James Lapine Talks About 'In the Company of Rose,' and a Life Well-Lived

Some documentaries will inform you about a subject. Others will enlighten you. And if you're really lucky, you'll be informed and enlightened. And if you are really, really lucky you'll be informed and enlightened about a subject you never knew existed. Director James Lapine's latest gem, In the Company of Rose, falls very much into the latter category. The Tony Award– and Pulitzer Prize–winning Lapine talked to Newsweek about the film and what makes the titular Rose so special.

Lapine had directed several films when he first showed up at Rose Styron's house on Martha's Vineyard with a camera. This is something he almost never does. When asked how well he knew Rose, the now-94-year-old widow of author William Styron, Lapine told Newsweek, "I did not know her when I arrived with that camera. I had only met her in passing. I knew of her because she's kind of an icon where I live on Martha's Vineyard. But when we did meet, she invited me to lunch and that's when I brought the camera.

"I didn't have the intention of making a movie movie. And then after I spent a year getting to know her a little bit and doing the filming, I went to HBO and they gave me a little bit of seed money to make a short on Rose. The thing was I couldn't stop going. I went for five or six years. At the end of the day, I had 22 hours of footage. So, I said to HBO that I don't know how to make a short it of this, and I just raised the money myself."

Lapine, who is probably best known for his theatrical collaborations with Stephen Sondheim, including the critically acclaimed HBO documentary Six by Sondheim, did not start out wanting to make films of any sort. He told Newsweek, "I didn't want to make films because I hated the process. Because I started out when it was film [as opposed to video] and you couldn't see anything you shot till the next night. I thought, This is not for me. Once digital came along I liked it a lot more because it was less precious. It was just much easier. You never have to call 'Cut.' You can just keep directing it over and over again, like you do in the theater, and just keep shooting."

That Rose was done digitally helped, however, Lapine said, "it wasn't easy. I had a fantastic editor [Miky Wolf]. And it took us a long time to figure out how to do it. We were gonna go chronologically from when I started talking to her, but that didn't work. And then we started going by subject matter, but that didn't quite work. Little by little, though, we started to figure out how to make it flow and not jump."

Rose gets very personal in revelations about herself and her marriage, some of which might seem shocking in their intimacy, even to modern audiences. Lapine told Newsweek, "That doesn't happen till you establish some trust. That was why it was so many years before she was willing to go further and further. [The Styrons] were way ahead of their time in their relationship.

She also goes into some rough territory when discussing William Styron's battles with depression. His point of view was well documented in the book Darkness Visible, and Rose shares her point of view here. The casualness with which Rose shares some of these details is, to say the least, disconcerting. When asked how one is able to get people to open up, Lapine explained, "After a while, they forget the camera is there, and also they trust you. You're no longer just some stranger walking up with a camera, you're a friend."

Another story she shares involves a suggestion she made to her husband about a scene his novel Sophie's Choice, and in the same breath virtually dismisses the importance of that suggestion. Lapine said, "It's so offhanded and yet it really made that book. It was a very valuable piece of advice that really saved the book; it might not have worked otherwise.

"But that is what is interesting about Rose: She didn't think that way. She genuinely loves to help people That's why she joined Amnesty International," which is another major aspect of her life covered in the film.

On one level, Lapine said, making Rose "was kind of an excuse to hang out with somebody, frankly. There was a lot that didn't make it into the final film. I mean, we'd go over to Carly Simon's house, we'd go exploring around the island. And Rose had so many stories that I couldn't put into the movie: She was there when Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow got married. She was with the Kennedys when they came over."

And with all that footage came the problem of how to structure the film.

"I just felt like, Oh my god, this is too much for people to have to wrap their head around. Was [the film] going to be about the island? Was it going to be about Rose? Was it going to be about Rose's friends?

"And the other thing is, it was all shot by me, so I have nothing to cut to. That was also a real challenge to figure out how to edit something when there was never a camera on me. It wasn't until we started a final shoot in the sixth year that we were able to kind of figure out a way to put the whole thing together."

Making documentaries runs in the family, but it is not an obsession. "My wife [Sarah Kernochan] has made two documentaries, and she's won Oscars for both of them, and she has never made another one. And I asked 'Why don't you do more of them?' And she said, 'I only want to do it if I am really, really interested in the subject.'

"We're not documentary filmmakers. We're people who have made documentary films. So maybe somebody else will come along when they when I want to do a third one, but it's really got to be about the subject matter."

And that is evident in every frame of In the Company of Rose. Lapine said, "She has a big impact on people who do know her. She is also kind of a feminist icon. She is very independent and she led an independent life from her husband too."

Like the Mary Rodgers' memoir Shy, one leaves Rose feeling you have met someone special but you haven't spent enough time with her. She is refreshingly honest, ingratiating and even-tempered. She is so alert and sharp that one has to remind oneself that in the film she is in her late 80s to early 90s and shows no signs of slowing down. In short, she is a joy. Rose illuminates us about her life, the life of a special person, a life well-lived, a life most people probably did not know much if anything about. It also leaves us curious to know more about Rose. But ultimately, the greatest gift of Rose and Rose that together they give us reason to reflect on our own life and how we have lived it.

In the Company of Rose debuted on November 11 as part of the DocNYC festival in New York.