Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession Page #4

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of my life...

I got from Z Channel

subscribers.

Yes, I think I did write letters

to the "Z Mag"...

which I had forgotten until

contacted to participate...

in this documentary.

I wrote, I think,

complaining about...

the letterboxing bars

weren't big enough...

for Kurosawa's "High and Low"...

and that's how I got

this t-shirt.

I remember I couldn't wait...

when my "Z Channel Magazine"

would come every month...

because I wanted to read

all the reviews...

which weren't always good.

The people that wrote it knew

that their audience...

was keenly interested

in what they had to say.

And what they had to say

was a whole series...

of original and highly

controversial observations...

about the films

that were being shown.

It wasn't the usual pap that

you get in fan magazines.

My belief, and I know that this

is Jerry's belief, too...

is that if you appeal...

to the most intelligent member

of the audience...

everybody else follows along.

There's this feeling that

you have to appeal...

to the common denominator.

Jerry and I hit on the phrase,

"the uncommon denominator"...

that's what we want...

because we want to go

for the smart folks...

because everybody is smart.

That's my man!

I don't think we'll make it

past the cops.

We'll make it past the cops.

I just hope we don't

see no Muslims.

Listen, you owe

Ben Angelelli $4,000.

You tell Ben Angelelli

to suck my cock.

Wait a minute.

You lost that money,

you should pay your debts.

A double suck.

The first couple years of

Jerry's stewardship of Z...

are marked by just the ability

to do the unexpected.

So he was able to make simple

but effective use...

of his position there.

And then suddenly his reputation

started to take care of itself.

I have this fantasy that in the

year 2050 or the year 2075...

they're gonna read about...

the furor that attacked

"Heaven's Gate"...

the furor that came down

upon Heaven's Gate...

and they're not gonna

believe it.

It's gonna seem like

science fiction.

The Stock Growers'

Association...

has the names of some of

you people on a list.

A hundred and twenty-five names.

The then-current U.A. Management

decided to make the film...

at a budget of 12 million.

The 12 million turned out to be

40 before they were through.

The picture was

a commercial disaster.

Hastings Beak!

Jerry would get very heated...

about what had happened

to a movie...

what had happened

to a director...

or how a film had kind of

gotten off track...

or how somebody

had been slighted...

when they shouldn't have

been slighted...

or beaten up when they

shouldn't have been beaten up.

"Heaven's Gate"

was not only clobbered...

it was basically

burned at the stake.

The critics ganged up on it.

It became this huge

set of headlines.

It was in every paper.

The "Herald Examiner"

ran a story about it...

every day for 3 months.

Every day.

I was depressed for a year

after that movie.

I was depressed about it.

Really, it was just...

You do a work

and you think it's good...

and then nobody likes it,

no critics like it.

And it goes down

in the drain after two weeks...

they pull it out of the

theaters, and it disappears.

It was just...

It was cut immediately...

and lay there until such time

as Jerry approached Cimino...

and talked about reconstructing

his long version.

Without Jerry's prompting...

it would never have

occurred to me...

to try to find an intact print

of the original "Heaven's Gate."

It was his question that set

the whole process in motion.

It became a 4-hour special.

We had the first screening of

"Heaven's Gate"...

which was really an event,

and everybody tuned into it.

They wanted to know

what all the fuss was about.

And in a different atmosphere,

a different cultural climate...

the reassembled "Heaven's Gate"

got marvelous reviews.

It was a big event...

and it was the beginning

of sort of big events...

happening on cable.

It was really the first time

anything like that had happened.

You got to see the director's

vision of what the movie was.

Even after the fact,

it's very hard to get out...

but in some ways, that put him

20 years ahead of his time.

We had a great relationship

with Michael Cimino...

because of that...

because he really

gave life to a film...

that had been so unfairly...

whether in the end

you liked the movie or not...

it had been so unfairly treated.

The effort to do something like

that was a gargantuan effort.

It would be like saving

a great edifice...

that was designed by

Frank Lloyd Wright or something.

Jerry took great risks

in the films that he bought...

and that's why

he was so respected.

Suddenly he had this position...

where he was being interviewed

and quoted, and it was nice...

because he had this moment

of feeling like...

people were acknowledging him...

for what he wanted to be

acknowledged for.

But he would have liked to,

I think, be making movies.

Instead, he had such great

respect for great filmmakers...

that he provided a place

to showcase their works.

I remember walking

behind him one day...

as we were just taking a break.

I'd turned in

a bunch of stuff...

and he'd just made

a bunch of buys...

and just done

a bunch of business.

And he wanted to go out

and get some ice cream.

So we file out of this little

garden spot office...

that we had...

which was the first office

that I knew.

And we're hiking up along Bundy.

And I'm walking behind him.

It's just this very hot

California day.

He's wearing a tweed jacket.

He's got that cigarette lighter

around his neck...

and he's just bopping along.

I'm looking at him,

and I'm walking behind him...

and I'm thinking...

we've just come off of several

months of really happy work...

and I'm thinking...

"This is actually one of the

happiest times of my life."

What were your mother and father

doing when you were growing up?

My father was a judge.

My mother was a personnel

director for a hospital.

Were you able to see

your parents very often?

They sound as though

they were very busy people.

They were around.

Maybe too much.

I was at Select TV,

and Jerry called...

and said that he would like

to talk to me.

Would I be interested?

And would I meet him for dinner

to discuss...

working at the Z Channel?

We talked about what the duties

would entail...

and most of all,

he talked about his personality.

And he said to me,

"I'm crazy, you know."

And I said, "Oh, yeah, sure."

Jerry would be very honest with

you about his own needs.

He would say,

"Got to go to my shrink."

And he would just say it

in that plain way, like...

"Got to go see my doctor.

Got a doctor's appointment."

But it would happen to be

a shrink's appointment.

And he would go often.

You knew that he was devoting...

maybe a couple of afternoons

a week to going over there.

One day,

everything would be fine.

We'd be having a conversation.

Maybe he'd go to the bathroom

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