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Production Notes Unbeknownst to either Densmore or Neale, the man who had put out the plea for the drums was Dr. Bob Roberts, a college professor who had started a community building program at Dixon, and who, three years later, would launch a similar venture outside the prison system. Neale met Roberts when she grudgingly accompanied Densmore to Dixon while he was on tour promoting his bestselling autobiography, Riders of the Storm. “John got the idea to stop into Dixon and see how the drumming was going. I was eight months pregnant at the time and really didn’t want to go, but I didn’t want to be stuck alone at the 8-Days Inn either,” Neale laughs at the recollection. “So I went with John and we found ourselves in this room where Dr. Bob Roberts was leading a community building workshop with 50 men and no guards.“ “At first I was scared; I’ll admit it. But I ended up being blown away by the whole experience. There was drumming and dancing, and what emerged was a level of honesty that I had never before in my life witnessed. Men were baring their souls, sharing stories of pain and abuse, openly admitting to crimes they weren’t even convicted for. Almost immediately I saw that something was happening in this room that people all across the U.S. had to know about.” Neale and Densmore wanted to begin filming then and there. “But the prison got scared we’d do some sort of exposé and the warden said no,” says Neale. “Then the program got thrown out of the prison system because it was so successful. Guys were respecting themselves and each other. They stopped calling each other by derogatory nicknames and began addressing each other as “Mr.” or “Sir.” There were fewer infractions; punishment work orders went down from 80 a week to six. The guards were really threatened because they only know how to work through fear.” In 1995, Roberts got funding for Project Return, a 90-day counseling, self-esteem, and community building and job placement program for ex-prisoners, from the New Orleans Business Council. It was a unique venture, for unlike other rehab programs, it was not a requirement. Formerly incarcerated men and women were not sent by the warden or the parole officer; rather, they enrolled of their own volition and had to agree to an interview.
“I was very nervous to go into the prison to meet Fenesha because in her mug shot she looked like a horrible monster. But when she came toward me I saw this jubilant kid full of inner light. Later I learned that the mug shot is taken at the lowest point of a person’s life. Sister Helen Prejean told me that it’s not uncommon for criminals to even be hit and abused before the photo is taken. And I saw how much my perception, as well as society’s, has been formed and misinformed by the media.” Neale was deeply affected by her experiences filming in New Orleans’ Magnolia and Desire projects. “I’d talk to kids five and ten years old who immediately expressed a hatred of the cops, because they’ve seen them take their dads, mothers and brothers away. And I couldn’t help thinking that these kids are headed down the same path unless there’s some intervention. The importance of getting the word out about an alternative to this terrible vicious circle of poverty, crime, and incarceration became even more compelling.”
Neale and Densmore found themselves bonding to their subjects in a way they never expected. “John and I participated in the three-day community building workshop you see on the screen,” she says. “And it was the most moving experience of our lives.” “It was tough,” Densmore adds. “Group therapy. Very emotional for all of us. But we wanted them to see we were for real. That we weren’t just coming in to film them; that we cared enough to get involved ourselves.” Nelson Marks, co-founder of Project Return, told Neale that it was during one of the community building sessions that he saw a man cry for the first time in his life. Neale recalls that her cameraman, Wayne Strickland, a veteran of high power news magazine shows like 20/20, was so overcome by the level of honesty and vulnerability in the workshop that he came to her afterwards wiping teams from his eyes. “Leslie,” he said to me, “in 20 years in this business, nothing has gotten to me like this. I went home to my wife and cried like a baby. We were in this circle. And it became very evident that there was no difference between ‘them’ and me, aside from color, opportunity, and resources.” What impressed Neale and Densmore the most about the workshop was the fact that it was about formerly incarcerated individuals helping their peers. “The path out of despair is community,” observes Densmore. “With people who have experienced what you’ve experienced helping each other. That’s where healing really takes place.” Road to Return is particularly compelling because of the involvement of justice system reform advocates like Sister Helen Prejean, author of the bestselling anti-death penalty memoir Dead Man Walking, and Tim Robbins, director of the film version. “I got hold of Sister Helen’s book,” recalls Neale. “I didn’t know Tim was doing the movie. But after reading it, I knew I had to get to her because she could articulate the obstacle of fear that we in society feel toward the criminal. And until we get over that fear, we can’t change anything. As an individual, I knew I had to get past that fear myself in order to walk in this world. And Sister Helen’s