by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
What began as a documentary about animal rescue, directed by the husband and wife team of Eric Breitenbach and Phyllis Redman, became a story about the definition of madness in the face of tremendous tragedy. Redman and Breitenbach seized upon Lory Yazurlo, known in Central Florida as "the Pig Lady," as the subject of their film. Lory and her family must deal with Lory's condition as a quadriplegic and an ever-growing herd of pigs. EU caught up with director Eric Breitenbach.
EU: How did you learn about Lory Yazurlo?
Breitenbach: We read an article in the Orlando Sentinel. Four years ago a writer and a photographer had gone up to the farm and did an extensive feature story…Phyllis and I had worked on a couple of other human-animal inaction films in the past and we were looking for another thing to focus our attention on. When we saw the article we said 'Oh boy, that's interesting.' We went and met met Lory, shot some stills. (We're both still photographers)…Then we started to meet the family little by little and that's when we got interested in shooting a video and actually making the full-length film.
EU: At what point did you decide to expand the documentary to include Lory's family?
Breitenbach: That took place as soon as we met Charlene, Lory's mother.
EU: Tell me about Charlene.
Breitenbach: When we were filming, about two to two and a half years ago, Charlene was Lory's primary care attendant. What that means is that she was acting as her kind of helper. She was out there many, many hours of the day, probably 6-10 hours a day, depending…Just seeing her interact with Lory and…doing the kinds of things that a mother would do for her daughter, was all kind of inspiring…We asked Charlene if she'd be willing to be in the film and she said yes. We met the dad and the sister. It just got more and more interesting as we realized just how Lory's disability and pig sanctuary…affected the whole family.
EU: Gaps in workers comp seemed to be a major point of the film. Do you think it will help others like Lory?
Breitenbach: I never expect a film to change the world in the way that maybe some people do, but it's probably one small link in a whole chain of change. The worker's comp system in the United States is certainly not what it was intended to be. Hopefully, there'll be some public awareness based on the exposure the film will get.
EU: There are links about animal hording on the film's website. Would you classify Lory as an animal hoarder?
Breitenbach: I think that's one of the questions that the film raises. What we hope the film does (not to be didactic in any way) is to raise questions about where one does draw the line, for example in the case of animal hording. When we started filming Lory, she had about 220-250 pigs and she was managing the herd very well at that time. Over the 18 months that we filmed, she merged with some other pig sanctuary people and added about another 180 or 200 pigs to the farm. And then she had a couple of wild boars come under the fence to get to the females. Then there was a wave of litters that added about another 150 pigs to the herd. She neuters all the males…but all the females are still fertile…These wild hogs will do anything to get to a female in heat…In the three years that we were shooting…we saw the heard mushroom from about 225 to almost 750 or 800. I don't know where the line was, but there was a point when…there was just too many animals out there. The father in the film…said several times 'we should get rid of half these pigs' and that's…a line that gets a laugh in the beginning of the film, but by the end of the film you realize that it might be the only way to…rectify the situation…
EU: Is this a largely optimistic story, or is it a portrait of depression?
Breitenbach: I think that it's a story about coping with what life hands you, and I think most people go through life dreading that they'll have the kind of situation that happens to the Yazurlo family. They have one daughter who's a quadriplegic, another that was killed in a drunk driving accident. Those two things alone would probably put most people over the edge. John and Charlene, as parents, seem to be particularly resilient in terms of dealing with what they've been handed in life…There's also a little bit of craziness involved in that as well.
EU: People who have the most respect for life, like a "cat lady" with hundreds of cats or a "pig lady" like Lory, often are labeled as crazy. You film tries to ask questions about how we should be defining crazy.
Breitenbach: Absolutely. And as you pointed out, some people have very good intentions. I don't know what it comes down to. Maybe just the inability to say no. Or that they feel they are so useful in terms of taking care of stray cats or stray pigs or whatever, that another one won't be a problem… We have done research about it. We didn't know much about…[animal hoarding] when we started. We thought we were doing a film on an animal sanctuary, and then, as the herd size mushroomed, the question became part of the story.
You can catch the film at Theatre Jacksonville on Friday, May 18th at 11 am or at the Jacksonville Public Library on Sunday, May 20th at 4 pm.
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