Ep. 32 - Maureen A. Ryan on Becoming, Man on Wire and James Marsh

Maureen Ryan is a veteran producer who has made a number of seminal, impactful films throughout her versatile career. Her several documentary collaborations with acclaimed British director James Marsh (The Theory of Everything) are among them, and began with Wisconsin Death Trip (1999). Constructed with a film-noir grittiness, the film surveyed a series of grizzly murders which took place in Black River Falls, a small remote town, in the 1800s, and was shortlisted for an Academy Award. She herself was nominated for a BAFTA award. Several works followed, including The Team (2005), which she produced, observing a homeless soccer team which travels to compete in Austria; the BAFTA nominated Project Nim (2011); and the iconic Man on Wire (2008), a hybrid-documentary about tightrope walker Phillipe Petit as he prepared to walk across the World Trade Center in 1974, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film and the BAFTA Award for Best British Film in addition to sweeping the “Big Four” critics awards the same year. Documentaries Maureen has produced include The Gates (2007) and Bomber (2009). Recently, she co-produced Becoming (2020), following Michelle Obama on the book tour circuit; the film was nominated for four Emmy Awards, and is available on Netflix. Also on Netflix is the comedic documentary Dick Johnson is Dead (2020), which Maureen co-produced; premiered at Sundance; won an Emmy Award, and was also shortlisted for an Academy Award. She has been a professor at Columbia University for over 20 years, and her essential publication — Producer to Producer: A Step-by-Step Guide to Low Budget Independent Film Producing (2nd Edition), is available on Amazon and all the literary outlets. In our discussion, we spoke about Maureen’s unique, prolific career marked by longevity; collaborating with moving pieces in film; differentiating film from a practical and theoretical framework; and country music.

Opening Credits: KieLoBot - Golden Pineapple Funk I Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0); KieLoBot - Hippie Funghi Policeman Downhill I Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0); Closing Credits: Jason Shaw - TRAVEL LIGHT I Attribution 3.0 United States (CC BY 3.0 US)