Documentarian David Farrier Worried for His Safety Filming a Con Artist | Doc Dreams - video Dailymotion

Variety

David Farrier, the documentarian behind 'Tickled,' breaks down what it was like filming another enigmatic and potentially nefarious character in New Zealand.

Transcript

00:00 He knows I'm making a film about him and I think he wants to be a part of it.

00:04 He followed me down to my bedroom and he punched me in the head six times.

00:07 Michael Organ is a black hole.

00:09 You gotta get taken along for the ride.

00:10 And I'll fall in it.

00:11 It took about five years to make this and honestly breaking it down into days seems terrifying.

00:17 If it took six years on and off and that was my life for that time.

00:22 The crew on the road was really small for Mr. Organ.

00:24 It was just me, Dom Frye, our DP and Danny Watts, our soundie.

00:29 So on the road, three people.

00:31 How many hours of footage to comb through?

00:33 I mean, it'd be hundreds of hours.

00:36 I mean, this was about a man, Michael Organ, who would not shut up.

00:39 And so there was just so much of Michael Organ talking.

00:42 They had at least 100 hours.

00:45 A full scale war was breaking out on the streets of an Auckland suburb.

00:50 A wheel clamper who was then demanding they pay to get their vehicles back.

00:54 You are a crook.

00:55 I'm literally trying to give you 400 bucks cash.

00:57 I set out to make a documentary about a con man in my neighborhood in New Zealand who I was curious about.

01:03 And I wanted to find out what he was doing.

01:06 And then as I filmed, he sort of enjoyed the process.

01:09 And so I started hanging out with him.

01:11 And at that point, he started becoming involved in my own life.

01:14 And that's when things took a very different direction for me and for the film.

01:19 There was a period about two years in where I just got lost in Michael Organ.

01:26 And I knew I was making a documentary about someone who kind of sucked people into this

01:30 vortex of sort of nothingness.

01:32 And I'd be interviewing people about this, talking about their deep depression

01:37 and spending time with this man.

01:40 And I kind of just thought I would be invincible to that.

01:42 Tickled was stressful, but I had this little crew around me and I felt sort of invincible.

01:47 He just gets under your skin.

01:48 And I hadn't realized he had done that.

01:50 And once I did, I was so far into the documentary.

01:53 I'd spent so much of my time with the project.

01:56 I'd talked to so many of his victims.

01:58 So I'd promised I would be able to tell their story and hopefully create some sort of meaningful

02:02 change.

02:03 And so there was that pressure.

02:05 But on a personal level, I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.

02:08 I didn't want to be there any longer.

02:09 I wanted out.

02:10 But there was this crushing realization that I'd already sort of put too much of myself

02:15 and my resources and my friends resources into this.

02:19 Plus people were relying on me in a way to tell the story.

02:23 And so that just felt like a horrible trap to be in.

02:25 And knowing that I would have to spend more time with this particular man was just it

02:30 was just an awful feeling.

02:32 I know there must be more to this car park terrorist.

02:35 And I want to find out what.

02:37 People won't talk because they're frightened.

02:39 He's a very dangerous man.

02:41 In New Zealand, what he did was involve me in a variety of court cases that had nothing

02:47 to do with me.

02:47 And so I got sucked into this courtroom drama.

02:50 And I was in L.A. having to dial into court in New Zealand and sit in court for days dealing

02:55 with Mr. Organ's fictitious bullshit that he'd come up with.

02:59 And so that was one way he kind of dragged me into that.

03:01 That's come down at the moment.

03:04 And I think that's just because he's still out there in the world.

03:08 This documentary, it's not about someone who's in prison or someone who's dead.

03:13 This is about someone who is alive and functioning in the world in this really disturbing way.

03:18 And so he's still out there doing things.

03:20 He's moved on.

03:22 I'm sort of touch wood and all that.

03:25 He's moved on from me at the moment, which is great.

03:28 But also, he's the sort of guy that will pop back into my life at some point in the future.

03:32 I have very little doubt.

03:34 It's what he does.

03:34 This man was dangerous.

03:37 How did you know that he'd been to my house?

03:39 He's talked all about you.

03:41 Said that he's on to you.

03:42 They gave me a key to your home.

03:45 That does seem quite weird.

03:46 I mean, I'd prefer you didn't have a key to my house.

03:48 Holy shit.

03:49 This is fucking crazy.

03:51 There were times when I did think about bailing just for safety reasons.

03:59 I mean, once I knew that he had been around to the house and had been on the property and had a key.

04:07 And by this point, I knew that he likes sneaking and creeping around houses.

04:13 That's sort of part of the thing I found out about him.

04:16 And I was living with three other flatmates.

04:20 I think you call them housemates in America at the time.

04:23 I didn't want to bring my shit into their lives.

04:26 And so, yeah, I had to have conversations with them.

04:28 This possibly psychotic man that I'm working with has a key to the house.

