Winter Solstice, 2025. Shortest day of the year up here in the northern hemisphere. Where I am now, in Kolkata, cooler a bit, choking air, but the wobble makes not much difference about when it gets dark. Around 6 or so. Here a dull white sky sometimes allows a yellow disk to penetrate it; the AQI seems to be far worse than a year ago, and a check confirms:
In turn I am hacking, my nose runs, and the people here say “you’ll get used to it.” I don’t think I will; I’ll just shave a few more months off my life.
Three months ago I was in NYC, seeing some friends, some surely for a last time, as I’d done in Chicago, Boston and elsewhere. I don’t intend to return to the USA again, so for some a swan song so-long. In late September flew from NYC to Dublin, train/bus up to Derry where I was greeted by Marcella and Uma, who clearly recalled me, and ran to slobber me with kisses. She knows a good sucker when she’s trained him: he’ll throw balls for me!! He’ll tug my toys with me and toss them!! Play play play!!!!!
So went to Marcella’s lovely place, which she got back in the interim after some repairs sent her to another place earlier. She’s settled into her new job with Repair Cafe, where she’s in a kind of administrative/developmental post. I stayed a month, and we all had a good time – went a few places, took long, slow (because of me) walks in the nearby park, and I got some editing done on Weyauwega film and some other things. It rains a lot this time of year so lots was indoors, good for writing or editing and things. Took it easy for the most part, partly because my banged up 82 year old body was feeling the wages of my travels – walking slow, legs not getting enough circulation (despite the drug I’m taking for it – Cilostazol), and partly because after a near-6 months of pretty constant travel, needed a little break. Because coming up was another month of more.
Left Derry and flew to London where I had a quick 3 days stay, now in another place, with Roland Denning in Camden, as my usual refuge was now occupied by grandchildren ! Stayed in Camden, and managed to squeeze in seeing a few friends, while I tried to sort out my India visa which was becoming, again, a hassle. Then took Eurostar to Paris after having to change – meant to go to Brussels and see people there, but then one of them instead was in Paris, so…. So I saw Mark Rappaport and then, as happened, friend Jane from NYC was there and we shared hotel a few days and had some fun, and I had a breakfast with Vivianne who then invited Jane for a dinner. All so fast.
And then flew on to Split, in Croatia where Tanja Vrvilo had organized a spread out partial retrospective of my films – 12 features and a handful of short works, showing in Split, Zagreb and Rijeka, and tossed in was a week in Tirana, staying in Enver Hoxha’s villa in the center of town – it has been turned into an artist residency thing. So for three weeks I shuttled to one place and the next, showed films, saw new places, and made new friends, saw some older ones. Was a good time, made a little much appreciated coin and had travels covered. And finally resorted to iVisa to get my Indian one, as I’d done last time around as the government on-line service just does not work. I got a 5 year visa this time as the hassle and cost is just…
So flew back to London for a quick 3 day stay, managing to see Hilary and Stuart, and meet with Dahci Ma, a Korean friend from 15 years ago. A bit hectic, but fun. And then flew on to Kolkata, where I arrived 2 weeks ago.
The air here is horrendous, and finds me red-eyed, sniffling and hacking. No fun. On the other hand on getting back I gave myself a day of rest and then went with Aopala to visit. They were all very happy to see me back, telling that my nickname is “White Grandfather!” I told them given my age perhaps it should be great-grandfather, since they start so young. They all wanted their photos taken (more) and were so enthusiastic and welcoming that I asked Aopala if maybe we should go ahead and ask bluntly about being in a film. She was hesitant and then agreed and asked. I was hoping to get 3 to 5, but instantly we had ten. A woman volunteered to sing a Bengali song. The young girl I’d wanted and had been so shy said yes. And others. So I am ready to dig in and try to figure out what can be done, and how. In the next 4 months or so – I hope to go to the mountains in April-May when it will be hot hot hot here. Aopala and Abhirup, her boyfriend, have agreed to come along.
As things are forming up hope to get some kind of film – fiction narrative mixed with portrait of the place? And for sure an on-line photobook of D-Block and its people. Something to keep my hands busy and out of trouble!! Seem to have raised a handful of Facebook friends to donate some old digital cameras to give to the kids there, to let them go shoot their own world and if turns out good and interesting, another part of book on D-Block.
Through all this I’ve been riding the being-old roller-coaster. My lower back/legs shrieking at times, almost to the point of saying, “sorry Jon, you don’t get to get out of bed today.” It says, but never gets its way. Got a prescription for steroids and seems to be helping a lot. However my walking is limited, calves tighten up now in 1/3rd of a mile. Will consider angioplasty after I have doctor examine and ponder. I do, though, manage the morning’s stretchersizes, 30 squats and 50 pushups. Ain’t dead yet.
Out in the wider world, the USA sprints to a chaotic collapse, with the Trump Gangsta.Guv going nuts and like to be gone in a quick year. Replace by what, who knows. Collapses are always messes. He was the predictable conclusion to “The American Century,” imperial hubris compounded with ultimate corruption. Same thing happening around the world as global warming warms up, volatile weather, warmer air carrying more moisture. Boil a pan of water and watch how it happens.
My coming months will be here, hopefully busy with D-Block and a few other self-appointed things I hope to get done while here.
That’s my seasonal news. If inclined please drop me a note about your life.
Tough guys – Rosenthal playing tough with the band Crime
Last month, preparing for a trip to Croatia for a festival under the banner, “Invisible Cinema,” for which the organizers wished to show All the Vermeers in New York, and The Bed You Sleep In, both of which were beautifully restored by EYEfilm in Amsterdam, I received the following letter from Mr Rosenthal, as did EYE. EYE cannot send out a DCP without Rosenthal’s consent (and mine.)
The letter is in effect one of blatant blackmailing, and I wrote to Simona describing it as such. Rather than submit to this extortion attempt, I instead published this on my Jon Jost Blog, sending link to it to a mailing list of mostly cinema people. I have heard nothing from Rosenthal after; he did subsequently give EYE his OK to send the films. Read that as you will.
“I always knew something was wrong with me,” Rosenthal admits. “Mentally or physically?” I ask. “That’s a good question,” he replies. From a recent article in the San Francisco Gate on Rosenthal.
TRUE STORIES
Some time, quite a while ago – I don’t really remember – I was contacted by a young filmmaker in San Francisco who wrote of having secured insurance from Rosenthal’s Complex Corp for equipment, as required to rent for a film he was making. Apparently something had gone wrong, something stolen, lost or broken. Rosenthal had told the person not to report it to the insurance company but rather to him. He then stiffed the person who did not get whatever to cover the loss, and he wrote me thinking I could help. I couldn’t. I recall when I was still “a friend” of Rosenthal’s his telling me he would slip people under his Complex Corporation insurance, bill them for it, and as things seldom went wrong, it was “free money.” He thought this was clever. It was also illegal. Sometime after this, I don’t recall how or why, I came across a public notice of the California Department of Insurance issuing to Henry S. Rosenthal, Complex Corporation, 535 Stevenson St, San Francisco, an order to “cease and desist” from fraudulently selling insurance policies. This was after he had fraudulently told the Library of Congress that he had a “letter of assignment” from me turning over the rights to the four films, Sure Fire, All the Vermeers in New York, The Bed You Sleep In, and Frameup, to him and his Complex Corporation. No such letter ever existed, the Library did not ask to see it, and gave him the copyrights to those films. Rosenthal did this furtively, without informing me, and secured control over those films, blocking me from access and use of my own work ever since. Fraud is of no importance to Rosenthal.
At the time, Rosenthal, since 1990, was on the Board of Directors of the Film Arts Foundation, at some point becoming its head. It is clear he used this position to steer people into buying his fraudulent, illegal, insurance.
According to Rosenthal, from an interview he did for the FAF publication Release Print that he became a BoD member because:
“I was targeted as a candidate because I think I represented that bridge between the maker and the world of people [with money] ––I guess they perceived me as someone who has raised money for films, who was maybe more savvy about money, and who could help move the organization to a more stable place financially, and they saw me as a player in that role…. I was one of the bigger contributors to the organization, and tried to rally support everywhere I could.”
Again, this was in effect a fraud since Rosenthal had not produced the films made with me, the only ones he had supposedly “produced” by then, and had, while I was his “friend,” demonstrated his ineptness and incompetence with regard to the film business. I regret ever having let him put his name on those films as “producer.” He was at best a “co-production manager.” I was the other production manager and he was learning through me.
For a full history of the FAF, and its demise while Rosenthal was head of the Board of Directors, you can read this.
As for playing fast and loose with film-world designations, I note that tucked between four of my films listed below, which he did not produce, on his IMDb page we find Gregg Araki’s The Living End, for which Rosenthal claims he was “executive producer.”
