broach it with her about why she didn't retire? And give, for instance, President Obama a chance to nominate someone in her place?

Julie Cohen 42:53
Yeah, I mean, we asked her about that as kind of, you know, almost everyone did once Trump was elected.

Matthew 43:00
Sensitive issue, I know.

Julie Cohen 43:01
Her answer was, she was sort of twofold. One is like she was confident she was going to be able to continue to serve. She was a woman who had a lot of confidence in her own stamina, I would say. Another, that she would pointed out pretty frequently, and which I do think has some some real relevance was the fact that, remember that in February of 2016 - you could do the math, but a full like nine months, I think that would be, before the next presidential election - her buddy Justice Scalia died unexpectedly. And the Republican Senate stood in the way of nominating a new Justice. If Justice Ginsburg had been considering retiring at the end of Obama's administration, which she may well have been doing to that point, she then was sort of boxed into the situation, where that would not have been possible. Because even in February, there wasn't going to be a Justice replacing Scalia. But I think one thing that one has to factor in is that, like everyone else in the country, on both sides, nobody thought that Donald Trump was going to be elected president. I think in Justice Ginsburg's mind, Hillary Clinton was going to be elected president, and she was going to be in a situation, you know, to serve on the court under the first woman president, potentially, who knows as the first female Chief Justice. There's, you know, I think it would have been a different calculation, had she been able to envision a Republican president. None of us were, none of us were thinking that was gonna happen.

Matthew 44:57
Yeah, but I mean, do you think there's some other, obviously, there's many elements to these sorts of decisions, but she, this is her life. This was her life. She was, you know, she was so dedicated. And she even threw herself into it from 2010. For our listeners who may not be aware, I mean that the positions are for life, I think as you've already mentioned, Julie. And it's a real no, no, really, at least by tradition and constitutionally for politicians to start meddling with the court in such way. And I gather she didn't take, not that she didn't take too kindly, she just kind of ignored entreaties early on in the Obama administration, when they had some...

Julie Cohen 45:38
Right. Well, reporting that's come out over the past couple of weeks since Justice passed away, has been that in a lunch that she had with Obama, that he hinted, although did not directly request, but hinted you know, Ruth, maybe you should think about whether you want to stay on, you know, or perhaps step down. And that basically, she just didn't take the bait. She didn't argue with him and say no, but she sort of didn't really acknowledge having heard that argument and that he didn't push it. I mean, that might be somewhat hard to believe from the outside. I mean he was the president of the United States, why not just say what was on his mind. But you have to understand, Justice Ginsburg was a very intimidating woman, tiny though she might have been and with her quiet little voice, she just had this whole force and like this penetrating stare. And just everything about her was quite intimidating. And so Obama never directly said like, Ruth, please, I think you should step down. He sort of tiptoed around it maybe. And she just like pushed right past that.

Matthew 46:46
Well, I think you hit on the, certainly, I mean, you've got this great archival stuff. There's plenty of great archival, I mean, even the family stuff or someone's family home movies that you give access to. But the confirmation hearings, just the way you see these grisly old men, I don't know if there was a woman on the Judiciary Committee at that hearing. And even then Biden seemed a bit old. But you know, the senators seem to have fallen in love with her. You know, they're just, she's quite an imposing figure.

Julie Cohen 47:21
Yeah, right. Both, you know, in the film, we interview two of her childhood friends who use the term, one of these, quiet magnetism. And I think that is a really good description. It's hard to describe. She was an extremely magnetic person. Which is weird, because you think of it as someone who's like the life of the party, and whatever, she's super quiet. But she was really magnetic. She was really beautiful. And her smartness kind of emanated out of her. And you could just see it in the faces of the Judiciary Committee members, including the Republicans.

Matthew 47:56
Oh, yeah.

Julie Cohen 47:59
They were just sort of dazzled by her. Like the combination of this little, you know, tough lady who's just speaking her mind, and she was charming. Like, they really just ate it up.

Matthew 48:10
Yeah. So how does she, how does she become such a media and cultural sensation? Because I've moved to the UK, now 18 years ago. And yes, I always considered her as a Supreme Court justice. It's quite extremely impressive. But, she definitely in the last sort of, what was it, last 10 years or so, she just became this media and cultural sensation.

