MISE EN SCENE
Faulkner: The Past is Never Dead takes a hybrid storytelling approach weaving interviews with leading academics and Faulkner descendants, re-enacted scenes filmed in Faulkner's homes and community in the Mississippi Delta, visually stunning animated sequences using Faulkner's own drawings and an unforgettable score by multi-platform artist Osei Essed.

DIRECTOR'S VISION
To depict Faulkner’s journey, I have had to contend with the relatively little archival visual material that Faulkner left behind. However, I view this constraint as an opportunity for a more innovative, hybrid documentary approach that marries traditional interviews, archival media, animated sequences, and re-enacted scenes.
Interviews with leading academics, Faulkner descendants, and others explore Faulkner’s writing influences, life, literary style, and personae. Archival photographs, video, and documents provide visuals for their stories.
Woven into the interview commentary are re-enacted scenes that form the narrative ark of the film. These scenes build from Faulkner and his contemporaries’ words in Faulkner’s literature, letters, and life. Like Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, multiple narrators come together to tell the story.
​
In everything from its approach to content, The Past is Never Dead aspires to inculcate a new generation of Faulkner readers and fans. The Mississippi-and-millennial-rooted crew hopes to use their backgrounds in documentary technique, narrative film and television, history, academic research, and music to remind audiences of Faulkner’s continued relevance—how his past is not yet dead.
​
- Michael Modak-Truran



The film's re-enactments cover more than five decades of Faulkner's life. They were filmed in the fetid heat of summer in places where Faulkner found inspiration, including his childhood home and Rowan Oak. The re-enactment scenes provide an unflinching look at the man. Should William Faulkner be judged on his personal flaws or the insights from his literary masterpieces?
​
​
THESPIANS
Jill Faulkner
Leah Merritt
Other Cast:
Susan McPhail; Steven Todd Barnett; Patty Clark; Brian Ames; Aaron Strand; Glendon Ray Hobgood; Michael Modak-Truran; Lillian Louise Triplett; Lah-Lah Devine; Tarsha Gibson; Silas Reed; Stephanie Stubbs; Chasity Nicole; Burks Summers; Jason C. Gaines; Brian Worthy; Fletcher Atkinson; Damon Burks; Jennifer Hamilton Collins; Diane McAllister; Yvonne Henderson; William Bell; Jennifer Smith; Zany Madcap; Leslie Bouver; Karissa McAllister; Henry Clark; Joy Tippit; Ester Benn; Artrial Clarke; Timothy Rodriguez; Lilly Coggin; Christa-Michele Jarmon; Landon Lee Love; Earl Anderson; Archie Barnett; Timothy Craddock; Larry Dixon; Raymon Dunkum; Robert Moyer; Mark Waddell; Keith Willingham.
ON LOCATION





The Past and
the Present








Collaboration
Finding Faulkner
at his home

