1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:17,685 --> 00:00:22,440 ♪ Say where did I see this guy ♪ 4 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:27,778 ♪ In Red River ♪ 5 00:00:27,778 --> 00:00:31,157 ♪ Or A Place In The Sun ♪ 6 00:00:31,157 --> 00:00:34,201 ♪ Maybe The Misfits ♪ 7 00:00:34,201 --> 00:00:37,288 ♪ Or From Here To Eternity ♪ 8 00:00:37,288 --> 00:00:40,583 ♪ And everybody say is he all right ♪ 9 00:00:40,583 --> 00:00:43,919 ♪ And everybody say what's he like ♪ 10 00:00:43,919 --> 00:00:47,548 ♪ And everybody say he sure looks funny ♪ 11 00:00:47,548 --> 00:00:50,760 ♪ That's Montgomery Clift honey ♪ 12 00:00:50,760 --> 00:00:54,054 ♪ New York New York 42nd Street ♪ 13 00:00:54,054 --> 00:00:57,433 ♪ Hustlers rustle and pimps pimp the beat ♪ 14 00:00:57,433 --> 00:01:00,728 ♪ Monty Clift is recognized at dawn ♪ 15 00:01:00,728 --> 00:01:04,398 ♪ He ain't got no shoes and his clothes are torn ♪ 16 00:01:04,398 --> 00:01:07,485 ♪ And everybody say is he all right ♪ 17 00:01:07,485 --> 00:01:11,030 ♪ And everybody say what's he like ♪ 18 00:01:11,030 --> 00:01:14,617 ♪ And everybody say he sure look funny ♪ 19 00:01:14,742 --> 00:01:19,038 ♪ That's that Montgomery Clift honey ♪ 20 00:01:34,929 --> 00:01:37,306 Because I started out there in the street 21 00:01:37,306 --> 00:01:39,433 or wherever I was taking pictures, 22 00:01:39,433 --> 00:01:42,770 I carried that through my whole body of work, really. 23 00:01:44,230 --> 00:01:46,315 There's something in my brain 24 00:01:46,315 --> 00:01:49,985 that tells me the moment to shoot. 25 00:01:49,985 --> 00:01:52,696 Something inside clicks. 26 00:01:52,696 --> 00:01:54,907 And you're not looking through the camera all the time, 27 00:01:54,907 --> 00:01:57,409 so you lift the camera and shoot. 28 00:01:57,409 --> 00:01:59,453 It is extremely spontaneous. 29 00:02:04,041 --> 00:02:05,793 If I have color film, I see everything in color. 30 00:02:05,793 --> 00:02:07,378 If I have black and white, 31 00:02:07,378 --> 00:02:09,755 I see everything in black and white. 32 00:02:09,755 --> 00:02:14,093 And after years of doing it and being faster at doing it, 33 00:02:14,093 --> 00:02:15,886 it became very intuitive, 34 00:02:15,886 --> 00:02:18,639 and it was arranging chaos in a certain way, 35 00:02:18,639 --> 00:02:21,016 because I was very conscious of composition. 36 00:02:21,016 --> 00:02:22,810 The frame was very important to me. 37 00:02:28,274 --> 00:02:31,360 What was really fun in the world of analog 38 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:32,653 as opposed to digital photography 39 00:02:32,653 --> 00:02:36,115 was finding out later what made me click the shutter. 40 00:02:36,115 --> 00:02:38,659 "Oh, yeah, that's what made me do it." 41 00:02:38,659 --> 00:02:41,245 And that would appear in the dark room. 42 00:02:41,245 --> 00:02:43,831 And I'm glad to have done it that way, 43 00:02:43,831 --> 00:02:47,751 because it was much more work, but it was much more fun. 44 00:03:03,684 --> 00:03:05,477 I got this apartment with two friends, 45 00:03:05,477 --> 00:03:07,980 if you can believe it, given the size. 46 00:03:08,105 --> 00:03:12,443 But it was summer of '66, and it was $109. 47 00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:15,821 There was a bed in that room, which is my kitchen dark room. 48 00:03:15,821 --> 00:03:17,781 There was a bed over here. 49 00:03:17,781 --> 00:03:20,034 And that was always my bed. 50 00:03:20,868 --> 00:03:23,787 I had been at Pratt for two years, 51 00:03:24,663 --> 00:03:27,625 and I got a job working for a photographer. 52 00:03:27,625 --> 00:03:28,918 He was a fashion photographer. 53 00:03:28,918 --> 00:03:32,171 He was just starting out in New York, Alberto Rizzo, 54 00:03:32,171 --> 00:03:34,131 and he became actually quite famous. 55 00:03:35,841 --> 00:03:38,260 I knew nothing about photography at all. 56 00:03:38,260 --> 00:03:39,929 I didn't know what a strobe was, 57 00:03:40,763 --> 00:03:42,264 and I'd never worked in a dark room. 58 00:03:42,264 --> 00:03:44,266 But somehow we hit it off, 59 00:03:44,266 --> 00:03:48,187 because we seemed to like all the same American things, 60 00:03:48,312 --> 00:03:49,229 movies mostly. 61 00:03:50,272 --> 00:03:54,526 I learned on the job, and I bought my first camera 62 00:03:54,526 --> 00:03:58,280 and just went out into the street, taking pictures. 63 00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:00,658 Then I started using a flash. 64 00:04:00,658 --> 00:04:02,618 Anyway, I just fell in love 65 00:04:02,618 --> 00:04:04,495 with everything about photography 66 00:04:04,495 --> 00:04:06,497 and never went back to Pratt. 67 00:04:06,497 --> 00:04:09,083 So I stayed with him for two years, 68 00:04:09,083 --> 00:04:10,584 and by the end of that summer, 69 00:04:10,584 --> 00:04:14,630 my buddies moved out, and I kept the place. 70 00:04:30,813 --> 00:04:33,941 Well this is a photo that I made 71 00:04:34,066 --> 00:04:36,360 with my first camera, from my first roll of film, 72 00:04:37,653 --> 00:04:40,656 which is April 1968. 73 00:04:41,865 --> 00:04:43,033 Came from Coney Island. 74 00:04:44,827 --> 00:04:46,996 Do you remember taking the photo? 75 00:04:46,996 --> 00:04:47,997 I do. 76 00:04:47,997 --> 00:04:49,248 There are many, many 77 00:04:49,248 --> 00:04:51,208 that I have no memory at all of taking, 78 00:04:51,208 --> 00:04:55,004 but I do remember that, because I was hoping I got it, 79 00:04:55,879 --> 00:04:57,923 and I got what I wanted, yeah. 80 00:05:00,009 --> 00:05:02,428 '69 was an amazing year. 81 00:05:02,428 --> 00:05:05,431 I hitchhiked across the country for several months, 82 00:05:05,556 --> 00:05:07,975 just picking up pictures everywhere I went. 83 00:05:07,975 --> 00:05:10,144 I bulk loaded film. 84 00:05:10,144 --> 00:05:11,812 Otherwise it would've been way too expensive 85 00:05:11,937 --> 00:05:13,313 to shoot the way I shot. 86 00:05:14,481 --> 00:05:16,275 Slept by the side of the road. 87 00:05:16,275 --> 00:05:18,944 It wasn't anywhere near as terrifying 88 00:05:18,944 --> 00:05:23,449 as it would be now to hitchhike, serial killer wise. 89 00:05:25,159 --> 00:05:28,579 And I was at a rock and roll festival in Texas, 90 00:05:28,579 --> 00:05:30,497 Texas Pop Festival, 91 00:05:30,497 --> 00:05:32,332 with my girlfriend as it turned out. 92 00:05:33,459 --> 00:05:35,419 And I went to a stationary store 93 00:05:35,419 --> 00:05:40,382 and forged a press pass for a magazine called Show Magazine, 94 00:05:40,382 --> 00:05:43,177 which I knew nobody would ever check. 