One of the descriptions of an executive producer, on the net:
“An Executive Producer (EP) is the driving force behind a film, television show, or other media production. They oversee all aspects of the production, from securing financing to managing the production team. The EP is often the primary decision-maker and the final authority on creative and financial matters.”
In the case of the Araki film what really happened was that I met Gregg at a summer Sundance something in Utah, at Redford’s place there. He had made his first film, critically well-received in LA, and could not raise the money to make the next one. I offered to let him use my equipment (a CP GSMO 16mm camera; sound stuff) and to give him film stock I had bought cheap earlier to make the film. He accepted, and, on my instigation, Rosenthal shipped it to LA by courier. Period. Rosenthal did nothing else, certainly none of the things an “executive producer” supposedly does. Again, Rosenthal is a fraud, eager to snatch credit for things he never did.
Quote from an article in the SF Gate regarding Rosenthal:
I note that Araki in fact made two films with the equipment and film stock I sent him, The Living End and Totally F**cked Up. He sent it all back rather carelessly tossed in the container it had been sent in and never said “thank you.” I am used to such self-centered “artist” sorts.
Cosplaying punk drummer
One of the filmmakers, who prefers not to be named, whom Rosenthal “produced,” told me a story, again regarding the insurance scam. In this case the FAF equipment being used, doubtless theirs rather than a rental house because Rosenthal was on the BoD, and which he “insured” with that “free money” in mind, was stolen. It was a sizable pile of stuff, and not a little money. Under the circumstances, it being FAF and he on the BoD, he actually had to pony up and replace the lost equipment, keeping his insurance scam hidden. After having been friendly with the filmmaker, he blew a gasket, turned on a dime, and was vituperative and nasty when his con turned on him and he had to shell out. It was of course someone else’s fault, not his illegal action to blame.
STALKING
In the times I have had screenings in San Francisco since Rosenthal’s theft took place, he has managed to come to each – once at the New No Nothing Cinema, and the second at the Public Library, back in December, 2017. At the No Nothing, approaching from behind me, I heard his voice, cheery and casual, say, “Hi Jon!” and he passed by me. I ignored him. At the screening in the small theater, he sat in the first row, quite visible during the Q&A, during which he said nothing. In a second screening, at the public library, of Blue Strait, there he was again, in a front-row seat. Stayed through Q&A and when he left he went to back of big auditorium and grabbed a sizable box, which when he lifted it, seemed to be light, and left. At the time I thought maybe he’d intended to give it to me, whatever it was, and as I had ignored him, had to take it back home – a walking distance. No idea. Before he did so he talked with a friend of mine there, Barbara Hammes (lead in Rembrandt Laughing) and had told her that he’d been at the previous screening and I hadn’t recognized him and apparently did not there. After Barbara let me know this, I wrote this to Rosenthal :
Barbara in Rembrandt Laughing and now.
He responded with this email:
More recently, in Spring of 2021, Bruce Posner, a well-known figure in the film scene, invited me to participate in a Zoom thing he was doing during the Covid period. They’d look at a film, and we’d talk about it. I said OK, and signed on.
Not long afterward he informed me that Rosenthal had requested to participate and I asked him to decline it, which he did. This begot this email:
Rosenthal afterwards contacted the library and institutions involved and caused Bruce a lot of problems. From note from Bruce after I wrote him for a confirmation on this:
More recently, this past June, 2025, I was in Los Angeles, for a partial retrospective done by the American Cinematheque there, in a festival under the banner ‘Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair’. As they wished to show 3 of the films requiring Rosenthal’s OK, he knew of it, and wrote me this some weeks before:
I did not reply to this email.
Rosenthal did show up for the screenings in LA, in his guise of having been the “producer” of these films. I did inform the Cinemateca that he was coming, and asked that he not be allowed to go on stage if perhaps he’d ask; they agreed. After the last screening, at the Aurora Cinema in Santa Monica, a good crowd of people – friends of mine, actors, Erling Wold, and others – were gathered on the sidewalk in front, talking. I went to one cluster to join in, and shortly after Rosenthal came striding in its direction; seeing this I left, and went to another cluster. He came quickly towards that one. I left it and went to wander the periphery of the crowd, Rosenthal following me, stalking, and approached seemingly to “glad-hand” me – I punched him in the gut. It wasn’t too hard as the camera around my neck got in the way. He did buckle over and I stepped towards him to offer some more. Shocked, he backed off, yelling “You’re a coward, you’re a coward.” His car was right there and he jumped into it and sped away.
In turn this begot an email sent to me, EYE, the the USC Archive in LA, mostly dealing with the quality of the files of Frameup and Sure Fire, about which he complained. He ended with this:
Rosenthal in Frameup, watching execution
In his references to an “agreement” made, which was the Lawyers for the Arts arbitration, Rosenthal neglects to note that I never signed that agreement. And had he a gram of self-honesty, he would acknowledge that his “rightful” credits would be co-producer of Sure Fire, and “co-production manager” of the other 3 films. I would be happy to list him as such. I regret that long ago I let him masquerade as something which he was not; something which has caused many others damage. Rosenthal is a fraud and shares certain qualities of Our Great Leader, who is clearly a psychopath.
FromThe Bed You Sleep In
As I gather still more information on Rosenthal I will do a follow up post on his actions. He complains that I have violated a “non-disparagement NDA” which I never signed. Those who require NDA’s have things they wish to hide.
I don’t recall when I met this man – 1985? 86? – but I do recall why. I’d moved to San Francisco with my then partner Alenka Pavlin, and at first we’d stayed, subletting, in a nice spacious loft, while the owner, filmmaker John Knoop, was off on a long trip. Maybe. As someone who travels a lot and can’t drag many things with him, and pre-Facebook, most of my where/when memories are a bit fuzzy, lost in the smear of places I’ve lived, a year here, 4 months there, 2 years somewhere else, and even 5 years once. Along with the places there’s also the shuffle of faces – the long list of friends scattered around the globe. Facing the end of our sublet from Knoop we shopped around for a new place, and answered an ad for a “loft” south of Market (SOMA). We met the landlord, Rosenthal, going to check it out – the “loft” description was rather misleading: the place in fact was one of a cluster of 6 or so very small cottages on Natoma Street, and the “loft” was a shelf below the ceiling just big enough to put a mattress in for sleeping, though far from being able to stand in. The little court was kind of cute, and though small, we took a cottage. It turned out to have an illustrious past, or so it was rumored, as a whore house, with each little cabin serving as two “cribs” for the working girls to conduct their trade. At the back of the court was a bigger cottage, divided in two, above which a large flat plywood painted red rooster above it, apparently to advertise the old biz. It has all been torn down since we lived there.
So this man became my landlord, and, as it turned out, was apparently producing a film by famed Bay Area artist-experimental filmmaker Bruce Connor. I’d known Bruce from a few decades earlier when both he and I had served on the BoD of the Canyon Film Coop. The film they were making was about a well-known gospel group, forget which; it was never completed. Rosenthal did have some of Connor’s larger graphic works in storage in the 4 floor warehouse which he owned and lived in, at 535 Stevenson, an alley parallel to Market street, only a half block away. The place also had other art items, apparently sourced from Rosenthal’s father, a wealthy businessman from Cincinnatti, who among other things was a collector. So there was a Warhol print (real), and, as the father had specialized in him, a number of Kurt Schwitters collages.
At some point, I suppose early on, I let it be known I was a filmmaker and gave Rosenthal some DVDs, or maybe VHS. One of them was of Last Chants for a Slow Dance, which apparently hit him quite powerfully, and he waxed on and on about Tom Blair, and would quote lines from it, one being “small man just can’t get ahead” which he found quite funny. Not his problem. Being myself, I did not jump at this obvious matter, and it was 6 months or so, after we’d become no longer renters, but “friends.” Alenka and I went to the warehouse, named “The Complex,” for meals and get-togethers with Rosenthal and his then-wife, Carola Anderson, who came from Healdsburg, northern California. They were a kind of artsy couple, doing music in just intonation, and they had a supposed organization and archive for such work, which struck me as the kind of thing a rich child might have as a kind of hobby, like a big model train set. The music they did, along with their air about it, was rather pretentious, and as “music,” utterly pedestrian.
With Rosenthal salivating about Blair and Last Chants, I finally proposed maybe making a film together, which he bit at, though he wanted Blair as actor. I’d fired Tom twice, the last time being rather ugly and not so long before. But I said, OK, contact him if you want, feeling rather sure he’d decline. He didn’t though, and so Sure Fire kicked into gear. Rosenthal would play producer, and he did raise about half the $75,000 budget, while I raised the other half via some grants, if I recall properly from the NEA and the New York Foundation for the Arts. In setting this up, I let Rosenthal know I was a tax resister, and had been my whole life, and that I wished to keep me off-paper. He fancied himself a kind of libertarian, and was OK with this, and as friends, we made verbal agreements about the film, we’d split 50/50 on any incomes, and at a later point we agreed we would not copyright it and subsequent films as at that time it required giving a print to the Library of Congress, which was costly, and we’d just use the copyright bug. He tucked it under his already existing LLC, Complex Corporation, and agreed verbally to everything. He was a friend and I trusted him.
