Callicoon Center Band

Director's Statement

Although I've been coming to Sullivan County for 37 years, in some ways I'm still an outsider. This is the place where my husband grew up, went to high school and moved away from, only to be drawn back every summer by the beauty, memories, and his small town heart. I, too, was raised in a small town in Pennsylvania and our shared respect for the lessons we learned in these towns has been one of the foundations of our marriage. Community, respect, privacy, humor, and self-sufficiency are some of the values we share. My husband always said he learned to get along with everyone because, coming from a small town, you couldn't afford to go around making enemies. There was nothing disposable about the people you lived near. They were your neighbors and that made them important.

This film is a highly personal tribute to the small town of my childhood and the vanishing rural life many of us remember. As a child, I was also a musician and learned to play the flute. Making music, theatre and film is something I still cling to and pass on. As a teacher at New York University in the Film School, I'm able to continue working with young artists, encouraging them in new story-telling traditions. The transformative power of music and art is one of the mysteries of life I am exploring in this film.

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Film Treatment

Two and a half hours from New York City lie the Catskill Mountains and rural Sullivan County. For the last seventy-five years, in the summer, for one hour on Wednesday nights, rain or shine, the Callicoon Center Band has been playing. The audience is mostly locals, because Wednesday night is not really convenient for the city people whose second homes dot the hills and lakes surrounding Callicoon Center. Also the music may not be quite to their taste. Polkas, Waltzes, and the hits of fifty years ago come blaring and bouncing out of the thirty member band. Local music teachers, merchants, social workers, teens and retirees commit to ten weeks of rehearsal in the spring and ten performances over the summer.

In this hour long documentary, Academy Award nominated director Alice Elliott celebrates music and community as the band rides the waves of change. Small town life seems like a timeless vision for this single, sacred hour on Wednesday. For one hour life is simple, there is just the music, friends, and the occasional mosquito. There is no poverty, unemployment, racism, hard times, or sulky teenagers. Dessert is offered to raise money for the fire department by the ladies auxiliary and homemade pies are raffled off. Children dance with the postmistress in the warm glow cast from the volunteer fire department’s open doors.

Is this scene really as bucolic as it seems? Forces, out of the band’s control, are swirling around which could pull the band apart or make it stronger. Sullivan County has recently been targeted as the next lucrative development area for natural gas extraction from shale. Local environmentalists have rallied to save the area, but some residents see this as the opportunity they have been hoping would materialize. They are looking for jobs and cash and are signing leases with the gas companies. This area contains much of the New York City watershed, and a conflict about resources and people’s right to use their own land as they see fit is brewing. Because of the proximity to New York City, for years there has been the talk of casinos and over development. Until now, none of this has stuck around, as one person says, “Change comes slowly in Sullivan County”.

This films explores these themes through the lens of the band and its members. Who are the people who make up the band? These are small town people who choose to work, raise children, retire or commute to this corner of pastoral beauty and long winters. Their passion for music and the value it brings to their lives and the lives of the audience fills more than the band shell.

Shot on 16mm film and high definition digital video, the lush beauty of the landscape will be featured along with lively interviews with the band and community. We have shot 25 hours of interviews including band leader, Jim Newton, local environmentalist, Bruce Furguson, teenage clarinetists, Stephanie and Kelly Anderson, Yvonne Schmit, member of the volunteer fire department and director of traffic, and former Callicoon Center Postmistress Nancy Matrafailo. We intend to follow both audience members and band members, seeking interviews with farmers, housewives, children, and weekenders, creating a full, rounded picture of the community the band serves. By showing a broad cross section of people across class, age, and residency, we will paint a deep, detailed portrait of the Callicoon Center Band, it audience, and its unique community status.