UNC Alumna Films Father's 5 Wives

But the clippings weren't just positive reviews -- instead, the clips showed glances of the public life of a high society Texas family and its patriarch, Thomas Blake Jr., known as "Blakey" to his family.

The clips evoke a kind of mystery. What lies beneath the advertisement featuring one of Blake's wives? Who was the self-made Texan who was invited to a global strategy session in 1962? What is the truth behind a family whose social exploits are often fodder for gossip columns in The Houston Chronicle?

Apparently, the truth behind the Blake family eluded its only daughter, Tessa Blake, and her friend, Jason Lyon, as well.

A project begun in 1994 and finished in 1999, "Five Wives" was the brainchild of UNC alumni Blake and Lyon. The duo turned the cameras on the Blake family, collecting more than 50 hours of footage in hope of finding insight into the Texan clan. The documentary seems to succeed, but not without banging its head on the "Southern code of silence" referenced throughout the film.

Lyon said that although the film explores Texas' high society and the lives of the various women referenced in the title, it hinges on Blake's relationship with her father. "He is from the old-school Southern establishment that doesn't talk about anything and it doesn't really acknowledge having feelings, and she's from a kind of new generation that talks about everything," he said.

Although the pair graduated nearly a decade ago, they still involve themselves in local culture. Several Chapel Hill references are sprinkled throughout "Five Wives." In addition, Blake and Lyon -- who met during their undergraduate days at UNC -- shot a reunion episode in March of STV's "General College," a collegiate soap opera in which Blake acted and Lyon wrote, directed and produced in the early 90s.

The two parted ways after graduating but reunited by chance on a New York street and began the project shortly thereafter. Lyon said he was thrilled for the opportunity to work on the project, since it allowed him to meet people he considered to be like cartoon characters as described by Blake.

"It was sort of exciting for me to go and meet the real people," he said. "But in meeting the real people, I had my own impressions of them, my own reactions, so early on ... we spent a while talking about her understanding of the people or the way she painted people, versus the way I perceived them."

Blake said collaborating with Lyon was vital, considering the film's subject. She said Lyon's input helped her create an honest but responsible family portrait.

"You walk that line as a personal documentary filmmaker between honesty and privacy," she said. "You don't want to be exposing people irresponsibly -- and I certainly didn't want to make 'The Jerry Springer Show' -- so you have to be careful about that stuff and weigh your need for honesty against everyone else's need for privacy, or even your own."

Blake said balancing privacy and honesty paid off. Not only did most of her family consider the finished product a fair representation, but Blake also felt liberated from the Texan socialite trappings that contradicted her more progressive lifestyle in New York, where she directed avant-garde theater and dated a black man.

"When we finally screened the film, there it was --my point of view," she said. "There's no way to hide from it, there was no way dress it up, there was no way to pretend I was saying what (my father) was saying or what the socialites were saying, and so now ... I feel like, 'You can like me or you don't like me, but you get who I am.'"

While both Blake and Lyon credited the film for developing their artistic skills, "Five Wives" also had personal ramifications for the pair.

"I always had a kind of personal scorn for people like Blakey -- for old, testosterone-laden, kind of mean, old Republican people," Lyon said. "In the making of that movie, I so grew to love him -- I learned that people are people, they have opinions, they have their experience, they have their ideas."

Blake's father turns 91 this year. He recently took ill, and Blake does not expect him to live much longer. She said the film not only was a chance for her to get closer to her father, but also will provide that opportunity to future generations. "I'm really glad for the opportunity to spend that kind of time with him," she said. "As I get older it will be one of the most vivid photo albums I could offer the rest of my family."

The Arts & Entertainment Editor can be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.