The making of Sure Fire became a nightmare, about which you can read here. Much of the difficulty was caused by Rosenthal, though Tom Blair also played a significant role in the problems. When the film, shot in Super 16, was finished shooting in Utah, I was more or less not on speaking terms with the actors (except Kristi Hager), or Rosenthal, and I declined to edit the film at that time, and left to live in New York.
While in New York, being the way I am, I gravitated towards making a film there, and did the kind of casual research I tend to do, sucking up the place I am living in, trying to tune into its qualities. Coming up with a vague idea, against a friend’s advice, who said they were totally script driven, I approached American Playhouse, a PBS production unit, and in two brief meetings with Lindsay Law, its executive head, making clear there was no script and there would not be one, I secured a budget of $200,000 or so, to which a grant I received from the NEA brought a total budget of $240,000. After I had personally raised all this money, I asked Rosenthal to be production manager, since he’d done that well enough for Sure Fire. He said he would only do so if he was listed as “producer” and I – not really giving a shit about such things – foolishly said OK. And, despite the mess he’d caused on Sure Fire, he was still a “friend.” My thought, discussed with him at the time, was that he would, in working with me, learn how to be a producer, and in my mind that would relieve me of that part of making films, which I loathed. I am almost allergic to money. I also made clear that he would not be around the actors or the shooting as he’d caused serious problems in the previous film. He accepted this.
After finishing the shooting of All the Vermeers in New York, I moved back to San Francisco to edit and to work with John A. English on the music. And then returned to finishing Sure Fire, doing the edit, overseeing the music, done in this case by Erling Wold. A sign which I should have read as a basis to end our partnership was when it came time for me to be paid for Vermeers – as budgeted (by me), with the money I had raised every penny of, and which I brought in on budget – was that Rosenthal initially was reluctant pay, and used the phrase that it was “his” money. I noted this, but at that time thought it was just rather misguided of him, and not something pathological, which it turned out to signal. I did get my pay and put the matter aside.
With these films finished, we went to Sundance, the Berlin Festival, Montreal, SWSX and other places, together. Rosenthal was catapulted into the big leagues. My thought was that he’d get introduced to how this little slice of the film world worked, part of his learning process. I recall his first time going to Berlin, along with Carola, wearing a Brooks Brothers suit, a haircut suitable for it (super straight & nerdy) and in the swirl of those people there to schmooze, wheel and deal, mostly dressed in denims, networking and all that stuff, he stood there forlorn, with his briefcase, thinking deals would walk up to him owing to this errant business costume. He made no sales, while I did – largely because I’d made good films which were hot items in Berlin, and at that time it was a nexus for selling. The films were sold to German, Italian, Czech and other distributors and broadcasters, and generated well over $100,000 in sales. Buyers approached me and I would turn them over to Rosenthal to deal with the paperwork – in effect he acted as a secretary/accountant. As the funds used for making the films – grants and the American Playhouse – did not have to be returned, it left a decent sum with which to do further films.
On returning to the US, with money available to work with, I turned myself to my next film, The Bed You Sleep In, which cost about $100,000 – and for which I personally secured, for free, through Bob Harvey, a Panavision package of their best camera, lenses and other things. Rosenthal acted again essentially as a production manager and accountant, and once again was kept away as much as possible from any interactions with the actors and crew. The film was shot in a month, in Toledo, Oregon, and edited relatively quickly with Wold doing the music in close collaboration with me in San Francisco.
Having inadvertently written a script while preparing to make Bed, I decided, since there was sufficient money from prior sales remaining to do so, to make another film, Frameup. Rosenthal did not want to make the film, though the money was there to do it, and after resisting it, with me underlining it was our money, not his, I again secured a free Panavision package, this time including a Worral head, and went off with Ann-Marie Miguel to northern Idaho and back to coastal Oregon, and shot the film, in 35mm, in two weeks, with a budget under $50,000, with a crew of two – me and Anne-Marie. Rosenthal was not present during most of its making. Again the films went to Sundance, Berlin and other festivals. This time in Berlin Rosenthal seemed to have learned something and ditched the Brooks Brothers suit, though again he had apparently no clue on what to do, and all sales again were generated by myself and the buyers were passed along to him. I had become a modest name in this little slice of the film business and the films sold a bit more widely, returning all the money spent on them and more. I do recall during a press meeting, hosted by Ulrich Gregor, letting Rosenthal sit with me playing my “producer” and listening to him laud me as a filmmaker who could do so much with so little money, and how nice that was, and I was tempted at that time to say that you can’t do anything with money the “producer” hasn’t and can’t seem to raise. Outside the initial $35,000 for Sure Fire, he’d raised zero of the money for all four of the films; I had raised it all, from grants and from AP, and from generating sales from the films I’d made.
Somewhere in this period I recall watching Rosenthal sitting at his desk, a sizable half-circular one with a marble top, once owned by James Brown he told me, and talking on the phone with one of the band members from the group Crime, to which he’d belonged for a year, and getting the person, who was in desperate need of a fix, to sell his rights to the songs for $100. After he’d done this, he sat at the desk, looking like the archetypal shyster-kike, rubbing his hands together with a malignant smile, saying how he’d made such a deal and beat his “friend.” As distasteful as that looked too me, it seems it did not occur to me to say “over” and terminate our relationship, not seeing he could and would do the same thing with me.
I don’t recall the time – perhaps after Vermeers and Sure Fire were done, perhaps later, but I think not, we were invited to Paris, to discuss distribution as I recall. It was a business trip. With adequate time to prepare, Rosenthal neglected to line up one appointment regarding distribution or production; once there he made none. Rather he preferred to go to a sports center and play ping pong. I recall being highly disappointed with him, masquerading as a “producer” and not even attempting to do the minimal when he had a “hot” item at hand. His “rich kid” side was on display. Around this time I met another hustler, around same age as Rosenthal, and we established a relationship over some time, and regarding Rosenthal he said the problem was he was not “hungry.”
Likewise when distributing Vermeers, he and the fledgling distributor Strand Films decided to open the film simultaneously in 5 or 7 cities, including NYC. As it turned out they could not find a good cinema in New York, and opted for one in the Village which 2 months earlier had been a porn place. I asked them not do so, as the place was inappropriate, and said we should wait until the film ran up some BO elsewhere and then try to get a suitable place. They both said no. It opened in NYC with the other cities, with a nasty review by the NYTimes critic of the time, Vincent Canby, and ran one week. In Los Angeles it opened to 7 good reviews and none bad, on the first day of the 1991 riots, and the cinemas were closed the whole week. It thus did no BO and was pulled, by Hollywood logic, never mind the circumstances. Vermeers received a Best Independent Film of the Year award from the LA Film Critics association.
The film ran 6 months in Chicago and San Francisco, most likely on the strength of two “thumbs up” from the Siskel and Ebert television program. I had personally intervened to get them to look at the film, as Ebert had favorably reviewed my first short film in Chicago, way back in the ’60’s, giving me a wedge to write him personally and ask him to take a look. He and Siskel did look at it and I am sure most the box office was owing to their thumbs. Neither Rosenthal or Strand had any means to get such treatment, or did anything remotely equivalent.
In the period after completing Vermeers, in winter of 1991, MoMA in NYC did a retrospective of my work, every feature from Speaking Directly through Vermeers, 12 films, running a month. It got good press, etc. In the little bubble of “American independent filmmaking” I’d become a “name.” After this I made Bed and Frameup, and my little flame burst brighter. It was at this time, I think spring of 1992, that a friend of mine, Jill Godmilow (who died this past month), gave me rights to the Raymond Carver book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, for which she’d written a script, obtained the rights but found herself unable to raise funding. She had let me use her Steenbeck to edit Rembrandt Laughing and seen some of my films, Bell Diamond and Slow Moves among them, and told me she thought if anybody was right for Carver it was me. I discussed it with Rosenthal, and we were under the press of shooting a scene in June, to retain the copyright. In three months he raised zero dollars – with me as a hot movie name and Carver blazingly hot. Nor would he put his own money in. After this I decided Rosenthal was useless as a “producer,” having seemingly learned nothing in the 3 years we’d “worked” together. I told him I wished to terminate our partnership. I moved to Rome in May 1993, and within two months had secured a producer, Enzo Porcelli, to make a film in Rome. I wasn’t even trying to do so.
