Exclusive Interview: Director Louie Psihoyos and Richard O'Barry from 'The Cove'

I recently had the chance to sit down and talk to Louie Psihoyos, director of "The Cove," and former dolphin trainer Richard O'Barry, who takes viewers on a dramatic journey to Japan in the award-winning documentary:

In "The Cove," Psihoyos, O'Barry and an elite team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers embark on a covert mission to penetrate a hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret.

More than 23,000 dolphins are slaughtered in Japan each year, and those that are sold can each bring in up to $150,000. Essentially, the film tries to expose the mass killings of dolphins in Japan and the health risks from selling the meat for human consumption.

"The Cove" is now playing in limited release and will expand soon. Here's what Louie Psihoyos and Richard O'Barry had to say how the project took off, what they felt when they saw the footage captured from their hidden cameras, and what is really going on in a dolphin's mind. Enjoy:

Screening Log: Richard, what exactly went through your head when you saw the footage from inside the cove for the first time?

Richard: Anger. Not hate. Those are two different things, but serious anger. But I get angrier at the dolphin trainers than the people actually killing them. The fishermen who kill them are Japanese and the Japanese character for ‘whale’ translates into monster fish. They really think they’re fish. The dolphin trainers give them names, look them in the eye and feed them every day, so I’m more upset with them than I am with the fishermen.

I’m a guy who’s spent his life healing dolphins, training them, untraining them. I’ve watched them give birth and I nursed them back to health when they were sick, and to watch this go on… words fail me trying to describe the emotions.

I’ve been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of that. I haven’t slept in seven years. Because once you see that, it’s much more graphic in real life than it is on film. You know, you see that and then you’re supposed to go back to your hotel room and sleep. How do you that? So yeah, anger, great sadness, but anguish is the biggest one, and that’s the worst because that’s the one you can’t do anything about.

Screening Log: I wanted to congratulate you on all the awards the film has been receiving recently at numerous film festivals. Louie, what impact does the film’s recent success have on you personally?

Louie: It makes me feel vindicated. This is my first film, so it makes me feel like I wasn’t delusional, that audiences are responding. I’m trying not to keep track of the awards. The first thing is I’m not a filmmaker in the sense that I’m trying to become known as a filmmaker. I’m really trying to become an activist and fix the cove. I’ve got this very definite set of goals out there, and any kind of award is really on the road of achieving some of them. You get closer to that because the film is on activism, and it creates activism, and that’s what we want. That’s exciting, but it was never about going out and win awards.

People are sort of astounded, like, ‘oh you can do a film that’s a thriller, you can do a film that’s a documentary.’ It’s like we made this wonderful hybrid and I think it’s partly because I’m not a filmmaker. I didn’t know how to go out and do it. If I went out and did it with not doubt I would have screwed it up. What I’m learning on the festival circuit is that this film is really unusual.

Richard: It’s just a reminder that you’re on the right track and that something’s going right here.

Screening Log: So, how did it come to the making of “The Cove”?

Richard: In the beginning, Louie called and asked me if he could follow me around with his camera and I said sure. When he hung up he went out and took a three-day course on how to make a movie. And then - and it gets better - he shows up in Japan and he said, ‘now what’s this movie about?’ So for me, to look back on that, you know, it’s just a great great story.

Louie: First I met Rick, and he takes me to this town, and it was like walking into a “Twilight Zone” episode or a Stephen King novel. As a journalist I felt like I was walking into a “Moby Dick” world. All the characters are around me, and this secret cove that was built like a Hollywood movie set. Gorgeous scenery, props everywhere, ‘we love dolphins’ signs, and then they have this hole in the middle of town. It’s amazing irony.

The first thing I thought was why hasn’t anyone done this before? People, I think, were ready for a complex story. Hollywood and journalism try to dumb down stories for people. The filmmakers and the media are usually not willing to take that leap to give their audience a sense of intelligence. I think this film moves people because it’s not dumbing it down. I still like to watch the movie and during the last 20 minutes of it I still like to go in and watch the audience’s reaction, because that to me is the delight.

