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Joshua Zeman, Writer-Director of <em>Cropsey</em>
By
Jen Chung
Published Jun 4, 2010
Modified Jun 4, 2010
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By
Jen Chung
Published Jun 4, 2010
Modified Jun 4, 2010
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Joshua Zeman has worked as a producer and director for many years, co-producing films like The Station Agent and Myserious Skin*, and producing* Choking Man, but in his latest project, the documentary, Cropsey, the Staten Island native is tackling two subjects closer to home: The legend of Staten Island boogeyman Cropsey and the disappearance of numerous girls in the borough during the 1980s.
He and co-director Barbara Brancaccio weave the myth of Cropsey with the real life drama related to the 1987 disappearance of Jennifer Schweiger, a 12-year-old girl with Down Syndrome. A homeless man, Andre Rand, who was previously convicted of sexually assaulting a young girl in the Bronx, was eventually arrested and then convicted of her kidnapping. In 2004, while serving in upstate prison for Schweiger's kidnapping, he was convicted of kidnapping Holly Ann Hughes in 1981. It's believed he kidnapped five other missing people, but there are some questions over whether Rand was a convenient scapegoat
Cropsey*, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, opens today at the IFC Center. Joshua and Barbara will be appearing in person at the 7:30 p.m. screening tonight as well as Sunday's 5:20 p.m. screening. It's also showing at the Staten Island Film Festival tomorrow night.*
Where did you grow up on Staten Island? I grew up in the Great Kills section of Staten Island, near the water in an old house that was supposedly used for rum-running during Prohibition. The older neighborhood kids used to tell me that there was a walled-off room in my basement where there was still some old barrels of whisky hidden. I spent a long time in that basement looking for the secret entrance to that hidden room.
When were you were you introduced to the "Legend of Cropsey"? I went to JCC day camp, and every Friday we would beg our counselors to take us our into the Greenbelt, a large section of woods that runs through the center of the island, to explore the old abandoned Seaview Hospital. At one time, Seaview was a sanitarium, where they housed people suffering from tuberculosis.
The buildings were decrepit, and falling apart, but you could still find rusty beds, or medical equipment and files detailing all the patients who had died there. Inevitably one of the counselors would burst out of the closet with an axe screaming that he was Cropsey (one of the escaped mental patients living in the tunnels) and that he was going to kill us. Literally the kids would scream bloody murder as they ran for their lives, shitting their pants, and crying hysterically. It was great fun.
Why did you want to revisit the myth after all these years? When I first met my co-director Barbara, we made the connection that we were from Staten Island, and that we both remembered that summer when Jennifer Schweiger disappeared, and Andre Rand was charged with the crime. A few weeks later, we went on a hike through the woods, and along the trail we stumbled upon the old playground from the Willowbrook State School (which is another institution found in the greenbelt).
You could still see the old Willowbrook State School stenciled on the underside of the rusty slide, or the merry go round with the a tree growing up though the middle so it can't move, or the lunch trays from the school half-buried under the leaves. It was still there, even though Willowbrook closed so long ago (its now the College of Staten Island BTW). A few weeks later, the DA announced that he was indicting Rand for the disappearance of Holly Ann Hughes from two decades ago, and we knew that we had to make this doc.
Did you remember when those different girls went missing? I remember when Jennifer went missing, because it was such a momentous event for the community. At the time, the hunt for Jennifer become one of the largest civilian searches in NYC History. I guess 9/11 is now bigger. At the time, five thousand people came out to look for her. There was a such a groundswell of support to help find this little girl. Its was really scary, but at the same time heart-warming that people cared so much. Honestly, It made me feel good to be a Staten Islander.
How did the community react back then to the missing girls? Did it change/evolve when the Staten Island DA's office took another look at the case? When it was revealed to the community back in 87' that Rand had not only been suspected of taking Jennifer, but 4 other children, i think the community really freaked. This was an island made up of cops, firemen, union workers, even mobsters... real protectors... so how could this to happen here? I think that really eroded this pristine sense of our small town... that under all the manicured lawns and two-car garages, there was this evil lurking about.
That's what really drew me to the story. It's was very Blue Velvet, or Shadow of a Doubt. Those where the themes Barb and I were really interested in. When the case was re-opened, it felt to me that the boogyman was finally returning to the island for some unfinished business, and that felt very cinematic to me. At the same time Rand's returning [as the suspect in the Hughes case] was the "why now" ..
You've corresponded with Rand. What's your take on him? That's a tough one. At times I think, there is no way this guy could have outsmarted all the police on the island and gotten away with supposedly abducting and murdering five children, without anyone finding more than just one of the bodies. I mean, could Rand be that lucky, or even more frightening... that good. And there are a lot of other cases that we only touch upon in the film, that he's been linked too.
So, is this guy an evil genius, or is he just a misguided individual administering his own brand of mercy... or is he even innocent and just full blown crazy. I mean, that's what makes this story so interesting, but also so tragic for the families. It's the lack of answers that I think are so frustrating for the general public, but also so much more gut-wrenching for those directly involved.
The movie opens today at the IFC Center and is screening at the Staten Island Film Festival tomorrow. What do you want viewers to take away? I think one of the most important takeaways from the film, is that there there are so many sides to any crime. You know they call it "true crime" but that's a misnomer. There is nothing true about any crime, by definition it's a deceitful act, so you can never know that whole truth.
I think that's something Capote was discovering with In Cold Blood.... it was more satisfying to try and create the scene, by way of his own interpretation of the crime, rather then pull out the absolute truth. In the end, the only truth he ever knew was his own reaction to the act. And I think that's something we discovered with Cropsey.
**The Cropsey website also has tips for ghost hunting on Staten Island. Have you done a lot of that?**That was something that we found on the web that we reposted on our site. A lot of the film deals with Legend tripping, which is where as kids you go exploring in the haunted houses, or the abandon hospitals or prisons in your neighborhood. Kids all over the world do it, typically with friends as a dare or something you do with your girlfriend.
It's also why we go to horror films.. you're really just scaring the shit our of each other as a form life affirmation. As kids we did it in Staten Island, and later in life, a lot of residents ended up doing it as adults when they were searching for Jennifer. Walking through the abandon mental institution, a lot of residents were really experiencing their own forms of legend-tripping.
How often do you visit Staten Island these days? Well, I have a love/hate relationship with Staten Island, you always hate the place where you grow up, right? But god forbid someone else disses it, then it's a rumble. A lot of the film was therapy, so I could finally come to terms with growing up there. Staten Island gets trashed quite a bit, so as a kid you have a real chip on your shoulder growing up there. I spent a lot of time on the ferry trying to escape. Now of course I get nostalgic, so I try and go back every other month or so...
So, after ghost hunting is crossed off the list, if someone is visiting Staten Island for the day, what should be on the itinerary? There's some much to do...I love the Staten Island Zoo, they have a great collection of rattlesnakes. I used to take friends on a tour of all the mobsters' houses. (I thought it was always ironic that the real godfather lived only a mile or two away from where they filmed "The Godfather").
There's also some good thrift stores by the ferry - I usually always find something at Everything Goes, and maybe stop off for some pizza at DeNino's or burgers at The Cargo Cafe.
**What other projects are you working on now? Or will you be relaxing this summer?**Oh I wish. I'm thinking about directing my next film, and writing, writing writing.....Relaxing for the summer? Yeah, that's an urban legend.
Tagged
Cropsey
interview
Joshua Zeman
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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