The Producer
Madonna calls him “the smartest man in Hollywood”. From Rock Hudson to Kim Kardashian, he either knew them or knows them. And no idle name-dropper, he’s produced some big movies, some important documentaries and has an Oscar. So who is Howard Rosenman and how did his impressive career in showbiz start in the Arab-Israeli Six Day War? Feature inter view by Matthew Myers.
DNA: Do you think the film-making industry has lost a certain magic, or has it advanced in a good way? Howard Rosenman: Both. For me it’s lost a lot of magic in that I was originally a fan but, now, having made over 30 movies and seeing the reality of it all and how tough it is – that glamour no longer exists. But glamour in general doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe Angelina Jolie is glamorous or Cate Blanchett, but the glamour of Elizabeth Taylor, Myrna Loy, Rosalind Russell or Katharine Hepburn has gone. I don’t know who has that anymore. And the movie business has become very different. Big corporations own all the movie studios and it’s all about the bottom line. The studios have to make big branded movies now and it’s an industry. One of your most acclaimed documentaries is Common Threads: Stories From The Quilt. Can you explain a bit about it? Common Threads is a movie about the The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Quilting is a big American pastime and the AIDS Quilt is a series of panels that are six-foot by threefoot, the size of a coffin, and have the name of the deceased person with his personality all over it. If he was into motorcycles, they’d have motorcycles. If it was teddy bears, they’d have teddy bears. In fact, there’s a lot of koalas on the quilt. It’s now the biggest piece of artwork in the world, and the last time it was unfurled, it went from the White House to the Washington Monument and back. That’s acres of land. Have you made a quilt for anyone? Four. [A boyfriend and three friends.] After I laid down the four panels I fell on the quilt and cried. I was about to make a film with Hugh Hudson [director, Chariots Of Fire] and while I was crying he held me in his arms and said, “You’ve got to put your grief and anger into a creative process.” Common Threads follows the real stories of six people from the time of their infection to the time they end up on the quilt. Vito Russo, who directed The Celluloid Closet, was one of them. Your documentary, Paragraph 175, reveals the Nazi persecution of gay people. It’s very confronting. What was the response to this, particularly from straight audiences? They were stunned. They had no idea that the Nazi’s persecuted gay people. The Nazi’s weren’t just persecuting gay Jewish people, they were persecuting gay people in general, for being gay. They killed some and put others in concentration camps. [Between 5,000 and 15,000 homosexuals were sent to Nazi death camps during WWII. Exactly how many died is unknown.] Another of your classic documentaries is The Celluloid Closet, which is much-loved. You must be very proud of it. The Celluloid Closet is very entertaining. We follow 100 years of cinema with all of the gay subtext. Straight people had no clue about it, and even gay people had no clue, but when it’s uncovered it’s very funny. I was able to wrangle a lot of talent like Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon,