Jesse Moss (filmmaker)

Life and career

Moss was born and raised in Palo Alto, California. Though Moss never had any childhood aspirations toward filmmaking, his parents valued journalism. While he was growing up in his father’s house, a frequent guest was the renowned photojournalist Richard Boyle, who was famously depicted as a conflict-prone character dealing with substance abuse problems in Oliver Stone’s 1986 movie Salvador. Boyle came to stay in the Moss’ home and regaled the young Jesse Moss and his brother with stories of his adventures overseas. “In a way, that was inspiring,” Moss told David Poland in 2014.

Moss graduated from the University of California-Berkeley in 1993. He didn’t go to university intending to study film. He was interested in American history. Following graduation, he moved to Washington, D.C. where he worked with Congressman Vic Fazio for three years, eventually moving up the ranks to become a policy assistant and speechwriter.

Although he enjoyed his work in politics, he felt creatively frustrated. When he was 26, he met Christine Choy, a documentary filmmaker who was showing her film Who Killed Vincent Chin? He was struck that documentary film could be journalistic, political and artistic. He decided to try filmmaking. He quit his job, moved to New York in 1996 and began working for Christine Choy.

Later, he worked as an in-house producer at Cabin Creek Films for acclaimed documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple, who had made Harlan County, USA (1976) and American Dream (1990).

"Harlan County, USA is the high water mark of documentary filmmaking for me,” Moss told IndieWire. “It really takes us inside that extractive industry and finds the human heart of that experience.” The film won the 1977 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

As of Spring 2015, Moss is currently working on “Reality Party,” a new short film about a group of Southern California teenagers who throw a “fake” party, according to Moss’ website.

Film directing

Moss’ first feature-length documentary was Con Man (2002), which explores the life of James Arthur Hogue, a skilled imposter who fabricated a spectacular series of fictional identities for himself and successfully conned his way into Princeton University. Moss was director and producer.

In 2004, Moss made Speedo: A Demolition Derby Love Story, which he wrote, produced and directed. Speedo follows the promising racing career and troubled family life of Ed “Speedo” Jager, one of the nation’s top demolition derby drivers.

In 2008, Moss made Full Battle Rattle with co-director Tony Gerber. The film is the story of “a real war and a fake town,” specifically, the Iraq Simulation that the US Army has built in the Mojave Desert, which it uses to help train its army units before they deploy to Iraq. Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber were granted permission to live inside the simulation for the duration of a three-week training rotation. Moss and Gerber filmed on both sides of the “war”: Gerber lived with the Army Brigade in training and Moss lived in Medina Wasl.

New York Magazine called the film “an indelible vision of modern war” and The New York Times wrote: “Remarkably thorough and detailed. The film emphasizes the strangeness and complexity of the conflict.”

Moss is best known for his 2014 film The Overnighters, which Eric Kohn of Indiewire called “one of the most remarkable examples of layered non-fiction storytelling to come along in some time” and The Los Angeles Times called “Exceptional…a film of disquieting moral complexity.”

The Overnighters follows the story of Pastor Jay Reinke, a Lutheran minister in Williston, North Dakota, where the oil boom has attracted desperate men looking for work while also causing a severe housing shortage in the area. Reinke opens his church to the men, undermining his place in the eyes of several members his congregation.

The Overnighters was shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars and was named best documentary of 2014 by Indiewire’s “The Playlist”, Paste and Toronto Film Critics Association.

Filmography

Style

Moss is most inspired by cinéma vérité (observational filmmaking), and in the case of The Overnighters, he wanted to try to film a movie without voiceover or extensive interviews, but film dramatic scenes as they happened.

Jeanette Catsoulis of The New York Times praised Moss for his “observational, near-invisible presence” in The Overnighters.

Moss is also known for working with a small or nonexistent crew, partially because of budget constraints and partially because of the increased mobility a one-man crew allows for. Moss shot the entirety of The Overnighters by himself on location in North Dakota from 2012-2013

The Overnighters

Full Battle Rattle

Speedo: A Demolition Derby Love Story