Screening Log: Louie, during your two nightly visits to the cove, what were the emotions and feelings that rushed through your head?

Louie: We had four rocks with cameras set up in the lagoon, and we had one rock set up right in front of the campfire inside the cove on the first night. My crew went to bed and I was on the other side of a cliff and I hiked up from the bottom, climbed up and went down to a little cliff that was as big as a cushion, maybe one and a half of them together. That’s where I spent the day filming this with the high-def cameras through the trees, and my heart was racing. It was early morning, and people were coming with flashlights up into the forest from both sides. You see the beams of light going and they’re looking for shiny bits coming off your glasses or your watch or whatever.

The camera in front of the campfire in the cove was perfectly positioned and perfectly leveled. It was perfectly composed. You could hear them [the fishermen] talking, you can see the beautiful background, and you can hear these guys talking about slaughtering whales. That’s when I knew we had a movie; like a real movie people would want to watch. This footage was unbelievable, and these guys were killing these dolphins right in front of you. I didn’t care what they were saying at that moment. I just knew we had a movie. Then when we had it all translated, it was like ‘you couldn’t have scripted this.’

Screening Log: Richard, you mentioned in the film that a dolphin’s smile can be very misleading. As far as you know, how do dolphins really feel when confined to dolphinariums and theme parks?

Richard: It’s nature’s greatest deception. I call it dolphin depression syndrome. I can see that when I go to these parks. I can read their body language somewhat. The real show begins when the show is over and everybody’s asked to leave. You see the dolphins go over to the side of the tank and they put their head up against the wall and just lie there like a log. You know, that’s depression. This is an animal with a larger brain than its trainer or anybody in the audience, and we put them into a concrete box.

You wouldn’t do that to a snake; a cold-blooded snake in a zoo. You’ll see that the snake is given more consideration than the captive dolphins. At least the snake’s got some tree branches to climb on, and some grass and rocks, but for the dolphin, which is a sonic creature, it’s stuck in an empty concrete box. They’re free-ranging, large-brain, sonic creatures stuck in a concrete box.

We’ve been doing this since 1938, and we’ve should have learned they don’t belong there. But there’s so much money in it. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry with a huge PR machine that’s got everybody convinced they belong there.

Screening Log: Do you see any hope that the issues the film addresses will be resolved in the near future?

Richard: I do, I think this film has the power to stop the killing of the 23,000 dolphins in Japan and probably take out whaling at the same time. Some of the whale meat is counterfeit. It’s really dolphin meat that is highly contaminated. The consumers in Tokyo going to these gourmet shops don’t know that information. That’s why it’s so important to get this film into Japan because people aren’t going to buy that product anymore once they know this. The Japanese people are really more sensitive to clean, fresh food than we are here in America. They just don’t have that information. This film will do what the Japanese media has failed to do, and that’s informing the people. There’s a blackout on all the whale and dolphin stories, and that’s why they continue to buy whale meat. The only reason they buy it is they don’t have the information.

Screening Log: Now that the film is being releases after playing at festivals, would you have done anything different?

Louie: We considered every frame in the whole thing. I wouldn’t do anything different. I really wouldn’t. We couldn’t have done it if we didn’t stumble and make mistakes, and some of your best scenes are mistakes. I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I’m proud of it. We took three minutes out of it, and that made it nearly perfect for me.

Yes, I would put more scenes in it, and we’ll do it with the DVD extras. I would put one more scene in there for sure. A scene with this guy who has mercury poisoning and is explaining unknowingly to his buddies, ‘I can’t see the television, I couldn’t hear it but had it up all the way.’ That’s a scene that haunts me now that I didn’t fight to put it in there. There’s something about that scene that’s so haunting. There are a lot of scenes like that that I fought for that are in there.