95 00:05:43,302 --> 00:05:45,471 And so I sat up front all three days 96 00:05:45,471 --> 00:05:47,681 of this rock and roll festival. 97 00:05:47,806 --> 00:05:50,642 So I got closeups of BB King, 98 00:05:53,353 --> 00:05:54,897 and Janice Joplin, 99 00:05:56,940 --> 00:05:58,108 Johnny Winter. 100 00:06:10,162 --> 00:06:12,831 So when I came back from this trip, 101 00:06:12,831 --> 00:06:14,583 I had hundreds of rolls of film 102 00:06:14,583 --> 00:06:17,169 and needed to process everything, 103 00:06:17,169 --> 00:06:20,255 'cause I didn't trust doing it on the road. 104 00:06:20,380 --> 00:06:23,675 So I had to build a darkroom in the kitchen. 105 00:06:26,136 --> 00:06:28,931 There was a rock and roll paper called Crawdaddy, 106 00:06:28,931 --> 00:06:31,683 and I used to see it around, 107 00:06:31,683 --> 00:06:35,354 and I went over there with the pictures I took 108 00:06:35,354 --> 00:06:37,564 from that rock and roll festival, 109 00:06:37,564 --> 00:06:39,983 and they hired me as a staff photographer, 110 00:06:39,983 --> 00:06:42,736 so that was my first job. 111 00:06:44,321 --> 00:06:47,574 Crawdaddy was a quarter fold newspaper, 112 00:06:47,574 --> 00:06:50,035 like Rolling Stone when it first started. 113 00:06:50,160 --> 00:06:53,205 It was basically about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. 114 00:06:54,414 --> 00:06:56,458 The whole place was filled with characters. 115 00:06:57,417 --> 00:07:00,295 Richard Meltzer was one of the main writers there. 116 00:07:01,296 --> 00:07:02,840 A lot of musicians would stay 117 00:07:02,840 --> 00:07:05,676 right across the street, at the Albert Hotel. 118 00:07:05,801 --> 00:07:09,012 In those days it was either the Albert or the Chelsea. 119 00:07:10,139 --> 00:07:12,808 I took a lot of pictures in hotel rooms. 120 00:07:17,104 --> 00:07:21,859 It was a lot of fun, because I went to Fillmore all the time 121 00:07:21,859 --> 00:07:25,279 and hung out backstage and wherever. 122 00:07:25,279 --> 00:07:29,158 I think I developed a point of view while I was there. 123 00:07:29,158 --> 00:07:32,244 A lot of it was getting past the machine of the camera, 124 00:07:32,244 --> 00:07:36,081 which I always say is kind of the most important thing. 125 00:07:36,081 --> 00:07:38,750 Then I became a better printer. 126 00:07:38,876 --> 00:07:42,421 All the things that you have to do when you're starting out. 127 00:08:00,647 --> 00:08:02,566 I met my grandmother for the first time 128 00:08:02,566 --> 00:08:03,734 when I was eight years old. 129 00:08:03,734 --> 00:08:08,780 I flew by myself on a TWA plane to Los Angeles. 130 00:08:09,781 --> 00:08:11,283 She greeted me at the airport 131 00:08:11,283 --> 00:08:13,911 and immediately told me what we were gonna do. 132 00:08:14,036 --> 00:08:16,538 We were gonna have a fantastic time. 133 00:08:16,538 --> 00:08:21,001 We were going to go to Disneyland on the opening day, 134 00:08:21,126 --> 00:08:21,919 which we did. 135 00:08:21,919 --> 00:08:23,170 This is 1955. 136 00:08:24,379 --> 00:08:28,967 Then she decided at a certain point to move to New York. 137 00:08:28,967 --> 00:08:30,928 I would come in and see her as often as I could, 138 00:08:30,928 --> 00:08:35,098 because she would show me all the cool things of New York. 139 00:08:35,849 --> 00:08:38,101 {\an8}She took me to "Psycho" on the opening day. 140 00:08:38,101 --> 00:08:39,770 {\an8}She knew what I liked. 141 00:08:39,770 --> 00:08:41,063 {\an8}She was fluent in Spanish, 142 00:08:41,063 --> 00:08:43,774 {\an8}but we would go to Bunuel movies to brush up on her Spanish, 143 00:08:43,899 --> 00:08:45,943 and that's how I learned about Bunuel. 144 00:08:45,943 --> 00:08:47,986 We went to a place called Hubert's Museum, 145 00:08:47,986 --> 00:08:50,697 which had game machines on the top floor. 146 00:08:50,822 --> 00:08:52,908 And then you would go downstairs, 147 00:08:52,908 --> 00:08:56,662 and there'd be just all kinds of sideshow attractions. 148 00:08:56,787 --> 00:09:00,040 She was sort of an Auntie Mame character to me. 149 00:09:01,500 --> 00:09:02,793 In introducing me to the city, 150 00:09:02,793 --> 00:09:04,836 she made the city an adventure for me 151 00:09:04,836 --> 00:09:07,422 that never stopped being an adventure. 152 00:09:07,422 --> 00:09:10,550 And I wanted to live an adventurous life in the city, 153 00:09:10,676 --> 00:09:12,636 not knowing what you were gonna do from day to day. 154 00:09:13,762 --> 00:09:17,641 At the age of 76, she decided to become an actress. 155 00:09:17,641 --> 00:09:18,934 She was like that. 156 00:09:19,059 --> 00:09:21,311 I said, "Well, great, I'll do a portfolio for you." 157 00:09:21,311 --> 00:09:22,813 And she immediately got work, 158 00:09:22,813 --> 00:09:25,357 because everyone found her so engaging. 159 00:09:25,357 --> 00:09:29,278 She did print ads, commercials, soap operas. 160 00:09:30,445 --> 00:09:33,198 I was working on a George Romero movie, doing stills, 161 00:09:33,198 --> 00:09:34,950 when I heard that she was taken ill, 162 00:09:34,950 --> 00:09:38,870 so I ran back and met her in the hospital, 163 00:09:38,870 --> 00:09:41,498 and she died a few days later. 164 00:09:43,959 --> 00:09:45,627 Harriet Sappington. 165 00:09:55,053 --> 00:09:57,639 There was a period where I wasn't doing anything, 166 00:09:57,639 --> 00:10:00,559 and so I got my only job outside of photography, 167 00:10:00,559 --> 00:10:03,979 which was selling records at Bleecker Bob's record store. 168 00:10:03,979 --> 00:10:05,439 His record store was right across the street 169 00:10:05,439 --> 00:10:07,316 from the Bleecker Cinema. 