4/25/23
Newsletter #317
The Crack of Dawn
When I arrived in Hollywood at the age of seventeen I, like most everybody else who ever came to Hollywood, dreamed of success, fame and fortune. But much more than those goals, I dreamed of writing and directing my own personal movies, that would, of course, be seen as great movies, then awards would be bestowed on me. I assumed that if I could fulfill the making of the great, personal movies portion of the dream, the rest would follow. Well, unless you are one of the very, very few people who actually achieve fame and fortune – which has to be some abysmal number like .0001% of the people who actually try – over the course of your life you will either give up, as most people do, or recalibrate your goals and definitions. What is success? If it’s making a lot of money, I failed. If it’s becoming famous, I failed. If it’s making movies that are considered great and given awards, I failed. Then I guess I’m a failure.
However, there is an old expression that goes, “If you try and fail, but keep trying, that’s experience; if you try and fail, then give up, that’s failure.” Well, I’ve never stopped trying, so that’s how I’ve staved off failure. But as I’ve aged, I’ve also redefined success. Since I was never driven by the desire for money, nor have I the slightest interest in expensive, luxury items – I live in a 900 sq. ft. house, and I drive a 2011 Chrysler – so not making a lot of it doesn’t mean much to me. But as the prospect of acquiring recognition, fame and awards has been left behind (I’m retiring with a pension from the DGA in four months), my definitions had to change along the way, or I would lose my mind.
But beyond that, and if you’ve followed these newsletters you already know, that I’ve found myself to be at the odd nexus of a ridiculously wide swath of famous, successful people, like: Christopher Isherwood, Quentin Tarantino, Joel and Ethan Coen, Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Lucy Lawless, Kevin Sorbo, Peter Jackson, George Romero, Crispen Glover, Werner Herzog, Vilmos Zsigmond, Francis Coppola (through email), Liam Neeson, Fran McDermott, Holly Hunter, Jim Henson, Miguel Ferrer, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Leonardo DiCaprio, Iggy Pop, Sting, Ted Nugent, Billy Connolly, the whole cast of Beverly Hills, 90210, I went to the same summer camp as Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner (and have spoken with her brother a few times), I had a short conversation with Robert DeNiro, as well as Gene Wilder (not at the same time), personally asked questions of Martin Scorsese, Mel Brooks, Francois Truffaut, etc.
I also caught the tail-end of the previous generation. I interacted with Anthony Quinn, Ernest Borgnine, Charlton Heston, director Rouben Mamoulian, who directed Greta Garbo’s best movie, Queen Christina (1933), as well as the first Technicolor feature film, Becky Sharp (1935), not to mention he directed the original Broadway productions of Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945)! I saw The Wizard of Oz (1939) in 1977 and it was introduced by the producer, Mervyn Leroy, who directed Little Caesar (1930) and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932).
As I watched a show last night about German Expressionist cinema of the 1920s, the two most noted cinematographers of the period were Karl Freund and Karl Struss. As I covered in an earlier newsletter, I met Karl Struss and his wife Ethel when I was at U of M in 1975, talked with the two of them for an hour, and actually handled Mr. Struss’ 1920s Leica camera. When I worked in a camera store, a kid came in to get a roll of film processed. I put it in the yellow envelope and asked, “What’s the name?” The kid said, “Freund.” I said, “Any relation to the cameraman?” He looked at me suspiciously, like I’d been spying on him, and hesitantly replied, “He was my great-grandfather,” and might have added, “What’s it to you?” I said, “You do know he was an extremely important cinematographer in the history of movies, right?” The kid looked at me like I was nuts, and asked, “When will my pictures be ready?” We talked more than that, and he really was Karl Freund’s great-grandson. What the fuck was he doing in Detroit? In any case, I was acquainted with Karl Struss, and one degree of separation by a family member from Karl Freund.
This is actually leading somewhere. In 2001, after six years of steady work, Xena was canceled, I spent all of my money ($100,000 on credit cards), finished my movie, If I Had a Hammer (my one and only film to never be released), bailed out on Hollywood for sixth and final time – a month after 9/11 – moving into a single-wide trailer in the woods in Oregon. Then my old buddy, Sam Raimi, made the highest-grossing movie of the year, Spider-Man (2002). So I asked myself, “Josh old boy, what is the universe trying to tell you?”
When you had a triumph in ancient Rome, a slave would whisper in your ear, “Fame is fleeting.” My good pal Bruce Campbell is recognizably famous, and it seems like a constant hassle, so I knew that I never wanted that. Money is just money. So, what was it the universe was telling me?
Do I wish that I had made Sam’s movies? Do I wish that I had made Quentin’s movies? Or Joel and Ethan Coen? No, no, and doubly, no. I honestly don’t give a good goddamn about their movies; I like my movies; that’s why I made them. People have asked me over the years, “Which of my nine movies is my favorite?” My response is, “That’s like asking which of your nine kids is your favorite? Two are deformed, one has Downes Syndrome, another leg braces, and another is intubated and on a feeding tube, but I love them all equally.”
It is indeed dawn. It’s a rosy, clear, sunny, 29-degree day here in metro Detroit. Apparently, every 310 days or so I actually sync up with the dawn.
Namaste, motherfuckers.