It was some time in this period that Rosenthal, furtively, without informing me, applied for the copyrights on the films, violating our verbal agreement we would not do so. He claimed to the Library of Congress that he had a “letter of assignment” in which I turned over the rights to him. No such letter ever existed, nor any verbal agreement to the same effect. Curiously, the Library apparently does not require the person applying in such a manner to show the letter. Henry S. Rosenthal, in applying for and securing the copyrights in this manner committed fraud. Far worse, he showed himself as a person utterly lacking in ethics, and with no moral character at all.
When I did find out about this, I consulted with my friend, Tom Luddy, who referred me to a Bay Area lawyer conversant with show business, copyrights etc. I did retain her, at a cost of about $5000, and filed a suit against Rosenthal. He expressed surprise that I had done so! The lawyer, on looking into the matter, informed me that to make a case would cost a minimum of $50,000, and further, that I would probably lose – in America (a) the legal system exists to protect the wealthy and (b) “possession is 9/10ths the law.” I certainly did not have that kind of money, nor did it make sense to spend money on a predicted loss.
Following this I contacted a group, California Lawyers for the Arts, and agreed to an arbitration process. I provided the lawyer with ample proof of where the money had come from, Rosenthal’s behaviors, etc. Rosenthal argued that my having made the graphics for the film which included a copyright bug and Complex Corporation, constituted a “letter of assignment.” The lawyer ruled in favor of Rosenthal and I was told to pay the costs for the arbitration and sign the end paper which included a non-disclosure agreement. I declined both. The lawyer was Jewish and I sincerely suspect their was some collusion involved. Tribal behavior.
As Rosenthal held the originals for all the films in his basement at 535 Stevenson, I did not publicly reveal the story, as he could have done whatever he wished with them and I feared the worst. Though I did tell people privately, friends, and when some “business” matters were at hand I would inform people of the reality. In hindsight I regret that I did not immediately make his actions public, as had I done so, it may have alerted people to his nature, and spared them damage.
I will continue with further information on Henry S. Rosenthal’s acts with my work, and his treatment of others in a coming post, and including emails he has written and other related things, such as other illegal acts he has committed.
Anyone with further information on Henry S. Rosenthal and anything he has done which would be of interest is welcome to comment below, and leave, if wished, a contact method.
Jeff Feverzeig, director and Henry S. Rosenthal, producer of “Devil and Danel Johnston” (Photo by J. Countess/WireImage)AUSTIN, TX – MARCH 12: Producer Henry S. Rosenthal attends the premiere of “Bill Nye: Science Guy” during 2017 SXSW Conference and Festivals at Vimeo on March 12, 2017 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by James Goulden Photography/Getty Images for SXSW)
Sept 22, 2025. Autumn Equinox.A little late…. (NYC 9/24/25)
I write from Sharon, Mass, 20th. Staying with a friend, John Gianvito, for a day before heading onto New York. The last three months have been, for me it would seem, a typical whirlwind. I left Lockhart Texas for a quick time in Los Angeles, arriving in time for a wedding in Pasadena, my friend Daniel Kremer and his partner Evan. Technically they’d been married a bit before, civil one, rushed in case in the new Trumpian era the option was closed (again). It was a full-tilt Jewish wedding, the likes of which I’d never gone to – interesting and fun. This pass through LA I stayed with a new, old friend, David LeBrun, filmmaker living in a lovely self-designed house near Santa Monica. I’d met him a few times before at dinners that another friend, John Cannizzaro, usually has for me and others when I pass meteor-like through LA. Had a screening with Acropolis, a new, to me, film and cultural outfit, showing Coming to Terms, with James Benning coming in from Valleverde to discuss it with me afterward. Given a threat of arrest made by my stalker HSR, there was a tinge of something added, but turned out it was all hot air. Nice screening, conversation, dinner out after with David and others, though James had another gallery opening appointment and had to go to it.
From LA I moved onto San Francisco, staying with another new friend, someone who dropped out of the sky last December or so, inquiring if I would cooperate in a book he wanted to do, about me. Charles Neil, by name. He had only seen a few of my films and though a film buff, wasn’t in that way into films. He’s done some books – novels, a big one on cognac, which he sells as a distributor, dealing in bulk, and other things. Since then he’s been interviewing me on WhatsApp and recording it, about 90 minutes of talk on each film, and then feeding to AI program to change interview into something else, like a memoir. Curious to see how it turns out. While in the City also saw Erling Wold and Lynne, Nathaniel Dorsky, Barbara Hammes and Chuck Hudina, all, I am presuming, a last time. I don’t expect to be through again so unless they head my way – except for Erling and Lynne – not likely. Then crossed bay to stay with Howard Swain a few days – partner Nancy Carlin was up in Ashland, Or. for a theater gig so I missed seeing her. And managed also to see Nancy Karp. Busy time, and we’re all getting on.
From there took combo of train and bus up to Redding to see friend Charles Lasater, outside Redding, California. He lives on some acreage, 40 or so (?) – on a dead-end road surrounded by fields and the detritus of a certain kind of rural life: abandoned farm machines, cars, collapsing shacks, a litter of things decaying in the hard sun of the Sacramento valley. He is another of the surfeit of hoarders whom I know. We had an interesting time – he buried in the crevices of his mind, inventing things. We tried to sort out our history – met sometime around ’73 or so in Montana, via which friend(s), knew whom, where/when – Missoula, Del Mar, Ca. I can’t say I left with much more clarity than what I arrived with – that time (1970-75) remains a blur in my mind, many major life things all at once all smeared and obscured.
Carried on by train up to Portland, to stay with dear friends there, Jane and Mark, who seem always happy to have me for a week or month or more – since ’92 or so. Dear friends. While there went with Mark on a few long-day photo jaunts to coast, up Columbia River gorge, around eastern Oregon. The weather in mid-summer was rather benign and the attic lair where I stay there did not become an oven and require the AC.
Towards end, as they had done previously, they decided to head east for a camping vacation in Glacier and up to Waterton in Canada, and took me to Butte, my next stop. We passed though Walla Walla WA along the way, staying with a net-met friend, James Winchell, there for a night. Thanks James.
In Butte I had a screening scheduled and as well an arts thing, showing a passel of my large pastels, done there over a handful of years. So had to put that up. Stayed with Terri and Rich Ruggles in their lovely turn of century house which they were working on again. Going to have a B&B. Film screened to modest audience in recently restored Covellite Theater – Bell Diamond, which had been shot there, with locals. Back in the day, 1986. Butte is one of my touch-stone “homes” – a place dense with personal histories, friends and some ineffable something I can’t explain. I have shot 4 feature films there between 1986 and 2023, and a book of photographs, other visual arts from pastels to photo-collages. And life. My friend Marshall, after taking me to a quirky eatery in Butte, Mr. Hot Dog, drove me to the airport in Bozeman and I flew to Chicago.
There I was met by Peter Kuttner, friend of 1967 vintage. Stayed a few days with Jonathan Rosenbaum and seeing another ancient friend, Linn, prison-met, an excellent photographer all his life. He’s in waning days, and I, and Peter, are concerned about what will happen to his large collection of work – needs to be in a Chicago archive as almost all are of Chicago. Peter and I are inquiring, trying to find them a home.
Workman’s museum in Milwaukee, suggested to me by Peter in Chicago
After those few days caught train up to Milwaukee where stayed a night with Vicky, sister of Ian Teal. She and husband took me for a meal and then out to a bar which served (only) ice-cream cocktails – was told a very Milwaukee thing. Was good and fun. They then drove me on up to Weyauwega to go to an event in the Gerold Theater, a 1915 built opera house, where Ian and Kathy Fehl put me up in the basement dressing room. I’d stayed there spring 2024, and taken 300+ 1 minute video shots of each house in town. This time around I edited – a tedious project – the houses I’d shot earlier: one minute videos of each, now on a time line with fade in/fade outs for a mere 5 hours and 15 minutes, and adjusted as if with architectural camera parallel to frame edge. Not fully sure what I will do with it but something – a long film no one will ever watch? Video installation on four walls? I have an idea using the book Psycho, written by Robert Bloch while living in Weyauwega, something I think might work.
While there pretty much hermitized, doing my work, walking around the minimalist town there, streets usually vacant. And going out a few times with Ian and Kathy, who went off on a 10 day trip while I was there, to Martha’s Vineyard where they have friends. Lucky them! They did have an excellent jazz group from LA come in for a concert at the Gerold Opera, Paul Cornish trio – pianist and drum/bass group, contemporary and very good.
On way back stopped in Chicago for last visit with Linn and Dianne, he skeletal and frail, someone I have been close to five decades. And Peter, of similar vintage, also dear friend but in better condition by far. And Scott, widowed husband of my partner, Marilyn, of the wild 1968 in Chicago, whom I missed seeing in autumn of 2023, dying two days after we’d set a meeting date. Swanning.