170 00:10:07,316 --> 00:10:09,651 He and I were friends, and he knew I wasn't doing anything, 171 00:10:09,651 --> 00:10:12,195 and he asked me if I wanted to work there. 172 00:10:12,195 --> 00:10:13,238 And so I was alternating 173 00:10:13,238 --> 00:10:15,949 with David Johansen and Lenny Kaye, 174 00:10:16,074 --> 00:10:19,077 who were also not really in bands yet. 175 00:10:19,202 --> 00:10:21,621 And then I got hired by a newspaper called The Herald... 176 00:10:22,873 --> 00:10:24,958 which had a brief life in New York. 177 00:10:24,958 --> 00:10:27,377 It was a Sunday paper. It was huge. 178 00:10:29,171 --> 00:10:31,506 It was designed by a brilliant designer 179 00:10:31,506 --> 00:10:33,050 named Massimo Vignelli, 180 00:10:33,175 --> 00:10:36,261 who designed an early version of the subway map. 181 00:10:36,261 --> 00:10:38,096 And it won all kinds of design awards. 182 00:10:38,221 --> 00:10:40,766 So they ran the pictures quite large. 183 00:10:40,766 --> 00:10:44,144 And they asked me to do a little bit of everything. 184 00:10:44,144 --> 00:10:47,814 A lot of portraits, a lot of news stories. 185 00:10:47,814 --> 00:10:50,942 Patti Smith and I would do rock and roll interviews. 186 00:10:53,153 --> 00:10:55,947 There was also a section called Inside, 187 00:10:55,947 --> 00:10:59,242 which was partly about interior design, 188 00:10:59,242 --> 00:11:01,661 but for me it was mostly about how people lived. 189 00:11:04,414 --> 00:11:05,207 Once I made a picture 190 00:11:05,207 --> 00:11:08,377 that I called "Mrs. Sills in Her Husband's Den." 191 00:11:10,712 --> 00:11:12,339 Later on, the writer Veronica Geng, 192 00:11:12,339 --> 00:11:13,924 who was my girlfriend at the time, 193 00:11:14,049 --> 00:11:17,052 did a very funny spread for Harper's Magazine, 194 00:11:17,052 --> 00:11:20,597 using that photo and including captions 195 00:11:20,597 --> 00:11:23,725 that annotated the husband's belongings in that room. 196 00:11:25,727 --> 00:11:27,813 The art director was George Delmerico. 197 00:11:27,938 --> 00:11:30,690 We met very briefly at Pratt and hung out a bit, 198 00:11:30,690 --> 00:11:33,568 but we became much closer friends working at the paper. 199 00:11:34,528 --> 00:11:36,321 And then my friend, the poet Jim Brody, 200 00:11:36,321 --> 00:11:38,365 was asked to edit the culture page. 201 00:11:38,365 --> 00:11:40,951 He'd written at Crawdaddy while I was there. 202 00:11:40,951 --> 00:11:42,035 That's how we met. 203 00:11:42,994 --> 00:11:47,582 He was the one who brought on Patti Smith in early 1971. 204 00:11:48,667 --> 00:11:50,794 {\an8}Jim Brody is really a significant poet 205 00:11:50,794 --> 00:11:54,506 {\an8}in the Poetry Project milieu of the early '70s. 206 00:11:54,506 --> 00:11:57,551 He's not the most well-known poet outside of that scene. 207 00:11:57,551 --> 00:11:59,803 And so to find out that James and Jim Brody 208 00:11:59,803 --> 00:12:01,555 sort of had this really great relationship, 209 00:12:01,680 --> 00:12:03,223 it was really fascinating to me, 210 00:12:03,223 --> 00:12:05,142 as somebody interested in that aspect 211 00:12:05,142 --> 00:12:07,394 of downtown New York music, 212 00:12:07,394 --> 00:12:11,440 which is very connected to the poetry community as well. 213 00:12:11,565 --> 00:12:12,941 You know, around CBGBs and Max's, 214 00:12:12,941 --> 00:12:15,402 of where these things really colluded. 215 00:12:15,402 --> 00:12:17,821 And James was documenting all these figures 216 00:12:17,821 --> 00:12:20,949 that you very rarely see any good photographs of. 217 00:12:22,784 --> 00:12:24,327 I remember once Brody and I 218 00:12:24,327 --> 00:12:26,455 visited Duane Allman at the Chelsea 219 00:12:26,455 --> 00:12:29,708 the afternoon of the last concert at Fillmore East. 220 00:12:29,833 --> 00:12:31,960 That was June '71. 221 00:12:34,921 --> 00:12:36,256 I like artifacts. 222 00:12:36,256 --> 00:12:39,259 And the Duane Allman picture is full of artifacts. 223 00:12:39,259 --> 00:12:42,012 The tape recorder, the science fiction novel, 224 00:12:42,137 --> 00:12:43,180 All the hands coming out of... 225 00:12:43,180 --> 00:12:46,475 The can of beer, the joint, the... 226 00:12:46,475 --> 00:12:48,059 Pack of Kools. 227 00:12:48,059 --> 00:12:48,935 Is it Kools? 228 00:12:48,935 --> 00:12:49,895 I think so. 229 00:12:49,895 --> 00:12:51,771 That's right. Kools, Schlitz. 230 00:12:51,897 --> 00:12:53,315 He's reading A.E. van Vogt. 231 00:12:53,315 --> 00:12:54,149 Yeah. 232 00:12:54,149 --> 00:12:54,983 Listening to the music and kind of... 233 00:12:54,983 --> 00:12:56,693 and he just lit a cigarette. 234 00:12:56,818 --> 00:12:57,694 He's nearly rapturous. 235 00:12:57,694 --> 00:12:59,070 - Yeah. - Yeah. 236 00:12:59,905 --> 00:13:00,739 That's what I thought. 237 00:13:00,739 --> 00:13:01,907 He's like, "This is the life." 238 00:13:07,913 --> 00:13:09,789 Nine times out of 10 in your photographs, 239 00:13:09,789 --> 00:13:11,625 there's always this one aspect 240 00:13:11,625 --> 00:13:14,419 that there's something else going on. 241 00:13:14,544 --> 00:13:16,671 It's not just the subject. 242 00:13:16,671 --> 00:13:20,967 There's Soft Machine sitting around in a hotel lobby, 243 00:13:20,967 --> 00:13:22,886 and this woman who just has 244 00:13:22,886 --> 00:13:24,095 absolutely nothing to do with them, 245 00:13:24,095 --> 00:13:25,639 she just happens to be sitting there 246 00:13:25,764 --> 00:13:26,640 With sunglasses. 247 00:13:26,640 --> 00:13:28,391 With sunglasses on. 248 00:13:28,517 --> 00:13:30,936 You put her in the photograph. 249 00:13:30,936 --> 00:13:32,187 And that happens a lot, 250 00:13:32,187 --> 00:13:35,273 where there's this other thing in there that just sort of 251 00:13:35,273 --> 00:13:36,816 turns the story. - It's this awkward moment. 252 00:13:36,942 --> 00:13:39,152 It's slightly awkward, but it's humorous. 253 00:13:39,277 --> 00:13:40,237 It's great. 254 00:13:42,239 --> 00:13:44,366 For one assignment, I went on set 255 00:13:44,366 --> 00:13:47,577 for a Milos Forman film called "Taking Off." 256 00:13:47,577 --> 00:13:50,121 This is the first time I've actually been on a set. 257 00:13:50,247 --> 00:13:52,916 The scene was an audition scene. 