Full Frame: Director of Molly Ivins doc on sealed box that could reveal journalist's hidden secrets... in 75 years

Janice Engel brings story of a true Texas original to North Carolina festival

Photo by Matt Carey

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) became one of the best known journalists and writers of her time, but there are some things we still don't know about her... and won't know for many decades.

At the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina, where the new film Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins screened on Friday, director Janice Engel revealed the existence of a secret cache of documents that Ivins left behind.

"There is a box in her archives that's sealed for 75 years after her death," Engel told the Full Frame audience. She added those locked files may shed light on a side of Ivins that the famed author kept hidden. "I believe that is where the darkness resides."

Apart from the intriguing contents of the mystery box, Engel had much to work with for her portrait of Ivins, whose books included Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? and Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush (co-written with Lou Dubose). She delved into the Ivins archive at the Center for American History at the University of Texas in Austin over a five-year period.

"I probably spent a total of a half a year on and off [there] at different points," Engel explained. "A deep dive. An archaeological dig."

The Ivins she portrays is a brilliant wit, a keen observer of politics -- especially of the Texas brand -- and a woman with a deep distrust of authority figures that stemmed from a troubled relationship with her dictatorial father. She was a drinker on a grand scale, in something of the "romantic" mold of a Hemingway, Faulkner or Fitzgerald.

"Molly was an alcoholic and alcoholics don't really like to show their soft underbelly," said Engel, noting the guard occasionally dropped. "There is a glimpse where you see a little window into the pain and the sadness in her."

Molly Ivins, 1944-2007. Photo by Robert Bedell

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Ivins fought a brave public battle with cancer, and late in life kicked her drinking habit. Though gone for over a decade now, Ivins speaks urgently to the present day, Engel believes.

"She's more relevant today than she was when she was alive," she commented, "because we are in a state in our country and in the world where really democracy is threatened for all of us. And she was so prescient. [Of the political divide she said], 'It's not left to right; it's top to bottom.'"

Engel added, "We need to get this out to the online generation, to our millennials... I showed my sizzle [reel] to my students... they were blown away. They got it. We need to let them hear her. She's been compared to Mark Twain. We need to get her out there. She has a very important call to action."

Janice Engel (center), director of "Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins," with producer Carlisle Vandevoort (right) and writer/actress Maryedith Burrell. Friday, April 5, 2019. Photo by Matt Carey

During the Q&A at the Carolina Theatre, Engel was asked if there is any contemporary journalist or writer who can be compared to Ivins.

"There is no new Molly Ivins," Engel responded. "I don't believe there is [another]. I think there are people who do it in pockets... If you were to take John Oliver, Trevor Noah, a little Samantha Bee, throw in a little Colbert and Stewart on the side and mix them with Rachel Maddow and Chis Hayes you would have Molly Ivins."

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