And then to Boston, to stay with cousin Holly a few nights in her just-moved-into condo just 5 blocks from her former home. Lovely. Had a “final” dinner with Boston friends in a very nice fish place, The Daily Catch, thanks to Holly. Was a fun time, and again to say a final goodbye to a very old friend, Bill Cunningham, met in prison in 1965. And perhaps to Holly – though she travels so perhaps I see her again. Take a deep breath.
Now, a bit belated and missing equinox by a day, in NYC where on arrival went with Jane to a concert near Columbia U on 121 St., Sephardic music – old instruments and songs done in a modest church. Very lovely. And next day saw rather by accident – he was in city from upstate dealing with family matter – Steve Lack, good friend since shooting All the Vermeers in New YorS. Had a nice talky brunch and then on coming back to Jane’s shot a little impromptu thing posted on Facebook. And last evening went to hear a talk on the birthday of New York aka Neu Amsterdam at the Salmagundi Institute. Was very interesting – since I’d researched such stuff when making All the Vermeers in New York, as he painted in same period, the tulip market collapsed back then, and NYC got taken by the Brits. Guy doing it was good at it, informative and amusing at same time. Thanks Jane. We then had a costly bite in the basement bar/restaurant.
I’m here in NYC a handful more of days, and then fly to Dublin to grab shuttle bus up to Derry, to spend some weeks with Marcella before making a pit stop in London and then heading on to India for 6 or more months. Though will have a detour for a few weeks, invited to a festival, Film Mutations, in Zagreb, Croatia – Nov 23-29 – where they will be doing a retrospective series on my work, showing 10 or more films. They’ve done similar before with Bela Tarr, JLG, Haroun Farocki and others like that. Back in Kolkta I hope to carry on with documentary portrait of slum area, D-Block and if lucky get some people there to cooperate in making some kind of narrative with them. (9/24/25 – Just got word that Kolkata had terrific monsoon downpour, worst since 1988, and is flooded and I wonder about by friends there.)
Through this time, in hindsight seemingly having snuck up on me as I ignored or dismissed it, I’ve been dealing with the usual being-old bodily collapse. Looking back I can see it nibbling on me back some years, when taking walks required the pause – not because I was tired, but because my joints and legs asked for it. Taking some pills for blood circulation, the fat feet (edema) I’d acquired in India have returned to normal, though my calves tighten up for lack of adequate blood flow after anywhere from a block to nearly a mile. While I can walk on, helps to stop a minute now and then to let the oxygen in there. And I walk slowly. And recently I have had what I think was a return of piriformis syndrome, a tightened muscle in the glutes I’d experienced back in 2007. It pinches the sciatic nerve and that is painful and no fun though it seems the stretching exercises that worked back then are working again. In those things I’ve gone to here in NY with Jane, those in attendance seem almost all of my era, give or take 10 years, and I note that I am far from alone in being hobbled by the years. Comfort?
But, being honest with myself the writing is on the wall and my rambling ways are coming to a close. Which raises the question of where to plot to hit the brakes. Not in the USA, for sure. Things to ponder now.
Such is my news. If you wish, please send me yours.
Writing from Lockhart Texas, about 30 miles to the south of Austin. Tomorrow the solstice will arrive, with temperature around 91F. Three months ago, I was in India, on the tail end of a trip away from Kolkata – to the mountains, Delhi, Agra and then back to the city. There I resumed going to D-Block, the slum area I’d been visiting, taking photos and shooting video, with the collaboration of Aopala Banerjee. I’d missed them, as I do now. Around the same time something flared up in my legs – a swollen right foot, quick tightening of my calves when I went out for a walk. Shireen, Riddhi’s sister, took me to a doctor and I got examined, at first standard blood tests which said nothing seemingly amiss, then a doppler sonar exam, which showed various blockages in arteries and veins. The calf seizing up owing to poor blood circulation starving the working muscle of needed oxygen. Edema. Got a prescription from doctor, different BP, and other things. Had a full cardio exam, again nothing particularly bad for a man my age. New meds took it down but only for a while, and now again a little balloony – likely be like this until The End.
Aopala and I had photos printed of portraits of our D-Block friends, and had them plasticized and took them to hand out to the people there. They were pleasantly surprised and appreciated them, with men who had previously declined suddenly asking to have theirs taken. Curious turn-about.
As I was winding up my stay in Kolkata, in the USA Trump was cranking up the fascism, with people getting arrested on streets, and whisked away to places unknown. I found myself questioning if I should go, returning for screenings in LA, invited by the American Cinematheque. At that time I’d more or less decided nope.
Leaving India as my visa was out I went to UK, visiting friends for a handful of days in London – where I introduced a screening of Robina Rose’s NIGHTSHIFT at the BFI, and saw a handful of friends. And then went to Derry, to visit with Marcella for nearly 2 weeks. Arriving at Belfast Airport, she was there with Uma, her wonderful dog, who instantly recognized me and ran to me. She then enslaved me the whole time I was there, obsessively thrusting her throw-toys on me, keyboard of laptop, and well, what could I do – she is a lovely animal. Marcella had just gotten a new job, which seemed to be going well, for which I was happy. We had a good time – the weather being lovely a handful of days, and then turning Derry-grim. While there I crammed in learning new program, Resolve, making a color corrected file of Sure Fire, which would be showing in LA. A real tedious chore and when I got it done, and sent it to folks there, it would not open. And my laptop crashed and my files would not open – ones I’d looked at before sending. Long story short, they then took bull by horns and did it themselves, albeit when projected it had some problem of syncing that my version had fixed. Ah well.
I went back to London for 3 days, put up by new friends, and flew to LA despite my concerns, which grew worse each day as things in USA tilted to unmasked fascism. Passport control was different – I’d gotten used to the electronic kind, slip the wired document to read, have face scanned, and on you go. I approached with passport in hand, and the person had me stand before a face-scanner, waited a few seconds, and waved me in, not looking at passport at all. I guess facial recognition linked to whatever data base they have on each of us, is now surely AI sophisticated enough. Next step will be the Chinese thing of keeping tabs and having a “good citizen” register.
The day after I got to LA there was a screening of Last Chants for a Slow Dance, and DeadEndz. The former was received very well, and discussion between films was lively and good. I had never seen DeadEndz on a big screen, and it had been quite some time since I’d seen it. Long enough that the order of the sequences surprised me, as did the severe minimalist structure – it was quite effective. Both Frank Mosley and Roxanne Rogers, who were in it, were there and on stage with me. Fun time.
Several days later the screening of The Bed You SleepIn was also good, most of audience had stayed for another kick in the psyche and more bleakness. Bed is a far better film than Sure Fire, which was shown first in a flawed quasi-restoration. There was no Q&A but I stayed in back and a mess of people came up to give a thought or two, some say hello, and then outside the cinema a good 20 plus people stayed to talk, and my friends gathered with me. At some point I saw Rosenthal headed to the cluster I was with and absented myself, though he quasi-shouted “congratulations, Jon,” as if I cared to see or hear him. Gathering with a different group a minute or two later he again made a bee-line to me, clearly looking to talk or something with me. It was stalking. I again left, this time wandering towards those who were not my friends, just film-goers; he shortly followed and approached me, starting to act “friendly,” hand out to shake perhaps. I punched him in the gut. I had my still camera hanging from my neck which limited my force. He stepped back, a bit doubled-up and I stepped forward to hit him again. He fell back, yelling “you’re a coward, you’re a coward,” and as I approached, fled to his car which was parked right there, jumped in and sped away.
At Bleak Week screening of Last Chants, and having an American breakfast at Canters.
I’d made it amply clear I wanted nothing to do with him, not responding to an email he’d sent me a week and some before going for screenings, in a “cheery” mode, letting me know he’d see me in LA (along with a list of demands); I did not respond to that message. I consider his pursuit of me, especially when wrapped in his fake friendliness, a mode of harassment – stalking. I note I am far from the only person to see him as a toxic sociopath. Leaving LA, flew to Austin where friends Jason and Nicole picked me up and drove me to their home in Lockhart. Been here almost 2 weeks, trying to relax, though as usual sucked into secretarial stuff – booking travel tickets, plotting the coming few months, preparing to end in Italy to shoot film in Palermo in October.
Here we’ve had many an evening in the Old Pal Bar, I read Nicole’s books, had nice long talks, a visit to Austin to go to museum and the Ellsworth Kelly chapel adjacent. Has been a good time, thanks to Nicole and Jason.
And today, this morning, greeted for solstice with a letter from Rosenthal making threats by indirection and directly – says he’s filed assault charges against me, etc. Should be a fun screening in a few days in LA. As customary, as with Our Great Leader, sociopaths accuse their victims of the acts they themselves have committed.
With that, a happy summer to you all in this most unhappy time. To war or not to war? Fascism in full ? If inclined drop me a note.