258 00:13:52,916 --> 00:13:54,292 {\an8}♪ I was born ♪ 259 00:13:54,292 --> 00:13:57,837 {\an8}Kathy Bates came and played guitar 260 00:13:57,837 --> 00:14:01,091 {\an8}♪ Full of angels and kings ♪ 261 00:14:01,091 --> 00:14:02,050 {\an8}Carly Simon. 262 00:14:02,050 --> 00:14:05,554 {\an8}♪ So I'm gonna have another drag ♪ 263 00:14:05,554 --> 00:14:07,597 This is before they were well known. 264 00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:11,768 And the camera would just rove around. 265 00:14:11,893 --> 00:14:12,769 ♪ And at the end ♪ 266 00:14:12,769 --> 00:14:15,939 Then they eventually came to right in front of me, 267 00:14:15,939 --> 00:14:17,691 and I felt the camera on my face, 268 00:14:17,691 --> 00:14:20,402 and it winds up being the close-up in the film. 269 00:14:22,153 --> 00:14:25,031 So that was the first time I was ever on camera in a film. 270 00:14:26,449 --> 00:14:28,243 {\an8}And then I went on the set 271 00:14:28,243 --> 00:14:30,120 {\an8}of "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight," 272 00:14:30,120 --> 00:14:33,623 {\an8}and that was where the scene was in a car wash. 273 00:14:38,295 --> 00:14:41,798 So the picture I have is the lion in a car wash. 274 00:14:46,011 --> 00:14:47,887 Every one of these photographs 275 00:14:47,887 --> 00:14:51,182 has James in the photograph. 276 00:14:53,310 --> 00:14:57,522 And it's like that's why it's funny or poignant or noir. 277 00:14:57,522 --> 00:14:58,773 It's all him. 278 00:14:58,898 --> 00:15:00,734 And when we go through the contact sheets, 279 00:15:00,734 --> 00:15:04,154 it's him tenfold, a hundredfold. 280 00:15:04,154 --> 00:15:08,783 If it's a beautiful actress, maybe 1,200-fold, 281 00:15:08,783 --> 00:15:10,994 like it's a thicker envelope. 282 00:15:27,093 --> 00:15:27,886 It was very early on. 283 00:15:27,886 --> 00:15:30,013 {\an8}It was like the third story I did for The Village Voice. 284 00:15:30,013 --> 00:15:33,475 {\an8}I did a story on sex workers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 285 00:15:37,979 --> 00:15:40,690 It was '89, and it was pretty, pretty rough, 286 00:15:40,690 --> 00:15:43,068 and these were girls who were basically neighborhood girls 287 00:15:43,068 --> 00:15:44,903 who were also crack addicts. 288 00:15:44,903 --> 00:15:47,822 They were homeless. Their families had kicked them out. 289 00:15:47,947 --> 00:15:50,283 The only way that they could pay for their addiction 290 00:15:50,283 --> 00:15:51,701 was by doing sex work. 291 00:15:53,161 --> 00:15:56,498 They were like 20, 21, sweet as can be. 292 00:15:56,498 --> 00:15:59,751 I would just hang out there and catch them between tricks, 293 00:15:59,876 --> 00:16:03,338 and they'd jump in the car with me, and we would just talk. 294 00:16:04,422 --> 00:16:07,217 And so James was assigned to photograph it 295 00:16:07,217 --> 00:16:08,760 once I turned the article in. 296 00:16:10,345 --> 00:16:12,097 But they didn't run the photos, 297 00:16:12,097 --> 00:16:14,057 because they were concerned 298 00:16:14,057 --> 00:16:16,393 that the girls might be identifiable. 299 00:16:16,393 --> 00:16:19,229 But I remember I came to the apartment, 300 00:16:19,229 --> 00:16:21,398 you came down, you got in the car, 301 00:16:21,398 --> 00:16:23,024 and I said, "Do you wanna get a coffee?" 302 00:16:23,024 --> 00:16:25,110 And he said, "No, I'm fine." 303 00:16:25,235 --> 00:16:26,069 And I kind of couldn't believe that. 304 00:16:26,069 --> 00:16:28,154 He was just sitting there with his camera, 305 00:16:28,154 --> 00:16:29,698 ready to spend a night out. 306 00:16:29,823 --> 00:16:30,740 - Without coffee - In Williamsburg, 307 00:16:30,740 --> 00:16:31,533 without coffee. 308 00:16:32,826 --> 00:16:34,327 And then when we got out there, 309 00:16:34,327 --> 00:16:35,787 we really had to wait all night, 310 00:16:35,787 --> 00:16:39,082 and James starts playing that we're cops on the stakeout. 311 00:16:39,207 --> 00:16:40,917 He started calling me Pete. 312 00:16:40,917 --> 00:16:44,170 And then he asked what I was gonna buy Marie for Christmas. 313 00:16:45,004 --> 00:16:45,839 Remember this? 314 00:16:45,839 --> 00:16:47,132 I treated you like a male cop? 315 00:16:47,132 --> 00:16:48,341 Yes, you treated like a male cop 316 00:16:48,341 --> 00:16:49,926 and asked what I bought my wife for Christmas. 317 00:16:49,926 --> 00:16:52,053 And the reason I really loved that so much 318 00:16:52,053 --> 00:16:55,056 is 'cause it was so damn boring, right? 319 00:16:55,056 --> 00:16:57,100 Which is exactly how those guys would talk, 320 00:16:57,100 --> 00:16:58,727 so it just tickled me. 321 00:16:58,727 --> 00:17:01,146 And then that night we went after the day was over 322 00:17:01,146 --> 00:17:03,606 and went and got fried chicken under the L. 323 00:17:05,608 --> 00:17:07,652 That was the first job we did together. 324 00:17:07,652 --> 00:17:09,821 And within like three or four days 325 00:17:09,821 --> 00:17:11,156 we were kind of going out. 326 00:17:12,866 --> 00:17:15,285 Then we did about four other jobs after that. 327 00:17:15,285 --> 00:17:18,830 Mostly we worked on our own, but we had a lot of, I think, 328 00:17:18,830 --> 00:17:22,125 understanding about each other's job habits. 329 00:17:23,209 --> 00:17:25,754 I think that we gave each other a lot of freedom. 330 00:17:26,629 --> 00:17:28,465 James had his place in Manhattan. 331 00:17:28,590 --> 00:17:30,383 I have my place in Brooklyn. 332 00:17:30,383 --> 00:17:34,095 And then weirdly we end up getting a place out here, 333 00:17:34,095 --> 00:17:35,889 which is where we live together. 334 00:17:35,889 --> 00:17:38,141 When we share any kind of time, it's out here. 335 00:17:54,032 --> 00:17:57,076 Vogue had Abbott on and Penn shooting their covers. 336 00:17:57,076 --> 00:18:00,371 But Bazaar had quite a few younger photographers. 337 00:18:01,414 --> 00:18:04,083 Hiro was a famous photographer there 338 00:18:04,083 --> 00:18:06,669 and he did a lot of very elegant covers. 