December 9th, 2013 
Drew Caruso 
On a foggy Boston evening, I had the pleasure to attend a screening and Q&A session with Tom Berninger, director of the documentary Mistaken For Strangers, which follows Tom on tour with his brother Matt’s band, The National. Viewed through the UMass Boston Film Series, I was pleasured by an evening with good conversation and good film. Being my first experience with the series, I hope to find myself attending more nights at Columbia Point, enjoying the wide world of independent film through UMB’s extensive library.
If you were to initially assume that the film was about the band themselves, you would be wrong. A tale of family, self invention, and self enlightenment, the film follows Tom whilst on tour with the band. As the band crosses country lines, it is soon revealed that the documentary, once about the band, becomes a master discourse on self discovery. A sibling relationship that is tried, tested, and eventually further solidified, Tom’s journey amongst the indie rock act yields a higher understanding of self investigation.
One of the most interesting aspects of the film does not necessarily lie in the trying scenes with brother Matt, but within the band member interviews. What would normally follow questions pertaining to the band, director Tom quickly turns the interviews into flash therapy sessions, showcasing his inner thoughts and anxieties related to the shadow his brother creates. But, what I truly love about the film is the fact that Tom lets these anxieties shine through. By heavily showcasing the lesser height Tom used to stand next to big brother Matt, by the end of the film, we find Tom encompassing his own, standing just as, if not taller than the somber frontman.
With a now defined purpose, Mistaken For Strangers shows the heart within sibling rivalry, but more importantly, the artistic reward of distinguishing self doubt.
Following the screening was a Q&A session with Tom himself.
Q: Mistaken For Strangers, the title, is from a National song. How do the two compliment each other?
Tom: Well, it is a song off of their Boxeralbum, and nobody really knows this, but I shot that video with a friend. But, that was off of a really old album, maybe from 2008. The movie was first called Summer Loving Torture Party, which was a lyric off of their High Violet album. I can’t tell you which song, but is a lyric. I’m like “ehh” its okay, this is when we are still making the thing. But it really did help me, because I was going to have my brother yelling at me a lot, and because it is torturous, and he is an asshole sometimes, and I can be an asshole as well. But, it never quiet stuck with me, it is kind of a mouthful to say, no one is going to remember it, I certainly was having a hard time remembering it. At one point, since I like rock and roll and metal, my brother and I thought of a rip off of AC/DC’s, For Those About To Rock and call it For Those About To Weep because it has me crying in it so much, and I like rock and roll. So about up until a week before we had to give it to Tribecca, it was For Those About To Weep, but then we just did a big survey among all our friends and asked “hey, does anyone know a better title for this movie?” and Carin, my brothers wife, one of her friends said “why don’t you just call it Mistaken For Strangers?” and I was like, “oh great, thats perfect.”
Q: There was that moment, when you were talking about your preferences for music, there is that classic moment in the prologue of the film where your brother is doing the radio interview, and he says, “oh no my brother thinks indie rock is pretentious,” and I saw you in the music video for “Apartment Story” and I’m looking at you in the video there, and I’m wondering, did your opinion of indie rock change?
Tom: Well, I love The National, I mean they let me make a movie on them, so I like them. But no, my opinion hasn’t changed, its not my cup of tea. It just doesn’t really pull any emotion out of me. I just prefer heavy metal or more aggressive stuff. Maybe it is because I am such a non-aggressive person that I feel like that when I listen to music or watch movies, or play video games, that I wanted something faster. I just want to be taken away to someplace, I don’t want to think about myself. I think a lot of indie rock just makes you think about yourself too much. And this is only my opinion, and my brother knows it, I just think it sounds kind of sleepy, whiney, and, I don’t know, I’ve met some amazing indie rock musicians, I just, I don’t know. When I put on my headphones and I’m walking down he street I just feel phony when I put on indie rock. But when I put on Converge, I’m just like “ah this is my world.”
Q: So when you go on tour with your brother, did you set out to make a personal doc, or a rock doc, or were you just gathering footage? How did you envision what you were going to do with the footage?
Tom: there were a couple of occasions where places called this a mockumentary, and its not, this is a real thing. The reason why the movie is so funny and weird, is because I had absolutely no direction when I was shooting. I didn’t have any end game, and all this was was going to be maybe a web diary. And then, I caught a few things, and my brother really liked them and the band was like, “oh maybe you should do something about each band member,” and I did, and they are on their website. But, after I did those, my brother started talking about a movie. I got really nervous. I did not have a movie. You can see, that failed screening was my first movie. It was me trying to make something interesting and cool about The National, and it didn’t have any of my personal struggles in the movie.
Q: The film is a personal doc that is both observational, but it is also reflexive. Not only do you place yourself as the key subject, but you also draw attention to the film making process and how you are breaking some conventions, can you talk about that?
Tom: Yeah, that was a concern to me as well. Like, how many people want to watch a movie about a movie. Movies about movies, sometimes people roll their eyes, though I kind of like them. But this story, the movie became so much about my life and my struggle and the pain that I was going through, that it had to be apart of the story. We couldn’t take my making the movie out of who I was. The things I chose to shoot and make the band members do became the subject of the movie. It was actually very difficult in the editing process to make that work, without it seeming to meta, or boring, or, I don’t know, to make it make sense to reflect back to me. By the way, I cut this thing for about a year and a half, then I had to quit. I mean, we had to to hire another editor to come in and help out. I just couldn’t do it anymore, I just couldn’t look at my face. I still had a say, but I just couldn’t sit there editing, I had lost it.
Q: When you are doing the personal doc, it is a very schizophrenic kind of experience. You are the director, but you also have this personal tie to the people in front of the camera. You need to be present. You need to not be the director, but also the brother, but you still need to think about directing. It can be so close, and so personal, that it is difficult to be objective and put on the directors cap. How did you balance that?
Tom: It was hard. I think with anybody, I had really, really, good coworkers. You can’t make a movie by yourself, and you want feedback. You want people to be honest with you. Like I would put in a shot that I looked really good in, like “I looked really skinny there.” But it had nothing to do with the movie, and someone told me to take it out and it was hard. So did my brother, he loved the way he looked in this thing, but that doesn’t tell me anything. We would fight pretty hard over certain cuts. It was really hard, but we would have a lot of people come in. We had a lot of test screenings, those things were invaluable.
Q: So the horror genre is supposed to contain five basic elements. Fear, surprise, suspense, mystery, and spoiler. You are sort of this student of horror, that is your thing. Did any of that influence how you shaped this narrative?
Tom: Nothing like that, I guess that never came to my head. I was trying to make a real honest to god National documentary. But I got really excited about the shot where they were sleeping on the bus. I just thought that was creepy, it thought it was totally invasive to their personal space. I could only do that, I could only get something like that because I am his brother. And, if you are ever in a tour bus, you look like you are dead, like you are in coffin in the bunks. And all I could think about was “all these guys look dead, I killed the band” and there was a certain fantasy there. That was one of my favorite scenes, one of my favorite parts of my movie because it had that horror, creepy, Michael Meyers, horror element of me just standing there.
Q: Did you set boundaries, did you set limits?
Tom: Yeah, they talk about finances, the boring stuff that I don’t care about. It might be interesting if you are in the business of music. But, personal stuff, I would ask them personal questions but I wouldn’t film them when they were talking about business between the band. They would have been really open about it. But, they are a pretty good band, they are all friends, and they are really put together, there wasn’t anything really bad on tour that I just couldn’t put in the movie.
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