Paul Bonesteel has been digging into the life story of Japanese photographer George Masa for decades.
Bonesteel, an Asheville-based filmmaker, made a documentary about Masa in 2003. More than 20 years later, he co-authored a book about Masa with former Cornell University librarian Janet McCue.
Next week, Bonesteel’s exploration of Masa’s life goes even further in a new documentary that will premiere at Asheville’s Fine Arts Theatre. It presents new revelations about the photographer whose work in the 1920s and ‘30s played a key role in protecting the Great Smoky Mountains and the Appalachian Trail.
Bonesteel said there have been times when he’s wondered whether the countless hours he and others have spent poring over century-old letters, researching newspaper archives and attempting to retrace Masa’s steps in the Smokies were worth it.
“I would wake up and be like, ‘Why am I so obsessed with George Masa? Why do I care?’” Bonesteel told an audience at UNC Asheville Monday night. “Those are some serious doubts you have.”
But then, Bonesteel said, he would come across an old newspaper clipping or photo that would make him realize, “This story is too good. I’m not giving up on George.”
BPR attended a preview of the film, “A Life Reimagined: The George Masa Story,” at UNCA Monday night.
While much has already been written about Masa’s life — especially his years in Western North Carolina — Bonesteel and other members of the team that worked on the film made new discoveries over years of dogged research in both the United States and Japan. They found, for instance, that Masa played baseball at a high level in Seattle and Portland shortly after arriving in the U.S. in the early 1900s.
“That was a surprise,” Bonesteel told BPR in an interview. “And you take this amazing photographer who we have long known as a conservationist … but now we find out more about his life on the West Coast. That’s been some of the breakthroughs, because they explain his life here in some ways that we found very exciting.”
Part of the challenge of tracing Masa’s history was that he “reimagined his life several times,” as Bonesteel described it. (That’s as far as we’ll go in terms of spoilers, because the movie has many unexpected twists and turns.)
“I think as an immigrant, George Masa faced a lot of challenges — some similar to what immigrants face today, and some very different,” Bonesteel said. “Obviously, it was a long time ago. And he saw America as the American dream. He really did. Now, he had reasons for wanting to leave Japan, and we now know some of those. But when he got here, he really did want to live a new life.”
Bonesteel is quick to note that the journey to piece together Masa’s life was far from a solo project. Researcher Angelyn Whitmeyer created a database of Masa’s photos; educators Bill and Alice Hart founded an extensive collection of materials related to Masa; members of the Carolina Mountain Club passed along tips about the wilderness areas Masa explored; and a team of Japanese researchers translated Masa’s handwritten letters and other materials.
“The commitment that has been made to find his photos, to do the research and to celebrate him – it’s the work of many, and that’s part of this story as well,” Bonesteel told BPR.
One of the other intriguing things about the film is that in weaving together the strands of Masa’s life story, it also dedicates a thread to the painstaking journey of making the film itself — a decision that Bonesteel said made him feel “relieved.”
“I didn’t want to hide behind just George’s story,” he said. “I was tempted to do that at times. But it felt like that was missing some of the passion that’s required to do some of this work. And I want to encourage people to do that — to pursue these stories that may need to be told, but they’re not as easy to tell.”
The documentary debuts in Asheville next Wednesday, April 29 at the Fine Arts Theatre. It will also air next month on PBS stations across the country, including on PBS North Carolina beginning May 12.