339 00:18:08,046 --> 00:18:09,339 Bea Feitler and Ruth Ansel 340 00:18:09,339 --> 00:18:12,091 were the co-art directors at the time. 341 00:18:12,091 --> 00:18:14,803 They made a super elegant magazine 342 00:18:14,803 --> 00:18:17,180 and very clever and beautifully designed. 343 00:18:18,306 --> 00:18:19,724 Bea was also a book designer, 344 00:18:19,724 --> 00:18:23,436 and Abboton and Bea did a book about Lartigue. 345 00:18:24,979 --> 00:18:27,565 She loved photography, and photographers loved her. 346 00:18:28,942 --> 00:18:31,611 Bea asked me if I would be the staff photographer. 347 00:18:31,611 --> 00:18:33,321 They'd never had one. 348 00:18:33,321 --> 00:18:35,824 They wanted to have something more news oriented. 349 00:18:37,826 --> 00:18:41,037 And my first assignment was the Women's March for Equality 350 00:18:41,037 --> 00:18:44,415 in August '71, where there were throngs of women 351 00:18:44,415 --> 00:18:46,000 marching up Fifth Avenue, 352 00:18:46,125 --> 00:18:48,461 and counter protestors all along the way. 353 00:18:49,712 --> 00:18:50,964 There were right-to-life people, 354 00:18:50,964 --> 00:18:54,801 but there were also men who were mocking the women. 355 00:18:57,720 --> 00:18:59,889 There's that one famous picture of his 356 00:18:59,889 --> 00:19:03,935 {\an8}of one of the first feminist demonstrations in New York. 357 00:19:05,854 --> 00:19:09,148 And there's all these people in the background. 358 00:19:09,148 --> 00:19:12,068 They're all caught mid-sentence. 359 00:19:12,068 --> 00:19:14,320 And there's this young female cop, 360 00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:16,155 and she's standing next to a male cop. 361 00:19:16,155 --> 00:19:20,910 It's almost like he's puzzled and she's exasperated. 362 00:19:22,370 --> 00:19:24,998 I shot a lot of Halston fashion shows. 363 00:19:25,123 --> 00:19:26,958 It was just his showroom. 364 00:19:28,710 --> 00:19:31,504 I was not interested in fashion at all, 365 00:19:31,504 --> 00:19:32,881 which is pretty funny, 366 00:19:33,006 --> 00:19:34,507 considering I was the staff photographer 367 00:19:34,507 --> 00:19:35,717 of a fashion magazine. 368 00:19:37,719 --> 00:19:39,345 I spent a few days with Liza Minnelli 369 00:19:39,345 --> 00:19:40,889 when "Cabaret" came out. 370 00:19:41,848 --> 00:19:44,058 This is her godmother, named Kay Thompson, 371 00:19:44,058 --> 00:19:47,061 who was the author of the Eloise books. 372 00:19:47,061 --> 00:19:49,147 And in the middle is Earl Wilson, 373 00:19:49,147 --> 00:19:51,691 who was a famous syndicated columnist. 374 00:19:54,235 --> 00:19:57,405 So I was able to spend days with people, 375 00:19:57,405 --> 00:20:00,491 which changed when it became much, much harder 376 00:20:00,491 --> 00:20:02,201 to get that kind of access. 377 00:20:03,119 --> 00:20:05,997 But I could photograph anybody I wanted virtually. 378 00:20:05,997 --> 00:20:08,458 And I knew that Hitchcock was in town 379 00:20:08,458 --> 00:20:10,501 because he was promoting "Frenzy." 380 00:20:10,501 --> 00:20:14,339 Since I adored Hitchcock, I set up a meeting. 381 00:20:14,339 --> 00:20:16,507 He always stayed at the St. Regis Hotel. 382 00:20:16,507 --> 00:20:21,554 So I went there, knocked on the door, Hitchcock greeted me. 383 00:20:21,554 --> 00:20:23,890 Alma, his wife, was there. 384 00:20:23,890 --> 00:20:26,476 She ordered a tea for us. 385 00:20:26,476 --> 00:20:28,311 But there were no PR people around. 386 00:20:28,311 --> 00:20:30,813 In those days it wasn't that way. 387 00:20:30,813 --> 00:20:33,483 At one poin this was the shot I got 388 00:20:33,483 --> 00:20:35,610 that I probably liked the most. 389 00:20:37,487 --> 00:20:40,198 Because you don't tend to see him that way. 390 00:20:41,407 --> 00:20:42,325 It was wonderful, 391 00:20:42,325 --> 00:20:45,036 the three of us just talking all afternoon. 392 00:20:45,995 --> 00:20:49,415 My camera was a Nikon F with a flash, 393 00:20:49,415 --> 00:20:52,377 just this very small Vivitar flash on top of it, 394 00:20:52,377 --> 00:20:53,670 and that's all I ever used. 395 00:20:53,670 --> 00:20:55,797 I really didn't take any equipment with me. 396 00:20:55,922 --> 00:20:59,884 Later on I did, that being a 35- and a 50-millimeter lens. 397 00:20:59,884 --> 00:21:00,760 That was all. 398 00:21:01,761 --> 00:21:04,639 His flash work, I don't know how he does it. 399 00:21:04,639 --> 00:21:07,976 The thing is it's so easy to do that 400 00:21:07,976 --> 00:21:10,061 and make it look amateurish. 401 00:21:10,186 --> 00:21:12,689 {\an8}Something that looks like a single camera top flash 402 00:21:12,689 --> 00:21:17,735 {\an8}is like 101 done improperly. 403 00:21:18,069 --> 00:21:21,739 James, that's part of his technical frigging genius. 404 00:21:21,739 --> 00:21:25,910 It's almost clinical, but it's not detached. 405 00:21:25,910 --> 00:21:27,245 He gets closer than I could get to. 406 00:21:27,245 --> 00:21:29,664 I wouldn't put my camera that close to somebody's face 407 00:21:29,664 --> 00:21:31,833 or frame it that tight. 408 00:21:37,547 --> 00:21:39,173 What I loved about flash photography 409 00:21:39,173 --> 00:21:40,883 was I loved the hard edge. 410 00:21:43,344 --> 00:21:45,221 I love contrasty light anyway. 411 00:21:46,681 --> 00:21:50,435 I love bright sunlight, and I like shooting at night. 412 00:21:51,811 --> 00:21:53,771 I loved all the back date magazine stores 413 00:21:53,771 --> 00:21:56,149 that used to be on Sixth Avenue. 414 00:21:56,149 --> 00:21:59,318 The crime magazines and the photography. 415 00:22:04,032 --> 00:22:05,575 That was a kind of journalism 416 00:22:05,575 --> 00:22:07,952 that I really liked to check out. 417 00:22:08,870 --> 00:22:10,288 Well, of course I loved Weegee. 418 00:22:10,288 --> 00:22:13,499 I loved the obsessive nature of his work. 419 00:22:13,499 --> 00:22:16,002 So much of it was nighttime work. 420 00:22:16,127 --> 00:22:18,546 And Arbus I discovered much later. 