LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
JANUARY–MAY 2009
The world premiere of Caryn’s feature documentary film took place in the Feldsteins’ den on Soundview Avenue. The audience was Caryn and Rona. Jeffrey was in Chicago, and Morris was—well, no one really knew where Morris was.
Caryn fed a disc into the DVD player and joined Rona on the couch.
The RoyaLounger was empty, like a riderless horse at a funeral.
“I hope you like my film,” Caryn said. “I wish Daddy could see it.”
The film was Caryn’s final exam at a New York University adult education course called Documentary Filmmaking. Her professor was best known for the not-so-blockbuster exposé: Chase Lounge: Inside the Patio Furniture Industry. It took third place at the Lackawana Independent Low-Budget Film Festival.
The professor had coached his students to use their lenses to search for justice.
Caryn, of course, had the perfect subject: her missing father. So she pointed her digital video camera at the strange life and the alleged crimes of Morris Feldstein. A documentary in black and white but mostly gray, with occasional splashes of faded color: the Betamax footage of long-ago trips to Disney, and the station wagon rides upstate. She interviewed the people who had major and bit roles in Morris’s life. Here on the screen was Rona, whose shoulders now slumped and who sighed constantly, not to convey guilt but because she was miserable without “My Morris,” as she said on camera. Here were the Soundview Avenue neighbors and the people behind the take-out counters that lined Middle Neck Road. The members of the Men’s Club. All nodding their heads and saying, “It couldn’t be” and “He couldn’t have,” except for Colonel McCord who said, “I knew it!”
She interviewed Victoria, who said, “I’ve dated some real sleaze balls in my life, and was married to Jerry, the king of all sleaze balls, but never have I dated a terrorist.”
Caryn even managed to get an interview with a Senator from New York, a man physiologically incapable of declining any request that involved a camera. He had a ravenous appetite for publicity; and even when he consumed massive amounts, he still felt malnourished.
Publicity made his heart beat. And a documentary about a constituent from Great Neck—an area he had won with a less than overwhelming margin—made it beat even faster.
Caryn set up her camera in the Senator’s Manhattan office. He entered with outstretched arms, bear-hugging her as if they were friends for life. Caryn noticed a thin veneer of makeup on his cheeks, either from a prior interview or for this one. The Senator was perpetually pancaked.
She trained the camera on him.
“Senator, some say that my father, Morris Feldstein, is an innocent victim in the War on Terror. That he was falsely accused and unjustly imprisoned.”
The Senator nodded empathetically. He had mastered empathy on demand.
He responded with a brief but salient history of the tension between civil liberties and national security. And concluded with: “I take no backseat to keeping us safe from terrorists who would do us harm. At the same time, we must be vigilant in protecting our own precious freedoms. And I vow to do both.”
Caryn continued. “But, specifically regarding Morris Feldstein, is he to spend the rest of his life in detention without even a trial? Isn’t that a massive injustice, Senator?”
The Senator proclaimed, “Justice must be done. And I pledge to look into this issue and get back to you. Forthwith!”
“When?”
“Forthwith!”
“There are reports that this may extend beyond Morris Feldstein. That the government may be secretly spying on innocent Americans. Are you aware of such a program? Are you willing to call for oversight hearings?”
The Senator loved the sound of “oversight hearings.” The clack of the gavel, the glare of the television lights, the condemnatory questions fired at witnesses who cocked their heads toward lawyers who whispered responses. An oversight hearing meant elevating this story from the Great Neck Record to the Washington Post; from an obscure film hardly anyone would watch to gavel-to-gavel coverage on CNN!
“You read my mind,” said the Senator, imagining the headlines as he spoke.
When the film was over, Rona wiped tears from her eyes and sighed. She said, “Morris loved watching his television. Now he’s on it! If only more people could see this beautiful movie.”
Her NYU professor was well connected in the documentary film industry. He knew someone who knew someone else who once worked at HBO and still had a connection with an executive there who might be able to arrange for Caryn to pitch her film to another executive.
Her hopes were high.
They were quickly dashed.
In filmmaking terms, things didn’t pan out.
HBO passed on the film before Caryn could get past the door to their Manhattan office. The Independent Film Channel also declined, along with the Sundance Channel, Current TV, Al Jazeera, the Jewish Television Network, and so on, up and down the cable channel lineup, from basic to the premium package and back.
But finally, after weeks of effort, Caryn landed a deal.
A one-week airing on the Public Access channel of Great Neck, wedged between High School Sports Review and Great Neck Restaurant Recap.
And a commitment for a one-night screening at the Great Neck Cinema.
It was a very limited engagement.
The White House Counsel in the newly installed Obama Administration disliked two particular words: oversight and hearing. Put together, the words made him tremble. When an unhappy aide reported that the Senator from New York was preparing to investigate the case of Morris Feldstein, the counsel acted quickly.
First he planned a strategy to prevent the hearing.
Second, he asked: “Who is Morris Feldstein?”
He called the new Attorney General, who checked with the Secretary of Defense, who referred the inquiry to the new Secretary of Homeland Security. Her staff identified an official who survived the transition from the Bush Administration by burying himself deep in something called the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, Division of Intermunicipal Affairs, Bureau on State, Local Cooperation, Region Three (which the new Administration didn’t even know existed, much less in multiple regions).
His name was Jon Pruitt.
Pruitt wrote a report to the Secretary of DHS, who shared it with the Department of Justice, which referred the matter of Morris Feldstein back to the White House Counsel, who called the White House Chief of Staff.
Said Chief of Staff, enraged that he had been pulled out of a strategy meeting on something called Obamacare, ordered that “this fucking problem be fucking taken care of right fucking now!”
In so many “fucking” words.
One night soon thereafter, the Brigadier General at Guantánamo received a phone call. It was from one of the Defense Department lawyers he loathed. After listening to a quick question he asked, “Feldstein? The guy with a tube up his nose?”
The White House Counsel called the Senator to talk him out of the hearing. He knew exactly what to do.
“Senator,” he purred into a phone. “I have good news. We have reviewed the case of Morris Feldstein. And we believe it’s time for him to be reunited with his family.”
“That is good news,” said the Senator, emphasizing the word news. “But I still have some concerns about how my constituent ended up imprisoned in . . . wherever he’s imprisoned. And about whether there’s a secret surveillance program that’s spying on innocent Americans.”
“Well, first, I can assure you that there is no such program. But of course, it’s your prerogative to convene hearings. No need for subpoenas. We’ll cooperate.”
“Or—”
“Or?”
“Perhaps, rather than the Administration announcing your constituent’s release, you could do it. You know, reunite him with his loved ones. At some kind of press event.”
“Let’s talk,” said the Senator.