Q&A with Keeper of the Kohn Director Peter Kohn

At first glance, Peter Kohn seems like an unassuming guy — not the sort of person you’d expect to be featured in a documentary. But through the lens of documentary filmmaker David Gaynes, Keeper of the Kohn is the life story of the long-time field manager for the Middlebury College lacrosse team, a man whose unassuming nature left a noticeable mark on generations of players and on the sport itself. Gaynes filmed Kohn off and on over a period of 18 months, following him from the Panthers’ locker room to the coast of Florida as he attended to his team and to his dear friend Bettie. And along the way, you may find yourself forgetting Kohn’s disability (though he’s never been diagnosed, he’s believed to be mildly autistic) as you focus on irrepressibly upbeat man himself. — Rebecca Harper, Hulu.com

Hulu: Can you tell us a little about Peter Kohn? What makes him special and an interesting character to cover in a documentary?

David Gaynes: I think what makes Peter Kohn interesting to me is how enigmatic a person he is. Whatever disability he has is hard to classify and the way he lives his life makes you question what a disability really is. Peter is not the kind of character that jumps off the screen at audiences from the start. He’s not larger than life and I never wanted to portray him that way. There are too many fascinating yet subtle things going on in Peter’s head, things that I intended to glean by observing in his everyday routines, the stuff that is always going on in all of us just below the surface. I think what makes the experience of getting to know Peter very real for people is how we witness the ways he confronts change in his life, something that is difficult for anyone, let alone a 70-year-old with a significant cognitive disability.

And tell us what “Keeper of the Kohn” means. What were some of the keeper’s responsibilities?

A Keeper of the Kohn is someone who’s been tasked with looking after Peter. The term was coined at Middlebury College in the 1980’s shortly after Peter arrived and it became clear that he needed help getting to and from practices and games and someone to keep him from roaming off on trips. It became clear to me that many people in Peter’s life acted as “Keepers,” not just his sports buddies, and the idea of a caretaker or companion became something to explore in all of Peter’s relationships.

This is your first feature. Why choose this story as your first?

I’ve always wanted to explore issues of personal loss and life-changing events in my films, so I look for these themes in the people and places I come in contact with. I got to know Peter when I was hired to make a short documentary tribute to him by a group of Middlebury lacrosse alumni who wanted to capture Peter’s contribution to the team over the years. Originally, it would have been enough to capture Peter’s sports career in a short film, but then I began to know Peter deeper and learned that not only was he retiring from a legendary sports career, but his close friend was in the fight of her life with cancer. I decided to take a chance and hope that following Peter over the course of a year or so would yield some interesting insights into life.

How did you find Peter? How did you approach him for this film?

As I mentioned above, I was hired to make a short film about Peter. Getting access to Peter’s life for that project was not hard. As with anything else, the Keepers called Peter and told him they were making a film about him and that he should help me out. Peter was shy at first but obliged. I think he saw allowing me to place a wireless mic on him and follow him around as his responsibility, not unlike fetching water and shagging lacrosse balls. When I began to show an interest in spending time off the field, particularly time with Betty, Peter was at times apprehensive. Explaining to him clearly what I was hoping to capture in the film and really sharing with him my intentions for the film built a trust that continues to grow stronger as our friendship deepens with time. 

Peter is a very humble man — throughout your film, he talks about not getting a big head, etc. — how did he feel about being the subject of a documentary?

This was, and really continues to be, a tricky thing for Peter. While shooting, Peter understood that my ability to capture his life experience and my attempt to represent it honestly would benefit the people who ultimately watched and enjoyed the film. So during production, Peter was OK with frequently being the target of my lens. I don’t think he minded the attention, but I also don’t think he ever got a “big head” as was his concern. In exhibiting the film in festivals and independent screenings, the calculus changed. All of a sudden, Peter was a star. Kids wanted his autograph, adults wanted to hug him, shake his hand, have a photo taken with him. Peter feared the success of the film because of what it might mean for his privacy. I tried to explain how silly this seemed to me ... there were times when I felt like I was fighting for every audience member to come into the theater and I wanted Peter to understand the difference between independent documentaries and Hollywood blockbusters, that he simply wouldn’t have his life disrupted like Tom Cruise’s; Pete would have none of it. He even sabotaged his own hometown premiere in Cape May, New Jersey, by not telling any of his friends or neighbors that the film was playing at the local festival!

What kind of impact has Peter had on the Middlebury lacrosse team? And how about the alumni “keepers?" 

Peter represents the soul of the Middlebury lacrosse team. They are a talented group of young athletes and one thing I didn’t want to do was give the impression that Peter’s contribution to the team has a direct impact on their win-loss record. I think Peter brings something out in these students that wouldn’t normally emerge: an understanding of someone very different from them, a desire to help someone with special needs, a sense that long after the records have been set and broken and the trophies won and lost, they will look at a photo of Peter — or perhaps a photo that Peter took of them — and it will give the lessons they learn on the field an importance that goes far beyond winning.