421 00:22:18,546 --> 00:22:20,381 There was a show called New Documents 422 00:22:20,381 --> 00:22:22,717 John Szarkowski did at MoMA, 423 00:22:22,717 --> 00:22:24,719 and there were three photographers: 424 00:22:24,844 --> 00:22:27,722 Lee Friedlander, Gary Winogrand, and Diane Arbus. 425 00:22:27,722 --> 00:22:30,349 And I loved her use of flash. 426 00:22:30,349 --> 00:22:32,643 I mean, it was what I was doing as well, 427 00:22:32,643 --> 00:22:34,812 but she'd been doing it earlier, 428 00:22:34,937 --> 00:22:37,523 and I think she was attracted to Weegee's work too. 429 00:22:39,108 --> 00:22:40,818 Another part of the job, one of my favorites, 430 00:22:40,818 --> 00:22:44,655 was photographing the endless parties and benefits going on. 431 00:22:44,655 --> 00:22:48,659 It was my only paparazzi situation. 432 00:22:48,659 --> 00:22:50,161 This was one of the parties. 433 00:22:50,286 --> 00:22:51,954 It's called the Fabulous Forties. 434 00:22:53,331 --> 00:22:57,168 And this is Jane Russell leading the conga Line. 435 00:22:58,669 --> 00:23:01,214 Lana Turner arrived with an entourage 436 00:23:01,214 --> 00:23:03,633 of I think her hairdressers 437 00:23:03,758 --> 00:23:06,844 This is Cary Grant discussing his knife phobia 438 00:23:06,844 --> 00:23:09,222 with dinner companions. 439 00:23:09,222 --> 00:23:11,224 He had a lifelong fear of knives. 440 00:23:13,434 --> 00:23:15,978 I was not just photographing celebrities; 441 00:23:15,978 --> 00:23:17,688 I was photographing anything that I saw 442 00:23:17,688 --> 00:23:19,857 that was amusing to me. 443 00:23:19,982 --> 00:23:22,068 And Bea and I were just having a ball. 444 00:23:23,653 --> 00:23:27,448 Because they ran four pages of these tiny little pictures, 445 00:23:27,448 --> 00:23:30,201 and we were being as satirical as possible 446 00:23:30,201 --> 00:23:31,494 and getting away with it. 447 00:23:32,662 --> 00:23:35,248 I used to be on the floor laughing, 448 00:23:35,248 --> 00:23:37,416 looking at his party pictures, 449 00:23:37,416 --> 00:23:39,877 because the people in the pictures, you know, 450 00:23:39,877 --> 00:23:41,546 this is how they wanted to look: 451 00:23:41,546 --> 00:23:44,799 prosperous and a little bit famous 452 00:23:44,799 --> 00:23:47,635 or well-known and having a great time. 453 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:51,055 And he just would capture their vanity, 454 00:23:51,055 --> 00:23:52,515 and it was hilarious, 455 00:23:52,515 --> 00:23:54,809 'cause they were so completely unaware 456 00:23:54,809 --> 00:23:56,644 of how they were coming across. 457 00:23:57,562 --> 00:23:58,771 In those days, 458 00:23:58,771 --> 00:24:01,649 people were avoiding looking in the camera, 459 00:24:01,774 --> 00:24:04,152 whereas now maybe they pose. 460 00:24:04,152 --> 00:24:06,445 So I was able to get pictures 461 00:24:06,445 --> 00:24:09,907 of people that were totally unposed and caught, 462 00:24:10,032 --> 00:24:11,409 which was a great advantage. 463 00:24:12,869 --> 00:24:15,329 Often I'd be the only photographer there. 464 00:24:15,454 --> 00:24:17,331 I learned how to catch things quite well 465 00:24:17,456 --> 00:24:20,126 under those circumstances, 'cause I was forced to. 466 00:24:22,170 --> 00:24:23,796 I enjoyed everything I did there. 467 00:24:23,796 --> 00:24:27,842 I was imposing my point of view, for sure. 468 00:24:27,842 --> 00:24:28,676 Our point of view, 469 00:24:28,676 --> 00:24:32,138 because Bea and I were collaborators, really, on that. 470 00:24:32,138 --> 00:24:34,473 And what I insisted on doing 471 00:24:34,473 --> 00:24:36,809 was all my own processing, all my own printing, 472 00:24:36,809 --> 00:24:38,853 everything in my apartment. 473 00:24:38,853 --> 00:24:42,106 I made my own edits and turned them in. 474 00:24:42,106 --> 00:24:43,482 They might not use them all, 475 00:24:43,482 --> 00:24:46,027 but they only used what I chose. 476 00:24:46,027 --> 00:24:48,571 Consequently, they never touched my negatives, 477 00:24:48,571 --> 00:24:50,406 and I own everything I ever shot. 478 00:25:08,633 --> 00:25:10,885 One of the worst things in movies, 479 00:25:10,885 --> 00:25:15,306 up until people got good at doing it, 480 00:25:15,306 --> 00:25:17,058 is people driving in cars. 481 00:25:17,058 --> 00:25:20,019 Because all those years 482 00:25:20,019 --> 00:25:22,688 is crappy rear projection or whatever. 483 00:25:22,688 --> 00:25:24,065 All those years. 484 00:25:24,065 --> 00:25:25,900 And then "Gun Crazy." 485 00:25:25,900 --> 00:25:26,776 Do you remember "Gun Crazy"? 486 00:25:26,776 --> 00:25:27,652 Oh yeah, "Gun Crazy." 487 00:25:28,736 --> 00:25:31,155 Joseph Lewis shot it in the backseat. 488 00:25:31,155 --> 00:25:32,281 Remember? 489 00:25:32,281 --> 00:25:34,158 When they do the robbery. 490 00:25:34,158 --> 00:25:36,202 Camera's in the backseat. 491 00:25:36,202 --> 00:25:37,828 It was just sitting there. 492 00:25:37,828 --> 00:25:39,956 She gets out of the car, goes in, robs the bank, 493 00:25:39,956 --> 00:25:42,416 comes back out, gets in the car, and they take off. 494 00:25:42,416 --> 00:25:43,251 Take off! 495 00:25:43,251 --> 00:25:44,085 It was... 496 00:25:44,085 --> 00:25:44,919 It was so cool. 497 00:25:45,753 --> 00:25:46,671 I told you to stay in the car. 498 00:25:46,671 --> 00:25:47,505 I couldn't help it! 499 00:25:47,505 --> 00:25:49,924 The copper came out there! 500 00:25:49,924 --> 00:25:52,051 {\an8}He's one of those people where the movies 501 00:25:52,051 --> 00:25:54,512 {\an8}are in his life every day. 502 00:25:54,637 --> 00:25:56,639 He's quick to go to a line from a movie 503 00:25:56,639 --> 00:25:58,516 to address the situation. 504 00:25:58,641 --> 00:26:00,643 So I think it's so in his blood. 505 00:26:00,643 --> 00:26:03,104 But I would say there's a degree 506 00:26:03,104 --> 00:26:05,731 to which a certain kind of imagery 507 00:26:05,731 --> 00:26:09,193 of the city that we see in James's work, 508 00:26:09,193 --> 00:26:10,736 we only know that New York from movies. 509 00:26:10,736 --> 00:26:13,114 I only know it for movies, anyway. 