'RBG' Directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen on Their Emmy Win and 'Planking' in Justice Ginsburg's Honor

Filmmakers talk with Nonfictionfilm.com about RBG's health, celebrating with CNN Films, and that dangerous two-pronged Emmy trophy: 'It's heavy. It does appear to be something of a weapon.'

Directors Betsy West (right) and Julie Cohen backstage after winning Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking for "RBG." Saturday, September 14, 2019. Photo by Matt Carey

RBG directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen have had a lot to celebrate in the last 20 months: a big launch at Sundance for their documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a hugely successful theatrical run ($14 million in North America), and an Oscar nomination in February. Their latest reason to celebrate is among the sweetest of all: winning an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking.

"Needless to say, we were totally thrilled," Cohen tells Nonfictionfilm.com of the Emmy victory at the Creative Arts ceremony in Los Angeles. "We were honored to be nominated in the first place with all those other great documentaries and, of course, just super-excited to be one of the winners."

Professors can plank too, is all we can say.

--RBG director Betsy West on planking in honor of Justice Ginsburg at the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony

RBG was nominated in the Exceptional Merit category along with Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, directed by Alexis Bloom; Hale County This Morning, This Evening from director RaMell Ross; Three Identical Strangers, directed by Tim Wardle, and The Sentence, directed by Rudy Valdez. Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking is one of the few Emmy categories where one or more films can win (the category is voted on by a special jury of TV Academy Documentary Peer Group members). On Saturday, The Sentence joined RBG in the winner's circle.

When it came time to accept their trophies, West and Cohen planked on stage in tribute to Justice Ginsburg, who is shown in the documentary doing the same exercise ​as part of a rigorous workout routine.

Planking with ⁦@FilmmakerJulie⁩ in honor of #RBG. Getting off the floor is the challenge. #Emmys2019 #RBGMovie pic.twitter.com/437AjgQiYU

— Betsy West (@Betsywest) September 15, 2019

The gesture delighted fans of the Justice, the movie and the filmmakers, including one of West's students at the Columbia School of Journalism, Libby Cathey, who tweeted "THAT'S MY PROFESSOR!"

THAT’S MY PROFESSOR! □□ @Betsywest @columbiajourn https://t.co/AW8COAFTkx

— Libby Cathey (@libbycathey) September 15, 2019

​"It was very sweet to see that," West says of her student's tweet. "Professors can plank too, is all we can say." 

RBG executive producers Amy Entelis and Courtney Sexton of CNN Films earned Emmys along with West and Cohen. It was CNN Films' first Emmy victory for a feature documentary in an editorial category (The Hunting Ground won an Emmy for composer Diane Warren's original song in 2016).

"CNN Films has been an amazing partner for us," West comments. "We loved working with them and we're just so proud to win this and to win this for them and, look, they're on quite a roll. They had so many nominations."

Cohen adds, "It's been really fun to be on this ride with them both professionally and personally because they're great, cool people and they're just ramping up what they're doing with docs in a way that's super helpful for all documentary filmmakers."

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The filmmakers say they expect Justice Ginsburg to be on the bench when the Supreme Court begins its new session on the first Monday in October. The jurist recently completed a round of radiation after a tumor was discovered on her pancreas, but West and Cohen say Ginsburg is demonstrating her resilience once again.

"We stopped by her office this July and we were just so happy to see how well she looked," West notes. "Of course, she had another medical issue and was up in New York doing radiation treatments after we saw her. But she was out at the theater and continued this very busy schedule... She's got an extraordinary optimism and determination and an ability to just kind of push through the challenges she's faced throughout her life."

Cohen echoes that sentiment. 

"The way Justice Ginsburg has handled and powered through the health challenges she's faced over the past year really feels to us very indicative of her intense fighting spirit that she's shown throughout her whole personal and professional life and the spirit that we tried to show in our film," she tells Nonfictionfilm.com. "Whatever comes up for her she just deals with it with an extreme amount of toughness and I think that's part of what people connected with so much in the film and it's also what her planking symbolizes to us and what has prompted us to plank from time to time in her honor."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg planks.

After their Emmy win on Saturday, West and Cohen flew back to New York Sunday morning (coincidentally on the same flight with fellow Emmy winners E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin of Free Solo). They did not bring their Emmy trophies with them.

"Our CNN colleagues kindly agreed to ship [them] back to New York for us," West reveals.

That may have been for the best, as packing them in checked luggage might have felt risky, and trying to get them through security in carry on bags might have been even more challenging. The Emmy statue, with its pronged angels wings, looks formidable.

"It does appear to be something of a weapon," West concedes. "It is a little scary. It's heavy." 

The creative team behind "RBG" with their Emmys. L-R Julie Cohen, Betsy West, Amy Entelis, Courtney Sexton. Los Angeles, September 14, 2019. Photo by JC Olivera/WireImage

Note: The Creative Arts Emmys will air on cable channel FXX on Saturday, September 21 at 8pm.