04:33 I think you should know this.

04:34 This is why I'm changing the locks today.

04:36 And also, New Zealand's just such a small place.

04:39 And so, it is hard to hide.

04:41 Everything's out in the open.

04:43 And once someone knows where you live, that is a it's not a great feeling.

04:47 I made a very specific decision that once the film was wrapped,

04:50 that I would not communicate with him again.

04:52 And it's a weird thing to talk about, but he did really mess me up mentally.

04:57 A big part of the reason I'm talking to you from LA right now is I left New Zealand to get away from him.

05:03 It was just a logical time to finish the film from another country.

05:08 And some work came up here for three months.

05:11 And I just ended up staying here because it was just such a clean cut thing to do.

05:16 You know, New Zealand is such a small place.

05:18 If you make a documentary that puts a spotlight on someone,

05:21 you're going to be bumping into them on the street at some point.

05:25 And so, physically removing myself from New Zealand was really important.

05:28 Changed addresses, changed numbers, blocked all my emails from any way he could contact me there.

05:36 And so, I made a really hard effort to cut him off completely,

05:41 just for my own sort of well-being.

05:43 There's a gap in my blinds and I keep thinking when I open my eyes,

05:49 I'll see him staring back at me through the gap.

05:50 Michael Organ has seen the film.

05:53 So, a lot of the documentary ends up taking place in this bank building that he lives in,

05:59 that he's moved all these antiques into.

06:01 That's in this little town in New Zealand called Whanganui,

06:04 and directly opposite that bank is the local cinema.

06:07 And they played Mr. Organ.

06:09 And yeah, he went most times, like most nights he went.

06:14 He sat in the back and the few people I've talked to that clocked that it was him,

06:18 unsurprisingly, they just said he talked through the whole thing.

06:22 So, I had this kind of dream of sneaking a microphone in and having him

06:27 record a director's commentary track of just him mumbling about what he thought of the film.

06:32 Didn't do that, obviously.

06:34 But yeah, he's seen the film a number of times.

06:37 You're going to tell a New York attorney what a felon he is in his own country.

06:41 This one right here, buddy.

06:43 You? You're not a member of the bar.

06:45 I certainly am able to practice law.

06:47 You are not a member of the bar. You're not admitted to the New York State Bar.

06:50 There was a version I was playing with Mr. Organ,

06:52 where I was going to bring in Tickled into that.

06:55 Because I remember one of the first times I walked into the antique store to talk to Michael,

07:00 he obviously didn't quite know who I was, but I just saw his computer and he was obviously

07:05 googling my name and Tickled because I just saw posts of Tickled come up.

07:08 And that was almost this foreboding thing of like, oh no, these two men,

07:14 they're the same man, like David D'Amato and Mr. Organ.

07:16 They're very, very similar.

07:18 You had two men that were incredible narcissists that liked having the sort of

07:23 holding power over people in different ways.

07:26 That was like really clear.

07:27 I didn't expect him to come to the screenings just like David D'Amato did in Tickled.

07:34 And there were so many things that were similar between these two men.

07:37 Both were really obsessed with religious history in a really intense way.

07:42 They'd gone long diatribes about that.

07:44 Both men loved pretending to be lawyers.

07:47 Both men loved taking on different personas and signing off emails as different people.

07:52 Both were pests on the internet.

07:56 I mean, I think both men had issues with their sexuality,

07:59 which I don't delve into in a big way on the film,

08:02 but it is definitely running in the background of both Tickled and Mr. Organ,

08:06 are these questions over sexuality.

08:07 Every single day with Michael Organ is like hell.

08:11 It's like high velocity hell.

08:15 He's the kind of guy that if you're talking to him for 10 minutes,

08:18 that 10 minutes will turn into 10 hours.

08:19 I spent so many hours in the edit with Dan Kircher, who was cutting this thing.

08:24 And we would turn to Trump at various times because he was president

08:28 during a great deal of us cutting this film.

08:32 We both remarked that Michael is living in the perfect age where if you are a confidence man,

08:37 and you can just confidently say your own version of reality,

08:40 it was like deeply believe it in yourself and just march through life like that,

08:44 not really caring about other people, you can get really far.

08:48 And that was Michael's entire MO, was creating a version of reality and just running with it.

08:55 And it worked for him.

08:56 He has more money than I have.

08:57 Financially, he's better off.

08:59 It has worked for him what he does.

09:01 And I think a certain sort of person in today's world,

09:04 yeah, gets by very well if you just confidently carry on with whatever your bullshit is.

09:10 And that will work for you.

09:13 I don't think Michael could have done this in a different age.

09:15 I think he's living in the perfect time to do what he does.

09:18 He probably would have been quite an interesting person to know if he were such a cunt.

09:25 [MUSIC]

Documentarian David Farrier Worried for His Safety Filming a Con Artist | Doc Dreams

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