510 00:26:13,114 --> 00:26:15,616 That's where you sort of live in it. 511 00:26:15,741 --> 00:26:18,077 So it conjures up cinema to me. 512 00:26:22,248 --> 00:26:24,583 The first thing I ever stole was a flip book. 513 00:26:24,583 --> 00:26:27,628 I was eight years old, and I was in a Woolworth. 514 00:26:27,628 --> 00:26:29,839 Incidentally, it was about the moving image 515 00:26:29,964 --> 00:26:32,800 and still pictures, and how appropriate. 516 00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:34,468 So I put it in my pocket, and I left, 517 00:26:34,468 --> 00:26:37,346 and I showed it to my sister when I got home, 518 00:26:37,346 --> 00:26:41,267 and she wound up ratting me out to my parents. 519 00:26:41,267 --> 00:26:44,186 So I was made to go back to the store 520 00:26:44,186 --> 00:26:47,481 and present it back to the salesperson there. 521 00:26:48,441 --> 00:26:50,776 Years later, I was living in the Village, 522 00:26:50,776 --> 00:26:53,446 and there was a antique store around the corner, 523 00:26:53,446 --> 00:26:57,074 and they had the exact one that I had returned, 524 00:26:57,074 --> 00:26:58,367 only it was 10 bucks. 525 00:26:59,243 --> 00:27:00,536 But I bought it, of course, 526 00:27:00,661 --> 00:27:02,663 and added it to my collection of flip books, 527 00:27:02,663 --> 00:27:07,001 'cause over the years I've become flip book collector. 528 00:27:13,591 --> 00:27:16,761 Both my parents loved movies, particularly my mother. 529 00:27:18,596 --> 00:27:21,265 And we loved watching movies together. 530 00:27:22,099 --> 00:27:24,310 {\an8}I must have been about 12 years old, 531 00:27:24,310 --> 00:27:26,979 {\an8}and my mother said, "This great movie called 'Citizen Kane,' 532 00:27:26,979 --> 00:27:29,231 {\an8}you have to stay home from school today and watch it." 533 00:27:29,231 --> 00:27:30,775 So we did. 534 00:27:30,775 --> 00:27:33,444 And that's how I saw that for the first time. 535 00:27:35,112 --> 00:27:37,698 I think in terms of form, I was influenced as much 536 00:27:37,698 --> 00:27:39,742 by black-and-white movies as anything. 537 00:27:39,867 --> 00:27:43,537 We're noir guys. We love that kind of lighting anyway. 538 00:27:43,537 --> 00:27:44,789 {\an8}But those guys influenced you 539 00:27:44,789 --> 00:27:47,083 {\an8}as much as any still photographers, right? 540 00:27:47,083 --> 00:27:48,501 Yeah. 541 00:27:48,501 --> 00:27:50,878 {\an8}All those wonderful cinematographers. 542 00:27:50,878 --> 00:27:53,714 {\an8}John Alton and Gregg Toland. 543 00:27:54,799 --> 00:27:57,051 Did you ever go to Cinemabilia? 544 00:27:57,051 --> 00:27:57,927 Oh yeah. 545 00:27:58,761 --> 00:28:00,763 Terry Ork to be the proprietor there. 546 00:28:00,763 --> 00:28:02,306 {\an8}Yeah, yeah. 547 00:28:02,306 --> 00:28:04,558 {\an8}Cinemabilia is kind of the birthplace 548 00:28:04,558 --> 00:28:05,643 {\an8}of New York punk in a way, 549 00:28:05,643 --> 00:28:07,978 {\an8}'cause that's where Tom Verlaine worked there 550 00:28:07,978 --> 00:28:09,480 with Richard Lloyd, 551 00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,400 and Richard Hell was kind of part of that scene. 552 00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:13,609 And Terry Ork, the proprietor, 553 00:28:13,609 --> 00:28:16,404 is the one who brings Verlaine and Lloyd together 554 00:28:16,404 --> 00:28:18,447 that Television comes out of. 555 00:28:18,572 --> 00:28:21,242 And then he's friendly with the poet Patti Smith, 556 00:28:21,242 --> 00:28:23,911 and there's this introductions that go on. 557 00:28:23,911 --> 00:28:26,872 '73 is such an interesting time in New York. 558 00:28:26,872 --> 00:28:28,833 In some sense it's this really transitional time 559 00:28:28,958 --> 00:28:30,543 between hippie culture 560 00:28:30,543 --> 00:28:33,212 and to sort of more punk, avant garde culture. 561 00:28:33,337 --> 00:28:35,589 And hippie culture, it goes to the country, 562 00:28:35,589 --> 00:28:37,550 where it kind of is supposed to go. 563 00:28:42,304 --> 00:28:44,223 That was the greatest cinematheque in the world, 564 00:28:44,223 --> 00:28:46,350 those movie theaters on 42nd Street. 565 00:28:46,350 --> 00:28:48,102 Because even though there were grotty, 566 00:28:48,102 --> 00:28:49,728 there was hardly any porno then. 567 00:28:49,854 --> 00:28:52,481 They would playing westerns. You could see a triple bill. 568 00:28:52,481 --> 00:28:54,066 Liberty had westerns. 569 00:28:54,066 --> 00:28:55,609 The Apollo had the foreign films. 570 00:28:55,609 --> 00:28:56,235 That's right. 571 00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:58,320 There was the Harris. 572 00:28:58,446 --> 00:28:59,989 - The Selwyn. - The Selwyn. 573 00:28:59,989 --> 00:29:01,615 And the Anco was the one. 574 00:29:01,740 --> 00:29:02,825 That was the one he couldn't really go to. 575 00:29:02,825 --> 00:29:04,618 It was too horrible. 576 00:29:04,743 --> 00:29:07,663 They left the lights on in the balcony. 577 00:29:07,663 --> 00:29:09,331 That's his scene of the famous, 578 00:29:09,331 --> 00:29:11,959 "You piss on my date and you say you're sorry?" 579 00:29:11,959 --> 00:29:13,961 No, they'd say, "Be cool, be cool." 580 00:29:13,961 --> 00:29:14,962 "Be cool. 581 00:29:14,962 --> 00:29:17,006 "You on my date and you say, 'Be cool'?" 582 00:29:18,257 --> 00:29:20,009 My whole family on my father's side 583 00:29:20,134 --> 00:29:22,094 were all members of Local 306 584 00:29:22,094 --> 00:29:24,388 of the Motion Picture Projection Agency. 585 00:29:24,513 --> 00:29:27,641 For a long time you couldn't show a movie in New York City 586 00:29:27,641 --> 00:29:29,351 unless you had a union projection center, 587 00:29:29,351 --> 00:29:30,561 no matter what it was. 588 00:29:32,354 --> 00:29:35,399 {\an8}And so I trained to be a motion picture projectionist. 589 00:29:35,524 --> 00:29:37,818 I'd strike the carbon arc and the whole thing. 590 00:29:37,818 --> 00:29:38,569 You didn't know this? 591 00:29:38,694 --> 00:29:40,029 I knew you knew projection. 592 00:29:41,197 --> 00:29:41,989 So they said, 593 00:29:41,989 --> 00:29:43,032 "What theater do you want to go and train in?" 594 00:29:43,157 --> 00:29:45,201 And I said, "How about the Thalia?" 