Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession Page #7

---

I'm sick of being made

a fool of! I'm through!

I never want to see you again

as long as I live!

I wouldn't marry you

if you were the la...

Now all you got to do is kiss

the bride, and it's $3.00.

It was a favorite

picture of his...

and the audience got to see it.

Well, I can see that you're

definitely in love with films.

Certainly, it's your life.

But it seems to be

totally your life.

Do you do anything

outside of film, for instance?

What do you mean?

Jerry was a creature of habit,

and he had his watering holes...

and I think the favorite of all

his watering holes was Guido's.

And he very often went there

with Michael Cimino.

When I was introduced to Cimino

for the first time...

it was at Guido's.

Jerry knew all the waiters.

They all knew Jerry.

The waiters all knew Cimino.

In fact, when Cimino

walked through the door...

two waiters at once reached out

with cigarette lighters.

I remember going to Guido's

one afternoon for...

it was kind of a late,

late, late lunch.

And Jerry was there

and pretty wound up.

And I remember... the thing I

remember the most about it...

is he was perspiring...

kind of profusely

in the restaurant.

And he was wound...

I can't remember exactly

what he was wound up about...

but he was wound up

about something.

Something was going on,

or something was bothering him.

But we had a few drinks.

And I remember the waiter or one

of the guys came around...

and adjusted his neck for him

right there at the restaurant.

Kind of got behind him

and said...

"Jerry, you're way

overstressed here..."

and kind of did a...

cracked his neck.

I thought, "Oh, my God."

He was a really moody guy.

The days that he would

walk into his office...

sort of skulk into his office

and shut the door...

we knew not to approach him.

I know he fought with his demons

an awful lot.

At the same time...

those demons were kind of

what drove him on...

because he was insistent,

persistent...

and he refused to

take no for an answer...

and he was constantly trying

to make things right.

I remember when Jerry bought,

"1900," Bertolucci's film...

and played the entire film,

not cut.

And it was so exciting.

I got the 6-hour "1900"

from Lance...

when he taped it

off of Z Channel.

I still have, because

it took me two 120 tapes...

I still have the full "1900"

recorded off of Z.

"1900" was a very jinxed film...

in the sense that Bertolucci

had spent too much money on it.

The Grimaldis were

unhappy with him...

for spending

too much money on it...

and so his version was under

lock and key for many years...

almost in a fit of pique.

Jerry insisted to the Grimaldis

for 5 years...

that they had an uncut "1900,"

a 5-hour version of "1900."

They used to say,

"No, no, it no longer exists.

"Maybe it existed once,

but it no longer exists."

And he pressed them

and pressed them...

and eventually,

he managed to get it released.

And so we showed it

on Z Channel.

And there you could see

in all its splendor...

what Bertolucci had intended.

It's another amazing thing about

the Z Channel to me.

I don't even know how

you could get the rights...

to show these things with

all those politics involved.

But to just have access to

the vision of the director...

is amazing, invaluable.

You just never know when you're

living in a golden age.

I saw "Berlin Alexanderplatz."

Now, that was the most

extraordinary revelation.

Where else are you going to see

this 12 or 14 hours...

of this magnificent novel...

turned into this extraordinarily

brilliant film...

which nobody in commercial

filmmaking to this day...

will ever put on television?

It was like some enormous meal

that kept coming...

and you saw the whole thing.

It was breathtaking.

One day, he walked

into the office and said...

"Come into my office please,"

and I went into his office.

And he said... he sat back

in his chair, and he said...

"I don't like the air

that you breathe.

"I don't like the ground

that you walk on.

"I can't stand to be

in the same room as you are.

"You are a horse unreigned."

And I looked at him...

and I was completely

flabbergasted and shocked.

I think I even laughed because

it was so out of nowhere.

And I remember laughing...

I remember at one point

laughing and saying...

"Well, I guess there's no room

for me to grow...

"in this organization."

And he told me he'd write

a letter of recommendation...

or something.

The day Peckinpah died,

Jerry had to leave work early.

Jerry got the phone call

that Peckinpah had died...

and someone who knew Jerry well

just came over to the office...

and took him out

for the rest of the day.

It was just understood that that

was just gonna be something...

Jerry couldn't work past

for a bit.

He was like family...

Sam and Jerry.

And Jerry had a very strong

sense of family...

that you don't see

that much anymore.

He felt that you were part of...

this undefinable idea

of a family.

You could turn your back,

and he'd cover it.

We were all quite devastated

over Sam passing...

and the fact that

he wasn't able to get work...

there was nobody in this town...

that would finance him at all

for anything.

I think the last thing he did

was a Julian Lennon video.

Peckinpah's recent years had

been so difficult that...

one could see,

one could sense...

that he was moving toward that,

one way or another.

As a receptionist...

I was literally sitting

right outside Jerry's door.

So I quietly sat there...

and occasionally would bring up

some film talk with him.

And he began to realize that I

knew a little bit about film.

Then he brought me into

the programming department.

He usually had Tim Ryerson

in with him.

And they'd be like

two guys bailing hay...

on an intellectual level.

It would just be,

"Why don't we do this?

"Why don't we do that?"

And they'd be moving their way

down the board...

trying ideas out on each other.

He stood at that board and moved

those magnetic stripes around...

that represented

the different films.

I can remember many times just...

it was... like standing there...

and looking at it,

and was just dreaming...

about all the wonderful

possibilities that you could do.

Claude Chabrol.

In fact, that was one of the

other directors, all right...

that Lance gave me.

I had never seen

"This Man Must Die" all right...

and they showed it on Z Channel,

and I got it from him.

You still can't see that

goddamned movie.

It was the great thing about Z

right from the get-go...

that they were running

European films.

That was how they got

the reputation...

that they programmed

them well...

and they were making

a hit with it.

Who knew?

One interesting aspect

of "Das Boot," you know...

it had a career as a film

in theaters...

where it really wowed

audiences around the country...

but then we discovered...

that it had been

a miniseries in Germany...

that it was actually

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes