From Faber & Faber's Projections: Tod Lippy's interview with Ted Hope & James Schamus
Ted Hope: When I came to film school here there was a very vibrant,
super-8,
no-wave downtown New York film scene. Nick Zed, Beth B., Lydia Lunch - all
those people. I had a romantic notion about the times of Warhol's Factory,
all that stuff. So there were these little film showings, and I went and
wasn't connected to the movies at all, but it seemed like these people were
successful. Their movies were getting shown, and it was exciting. It seemed
to me that if you made your movies and you really believed in them and
pushed
them, there was some way people would see them. Plus, I didn't have any
clues
as to the economics of the business. I was working at New Line, and they
had
this great library of Pasolini films, you know, mixed in with Evil Dead and
so on, and I just felt that, because these existed, somehow everybody was
making money.
Tod Lippy: But your definition of success at that point wasn't directly
linked with
financial concerns?
Ted Hope: Yeah. I didn't see a difference. If it showed on the Lower East Side,
then it meant it worked somehow.
James Schamus: Just to interject one factoid. The Golden Boat was made
with this mixture
of grant money, tiny little overseas investments, tiny little this, tiny
little that, and we made it in two long weekends. Didn't cost much at all,
but the fact is, it never made any money. But I remember when the film was
selected for the New York Film Festival. At that moment, everybody who
invested in and worked on the film truly believed that I as a producer was
hoarding the incredible amount of money that must have been made because
the
film was showing the New York Film Festival.
Ted Hope: I remember the New York Film Festival where Blood Simple and Stranger
Than Paradise premiered. I had, like, the cheap seats up front to see Blood
Simple, and all of a sudden the Coen Brothers get up on the stage, and I
recognize them from my local supermarket. They were always there buying
cold
cereal after midnight when I was there buying cold cereal after midnight. I
was like, "Oh my god, it's those stoners from the neighborhood!" And like
two
days later, after seeing Stranger Than Paradise, there was Jim Jarmusch on
the subway. Somehow it just felt really possible.
Tod Lippy: That certainly hasn't changed here.
Ted Hope: That's true. Todd Solondz told me that a month or so ago he went to see
some movie at the Angelika on Saturday afternoon, and as he was waiting to
get in he noticed that he was standing next to Wes Anderson and Vincent
Gallo. He was like, "God, we're all such big losers, going to see a movie
by
ourselves on a Saturday afternoon."
Projections 11
New York Film-Makers on Film-making
edited by Tod Lippy
faber and faber
© copyright Tod Lippy, 2000
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