Julie Cohen 48:34
Yeah, it was really in 2013, when her sort of celebrity star started to rise. As you say, like she had worked on the Supreme Court for a couple decades, quite quietly, like nobody was really talking about her or thinking about her. She certainly didn't have a nickname. People weren't making like videos and internet memes about her, that would be weird. But in 2013 and 2014, as the court was starting to move to the right, Justice took, started writing some dissents to majority opinions that were a little sharper than things she had written in the past. Where she really, as I say, she kind of liked to have writing that was going to appeal not just to lawyers and judges, but that the general public were going to be able to get. The most famous one was in a case called Shelby County versus Holder in 2013, which was having to do with the weakening of the Voting Rights Act - the American law from 1965 that protected rights, it was a sort of federal protections of voting rights, particularly in the south, trying to stave off situations where southern states would try to keep black voters from the polls in all kinds of nefarious, frankly, ways. That law had been enforced for some time. It was challenged in 2013. And by a five-four majority, the Supreme Court weakened some of the Voting Rights Act. Made it a little bit easier for southern states to have discrimination against black voters. The court's reasoning Justice, Chief Justice Roberts, wrote the ruling in the courts. Reasoning was basically like, oh, discrimination is, you know, our country has changed, his words, but like kind of ah, discrimination is over, look, we've had a black president, it's all fine now. And Justice Ginsburg wrote a really strong dissent saying I think the court is making a huge, both legal and factual mistake in this case. And her words were like taking away these voter protections because they're working, because they prevented some voting discrimination, her quote was, "is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm, because you're not getting wet". That analogy was so strong, that it just, you know, it just became really well known. People loved it, it was a great, you know, great turn of phrase. And actually a very accurate analogy to what was happening. And events in the subsequent seven years have really borne out what she was concerned about. And so, as a result, starting with young law students, and then kind of catching on, people started, you know, they gave her the name The Notorious RBG, after The Notorious BIG. People are started making these little internet memes they, like, they took a photo of her and then they photoshopped it red and put like a little chalk like crown on top of it. And the slogan, you can't spell Truth without Ruth. And like that image was like, blanketed, somebody went around Capitol Hill and just put that on cars and put it on the streets, posted it on trees. People started making T-shirts, like it became this thing. And, of course, it was funny. It was funny, because she was elderly and tiny and the opposite of The Notorious BIG, and then she kind of seemed to enjoy it. Like when people would ask about it, she'd be like, Oh, yes, me and Notorious BIG have lots in common. We were both born and bred in Brooklyn, New York. And that was like a huge applause line, people would sort of go nuts. And like, it just sort of organically grew into this big movement. Then, of course, you know, this is 2013/2014. Then of course, in 2016, Trump is elected and the left is even more concerned about the country's moves to the right. And as a dissenter, she just became a symbol of, you know, of sort of standing up to that.

Matthew 52:44
That's a good point. I had not even thought of that in a, you know, both sides, you could argue, but certainly left looking for someone. I mean, who else was there out there in sort of the political realm that they, you know. And here's someone who had this history and without, and was well spoken and principled, and certainly someone that you could, like someone said, I think is Gloria Steinem, that she is closest thing that she could think of a superhero?

Julie Cohen 53:14
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there would have been plenty of people, more of the left kind in Congress, like figures that were out there, speaking up. But like, it worked better with RBG, because of who she was, because she was quiet and intellectual and tiny. Like, she's real. I'm a small person. And she was, she was teeny, she was under five feet, and, you know, very thin and well, you know. And she's a Jewish grandmother, and she came off as a Jewish grandmother. So the fact of this person as being like, the tough protector of rights, people just seem to love it. And the fact that she enjoyed it was great. And then, as I say, when Trump was elected, and there became, you know, the concern about whether she, frankly, could outlast him. You know, and on Saturday Night Live, the impersonation of her that Kate McKinnon did, that was just so hilarious. Where she's like dancing, and, of course, the opposite of what RBG really did. But like, that's why it was funny. And because Justice Ginsburg was out there publicly a lot, doing a lot of talks, and then even like performing in an opera and stuff, it just became like a thing.

Matthew 54:35
I mean, we could probably talk about her forever. I mean, for several more hours. I think what would be good to maybe think more about the film, specifically. I mean, what do you think, what do you think her legacy is really? And what do you want this film's legacy to be?

Julie Cohen 54:59
You know, I mean, I think we want the film's legacy just about people being able to understand the role that she played in American history. And, you know, as for her own legacy, I think there's sort of two parts to it. One is the incontrovertible fact of what she did as a young lawyer to advance women's rights and the equality of the two genders under the Constitution. Like, she changed the law for American women, as number of our commentators say in the film, and that's something that just will stand forever. The other part of her legacy is a little more open to question, which is, you know, a Supreme Court Justice never wants to write a dissent, you want to write the majority opinion, because that's the law of the land. The dissent is just you saying like, oh, here are the arguments why I wish it were another way. But one of the reasons it's important to write a dissent is not only to show the public and other lawyers, wherever, like hey here's why what just happened was wrong or dangerous. The dream of the dissenter is that the ideas that they lay out, will someday later be picked up on and become part of a future majority opinion when the world turns in a better direction, and people start to see it your way. So I'm sure that Justice Ginsburg would hope that her legacy would be words that she wrote in dissent, flipping around and becoming the basis for a later majority opinion.

