Cinematic spotlight
Oklahoma documentarian makes her directorial debut with ‘Hal’
Amy Scott assumed the movie she wanted to see had been made.
When she found it hadn’t been, she made it herself.
After more than 15 years of editing films, the Lawton native was inspired to step out of the editing bay and into the director’s chair after she read Nick Dawson’s absorbing biography “Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel.”
“It was a fascinating look at his life and his journey. And I just connected with Hal because he was an editor for a number of years, won an Oscar for editing ‘In the Heat of the Night.’ And he directed his first film when he was 40, and I thought, ‘Hmm, OK, it’s not too late,' ” she said with a laugh.
“I really wanted to see this film made. I thought that this film had already been made, and I Googled it and I went to go try and find it, and it wasn’t there. So, I felt really compelled to do it."
The University of Oklahoma alumna’s acclaimed documentary “Hal,” which received the Special Jury Documentary Feature prize during summer’s deadCenter Film Festival, profiles the late, great iconoclast who in the 1970s made seven lauded and influential films: “Harold and Maude,” “Being There,” “Shampoo,” “Coming Home,” “The Landlord,” “The Last Detail” and the Woody Guthrie showcase “Bound for Glory.”
“Everyone knows (Martin) Scorsese; a lot of people know Robert Altman. There’s a number of filmmakers in the ’70s that we’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s a household name,’ ” Scott said in an interview during deadCenter. “He (Ashby) made those films in a row, so he made these phenomenal works of art that sort of defined this generation of American cinema — and I wanted to people to know that. And I wanted people to know that the themes of his films, I feel like, even though they were made in the ’70s, they’re extremely relevant today.”
Oklahoma show
A hit on the festival circuit, starting with its premiere at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in Utah, where it was nominated for the Documentary Grand Jury Prize, “Hal” is in the midst of a fall theatrical run that is bringing it back to Scott’s home state.
“Hal” is showing Friday through Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, which is also showing Ashby’s “Bound for Glory” at 8 p.m. Saturday.
“‘Hal’ made me want to go back immediately to Ashby’s films, to spend some time thinking about the director’s work in a way I never had before,” Michael Anderson, the museum’s director of curatorial affairs, said in an email. “I think Scott’s film sort of exists because of people like me, film lovers and cinephiles who weren’t around for his films the first time, and who have gravitated to other directors from the period — despite the enormous stature of many of Ashby’s films. She’s making an argument for his place in the canon, that when we tell the story about New Hollywood, or Hollywood more generally, Ashby is one of the names we need to mention, alongside your Scorseses and Coppolas and (Clint) Eastwoods. It’s an ambitious film — and to Scott’s credit, it is never less than captivating as she goes about making her case.”
“Hal” also is showing Saturday afternoon at the Woody Guthrie Center as part of the Tulsa American Film Festival.
Editing affinity
After majoring in film and video studies at OU, Scott started her film career in Chicago, where she worked as a media producer for the University of Chicago and a documentary film instructor at Chicago Filmmakers. She said she got a real education when she began assisting Pulitzer Prize-winning oral historian Studs Terkel at the Chicago History Museum.
“That was really sort of the postgraduate school of the interview technique of filmmaking. I was in charge of his audio archives and digitizing those, so I could just listen for hours on end to Studs interviewing like Mahalia Jackson or James Baldwin or any number of incredible personalities in American history,” she said. “It really taught me just how to conduct an interview, how to sort of set things up and let the dialogue flow. So, it transferred well into the sort of talking-head documentary that I ended up making.”
Despite his impressive output, Ashby wasn’t a household name, and Scott said she wanted to “lift him into the spotlight” with her documentary. “Hal” features interviews with actors Jeff Bridges, Jane Fonda and Louis Gossett Jr.; Ashby collaborators like
Norman Jewison, Robert Towne and Cat Stevens; and current filmmakers like Judd Apatow, David O. Russell and Lisa Cholodenko.
Ashby’s career was hampered in the 1980s by his battles with studio executives, and his life was cut short by cancer. He died Dec. 27, 1988, at the age of 59. Since “Hal” is the official Hal Ashby documentary, Scott said she was honored to work with his estate on the project.
“They were wonderful. They literally gave me the key to his studio space … and it was completely covered in dust, but it was a treasure trove of this cinematic of ephemera from his films. Like the wardrobes from ‘Bound for Glory’ were in a giant trash bag,” the Los Angeles-based documentarian said with a laugh.
Along with interviews and dramatic readings of Ashby’s letters by actor Ben Foster, Scott’s documentary includes many clips from Ashby’s beloved films, illustrating how he delved into still-relevant issues like war, racism and gentrification. Her directorial debut is coming during a period of intense focus on another social issue: Hollywood’s treatment of women and the dearth of quality opportunities for them in front of and behind the camera.
“Things are changing for the better. I feel like for a long time ... maybe I was more comfortable in the edit bay because I didn’t have the confidence yet or really was able to find my voice as a director. But I found it, and I think part of that is because of what’s happening now and the empowerment that everyone has for women in the industry. It’s very exciting,” Scott said.