Somewhere in my boxed up life I have a framed photo of Jon Jost without a shirt, wild White hair, holding a 16mm camera and a shotgun mic.
It used to hang on my wall as a reminder of what kind of artist I wanted to be like most.
I poured through my boxes and was unable to find the photo. I wanted to see if I could get Jost to sign it.
The Billy Wilder Theatre is fantastic! It still has that new car smell! It's part of the UCLA Film and Archives and it's housed in the Hammer Museum.
Trying to buy tickets online for Jost's, "La Lunga Ombra" I was getting a window that told me twice the show was a sell out. I emailed Jost and he ever so coolly put me on the "Guest List." When I got there, there were several seats still available. What's that all about?
Jon Jost was everything I expected and more. He looks like a Social Studies teacher I had, but acts like the Wood Shop teacher we all loved because he wasn't afraid to tell us about how stupid the Principal and teacher's staff was and he showed us how to make bongs and potato canons.
I was moved by the 9-11 story of three Italian women unable to deal with their feelings and unable to explain it all away with talk. A heated debate broke out in the Q&A after the film. I was still a little numb thinking of my own 9-11 traumas and by the shocking faces of death ending and the call for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, so my lil' "Golly gee, Mister Jost, who influenced you as a filmmaker?" seemed so stupid as more important questions were asked as political anger erupted in the audience with members raising their voices at each other.
Jost slyly smiled from the stage as attention from the film and him moved to the arguments the crowd was having with each other. I think he digs it. He doesn't have to explain himself. People who know his work defend him in the crowd when people protest his choices and statements.
It was slightly depressing meeting one of my heroes after all these years. He said things that hurt me. Not the political stuff, but things like, "There is absolutely no market for my films" and "I've barely made a living as a filmmaker" and "When I submit a film to a festival, one that liked me in the past, they go, "Ehh, sorry.""
He was still very inspiring to me with statements like, "How much did this film cost? $25. worth of tape and I made the film I wanted" and "I made this film in 5 days" and "I'm free to make the films I want, the way I want."
I've owned several of his films on VHS, but never have I had a DVD. His website doesn't offer DVDs. So I was excited when he said he brought some DVDs to sell after the screening. I had a VHS copy of, "Last Chants for a Slow Dance" that I had to take apart and repair a few times. Ever do that? Unscrew the cassette and splice broken tape? Not fun.
After the film and Q&A I, like everyone else who hadn't left in a huff or was scared of a fight, crowded around him for copies of his work on DVD. Just as I pulled out my wallet, a woman asked to buy every film of his.
EVERY FILM, all the DVDs!
"Why don't you just try a few, then decide if you want to buy more? That'd be about $3000!" Said Jon Jost.
"No. I want all." she said writing out a check.
Well, no DVD for me. I put my wallet away and see a young girl also waiting doing the same.
How can he say there's no market for his work? If he can sell $3000 worth of DVDs at every screening, that sounds to me like some kind of demand.
I walk to my car thinking about one image from the film. It's not the violent "Money Shot" as one audience member called it. No, It was a shot of a woman looking out a window at another women walking toward her. The window frame opens out like a shutter, but it was closed and the wood frames around the window glass look like the two towers of the World Trade Center.
He holds onto that image with the background slowly over exposing to blinding White and static. Is that an image of the Towers on 9-11, a window that opens out to more horror and less understanding? Did Jost mean that? Am I imagining things, trying to make sense of things? Are we really looking closely enough, or is the trauma too much, making us look away?
Do we look out the window, or do we look in?
