Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession Page #6

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It made less money,

grossed less money, I think...

than "O.C. & Stiggs," or some of

these films of mine...

that were really flops.

And it's become a little...

kind of a mini-classic.

You do a film and it's so...

It's just different from what

the standard thing is...

they just don't succeed...

until the audiences have time to

let themselves catch up with it.

It's hard to keep

the audience's attention...

when you show them everything.

And the problem

with most films is...

is that you hear it,

you see exactly what it is.

If you're talking, there's a big

close-up of your face.

So we know that you're talking.

And we hear it.

So I think the mandate in film

is to hide that...

to make the audience...

"What's going on?

I don't quite see that.

"Do you think that's..."

So that the goose bumps

can come out.

Otherwise, you're sitting there

drinking Coca Cola...

and eating a hotdog.

I knew Jerry personally so well,

he would say...

"Hey, I want to sneak your film

on my channel."

And I'd say, "Oh, that's good."

Because otherwise,

they didn't play anywhere.

They just didn't play anywhere.

The Z Channel did

great film festivals.

We'd put on Truffaut

film festivals...

and Kurosawa film festivals

and Australian film festivals.

French film festivals,

English film festivals...

anything that we could

sort of highlight...

maybe a lesser-known

movie around.

The cool thing

about Z Channel...

was investigating

somebody's work.

Jacqueline Bisset seemed

like a fetish in a way...

which I thought was pretty cool.

Jacqueline Bisset is so much a

figure of Z Channel, I think...

because her great beauty

lent itself...

to "Day for Night" by Truffaut.

It lent itself to a wonderful

film called "Le Magnifique"...

which was the quintessential

Z movie, that is to say...

a European movie that few people

knew about stateside...

but which had a great deal

of American-style...

entertainment value

built into it.

You got Jean-Paul Belmondo

as a poor writer...

who's fantasizing himself the

superhero of his own pulp novel.

And the girl downstairs,

Jackie Bisset...

is like the iconic star of this

pulp novel in this guy's head.

When I did "Le Magnifique"...

Philippe De Broca asked me to

play this part, which is...

one part was this student...

and one part was this sort of

Bond-type character.

Doing "Le Magnifique"

was interesting.

But it was a lot to do.

Interesting for me was

to watch Jean-Paul Belmondo...

because he was the most

coordinated actor...

I've ever worked with...

and he could do 3 or 4 things,

comb his hair...

machine-gun somebody,

jump from rock to rock...

like a light-footed leper.

Not a leper. A leopard!

Like a person of...

like an animal.

Like a beautiful animal.

It was like having

a film festival in your house...

every single night...

a film festival.

That you would... you wouldn't

have to go to Rotterdam...

and you wouldn't

have to go to Berlin...

and you wouldn't

have to go to Cannes...

you wouldn't have

to go to Venice.

It was just like your own

private film festival...

and the programming was

eccentric and odd and mixed.

I was angry at it many times.

I thought,

"Why are you playing that?

"You're the only voice

on television.

"Play only the kind of

art films that I like."

But it was very good

in not catering just to me.

It really gave you

a kind of smorgasbord.

It gave you a kind of open-ended

view of all kinds of cinema...

and it gave you a sense of the

size and scope that cinema has.

Antonioni is not

necessarily about...

the logical structure

of a dramatic story...

but about atmosphere

and nuance...

and a kind of emotional tension

that exists more like weather.

One of the most striking things

for me in my memory is...

Monica Vitti walking

across a piazza.

And then you see above about 25

guys just watching her move.

And it says so much about

Italian culture...

about visual imagery,

about femininity, about sex...

about just being a human

and then being in a place...

like, kind of

classical piazza...

somewhere very Italian

and Mediterranean.

I don't know.

It's just kind of haunting.

Jeanne Moreau walking down

the street in "La Notte"...

did it for me.

I said, " This is a woman.

This is a job.

"Whatever this woman's doing.

"I have no idea

why she's so depressed.

"She is obviously

terribly depressed...

"and this man is not

treating her well.

"Don't care about him.

She is fascinating.

"I don't know what that,

all that means.

"It's just unknown material."

For someone to sit and think...

"I want to show the final break

in a relationship.

"I want to see that actual...

the crack, the how.

"What about, they attend

an all-night party?

"And somehow, it's the attending

of that party...

"that makes them finally realize

that the relationship is dead?"

And that's the film

he set out to write.

Have you ever been married?

- Yeah.

- Yes?

Yeah, I think so.

By the fall of 1983,

it was really clear to me...

that I couldn't stay in

this relationship anymore.

The psychiatry that I had

had so much hope for...

wasn't gonna solve the problem.

Jerry wasn't ready

to solve the problem...

or perhaps capable,

but I didn't care anymore.

I went into work one day,

and Jerry wasn't there.

And he was gone, as it would

prove, for 3 weeks.

I'd understood that it was

a contract dispute...

and he was holding a firm line.

Well, he surfaced 3 weeks later,

and in that time...

he had divorced Vera.

He continued to be

in touch with me.

We saw one another a few times,

a couple of times...

that were really ill-fated

because...

we sort of had

a little moment together...

and then that would

just make it worse...

because it would give him hope.

Jerry, you know, spoke bitterly

of that period.

Not bitterly of Vera...

but just of being married

and being in that zone...

and it was just somehow...

that was something

we didn't discuss...

except to acknowledge

that love was hell.

In that 3 weeks in which

he had disappeared...

from the face of the earth...

he had dissolved

his marriage to Vera...

and started dating the landlady

at his new apartment...

who was Deri Rudulph...

who I eventually met

a couple months later.

Jerry Harvey loved a movie...

that Henry Fonda did with his

ex-wife, Margaret Sullavan.

It was called

"The Moon's Our Home..."

and it's basically

a New Year's Eve picture.

And Jerry wanted to play it...

as his New Year's Eve movie

one year.

Very hard to get a hold of.

Do you, Sarah Brown

take John Smith...

I suppose you'd want me to

wait around doing nothing...

while you're making up

your mind.

I certainly do.

To have and to hold

from this day forward...

Then if that's the way

you feel about it...

you want to call

the whole thing off?

I certainly do.

Do you promise to love, honor,

and obey him...

- Do you really mean that?

- I most certainly do!

As Justice of the Peace...

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