It’s been said that those who are the most exposed are often the least revealed.
At least, that’s the mantra behind “Weiner,” a new documentary that chronicles the ups and downs of disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner’s 2013 mayoral campaign. Filmmakers Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg had unprecedented access to the former politician, and what started as the comeback tour of the century quickly devolved into something else entirely.
At a special screening of “Weiner” on Thursday evening at the Roxy Hotel in TriBeca, we got the opportunity to chat with the filmmakers.
So just how were Kriegman and Steinberg able to secure that level of access? From 2005-2006, Kriegman served as Weiner’s Chief of Staff at his district office, but left to pursue filmmaking.
Five years later, in 2011, Weiner resigned from Congress after it was revealed that he had sent photos and sexted with multiple women. Two years and an apology tour later, Weiner returned to the scene in 2013, this time to run for the mayor of New York City.
That’s when Kriegman and Steinberg approached him about making a documentary to chronicle his campaign and comeback tour. “Our intention from the very beginning was to offer a more nuanced and complex portrait of a person who had been reduced to a punchline,” Steinberg says.
They started filming the day Weiner announced. “So for the first six weeks or so of the campaign, it looked like we might be capturing this incredible comeback tour,” Kriegman says. Weiner had taken the lead in the polls, and it seemed he was well on his way for redemption. He was succeeding in putting the scandal behind him.
And then, halfway through the campaign, new allegations hit the Internet. Weiner had apparently continued sexting even after he resigned from Congress, calling himself “Carlos Danger” as salacious new photos and conversations were leaked to the press. “We found out about the new revelations during the mayoral race the same time everyone else did,” Kriegman says. “It just emerged in the news. And then, of course, the new revelations came out and we were just along for the ride, capturing as much of the story as it unfolded.”
Still, the filmmakers say that when thrown this huge curveball, nothing changed on their part. Their intention to offer a more nuanced side of their subject stayed throughout filming. “Even when events changed, that desire to show a different version of the story that played out on the cover of the New York Post just intensified,” Steinberg says.
While Weiner ultimately fell in last place in the election, the documentary offers a rather exhaustive look at his thoughts, feelings, and actions along the way. And that’s the result of careful filmmaking and editing by the co-directors.
“One of the challenges with documentary filmmaking nowadays is that it’s very easy to get a lot of footage,” Kriegman says. “We ended up filming nonstop for four months and we had 400 hours of footage and just the process of going through all that and teasing out the story is never easy.”
The filmmakers hope that the film is part of the larger conversation about how media and politics function today. Ultimately, Steinberg says, the film isn’t just about Anthony Weiner.
“It’s about more than one person or one campaign,” she says. “It provides a look at how our politics today is driven by entertainment and spectacle and you don’t have to look very far to see that being played out now. Just look at Donald Trump.”
