{"id":62809,"date":"2012-02-21T17:07:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T17:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/0de2709a84.nxcli.net\/0-kjasnb\/2012\/02\/21\/beverly-mciver-talks-raising-renee\/"},"modified":"2018-12-18T13:39:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T13:39:56","slug":"beverly-mciver-talks-raising-renee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blackfilm.com\/read\/beverly-mciver-talks-raising-renee\/","title":{"rendered":"Beverly McIver Talks Raising Renee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raising Renee<\/strong>An Interview with Beverly McIver<\/strong>
\nBy Wilson Morales<\/p>\n

February 21, 2012<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Playing on Feb.22 (8:00-9:30 p.m. ET\/PT), exclusively on HBO2 is the extraordinary documentary, \u2018Raising Renee,\u2019 <\/strong>which explores the life of painter Beverly McIver<\/strong> and hers efforts to make good on her promise she made to her mother.<\/p>\n

Directed by husband and wife team Steven Ascher<\/strong> and Jeanne Jordan<\/strong> and filmed over the course of six years, Beverly McIver was enjoying a skyrocketing career when she promised her mother, Ethel, that she would take care of her mentally disabled sister, Renee. Years later, following Ethel’s death, that promise came due.<\/p>\n

Beverly McIver is currently the Suntrust Endowed Chair Professor of Art at North Carolina Central University. Her work is in the collections of the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro and the Baltimore Museum of Art, among other institutions, and has been reviewed in Art News, Art in America and the New York Times.<\/p>\n

What was your first response when Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan talked about filming you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>Beverly McIver: <\/strong>Well, I never thought that it would be on HBO. I just thought that they are artists, and I\u2019m an artist and they are interested in following me around. That\u2019s fine. I understand that. We\u2019ll just see where it goes. That\u2019s how I first thought of it. I didn\u2019t see the film until they had filmed it for five years.<\/p>\n

What was the endgame to this project?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BM:<\/strong> I had no idea. I didn\u2019t know it would last for six years and I didn\u2019t know what they were filming. I knew that they were filming me but I didn\u2019t know what they were focusing on. It\u2019s pretty interesting. Steve the cameraman was fabulous at making himself invisible. He wasn\u2019t intrusive when he was filming me and he wasn\u2019t judgmental and he didn\u2019t laugh or say \u201cI can\u2019t believe you said that.\u201d He was quiet the whole time. That really allowed me to be me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How long did it take for Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan to come up with the title of \u2018Raising Renee\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BM:<\/strong> \u2018Raising Renee\u2019 was the title of one of my exhibitions at the museum in Andover, MA. I had a show there and it stuck. They liked that title.<\/p>\n

Not only were you followed around, but so was your family. Were they as giving in the beginning as you were?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BM:<\/strong> My family has always considered me to be \u2018the artist.\u2019 They were used to me taking pictures and stuff like that. Now \u2018the artist\u2019 has more artists following her and taking videos and pictures and they want to film us too. They were like, \u201cOk. Whatever. We understand.\u201d They were pretty open to it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How much involvement did you have with the editing process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BM: <\/strong>I didn\u2019t have a lot of say in that in part because, if I were making a story about me, and because I love my cats, it would be a cat film. I saw after five years of footage and there were a couple of things, that during the process of making the film, like a scene where my mother is at the hospital with the minister of her church and they were holding hands and laughing. Jeanne took it out and I told her that I really missed that scene and that\u2019s an important scene because it describes my mother\u2019s life so much. So she put it back in, which was terrific. The other scene they asked me about was the scene where I talked about Renee getting raped. We wanted to make sure that was okay with Renee and that was okay with me if they shared that information. I thought it was important to use that information even though it\u2019s painful to hear. Women get taken advantage all the time and they don\u2019t report it. The perpetrator gets away and does it again and it was important to talk about it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How has the documentary affected you career?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BM:<\/strong> I tell my students because I\u2019m a professor that this could happen to them too. It\u2019s really given hope that anything\u2019s possible. In terms of my career, I have a gallery here in New York and there are paintings on display. A lot of people who have seen the film actually want to come and see the paintings in person. It had indeed increased my art sales, which is lovely. Ironically, every time I\u2019ve been at a film festival where the film is playing, most of the audience is laughing at the same point throughout the film, which is fabulous. To experience and witness over again with different audience across the country is a joy. To have a universal reaction is pretty fabulous.<\/p>\n

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