The film also focuses not just on the lacrosse team, but on Peter’s relationship with his friends — particularly Jerry Schmidt and Bettie. Bettie and Peter’s friendship becomes a touching part of the film. Were you planning to explore their relationship in such detail when you set out to make this film?

Not originally… as I mentioned, I was commissioned to make a short film as a tribute to Peter, so the shape of that work was simply a sports film when I began. But once I learned of Peter’s commitment to Bettie in the early stages of her illness, I knew that her story would be an important sidebar. As Bettie grew to trust me and allow me deeper into their relationship, I realized that her story would be the dramatic arc that gave shape to the film. Jerry’s story also emerged somewhat by accident — and somewhat not too. I decided that I wanted to understand Peter’s contribution to the sport of lacrosse before his arrival at Middlebury, and Jerry was the critical link to that past. I had no idea, though, that their relationship would be so much fun to document in the present. So their adventures together — and Jerry’s commitment to seeing Peter nominated for induction into the Lacrosse Hall of Fame — wound up being a third narrative that I could follow. I should also mention the skilled and sensitive eye of the film’s editor, Hope Litoff, in all this. While I decided what I wanted to capture, Hope took an active role in the edit, shaping these events and giving them context.

Tell us about Peter’s cameras and all the photo albums he’s compiled. How many years do they span?

Peter is a documentarian in his own right — his albums span at least 40 years of history, probably more. The Middlebury lacrosse alumni group, headed by enthusiastic “Keeper” Bobo Sideli, have digitized all his albums into flickr pages so people can identify themselves and add comments. The group, with links to many thousand Kohn photos, is located at: www.middleburylacrosse.org

Is there any significance to the feather Peter wears in his lacrosse cap?

According to Peter, there is no significance whatsoever and it is perhaps the most frequently asked question! According to Pete, he just thought it looked good and always liked to pick up feathers and wear them in his hat. Again, he’s an enigma.

Can you talk a little about the traditions Peter brought the team &mdashl for example, the “What time is it?” cheer? 

There’s a very fun scene in the film where we montage a season’s worth of pregame pep talks by Peter, all of them culminating in a certain loud-voiced player asking Peter what time it is — to which Peter responds “Time to beat...” and then the name of whoever the team happens to be playing that day. The players all got a charge from Peter’s pep talks as did anyone walking by the locker room, wondering how a diminutive old man, hard of hearing and speech, managed to enrapture a packed room of college athletes with his words. The other Peter tradition that I wanted to celebrate in the film was his singing of “Dinah” (or “I’ve been working on the railroad"). Peter sings many songs in public, but it’s his singing of “Dinah” that I wanted to capture most. It’s interactive, it’s boisterous, and it’s almost completely atonal, without apology; it made me wish that more people would randomly burst into song on a regular basis.

There are many similarities between the way Peter cared for the team and how he looked after Bettie when she was ill. Can you tell us a little more about that?  

I wanted to show that Peter’s sensitivities were not found exclusively in one setting. It is interesting how differently he acts in different settings. I felt like Peter was more of an obedient child around Betty, whereas with the team he felt more like “one of the guys.” When it came to showing his feelings in either setting, however, he was equally sensitive and conscientious.


What, if anything, did you learn from him while working on this project?

I learned a lot from Peter and I still do. Many things that I learned from Peter are channeled into the film. The idea that life is allowed to move at a slower pace was an important lesson I took away; that there is tremendous dignity to a life of reflection is an idea that Peter first opened me up to; and certainly the lesson of “It’s not whether you win or lose” is something I had heard a million times before, but somehow coming from Peter and borne out by the events of the film, this old adage seemed more relevant to me than ever before and I carried it with me throughout the many hard times that a filmmaker experiences when trying to distribute his/her work. No one setback was worth getting upset about.

What has he been up to since his retirement? 

Peter enjoys watching sports on TV and hearing from friends. He is also a competitive miniature golfer. Invitations to “guest star” at lacrosse tournaments all over the country come in regularly although his desire to travel at his own pace (still largely by train) dictates that he only help out at a few per year. Peter has earned the title of field manager emeritus at Middlebury, making an appearance at the college toward the end of each lacrosse season — usually as the team begins the post-season. Keeper of the Kohn also provides an outlet for Peter, as many groups, from high school and college sports teams to disability advocates, invite me to show the film and have Peter come as an honored guest. In order to satisfy these requests but not have Peter constantly shuttling from one place to another, I consolidated a lot of requests into a kind of “Keeper of the Kohn World Tour,” as we affectionally dubbed it, traveling together Rain Man-style. Those experiences could be a film all their own!

What projects are you working on now?

I’m working on my second feature now, a documentary about the Hubble Space Telescope and the people of America’s fight to prevent its untimely death at the hands of NASA during the Bush Administration. It’s a quirky road-trip film that’s a little about astronomy, a little about America and a lot of fun. I’ve also been recording a lot of sound recently and am trying to finish a radio documentary about a close friend who beat cancer by using his mind. I’m also interested in working on a thousand short documentaries but who has the time? And the money? Anyone? Facebook me.

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