George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire (2000)

Producer, director and with editor Daniel McCabe (co-written with McCabe and Steve Fayer), of a documentary biography of the four-time candidate for the presidency and Alabama governor for nearly two decades. This film, based on historian Dan Carter’s “The Politics of Rage,” is about the rise of white backlash, the turn of American politics towards the right in the aftermath of the civil rights movement, and the role that George Wallace played in this history. The film aired as a two night special on the PBS series THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE on April 23-24, 2000. The film was called “stunning and probing,” “stunning and probing,” and “boisterous” by The New York Times, “a full-blown Shakespearean saga... riveting” by the Houston Chronicle, “a brilliant achievement" by the Memphis Commercial Appeal, “a remarkable documentary” by the National Journal, “mesmerizing” by the Boston Globe, and a “gripping documentary, fluent, explosive… swift-paced and seamless” by the Toronto Star. Newsday said it “sets the television on fire,” while the Wall Street Journal wrote that the film was a “documentary filled with enough drama and dark comedy, wry twists of fate and fortune, corruption of the spirit and of the body politic, sin and salvation to make fans of ‘The Sopranos’ forget for a while.” And the Texas Observer wrote that the film was “an epic political biography... makes most fictional films seem thin and lifeless by comparison.” “George Wallace” was included as one of the films in the 2001 Academy Awards Oscar Night “Tribute to Documentaries.”

Funding from PBS’s The American Experience, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Schumann Foundation, the Southern Humanities Media Fund, and seven southern state humanities committees. Premiered at: Sundance Film Festival (winner of the Special Jury Prize for writing in a documentary).

Based on Dan Carter’s “The Politics of Rage”

Produced & Directed by Paul Stekler & Daniel McCabe

Written by Steve Fayer, Daniel McCabe & Paul Stekler

Cinematography by John Hazard Edited by Daniel McCabe, Associate Editor Sandra Guardado

Narrated by Randy Quaid Score by Mason Daring & Duke Levine

Coordinating Prod. Sandra Guardado, Assoc. Producer Matt McClung