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Tribeca Buzz: A Talk with Guru’s Jonathan VanBallenberghe

Published on April 21, 2011

by Mary Iannone

“When a person is truly manic it’s like you’re in an avalanche zone. The slightest movement or sound seems like it’s going to push the person into an irreversible tragic direction. The best thing to do in those situations, in my experience, is to do very little.”

When filmmaker Jonathan VanBallenberghe first met motivational speaker Peter Scott, the arrangement was strictly business. The pair met at VanBallenberghe’s Tucson office to discuss the possibility of filming a promotional video for Scott’s talks. VanBallenberghe accompanied him to an event at a New Mexico casino, where a “mellow” Scott walked him through his process beforehand. VanBallenberghe had no idea he was about to see a man who “swallowed fire, ran at full speed…danced, joked, and dazzled his audience.”

A short promo soon turned into a five-year documentary project. The result was the 24-minute short film Guru, an exploration into the stark contrasts between Scott’s onstage persona and his offstage battle with bipolar disorder. Over the five years, VanBallenberghe undoubtedly shot hours of material. But “the longer version was problematic. There were long scenes in which [Scott] ranted; it seemed more show-and-tell than documentary.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Scott was eager to be filmed. “He is larger than life, which is to say he’s very aware of his own personality quirks and he constantly points them out, exaggerates them, and makes a kind of comic performance out of the whole process,” VanBallenberghe says. “The documentary idea lifted his spirits. He saw the project as a way of making sense out of his mental illness.”

The camera inspired behavior in Scott that VanBallenberghe thinks may not have occurred without the witness of the lens and the potential for drama. The trailer for Guru contains a startling moment in which a despondent-looking Scott puts a gun, assumed to be loaded, into his mouth. As a filmmaker, VanBallenberghe wanted to let the events unfold; as Scott’s friend, he had to “snuff out many scary actions.”

“As soon as I saw him put the gun in his mouth, I threw the camera on the bed and talked to him. I ended up calling a suicide prevention hotline for advice. There were times when I drove to his house in the middle of the night to see if he was still alive.”

The film raises many questions: Is it hypocritical for a motivational speaker to himself be contemplating suicide? Does Scott exaggerate his mania because his diagnosis permits him to do so? And most of all, what can we learn from this struggle? VanBallenberghe promises the answers are “equally funny and tragic. After watching my documentary you’ll either sprint away from the next motivational speaker you see or run toward him and give him an understanding hug.”

Guru makes its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival as part of the Shorts: Off the Grid collection.

For more information about Guru, visit the film’s official website.

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