Matthew 56:47
And, you know, since after, Justice O'Connor retired, but she was then later joined by two other female Justices. So to my airing, Kagan. Now, we know, let's not get into the politics, the whys and wherefores in terms of what the republicans are doing in terms of pushing this nomination ahead, in light of 2016. But Mr. Trump, President Trump has nominated Amy Coney Barrett. What do you think Ruth Bader, Justice Ginsburg would think of Amy Coney Barrett?

Julie Cohen 57:25
You know, I don't exactly want to speak for her. Justice Ginsburg did have, you know, did have a way of wanting to get along with her fellow Justices, and even, seem to have developed a pretty decent cordial relationship with justice Cavanaugh after his confirmation. That's kind of the way of the court and it meant a lot to her. So I'm sure she could have been, you know, had a cordial relationship with, Amy Coney Barrett, should she become a Supreme Court Justice, as well. Obviously, her ideas on many of the issues wouldn't be aligned with RBG's ideas. I think whether or not she's confirmed, given a number of crazy factors with this, is actually very much up in the air right now. That said, I would be relatively confident that the next Supreme Court Justice is going to be a woman, whether it's Amy Coney Barrett or someone else. I think filling the RBG seat with a woman is symbolically important in a way that both liberals and conservatives understand. One interesting effect of our film, or something that we learned from our film was how many fans Justice Ginsburg had, particularly among conservative women. And Amy Coney, by the way is one of them. She, you know, she may not agree with a lot of RBG's opinions, but she does understand what she did for women's rights. And she understands that she herself benefited from that.

Matthew 59:06
Well, I mean, you've got a conservative stalwart in Senator Orrin Hatch, who you get on camera a few times, who obviously was a fan, or is a fan.

Julie Cohen 59:16
Absolutely, was a big fan, and even said in a moment of the interview that we didn't include in the film because it felt almost, he's just like "I looove Ruth Bader Ginsburg". He really just seemed, that was sort of took us aback, he really seemed just completely dazzled about her.

Matthew 59:32
I mean, it takes us, because I do want to talk about some other things that you're working on and other aspects of the film. But, one thing this also does is it harkens back to a time, that just seems like ancient history now. This bipartisanship, in the sense that Justices would get confirmed once they've gone through a hearing, you know, the Senate vote would usually be 90 something to whatever.

Julie Cohen 59:59
As much as people might think of RBG as a divisive figure now, she was confirmed by the US Senate 96 to 3. Justice Scalia, the sort of the icon of legal conservatism, was confirmed unanimously by the US Senate. Like, it's kind of hard to picture that happening now, it's hard to picture a Supreme Court vote that doesn't come down along party lines, which as Justice Ginsburg said, very clearly was really sad to her. Before the sexual assault allegations came out against Brett Kavanaugh, then judge Kavanaugh, she had actually spoken out in favor of, you know, let's get rid of the partisanship. If the guy's qualified to be a judge, he should be confirmed. Then she pulled back from that when there became the #metoo issue because she was a supporter of the #metoo movement.

Matthew 1:00:51
Okay. How did this film get started? Was this you, your co director, Betsy West, who we don't have here today. But where did this idea come from to do a film about Justice Ginsburg?

Julie Cohen 1:01:05
So the idea did come from us. She, both myself and Betsy had previously interviewed Justice Ginsburg, for two totally separate projects. So she was kind of a topic of conversation about, between us. Betsy had interviewed her in 2011, I had interviewed her in 2013. Both of these were before the whole Notorious RBG thing took off. And then it did take off, and she seemed to be becoming a bigger and bigger deal. And we were noticing kind of the humor of it. And yet thinking like, wow, you know, all these people who were talking about, you know, who were putting her face on T-shirts, and even getting RBG tattoos, like a crazy thing started to happen. And a lot of them don't really know what she did in the 70s. And it's just like, the perfect, it's a perfect opportunity to make a film that appears to be about the unlikely celebrity icon status of this, like, 84 year old woman at the time, but is actually about how to achieve rights under the Constitution. So it was such a good combination of fun, kookiness, and, like really deep substance. So it was like, someone ought to make a film about her. And like, why not, why shouldn't that be us?

