Friday, September 17, 2004

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

by James McNally on September 17, 2004 · 1 comment

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,TIFF

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (USA, dir­ector Xan Cassavetes): The daughter of the late film­maker John Cassavetes and act­ress Gena Rowlands, Xan (Alexandra) Cassavetes grew up sur­rounded by the cul­ture of film. But in her teens, she began to form her own taste, thanks in part to an innov­ative Los Angeles area cable channel. Z Channel began in 1974, long before there was a Blockbuster Video on every block, and it showed both neg­lected American films as well as the greats of European cinema. Xan set out to make a straight doc­u­mentary about the channel, and in the pro­cess found a whole other story.

Jerry Harvey was a film geek’s film geek. He joined Z Channel in 1980 after pro­gram­ming films for a local art­house cinema. Under Harvey’s dir­ec­tion, Z Channel really took off, com­peting against heavy­weights like HBO. While remaining a local treasure, Z Channel’s influ­ence was dis­pro­por­tionate to its sub­scriber base, since so many film­makers lived in the LA area. Harvey was a friend and cham­pion of such film­makers as Sam Peckinpah, Henry Jaglom, Michael Cimino, Robert Altman, and Paul Verhoeven, and was one of the first to show “director’s cuts” of such mis­un­der­stood films as Heaven’s Gate, Once Upon A Time In America, and The Wild Bunch. But he was also a deeply troubled man. His obsessive nature fuelled his work, but it often led to bouts of crushing depres­sion. His mood swings cul­min­ated in a ter­rible tragedy in 1988 when he killed his wife and then took his own life. Remembrances from his friends are still fraught with grief and anger, more than fif­teen years later.

While at first, I wondered if I were seeing two films (a por­trait of Jerry Harvey, and an appre­ci­ation of over­looked films), I real­ized that the beauty of Cassavetes’ film is that she’s cel­eb­rating the life and achieve­ments of Jerry Harvey by talking about some of the films that he brought to her atten­tion through Z Channel. Not his tragic end, but what came before. So often, when a life ends in tragedy or viol­ence, we only remember that part. Sure, you could call Harvey a mur­derer. But he was also an incred­ible film lover and filmmaker’s advocate, someone who had a wide ran­ging influ­ence as well as a group of loyal friends who are still reeling from his loss.

Z Channel only lasted about a year after Harvey’s death, and the many people inter­viewed (Quentin Tarantino, James Woods, Theresa Russell, Paul Verhoeven, Robert Altman, and Jacqueline Bisset among them) seem almost as wistful about the death of a cer­tain era in cable tele­vi­sion as of their friend Jerry Harvey.

P.S. It seems fit­ting that I should end my 2004 Toronto International Film Festival exper­i­ence with a film about a TV channel that dir­ector Henry Jaglom described as “like a film fest­ival in your house every night.”

8/10(8/10)

Tagged as: Television

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Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

by James McNally on September 17, 2004 · 1 comment

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,TIFF

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (USA, dir­ector Ken Burns): It may seem hard to believe, but I’ve never seen a Ken Burns film. I’ve always meant to, of course, but watching a multi-part doc­u­mentary series is some­thing of a com­mit­ment. So I jumped at the chance to see an entire film in one sit­ting. Clocking in at an impressive 218 minutes (and including a short inter­mis­sion and a lively Q&A ses­sion, I was in the theatre for almost 4½ hours), I was hoping that the quantity would be matched by the quality. I was not disappointed.

Jack Johnson was a true ori­ginal. The first black man to hold the heavy­weight boxing cham­pi­on­ship, he was a self-assured man who dressed well, drove fast cars, and kept white women as girl­friends. While not unusual now, this was highly irreg­ular a hun­dred years ago, at a time when black lynch­ings were at their peak and the press reg­u­larly printed offensive car­toons to go along with its racist rhet­oric. In the ring, he was a highly intel­li­gent boxer, favouring a defensive style unknown in his day. He was also incred­ibly sens­itive and artic­u­late, espe­cially for a man with only five years of formal edu­ca­tion. But the struggles Johnson faced were almost insur­mount­able. No white cham­pion would agree to fight a black man. Jim Jeffries pre­ferred to retire undefeated rather than face Johnson, and Johnson had to travel around chasing champ Tommy Burns, hounding him to give him a title shot. When Burns finally agreed to a fight in 1908 (for a purse of $35,000, an unbe­liev­able sum in those days), the con­test wasn’t even close, with Johnson dan­cing around, taunting his opponent, and talking to people in the ring­side seats. The police stepped in during the four­teenth round to pre­vent him from knocking out the badly beaten Burns.

Johnson held the title from 1908 until 1915, with his most famous bout in 1910, against ex-champ Jeffries, whom he soundly defeated. This led to race riots all over the country, and many people were killed. From the moment he won the cham­pi­on­ship, it seemed that white society looked for ways to dis­credit him. The press were relent­less, printing hos­tile edit­or­ials and calling for a “Great White Hope” who would return boxing’s crown to its rightful place (and race). When a 37-year old Johnson finally lost the cham­pi­on­ship to Jess Willard, a giant man ten years his junior, it seemed to many that the black race had been taught an important lesson.

Johnson’s life was troubled, and he con­tinued to face per­se­cu­tion from the press and even law enforce­ment, who pro­sec­uted him on charges related to his “debauchery” with white women. He even­tu­ally served a year in prison. There would not be another black heavy­weight cham­pion until Joe Louis, 22 years later.

This is a remark­able film for many reasons. First of all, in the little-known story of Jack Johnson, Burns has found a micro­cosm of the racial situ­ation of the day, and one that has many echoes even now. Muhammad Ali, after seeing James Earl Jones por­tray Johnson in the Broadway play “The Great White Hope” (later made into a film), declared that Johnson’s life story was sim­ilar to his own. A black man choosing to live as a free indi­vidual on his own terms is some­thing that is still hard for some white people to tolerate.

Burns’ film is also remark­able for the way in which it uses actual archival film of Johnson’s bouts. Using silent film, Burns and his crew have added sound effects such as crowd noise and the sounds of blows con­necting, and it gives these scenes the vis­ceral punch they require. Finally, the superb “talking heads” (including the late George Plimpton, James Earl Jones, and the witty Stanley Crouch) and voice talent (Samuel L. Jackson is the voice of Johnson; others include Billy Bob Thornton, Derek Jacobi, Brian Cox, and Alan Rickman) bring the extraordinary story of Jack Johnson vividly to life.

As an added bonus, you get to hear James Earl Jones say “balls”. Twice.

P.S. Ken Burns is involved in a cam­paign to have Johnson leg­ally pardoned for his alleged viol­a­tion of the Mann Act. Other sup­porters include Samuel L. Jackson, Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Film’s Web Site: www.pbs.org/unforgivableblackness/

Director’s Web Site: www.pbs.org/kenburns/

9/10(9/10)

Tagged as: boxing, sports

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