Marking time, the conclusion of my 82nd orbit of our nearby star, without which we would not exist (along with myriad other factors – distance from, timing, nuclear cycles, all remote from our hands.) Depending on the culture you live in and how much one complies with its views, we’re here by some divine appointment, or, in my view, by a near impossible roll of the dice, though however infinitely small the chances of simply being here, as we are, is, infinity seems big enough to allow 9 billion of us at the moment, never mind those who preceded us, and all the other millions of billions of other equally amazing creatures which are “life.”
My family 1946 or so, Hinsdale Illinois
My own little trajectory, commenced in Chicago, May 16, 1943, has been, so others tell me, lucky/adventurous/amazing, which is all from some perspectives, true. A sperm met an egg, and bio-logic happened, and I arrived. Later my mother told me, in utter innocence and naïveté, that I hadn’t been planned/wanted, and had abortions been as available then, as when she told me this – sometime when I was in mid-thirties – I wouldn’t be here. She had not given a thought at all about what this could do psychologically, and fortunately, as I had long before withdrawn from my erstwhile family, the impact was more one of amused detachment, wondering how a mother could so casually tell her child such a thing.
When I was born, as had been the case with my brother, I had pyloric stenosis, to say a blockage at the bottom of my stomach, at the valve which keeps food from passing on to the intestines for digestion. In my brother’s case, apparently nothing was done, or perhaps they did not know, or a procedure for “fixing” didn’t exist. He was not the brightest bulb in the world, though not “retarded” at all; I think he likely suffered from infantile malnutrition and his brain development was hampered. He apparently cried and puked to the wall his first year, surely not exactly endearing himself to his way too young parents of 18 and 19 years of age. I think this in turn ended in psychological damage as an infant and young child. He escaped the house as early as he could, lying about his age to join the military.
In my case, my birth-defect was detected, and I had an operation in a day or so, removing the blockage. It left a tiny scar, which as I grew older, grew bigger with me – about an inch and a half vertical incision above my navel, to the right hand side. Busy with that, they did not do the, at that time, ordinary matter of circumcising me, leaving me a minority among my peers, with a foreskin. Sometime – not really sure just when I was told this story, it occurred to me that my life was all owing to accidentally borrowed time. In hindsight I think this in a way liberated me from complying with all the conventions that define a culture and its society. Early on, I was an outsider.
From this perspective, one which many friends who in the last years have ended their trip in this world and did not enjoy, mine has been a normal journey: it is speckled with long ordinary days, ho-hum biding-time days; and then the occasional tragedy – a deeply loved daughter, Clara, whom I’d raised for 3 and a half years, almost alone, then kidnapped by her mother, sequestered and brain-washed (common in these cases) and blocked from access to me, ending utterly alienated from her father, mired in a life of lies, now 24 years later. A long ago “friend” committing a betrayal of a vicious and palpable kind; another thought-to-be friend doing something similar. And auto injuries caused by other people, imposing life-long consequences. And on the other side, times of transcendent joy – whether triggered by some deep creative impulses; the brief glance of a landscape; or a quivering heart snared in “love” (whatever that is) – evanescent as life itself, in which the past and future are ever linked, with an instantaneous now, ever fleeting. This, and all the mundane things, “of the world,” (as noted in an early short film, 13 Fragments & 3 Narratives from LifePswd FRAGS) which in passing seem dull and boring, when added up and called “a life,” become in our minds intensely important.
From 13 Fragments & 3 Narratives from Life, 1968
Entering solar orbit number 83, my obit coming up, my life spreads out behind me, like the wake of a ship, a fractal matter of repetitions, looping eddies, the cycles of days and years diminishing in the distance, lost on the horizon. Ahead is the dead certainty of erasure.
I’d meant to write something else today, but sitting to think and type, whatever it was evaporated and out came this. I thank myself that here at the edge of my life, I’m not a cranky old man, despite the physical and psychic bruises and pains life has issued, but instead seem to contain an inward contentment, calming and happy. Whatever I have done – the catalogue of films made, paintings, poems, silly C&W warbles – are all nothing to me. I did what I did because there was and is no choice. We all do exactly what we do, and we can do no other. It is our fate to be who we are. And similarly here at the closure of my life, my only wish is for those few whom I have come to know, that in whatever small and modest way possible, I can help them be as inwardly as happy as they can be.
Philosophically these days I am a mixture of a Pogoist, and a Pessoaist:
Whatever the ideology, religion, philosophy, all of our “problems” are rooted in the same reality, and that is the problem: humans act like humans, and the honest and clear-eyed truth is that we are the problem.
“I am nothing. I’ll never be anything. I couldn’t want to be something. Apart from that, I have in me all the dreams in the world.” ― Fernando Pessoa
What a difference a day makes (or a week or 57 days). Since writing last in the depths of Northern hemisphere’s winter, America as undergone a seismic shift, as the political ground as undergone the political equivalent of a major earthquake. Yep, as foretold 1000 ways, our new leader is doing just what he said he was going to do, and was blue-printed in the “American Heritage” foundation’s tome, Project 2025. It appears much of the coddled liberal probable majority of America is too triggered in their imaginary safe spaces to quite fathom what the hell is going on.
On Day One, Trump showed his hand in full in pardoning all those involved with Jan 7, 2000. And with a mess of other such pardons, and his “flood the zone” Executive Orders, many of them transparently illegal, he showed his disdain for “norms”, the law, or anything else that might be an impediment to is dictatorial inclinations. As I write, the bobble-head pundits of the land seem finally to get the drift and murmur (and a few now shout) that whatever America was is no longer what it is now, or unchecked, is going to be in the coming years. Yep, the mask is off, and America, the Shining City on a Hill, is a straight-up police state.
Some weeks ago I wrote many of my friends and acquaintances in the US inquiring what their views, feet on US turf, were, regarding my going to LA for screenings in the first week of June. Almost all who responded told me, “you’re white, an old guy,” and there’s nothing to worry about. My intuitions and experience said otherwise, and I felt that it would rapidly worsen, and I should keep my ears and options open. On this day I incline to think I should be very wary, and likely stay away. Even if I’d like to go for myriad reasons, from seeing friends a last time, to picking up some very modest coin, or seeing landscapes I love one more time before croaking. So far the news merely worsens each day and convinces me I should not return.
Of other things, I’ve been in Kolkata mostly, making a portrait/essay/documentary on D-Block, a slum neighborhood a stroll way from where I am living in Santoshpur, in the southern part of Kolkata. Also a few other things I am shooting/working on. Portraits of coolies in the markets on north side of the city; a meditation perhaps on life in Santoshpur. Painting a bit. Lots of fotos. Poems when they percolate up and I catch them before they sink back into the floating space of my mind. My friend Aopala has been helping on these things.
Also took a trip, to Pune, where the second major film school in India is, spending some time with students there. I did a few screenings there in an excellent cinema – students were blown away by the films. Then went to Delhi, staying with Prabhash Chandra and Sukriti, his wife. He’s a filmmaker, and I helped him get some screenings in US, and UK, and am trying to line him up with some modest production money for his next film. He took me to Agra, to see the Taj Mahal, Red Fort, and other things in Delhi. Lovely time, despite the choking air. Did some screenings as well at two different schools, meeting with students. Following that went for 3 days to a foothills of Himalaya retreat – vegetarian, no drink, yoga if you wished. Nice time in better air.
As I write I am in Naggar, a small village on the flanks of the Himalaya, hanging with friends here who are making a film. Though their film is a low-budget one (for which I am trying to secure some funding), they sure work differently than I do. Here spring is arriving, orchard trees in bloom the snow on the nearby mountains is rapidly melting. A day ago went on a somewhat grueling trip to visit a supposedly beautiful valley, which, from my jaded view, was not. Nor is much of India “beautiful” – rather crammed with concrete, signage, people, trash, foul air, and a seeming fatalism which seems to freeze people into a mental prison which seems fixed. Like other cultures I know.
And as anticipated in my last note, having visited her in hospital in November and seeing the writing on the wall, my friend Robina Rose died, January 26, 2025. She was born in 1951. Perspective. Her last words to me, when I kissed her head, were, “We were never lovers, but we loved each other. And maybe that was better.” Which was true. She lingers in mind and soul.
In a few days Aopala and I will go to Delhi for a brief time, for her to visit friends and me to see a bit more, chat with Prabhash.
It seems looking to the future that I will probably pass on going to US, though I assume LA screenings will happen, if without me present. Maybe they can set up a video intro/Q&A thing under the circumstances. And I seem to be on track for shooting a new film, with a modest bit of money at present, in Palermo, Sicily. It is something that has been simmering for a while and now appears it will actually happen. So after a probable summer in Europe – visiting Marcella in N Ireland in May/June, and not sure balance of summer, I should be heading to Palermo end of August to prepare for shooting in October. If….