Matthew 1:02:18
A lot of people have great ideas for films, but how did you actually get this off the ground? How did you gain access to her? I mean, you said you'd interviewed her before, but was she keen, was she initially reserved about it?

Julie Cohen 1:02:31
No, she wasn't. And the thing that, you know, turn something from like someone's, you know, sparkle in their eye idea to an actual film is just a lot of persistence. Because we had previously interviewed her put us in a position where we could write a request to her that we were pretty sure was going to get put in front of her by an assistant. So we basically crafted a very reasoned email, sort of making the case, that we wanted to make a documentary about her. And she did in fact, get that quickly and answered, and send us an email back quickly, which, you know, basically said not yet, the time isn't, isn't right for such a thing. And, you know, the reason that there's a film is that we decided not to take that as a no. We were like, okay, that's it. We almost took it, I mean, I say this sometimes to young filmmakers, it almost never happens when you want to do something that everyone is just like, yeah, great copy, like, this is not how the world works. Either you get a no or you get a maybe. And to me, one of the key things of filmmaking is to figure out how to turn a maybe into a yes. If someone says no, like, forget it, it's not going to happen, you just back up and go away. But if there's a little, if there's a little crack of light on the door, then like, inject your foot in there, and start...

Matthew 1:03:55
The timing's not right equals yes.

Julie Cohen 1:03:58
Yeah, exactly. Okay. So it'll be right later. And we basically spent the next, you know, year and a half, to get her to let us move forward a bit. And the parts of the film that actually include her in them are the very last things that we filmed. We started making the film around her, but with her permission. We've eventually got her permission to start interviewing other people.

Matthew 1:04:21
Okay. And you get, I mean, you get Bill Clinton on. I mean, that's, you must have some strings, you're able to pull to get some of these people on.

Julie Cohen 1:04:28
Well, both myself and Betsy were journalists for a long time. She was at ABC and CBS News. I was at NBC News. So we were and we're not kids. So we know lots of people. You do everything you can to get a request in front of the people. And then, I mean, I think the Clinton interview took us like nine months to get. Just like calling people again and again, we wanted to talk to him for 15 minutes, but you just like... I mean, Orrin Hatch was the same way. We, oh my god, a zillion times, we've run, we had called, whatever, maybe, whatever. And then we ended up on a time we were doing a shoot with Justice Ginsburg in the Supreme Court. I actually just ran over to his senate office where it turned out that one of his student interns who was manning the desk, you know, Brigham Young student from the very conservative, you know, Mormon College in Utah was like, oh RBG, I love RBG. I was like, ok, you've got your boss. So give me a call. And you know, eventually we got the interview.

Matthew 1:05:24
It's about getting past these gatekeepers, isn't it, a lot of times? Because once these people are on, they're just, they're happy to talk. And so the film's successful, Sundance, grossed 14 million, at least the last thing I saw, Academy Award nomination. 2018 was this amazing year for docs, five of the top grossing docs of all time. You had Won't You Be My Neighbor, They Shall Not Grow Old, Free solo, yours, to name a few, Tridentical strangers. Do you ever wish you'd gotten the film out earlier or waited a year just so you weren't up against all those films when you're going for an Academy Award?

Julie Cohen 1:05:59
That's weird. You know, we never really thought of it that way. It kind of felt like the opposite. It felt really special to be in the year of docs, when everyone was talking about docs. And of those that you list, ours was actually the first to be released. So, I think our doc really helped the other docs to get attention. And as they got attention, we kept getting more attention. Like, you know, when we came out, there was a whole round of stories like, Oh, my God, why are these movies, why is your movie so successful? And then the next out was, Won't You Be My Neighbor, which did even better. And as soon as they start, all the same reporters are calling us like, why do you think there's this thing? Like, why are people watching documentaries. And then Free Solo comes out, and they're calling us again. Like, why do people want to see documentaries? We don't know. But like, if it gets more publicity for our film, then great. I mean, so I do actually think that the attention to them helped us.

Matthew 1:06:58
Okay. And how is this film changed your life? I mean, besides probably people think now you're an expert on the Supreme Court of the United States, but I mean, because this is such a huge film.

Julie Cohen 1:07:10
I mean, changed my life, I wouldn't quite agree, but like changed my career. It did. I mean, it's certainly given us the opportunity to make the case for ourselves to make other films. And by that I mean, to get, you know, you need somebody to give you money to make a movie.

Matthew 1:07:30
Unfortunately, but yes, that's what it does take.

Julie Cohen 1:07:32
And the easiest, the easiest argument, truly the best argument is to be like, Oh, well, I made this other movie that made money for these other people. Like, maybe if I make a movie for you, it'll make more money. Because, you know, documentary filmmakers, like even commercially successful documentaries do not make a lot of money.

