Mark Farkas
Farkas produced C-SPAN’s behind-the-scenes documentary on the Supreme Court. The 80-minute documentary airs Oct. 4 at 9 p.m., kicking off the channel’s “Supreme Court Week,” which features full-length interviews with all nine current justices and two retired justices.
What’s going to interest people the most about the documentary?
You learn about the human side of the court. *** There are things that go on there that go on behind the things that really promote collegiality. They have a lunch together after almost every oral argument where it’s just the nine of them, and the rule is you talk about everything else except oral arguments. They talk about the opera, about what movies they’ve gone to, they talk about grandkids.
How’s long this been in the making?
We approached the court in April. We wrote letters to Chief Justice Roberts, heard back pretty quickly that it was a go. Our goal was to really get all the justices on tape. Frankly that’s been the most fascinating part of the process, we have now on tape for the documentary and the series all 11 living current and former Supreme Court justices.
Why do you think they volunteered to do this?
We came into them with a pitch with them that we’d done a documentary on the Capitol and on the White House. They’d seen our work over there and they know that we’re not coming at it from some sort of political angle. We’re really there to be a mirror. And part of our pitch was …. [that] this was a way for them to open up the building and the process to people and bring them inside.
Did you find them to be nice people.
They all have personalities and it’s hard to tell if they’re nice people. They were nice to us.
– Alan Suderman