book gave me the courage to do this.” When the rough cut of Road to Return was finished, Neale sent it to Robbins to endorse it. “He not only agreed to endorse it,” says Neale proudly, “but he offered to narrate it. The incredible thing is that he donated his time and name and never asked us for compensation. Never even brought it up. I can’t say enough good things about him.” Two other heroes of the film project were Dr. Bob Roberts and his wife, addiction counselor Rosemary Mann. “In the course of doing the film, Bob and his wife were robbed at gunpoint twice and had their car hijacked,” says Neale. “And they still continue to work in Louisiana and believe in Project Return and the formerly incarcerated people in the program. Rosemary is fascinating because she works both with the offenders and, over at the other side of the fence, with victims in the DA’s office! She sees both sides daily, and she can sympathize with both sides.” Neale reflects upon the fact that becoming
a new mother was one of the chief motivations behind making Road
to Return. “The
Buddhists say that we should weep when a child is born, and rejoice
when someone dies. After Luka was born I wept and wept and thought,
what have I done? Bringing a baby into the world? So I became motivated
to do something that would make a difference for him. That might
make the world a safer place for him to grow up in.” Character profiles of key people in the film Davidson Lewis, a 21 year-old who is released after 2½ years in prison without any marketable skills or education, talks wistfully of getting a job and going to night school. But his voice is flat, already devoid of hope, and his eyes radiate defeat in advance. The classification officer predicts that the young man will be back because, “What’s he got to look forward to? Two things that they need is a place to stay and a place to work. He really has neither.” Sure enough, four months after his release, a warrant is issued for Lewis’ arrest. Fenesha Blunt, a 19 year-old prostitute and drug addict, struggles to go straight. Yet she tragically fails after being denied, due to lack of funding, the aftercare she poignantly requests. Parolee Ethyl LaCour is jailed because she is unable to earn enough to pay her monthly $43 parole fee. These are the criminal justice casualties that programs like Project
Return can prevent, and have prevented. “We provide
for all of those needs people have when they come out of prison, “notes
Project Return founder/director Dr. Bob Roberts. “Education,
addiction treatment, family and individual counseling, job training,
and job placement.”
Leslie Neale – Producer/Director/Writer/Filmmaker
John Densmore -- Co-Producer/Music Supervisor/Composer.
Tim Robbins – Narrator/Writer/Director/Actor
Camara Kambon – Music
Wayne Strickland – Director of Photography
Creative Excellence – The U.S. & International Film & Video
Festival, 1998
ROAD TO RETURN Ordering Information (Running Time 56:24) Pricing Categories To order, call 1.800.343.5540
ROAD TO RETURN Web Site |
When Leslie Neale, a filmmaking
graduate of the University of Texas in Austin, made her graduate
thesis film on
the conditions of Travis County Jail of Texas, she had no idea
that 10 years later she would be making her first “official” documentary
on another aspect of the criminal justice system – the problem
of aftercare programs for formerly incarcerated men and women returning
to society. “My husband, John Densmore (drummer of the legendary
rock group, The Doors) was in Washington, DC at the first national
multicultural men’s gathering in 1992,” recalls Neale. “There
were about 50 African Americans and 50 white men – very kinetic,
lots of rage, anger, and incredible love. At one point this guy
stood up and said he worked in prisons and had permission to give
drums to the inmates, but they had no money with which to buy them.
John felt that this was the perfect opportunity for him to give
something back to society because drums have given him everything.
So he had 30 hand drums made and sent to Dixon Correctional Institute
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.” 
Neale decided to focus on Project Return and
the issue of aftercare for ex-prisoners, and her documentary began
in earnest. Locations
alternated between the projects of New Orleans, the infamous “Big
House” – Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary – and
other prisons in Louisiana. Both Neale and Densmore were frightened
at first by the menacing mug shot of one of their prospective interviewees,
Fenesha Blunt, a 19 year-old girl incarcerated at Jefferson County
Prison. But Neale recalls her surprise upon meeting the teenager. 
One
of the most daunting challenges Neale faced in making Road
to Return was confronting the undeniable
fact that her subjects
had indeed committed crimes, violent and as well as nonviolent. “The
challenge becomes how do you not condone the crime but still show
the humanity of the criminal? If this film is about anything, it’s
about the human capacity for change. In doing this documentary,
I had to ask myself some real tough questions. How did I feel about
the death penalty, or parole, in the face of violent crimes being
committed by repeat offenders? And deep down I realized that I
believed in the human capacity to change. As a result, this is
about a positive vision toward healing our criminal justice system.
It’s not about graphic sensationalism, which is what our
culture has been fed.”