Bill Kennedy and the Movies
Many people knew Bill Kennedy better, spent more time with him, understood him, lived with him, took care of him. I’m probably at best a Facebook friend who met Bill long ago and bumped into him over the years, usually around a movie theater. If you know anything about Bill, or never heard of him, there’s one paramount thing: Bill was a movie fan. So much so theaters in the area are putting on dedicated screenings for him, “Seattle’s sweetest and most dedicated regular at cinemas citywide.”
Stephanie, a longtime mutual friend, recently gave me an item from Bill’s house. Bill died earlier this year after a long dance with cancer, and Stephanie was part of the crew cleaning out Bill’s possessions. From the sound of it, the project was like going through Citizen Kane’s Xanadu and a more loving version of the TV show Hoarders: Bill had reams of tapes, books, posters, albums, trinkets, and the like. Stephanie found something we had talked about over the years that took me back to heady times with passion found in a darkened movie theater.
I first met him when we were students at the University of Washington Drama School in the 198o’s. This was a great age to be a movie fan. Videocassettes brought back old films to new eyes. Theaters like the remodeled Neptune spun repertory screenings every night. The Seattle International Film Festival started growing in leaps and bounds being one of the few places on the planet where international cinema and indie films would be the stars. And the Seven Gables movie chain was a collection of art houses where those types of films would flourish year around. Something like The Stunt Man — which had been sitting on a studio shelf for two years — was “discovered” in Seattle, playing for over a year at Seven Gables’ biggest theater, the Guild 45th, and landed three Oscar nominations (and I’m still miffed Peter O’Toole lost to Robert De Niro).
I was at the University of Washington because I caught the acting bug in 8th grade. It’s what I wanted to do more than anything and had reached a degree of success. I made the cut to get into a renowned summer acting in school. Of six kids cast in the ensemble in a PONCHO theater production, I was the only one with extra lines. I was a rock in the high school theater program. But something happened early in my stint at UW. I lost interest. I found fellow students far more committed to the practice and with something deeper in their marrow. In retrospect I should have walked the earth for a year and figured out what I wanted, but I continued in the School of Drama and eventually found things I really enjoyed including writing, directing, and especially stage managing. Working at the video store allowed an uninterrupted flow of movies to watch which saved money so I could go to the theater at least once a week. And talking about film with people like Bill was just the best.
After college, while managing video stores, I started writing about film in the press as a freelancer and talking about it on the radio. It led me to have credentials to go to movie screenings — there was always a few a week — either giant theaters packed with evening promotional crowds or small movie houses during the day, often just six or eight movie reviewers in attendance. Again, I reached a degree of success, even fulfilling a childhood dream of writing the cover review for The Seattle Times’s Friday entertainment section, Tempo.
At promotional screenings I often saw Bill. By this time, Bill had started his lifelong “day job” of working at the Seattle Public Library system. With odd hours, he would be available for screenings at odd hours. So, when I received an invite for a 10 am screening of Alien 3, Bill was one of the few I could think about asking to be my guest.
Like most folks, I was so-so about the third film in the series. Bill was so-so too. But as we watched the film together, I would have never known. Bill got into a film, physically. He gasped when appropriate, cringed in his seat during the nervy sequences, beamed with admiration at a performance, and applauded at the end (and the house was 20% filled). If I didn’t know it then, I certainly know it now: Bill was a better film fan than I, probably better than anyone. As Kathy Fennessy wrote in her ode to Bill in The Stranger, “Bill never found a movie, any movie, to be a waste of time.”
I’m missing the kindness, the scope, the heart of Bill in these words. You would want to have met him, especially if you liked cats. He seemingly always looked the same, dressed smartly, well-mannered, intelligent, and kind. He wasn’t a movie freak. Well, maybe: it sounds like any movie memorabilia that could be stored in his house wasn’t a waste of time either.