Meantime managed some paintings, though last month or so the poems seem to have scampered. See if they come back.
yesterday some friends dropped by little poems that pleased me then my computer crashed and my friends left lost in the spaces between the ones and zeros
easy come easy go
If inclined, please drop me a note. Hope despite the grim socio-political news, you are well.
Solstice rolls around again, this time for me in Kolkata, as it was 2 years ago. It gets dark here by 5, but is light in the morning near 6. I’ve been here now about 6 weeks.
Back on Sept 22, autumn equinox, I was in New York, taking new friend, filmmaker Prabhash Chandra, around New York. He went off on a little show ‘n tell tour to Boston and nearby, and later as far away as Ohio and LA. I stayed with my friend Jane Schreibman in NYC, seeing friends, working on subtitles for last year’s Casa do Silencio, and myriad other things. October 6 went up to Boston for a classroom thing at Emerson University, and then had to go back to NYC to introduce my friend Robina Rose’s film Nightshift, which I shot for her (and much more) back in 1980. It was screening at New York Film Festival in a program of restored films. Robina, I was told, was not in good health and could not go for it. Then had to bounce back up to Boston, staying at my cousin Holly’s wonderful house there – seeing some friends, and finally a changed-date screening at Mass Arts on 16th. Flew to London on 17th on night-flight, and spent just a few days with my friends Hilary and Stuart, and had a nice dinner with writer friend Joanna Pocock, and another person there, in theater, Edoardo Barreto, who’d wanted to meet me, and turned out he knew Hil & Stu.
Then moved on to Derry, in Northern Ireland, to visit with Marcella, staying with her a bit over a week. We had a lovely time together – love is strange. 49 and 81. I went back to London, Nov 1, waiting for India visa, which turned into a little errant mess that proved a bit costly – needlessly had to change departure date to India getting knicked for that, and then Air India, charged me for a check-in bag that I’d paid for – hassling now for a refund from them. More importantly I wanted to see Robina, who I’d found out had been hospitalized though no one knew where she was. I tracked it down, and went to visit her. She was in bad shape, and I spent an hour with her. She was very happy I’d materialized. She’d been hospitalized a month earlier, taken by ambulance from her home where she’d been found unconscious. On leaving I assumed it was the last time. We have been very close friends since 1978, when we met at the Edinburgh Film Festival. She is having a belated kind of recognition, with her 3 films being digitally restored. The projection in New York showed Nightshift was a beautiful film. I hadn’t seen it since 1980. After I left London I got word she’d been diagnosed with liver cancer, and was in hospice. I await the final word.
the roses had dried and shriveled up some years ago decades in their way they had a beauty if not the one of brilliant colors crimson jaune or even blue not gertrude’s a rose is a rose is a rose
instead a blanched shell of itself petals paper crisp and fragile caught amidst the mess of desiccated other things postcards and papers browned folds of table cloth the dimming light of winter through the curtained window
caught in the utter stillness of the catacomb of her mind where memories had frozen, cobwebbed and sat her down in the ambered days she called her life
The day before leaving for India I went to go to a favored art supply store, Cornelissons, near the British Museum, and somewhere along the way lost/had stolen my iPhone. Most inconvenient timing as one almost has to have a smart phone now when traveling. It is I think the 3rd one I have lost in the last 3 years.
I got to India expecting to go to the mountains with my friend Riddhi, and others, to be there while they shot a new film. For various reasons that was cancelled, so instead I’ve been here in Kolkata, seeing friends from my last visit, and beginning to do a project I had in mind since being here before. There is an area a 15 minute walk from where I stay here, D-Block, a neighborhood that is poor but had a certain something that attracted me to it 2 years ago and which I thought on return to make a documentary about, and, if all worked out well, recruit a handful of people to act in a fiction built around their lives. I’d wandered there many times before, and going back, this time with Aopala, some recognized me from before. With her Bangla, we quickly managed to befriend people there, and they know I am out to make a film, and are being very open and helpful. I think at minimum I’ll get some kind of portrait of the place, and hopefully also the fiction. I am shooting with my iPhone 12 (replacement bought here). I have another project I’d started before and will for sure try to do this time – portraits of coolies in the bazars to the north side of Kolkata.
Since arriving the air here has mostly been awful, and certainly triggered my nasal Niagara. Went to a dentist, Riddhi’s family one, and had needed root canal. $80 !! And just had a little medical check up which showed very high BP (seemingly normal for me), though a few days ago I did 130 continuous pushups in my daily stretch and exercises. Got prescribed more BP pills and will have blood tests done.
I definitely feel on the accelerating slope of age – walks shorter, with calves not cramping, but getting stiff – lack of blood supply the cause. On Kolkata’s quite irregular streets the usual “balance problems” of our decrepitude are ever more noticeable, as I stumble along, lurching left and right, near tripping. When with me, Aopala reaches out to help me now and then. I may delude myself about it often, but I am old – to be seen in my gait, in the seeming drunken wander of my walk; my bent over visage. Old.
As if to compensate for this reality, I seem to burble with poems… about getting and being old, and about our companion, death.
that pirouette you just saw no, i’m not a dancer just old a little balance thing it happens now and then more often each day
so far i don’t fall down just an awkward little spin catch myself
one day i won’t
In the last months had word of death of one friend, Kristi Hager, painter who lived in Missoula, and who was in two of my films, Bell Diamond and Sure Fire. Awaiting any day now the shoe-drop notice of a few others waiting in the wings. My peers are winnowing out.
dying took as long as your life, first breath to last that was it no more, no less
everything in between was just a distraction
However, though the end of the tunnel has no light, we carry on presuming. In the coming months I’m scheduled, in early February, to go show some things at the major film school here in Pune, and then visit friends in Delhi and perhaps spend a week in the mountains north of Delhi. Otherwise here in Kolkata. And plans afoot for later: screenings in LA in June at the American Cinematheque, and other things.
Wishing you a lovely winter. If inclined send me a note.
I am old; 81 and a half circles around the sun. Each morning as I wake and rise, I am reminded of this simple fact. A concerto of pains dances in my body, in my case particularly my back and hips, reminders of incidents decades ago: a young girl busy with her music cassettes on Laurel Canyon rammed into me in 1976 – real whiplash, squashed disc in neck; an older, Hispanic, heavy-set man in a big American cruise mobile – a Buick or Pontiac – not watching his way down in the Wilshire flats, rammed into me in 1977; lower back discs mangled. My back has been a pretzel since, with all the collateral damages accrued: pinched nerves, chronic pain; and a stiff upper lip in my case, having a high tolerance for pain. And probably a modest excess in drinking, usually some strong beer, to address it, late in the day. I don’t like pain-killer pills. And I do like good beer.
First steps from bed these days half of the time end in a two-step affair – try to stand, fail, sit, and try again. My daily Beckett routine, a droll comedy. Standing, the joints are stiff, steps veering towards a stumble. No nimble childhood prances or later-age solid footing. Now it’s those “balance issue” movements, a little unintended lunge this way or that. Later in the day, taking the ever shortening walks, my steps almost mimic those of a juiced-up drinker, wandering a bit left and right, a cocktail of muscle control and inner ear messaging messing up my gait. A rough surfaced side-walk throws up its modest challenges, sending me near stumbling this step or that. It is all normal, these ever-increasing little lurches to the grave.
Recent poem:
that pirouette you just saw no, i’m not a dancer just old a little balance thing it happens now and then more often each day
so far i don’t fall down just an awkward little spin catch myself
one day i won’t
No, I can’t touch my toes anymore. I’ve always had tight hamstrings and it was always hard, but once I could get my palms flat to the ground, if not hold them there more than a second or two. And walking these days doesn’t tire my body so much, but asks that I stop periodically to let my calves in their way breathe – the muscles don’t exactly hurt, but they grow taut, apparently owing to the lack of blood flow: working muscles, like your brain, need a flow of oxygen/blood to function properly. A pause of a minute, sitting or standing, seems to let them replenish to carry on, but the distances grow ever shorter. Likewise my feet begin to swell, my circulatory system lacking the juice to pump the fluid blood back up the veins. All ordinary preparations on the way to not being.
ByMichelle George
I do have high blood pressure and take a pill for that, Losartan, along with a supplement of magnesium before bed, which seems to help prevent night-time calf-cramps, another old-folk sign. Before I started taking these I would have truly painful cramps which would leave the muscle sore for days. Thankfully the supplement works quite well and I seldom have one of these any more.
My muscle tissue now seems rapidly to slip away, its bag of skin drying and growing more striated with each passing day. The umbilical hernia seems to widen, doesn’t hurt yet as the two inguinal ones I had did, but should I live long enough I suspect it, as the others, will ask for an operation. Popping apart at the seams, as they say. Another normal phenomenon of aging.