Matthew 1:07:50
I hear that all the time.

Julie Cohen 1:07:51
People made some money off our film, but I assure you, it was not myself and Betsy. I mean, I'm not saying that we went broke, but like we, you know, we did not make a whole ton of money off it. But the good news about the film being successful is that people are like, oh, what are you doing now? Like you make movies that make money and you know, when truly I feel like our subject matter, obviously was a huge, huge part of that. But certainly it's given us opportunities to make other docs and we're very psyched to be doing that.

Matthew 1:08:20
Well, so maybe this is where we'll end unfortunately, because I know you've got to head out actually. But what is, you asked the question - what are you doing next? What projects can you tell us about?

Julie Cohen 1:08:34
Yeah, actually, Betsy and I have a number of projects in the works, both collectively and individually. And the one that we're talking about publicly, because it's been announced is a film called Julia, which I don't know how this is gonna, I don't know if the British audiences are going to be familiar with this, but there was an American television cooking icon, starting in the 1960s, named Julia Child. Incredibly popular American cultural figure, less well known, we discovered, in other parts of the world, which of course, was the same thing with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We were actually quite surprised to get foreign distribution, because, you know, most people weren't really familiar with RBG, but seemed to connect with her anyway. You know, basically, Julia Child was America's first celebrity television cook, and really changed the way Americans thought about food, like the thought that food could be fun and delicious and important. That was like, not an American idea. It's not a British idea. It's like, that's a French or Italian or Chinese idea, not really the American thing to make good food. But Julia Child was the one that made that happen and has an incredible life story and love story as well.

Matthew 1:09:56
Interesting. And is that, are you still in production?

Julie Cohen 1:10:03
We're basically just doing the final stages of post. We've, you know, locked picture, and we're just doing our final, our final stages. And that was going to come out in 2021. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing it.

Intro 1:10:16
We heard that here. I mean, quickly, obviously COVID has had some impact, I imagine, on getting that film made. But how have you managed to get around that?

Julie Cohen 1:10:27
Yeah, well, we were extremely fortunate. In the two films that we had in production when COVID hit were, largely both shot. Were about like 90% shot. So we were able to, we were in the edit phase, something that actually worked out fine, for all of us to be sort of just doing from home. Our editors took all that home and we just all started working over zoom. There was a piece of it, you know, there were little pieces of it, that we had to, that for four months, none of us left our homes. And then we went back out to do the final shooting that we had to do. And then finished up the house.

Matthew 1:11:02
Okay, so once again, that's Julia. And I do remember Julia Child. She's, I think she even inspired, maybe even...

Julie Cohen 1:11:13
There was a narrative film, about 11 years ago, starring Meryl Streep.

Matthew 1:11:17
Ah, that's right. That's right. Well, and we didn't even mention there's a narrative of RBG as well, that came out same year as your doc. Well, so we can find it on, which Sony Max, you said?

Julie Cohen 1:11:34
For Julia? Sony Pictures Classics, is putting it out. It's also a CNN films film, as well as Imagine. It'll be all kinds of places. I mean, you know, one big impact of COVID is like, where our film is going to be? Is it going to be in movie theaters? Are there going to be theatres or is it all remaining to be streamed?

Matthew 1:11:55
Does it go straight to streaming? Do you even care about festivals anymore? All these things. I don't even ask these questions anymore, because no one knows the answer.

Julie Cohen 1:12:02
Nobody knows the answer.

Matthew 1:12:03
That's right. Well, Julie, I know we got to let you go. I want to thank you so much for your time and coming in on a, well, we came in on a Saturday, you're at home, but thanks for turning your computer on, closing the doors so the dog doesn't get in. Thank you so much. It was great. We've been a big fan of your since we saw RBG originally, it's been on our list of films we'd love to discuss on the podcast. So it's unfortunate the hook. I hate to put it that way. But the hook, if you will, is the passing of Justice Ginsburg. But it was a joy and a thrill to have you on to talk about her life and career and highly recommend to our listeners, please do check out RBG. You will not be disappointed. I learned a lot about much more than you ever really knew about Justice Ginsburg. So that's still on various places, including Netflix and Hulu. I want to give a shout out to This Is Distorted studios in Leeds, England, and to remind you to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America signing off.

Factual America Outro 1:13:21
You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo pictures specializing in documentaries, television and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, our guests and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at Alamo pictures. Be the first to hear about new productions, festival showing our films and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk

RBG: The Iconic American Supreme Court Justice

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RBG: The Iconic American Supreme Court Justice

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