‘A Flourishing Little Town’

New documentary explores Fayetteville and its characters

Clint Fullen portrays reporter Waterman Ormsby of the New York Herald in a scene from the documentary “Up Among The Hills,” which chronicles the history of the city of Fayetteville. Ormsby wrote about the town for his publication, and a scene with a stagecoach leads off the new movie.
Clint Fullen portrays reporter Waterman Ormsby of the New York Herald in a scene from the documentary “Up Among The Hills,” which chronicles the history of the city of Fayetteville. Ormsby wrote about the town for his publication, and a scene with a stagecoach leads off the new movie.

Perhaps the new documentary “Up Among the Hills: The Story of Fayetteville” will rise to the same level of regional and national prestige as previous efforts by Emmywinning filmmaker Larry Foley.

But that’s not the point at all.

“It was very specifically written for people here - for people with an affinity for Fayetteville,” Foley says.

Indeed, the film started out as a tribute to banker John Lewis, often called “Mr. Fayetteville” for his love of the town. Foley, who moved to Fayetteville from Van Buren when he was 2, has spent most of his life in Fayetteville. And when he was gone, Foley says he was always trying to get back to this town, where he serves as a professor of journalism at the University of Arkansas.

“I’ve never worked on anything I cared about so much,” he says.

Foley received a commission for the documentary from the Fayetteville Public Library. The commission was made possible in part by a grant the library obtained from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

David Johnson, executive director of the library, says the library made the right choice for the project.

“At some point, you realize you’ve got a home run hitter in your backyard, and no one makes documentaries like Larry Foley,” Johnson says.

Foley’s inspiration comes from both his love for Fayetteville and the idea of a tribute to Lewis, whose friends pushed the projectforward after his death in 2007.

Foley began work on the project in the spring of 2010.

After several months of research, filming started in the fall of that year. Working with a crew that included associate producer Beth Mack and director of photography Hayot Tuychiev, the crew spent almost two years researching and filming the documentary. Editing started this summer, Foley says.

Through the film, Foley shares a tale he says centers on Fayetteville’s downtown square. But it’s not just a chronological telling of the town’s history. Instead, Foley and his team found interesting characters who loved the community and pushed it to prominence on a national level. Among those highlighted are frontier scout Charles Von Berg, author Charles Finger and business owner and newspaper publisher Roberta Fulbright.

Another character, Waterman Ormsby, coinedthe name of the film. As a newspaper reporter assigned to cover a stagecoach trip, he wrote in the New York Herald in 1858 that Fayetteville was tucked “Up Among the Hills” but that it was “a flourishing little town.”

The 56-minute film uses quotes from such characters and contains voices from about 20 different people.

Foley used Robert Ford ofFayetteville’s TheatreSquared to identify voices that might match the dialect and pitch of those needed for the film.

Another familiar voice with local connections makes its way into the film, and prominently so. Former U.S.

President Bill Clinton, who owned a house - now the Clinton House Museum - on what is now called Clinton Drive near the university, narrates the film.

Clinton’s schedule prevented him from recording the narration here, so Foley and crew went to New York City to capture his voice.

“He did a great job, with a lot of emotion,” Foley says.

The movie will make its debut tonight at a redcarpet, black-tie gala at the library. A portion of Mountain Street will be closed for the proceedings, which will eventually move inside the building for dinner and a screening of the film.

Although tonight’s event sold out within hours of its announcement, free public screenings of the film will take place at the library in November.

Additionally, the library will distribute copies to other local libraries and will make the film available to area teachers who want to incorporate Fayetteville history into their lesson plans.

Whats Up, Pages 15 on 10/19/2012

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