'Inconvenient Sequel' directors describe Al Gore as 'Energizer Bunny'

Daily Herald Film Critic

dgire@dailyherald.com

Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen met at Stanford University, married and became accomplished documentary filmmakers. They're the directors of "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power," a follow-up to Al Gore's 2006 Oscar-winning global-warming doc "An Inconvenient Truth."

I caught up with Cohen and Shenk at Chicago's Langham Hotel for five questions.

Q. How did you react when you got the green light to make this movie?

BC. Trepidation and fear! To follow up on such an important and world-changing film. We couldn't help but be overwhelmingly excited over the prospect of meeting Al Gore and catching up on what he's done for the last 10 years.

We wrestled with what kind of film could we possibly make that could stand on the shoulders of the first one. Within two weeks, we were in Nashville at Al Gore's door ready to begin.

Q. How many hours of video did you shoot?

JS. We shot about 150 hours of new material. I can't even tell you how much archival footage, plus user-generated video and news footage from around the world. These days, documentaries tend to have fairly high shooting ratios, so ours wasn't all that unusual.

Q. Was there anything you hated to lose in the editing?

JS. Gosh! There's so many things. We shot a scene between Al Gore and this guy Jerry Taylor, who spent most of his career working for a conservative think tank in D.C. He used to distribute talking points to Republican members of Congress denying climate change and promoting fossil fuels.

One day, Jerry realized he was spreading lies, quit his job, then started a nonprofit to help businesses and communities move faster toward alternative energy.

We thought we already had those bases covered with two other stories, so we didn't think we had room for another one. Gosh, we would have loved to put more of those in because they're so powerful.

Q. What surprised you the most about Al Gore?

BC. We referred to him as the Energizer Bunny. He was 20 years older than we are, and we could barely keep up with him. We could not get over the energy this man has for solving the climate crisis. It's something that he's living and breathing every second that he's drawing breath.

Q. Has President Trump asked you to see your movie?

BC. We're waiting for the tweet.