And my since-childhood post-nasal drip, and perhaps never-diagnosed allergies, are active as usual, and given my current setting in heavily polluted Kolkata (West Bengal, India), are hyper-active, along with a lung full of particulate crap making for a constant cough and mucoid hell I must spit out frequently. I use a cup for a portable spittoon.
Blessedly I’ve always had pretty much of a cast-iron gut, with digestion problems of any sort (except food poisoning) almost never arising. Would hint all the associated organs are OK, doing their jobs. I almost never go to doctors, no check-up for years, so perhaps something malign lurks in there while giving no outwards signs or symptoms.
Antique medical scientific illustration high-resolution: human eye
Eyes and ears, usual fail-points for age so far seem to be holding up. Signs of a cataract in right eye, but so far nothing so bothersome as to warrant an operation. Ditto the ears which seem pretty good so far.
And then that mysterious organ, the brain. So far mine seems to be doing OK, usual short-term memory lapses of geezerdom, but I seem to have had those all my life. Maybe I was always an old man. My sister, not quite 2 years my senior, is well into dementia (and wheel chair too), so if such is an “in the family” thing, I guess I’d be in line. My father, who lived to 99, apparently was lost in Alzheimers in his last 5 years. If I see it headed my way, I hope I will remember to head for the exit well before I forget.
the old songs no longer sang their cadences thin-worn in time’s drift echo listless to a clotted end she’d forgotten what she’d just said or had she said a thing?
sing-song drifting to an eddy where a whirlpool lingered around the bend that’s what they’d say she was around the bend bent out of shape gone
she didn’t remember though it was long ago she recalled a favored song humming to herself i forgot to remember to forget
she counted petals but instantly forgot the nots forget me forget me not
It is hard to believe only 3 months ago I was in Anchorage, Alaska, towards the end of a stay there with Chris, Jesse and Whitman. There I did a little exploring of places nearby, up the Turnagain and Knik Arms of the Cook Inlet, and late in my stay drove down to Seward. Had a wonderful time with them all.
At the beginning of July I flew down to Seattle’s airport, and stayed a few days thanks to Omar finding a nice B&B way down south there, and then took a bus up to Vancouver, BC, where I had a screening of Tourists at the Cinematheque – a place with a particular resonance for me as did the first screening of my first feature, Speaking Directly, there way back in 73 or so. And some of the people who were there then showed up for this one !! Rather amazing! Vancouver, like them and myself, has drastically changed and the once laid back modest city is now a large hyper-modern place sprawling all over and having a real city vibe to it. Not really a good thing in my book, but so goes life. I stayed with friend Sotirios, whom I met sometime ago when doing a screening in Seattle, around 2014 – can that really be? After a few days there went on by train down to Portland where I stayed with Mark and Jane, friends since 1993 or so.
Managed to see a handful of friends while in PDX, take some trips with Mark and Jane to eastern Oregon, up the Columbia River Gorge, and out to the coast. All the while, sucking up far more time than I’d anticipated, I culled about 20 or more table-top external hard-disks that had been stored in a friend’s basement, getting them quasi-organized and transferring all to a handful of small 5T disks which I can carry with me. More or less my whole digital life – films from 1997 on, photos, writing. Whew !! I was in Portland nearly 6 weeks, thanks to my hosts, who have been ever generous to me. During this time the cloud of Biden’s sticking-to-it cast a big shadow, lifted when he threw in the towel/quit under the pressures applied. A sigh of relief could be sensed all around.
August 12, Mark and Jane drove me out to Newport, OR, on the coast – a place I’d shot a few films in and where my actress, Kate Sannella, lives with her husband Dennis. Kate was in The Bed You Sleep In, Frameup, Homecoming, and Coming to Terms. Had a nice time visiting with them, and after a few days Gary and Cammie – both in a recent film, Tourists, and Gary had lead inWalkerville: A State of Mind. Spent some days in Coos Bay where they were bouncing around in a real estate glitch: sold their house but couldn’t move into new one on given date, so they had friend who let them stay in a place up for sale. We went around locally seeing some places I hadn’t seen in area before, though I’d passed through the area many times. We screened Tourists for a handful of friends they have there. Again, a good time with good people.
Passing through Eugene to get Amtrak to take to San Francisco, I was reminded of the way some people of my vintage address old age: they close themselves away. A dear friend since 1972, Ron Finne, lives now in Eugene, and in the last years has made it ever more difficult to contact him – he doesn’t use the internet, so no email; had his telephone with several hoops to jump before you might get him; then simply no phone. I was tempted to just drop in at his address, but passed, thinking to respect his apparent desire for isolation. I wrote him a snail mail later and it came back marked “unknown.” Obits check negative. Perhaps he’s now in an “assisted living” place, I don’t know. I tried.
In San Francisco my friend, and composer for a handful of my films, Erling Wold, picked me up in Oakland and we went to his place on Potrero Hill in the City. From there I could see the much altered skyline, now jammed with skyscrapers, and more like New York, than its once modest scale. Stayed a week with Erling and Lynne, having a good time, nosing around city and seeing the handful of friends left there – David Nelson, who did sound mix on The Bed You Sleep In, for which Erling wrote the score, Chuck Hudina whom I hadn’t seen in decades, and likewise Rita Roti, and went to see Nathaniel Dorsky, seeing some of his recent films in his basement lair in the Richmond next to Golden Gate Park. Spent time with Barbara Hammes, who was in Rembrandt Laughing and Slow Moves, a friend since 1971 or so. Who I did not see were Roger Ruffin, died long ago; Jim Nisbet died a few years ago; and later found out Ed Green, had died a few years ago as well. They’d all been in Rembrandt Laughing, a film deeply rooted in the San Francisco of 1988. Bitter-sweet, as that film is.
Nathaniel, Lynne, Barbara, Erling & Chuck
Crossing the Bay stayed a few days with Nancy Carlin and Howard Swain, who had been in FRAMEUP, back in 1993. Visiting as well were Nancy Karp, choreographer and dancer, and her husband John, an architect – they have a house in Sicily which, inshallah, I’d like to visit. I’ve known Nancy since 1979.
Shooting Frameup: Howard, myself, Nancy – 1993
Moving along, again on Amtrak, at very end of August, went to Los Angeles where I stayed in Pasadena with Daniel Kremer, filmmaker, writer (cinema books) and does extras etc. for restored BluRay releases. He’s also in process of doing a book about 3 very different “indie” filmmakers (who all improvise): Rob Hansen, Henry Jaglom, and myself. While in LA area, also saw a small cluster of friends at a dinner which John Cannizzaro had for us in Santa Monica. Fun evening. Also saw my nephews, Brad and his wife Miki, and Joel, and their parents – my sister Jolly and her husband Bob, in wheel-chairs and lost in the fogs of dementia – sister just a year and a half older than me; husband three. For sure the last time I’ll be seeing them.
Also was able to see Roxanne Rogers, who’d been in Slow Moves, Coming to Terms, They Had It Coming; and as well Frank Mosley, who was in They Had It Coming, and DeadEndz. And had a lunch with Bill Yahraus, who now lives out in the desert east of LA. He and his group back then (1976), Focal Point Films, loaned me their Eclair 16mm camera to shoot my first “fiction” feature film, Angel City, and their Steenbeck flatbed to edit it. Later on they let me use the table to edit Last Chants for a Slow Dance. We had a nice talk spanning mere decades….
Also in LA, another friend of my near-vintage has chosen to seclude. I lived with her a handful of years, but over then last years she’s chosen to isolate, and I think from what I know from others she’s slipped into dementia. The other was off traveling to Slovenia, her home.
Moving on to Lockhart, Texas, about 30 miles out of Austin, spent a nice week taking in the Texas slow, BBQ, beer, and a jaunt with Jason and Nicole Costanzo out to Big Bend, and place I’d wanted to go for a long time. Up against the Mexican border, defined by the Rio Grand, it is a vast badlands, with mountains thrust up in parts, vast desert valley below them. We had a good time out there.
Back in Lockhart, Jason and I did large prints of a collection of photo-collages I made in the last decade or so, running the files through an AI photo software, making them sharp enough for such a scale. They are damn beautiful and impressive. And who will ever see them!?
And from Austin flew on to New York, a handful of days ago. Staying with Jane, and only net-met before, joining us is Prabhash Chandra, from Delhi. He’s here to do some screenings of his film I Am Not the River Jhelum, which I had in setting up. I wrote a review of the film here.
Having a good time seeing things here, and getting to know Prabhash – taking him to things like the Museum of the American Indian, or the free ride across the harbor to Staten Island. We’ll go to the Met and a few other things later.
Coming months see me off shortly to Boston, London, Derry, and then to Kolkata and travels in India for the next 6 months. Winter solstice will be in Kolkata.
Equinox has come and gone – was this morning. Better to get this off and done.
Hope all is well with you. If inclined drop a note.
Jon Jost's Blog (Vol 2) 