This leads to the gift from Stephanie. It captures that golden age of movie watching on a single night where Stephanie, Bill, and I were in the same theater (but I didn’t know them until later). On March 15, 1981, Francis Ford Coppola, full of gusto after Apocalypse Now, brought his latest film to Seattle nearly a year before it would be released.
Coppola was a special kind of American auteur at the start of 80s. His run the decade before included The Godfather, its sequel (probably the best sequel ever and made the same year he directed another masterpiece, The Conversation), five Oscars, and Apocalypse Now, a film with a legendary production and release. Steven Spielberg was the wunderkind, but Coppola was a film buff’s favorite. Not only with his movies, but he also became a power broker adding his name and weight behind small films (The Black Stallion), re-introducing maestros (Akira Kurosawa with Kagemusha), restoring classics (Able Gance’s 1927 5-hour epic Napoleon, complete with a live orchestra). He took his untouchable Godfather films and touched them. Re-editing the films in chronological order and adding footage, Coppola created the first videocassette event, The Godfather: The Complete Epic.
Now he was changing the industry again, bringing back the studio system: a repertory company of actors, an ace crew, small $2 million budgets, genre films, but financing it with his own money and company, Zoetrope Studios. The first film out of the gate was One from the Heart. And it would sneak in Seattle, a haven for filmmakers to preview their films to ravenous audiences well out of the industry bubble of Southern California.
I went with my dad and two brothers. We got there early and found seats in the middle, next to the roped off section. Maybe Coppola would sit next us. But no one saw the director that evening. My dad did sit next to ace cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (and forever was known as “dad’s cinematographer” in the family).
The movie’s story was simple: two lovers fight and try on new lovers. The most interesting aspect was a soundtrack of original songs by Tom Waits (best title: “Tired of Picking Up After You”) and the cinematography. Set in the homes and neon outdoors of Las Vegas, it was all shot on indoor sets.
The memento of the evening was found at Bill’s house: the post film survey. Usually, these handouts are no bigger than an index card with a few questions. Here we have four regular size pages with a range of questions from “be as specific as possible” on how you felt about the movie, or scenes you liked or didn’t like. Then there were multiple choice questions with “points” listed they would presumedly tally:
__ The character played by Teri Garr is well done (-1)
__ The character played by Teri Garr is well done at times but not at other times (-2)
__ The character played by Teri Garr is not well done (-3)
One of the questions looked as if they scored more “negative points” the older you were. It was oddly funny to be filling out the elaborate survey on your lap with one of those pencils you usually get at putt-putt golf.
At one point, hands started going up. Who is Raul Julia? Was Nastassja Kinski the lead? American Zoetrope had not placed the character’s names on the questions, and these were not famous actors. So, at some point somebody on Zoetrope team started yelling out to the confused audience, “Teri Garr played Frannie, the blond, lead actress; Raul Julia played…” It was a harbinger of things to come.
When the film was released in January 1982, it bombed. And if you were in that audience a year before, flush with expectations, you might have known it. My family agreed the film wasn’t good. I’m sure Bill and I must have talked about it later, but I don’t recall. Costing $25 million to make, it returned 1/50 of that. Coppola’s dream ended. His career changed.
The survey Bill kept was not filled out. He even had the little pencil that came attached to it, although the adhesive had worn off. Stephanie and I pondered if Bill had even filled out the survey. Had he snagged an extra one? Or did he forgo filling it out to preserve a keepsake? Perhaps his collection was already going strong and here was a unique piece.
I don’t think so. I believe he sat there with the rest of us for 15 minutes and listened to others chatting as they filled out their surveys, but he just took his copy home.
It wasn’t because he thought it was a lost cause. Fan reactions have changed — even saved — movies.
It wasn’t because he didn’t want to help Coppola.
I believe it’s because he enjoyed watching a movie, because films were never a waste of time. So why comment about someone else’s movie? Bill was simply happy to be in audience.
Because Bill was a movie fan.