595 00:29:45,576 --> 00:29:48,204 {\an8}which was this old revivalist house mirror, 596 00:29:48,204 --> 00:29:49,079 95th Street. 597 00:29:49,079 --> 00:29:50,706 {\an8}So I went up there and I knocked on the door, 598 00:29:50,706 --> 00:29:51,665 and the guy is like... 599 00:29:51,665 --> 00:29:54,168 You know, the guy reading the Daily News? 600 00:29:54,168 --> 00:29:55,127 "Yeah? What do you want?" 601 00:29:55,127 --> 00:29:57,505 I said, "I'm a trainee from from 306." 602 00:29:57,505 --> 00:29:59,423 He says, "Oh, okay, okay." 603 00:29:59,423 --> 00:30:02,593 And he's working on the hot splicer. 604 00:30:02,718 --> 00:30:04,595 {\an8}'Cause the movie they're playing there 605 00:30:04,595 --> 00:30:06,430 {\an8}happens to be "Rebel Without a Cause." 606 00:30:06,430 --> 00:30:08,015 {\an8}And he says, "Fuck, man!" 607 00:30:08,015 --> 00:30:10,518 The hot splicer is giving him a hard time, 608 00:30:10,643 --> 00:30:12,019 so he rips some of the movie out 609 00:30:12,019 --> 00:30:13,354 and throws it on the floor. 610 00:30:14,313 --> 00:30:16,607 It's curling around like this. 611 00:30:16,607 --> 00:30:18,400 And I'm the vice president 612 00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:21,153 of the University of Wisconsin Film Society. 613 00:30:21,153 --> 00:30:23,739 I'm horrified by this, you know? 614 00:30:23,739 --> 00:30:25,407 So I pick it up, and he says, 615 00:30:25,407 --> 00:30:26,659 "What, are you we gonna do this?" 616 00:30:26,659 --> 00:30:28,452 And I said, "Nah, I gotta go." 617 00:30:29,537 --> 00:30:31,247 I never really took this job off that. 618 00:30:31,372 --> 00:30:32,790 What's the scene? Do you remember? 619 00:30:32,915 --> 00:30:35,084 It's the great scene when he's telling him, 620 00:30:35,918 --> 00:30:37,378 "Leave me..." 621 00:30:37,503 --> 00:30:38,379 Jim Backus. 622 00:30:38,379 --> 00:30:40,256 Jim Backus is over here, the mom, whoever- 623 00:30:40,256 --> 00:30:41,257 Anne Doran. 624 00:30:41,257 --> 00:30:42,967 Of course he knows all this stuff. 625 00:30:42,967 --> 00:30:46,303 And James Dean is there, and he's in the middle. 626 00:30:46,428 --> 00:30:47,513 And he's saying, 627 00:30:47,513 --> 00:30:49,890 "You're tearing me apart!" - "Tearing me apart!" 628 00:30:51,308 --> 00:30:54,603 {\an8}You're tearing me apart! 629 00:30:54,603 --> 00:30:55,437 {\an8}What? 630 00:31:04,321 --> 00:31:05,781 Harper's, there came a time 631 00:31:05,781 --> 00:31:08,450 where they did a redesign of the magazine, 632 00:31:08,450 --> 00:31:11,662 so there was no need for a staff photographer anymore, 633 00:31:11,662 --> 00:31:12,830 so I lost that job. 634 00:31:14,164 --> 00:31:16,083 But then The Voice moved over here, 635 00:31:16,083 --> 00:31:18,085 the corner of 11th Street, 636 00:31:18,210 --> 00:31:18,877 and I went over there 637 00:31:18,877 --> 00:31:21,880 and started doing freelance work for them. 638 00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:23,173 Everyone there was great. 639 00:31:23,173 --> 00:31:26,051 And so, eventually, in 1976, 640 00:31:26,051 --> 00:31:28,262 they asked me to be the staff photographer 641 00:31:28,387 --> 00:31:29,930 along with Sylvia Plachy. 642 00:31:31,223 --> 00:31:33,100 and Fred McDarrah had been there for years, 643 00:31:33,100 --> 00:31:35,603 so he was running a kind of intern program. 644 00:31:35,728 --> 00:31:37,021 He wasn't shooting quite as much. 645 00:31:38,355 --> 00:31:41,609 Fred, he had really documented a lot of the '60s. 646 00:31:41,609 --> 00:31:43,444 He was a gruff person. 647 00:31:43,569 --> 00:31:47,448 He wasn't softly nurturing. 648 00:31:47,448 --> 00:31:49,450 But he gave you the opportunity. 649 00:31:52,536 --> 00:31:53,537 Between the two of you, 650 00:31:53,537 --> 00:31:56,040 how many photos do you think you've taken? 651 00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:56,874 {\an8}Oh my god, 652 00:31:56,874 --> 00:31:57,875 {\an8}We can't even count it. 653 00:31:57,875 --> 00:31:59,209 {\an8}No, you can't go there. 654 00:31:59,209 --> 00:32:00,252 {\an8}It's too many 655 00:32:00,252 --> 00:32:01,754 {\an8}Millions. - Too many 656 00:32:01,754 --> 00:32:03,088 - Millions? - Yeah. 657 00:32:03,088 --> 00:32:05,549 - Probably, at least. - Yeah. 658 00:32:07,593 --> 00:32:11,180 I was brought in by Clay Felker who bought the paper. 659 00:32:11,180 --> 00:32:14,725 I used to work for him at New York Magazine. 660 00:32:14,725 --> 00:32:17,561 A lot of us were people he brought in, 661 00:32:17,561 --> 00:32:19,605 and we were thrown together, 662 00:32:19,730 --> 00:32:21,482 and there was gonna be a new world. 663 00:32:22,566 --> 00:32:25,110 James comes in during the Felker period 664 00:32:25,110 --> 00:32:26,487 with George Delmerico. 665 00:32:28,113 --> 00:32:29,990 {\an8}And Clay Felker's personality, 666 00:32:29,990 --> 00:32:32,451 {\an8}it was definitely oil and water. 667 00:32:32,576 --> 00:32:34,203 {\an8}He came down, and the first thing he did 668 00:32:34,203 --> 00:32:36,580 {\an8}was assign everybody to write stories 669 00:32:36,580 --> 00:32:38,415 about the importance of Halloween. 670 00:32:40,250 --> 00:32:42,920 You have to imagine that staff of Bohemians, 671 00:32:43,045 --> 00:32:47,174 leftists, Marxists and all of that, enraged. 672 00:32:47,174 --> 00:32:50,219 One writer actually came up, tore up his paycheck, 673 00:32:50,219 --> 00:32:53,889 {\an8}and threw it at Felker, and it was Ron Rosenbaum. 674 00:32:53,889 --> 00:32:54,723 {\an8}On the other hand, 675 00:32:54,723 --> 00:32:57,559 {\an8}the paper fought Felker to more than a draw. 676 00:32:59,895 --> 00:33:02,564 The Voice came to prominence in the '60s, certainly. 677 00:33:02,564 --> 00:33:04,775 But I think the '70s and '80s, 678 00:33:04,775 --> 00:33:06,944 it was really an important paper in the city. 679 00:33:08,529 --> 00:33:12,241 Well the Village Voice was the story of New York 680 00:33:12,241 --> 00:33:13,909 told in real time. 681 00:33:13,909 --> 00:33:16,578 For me, moving to New York in '76, 682 00:33:16,578 --> 00:33:18,372 the Village Voice was the map. 683 00:33:20,165 --> 00:33:23,043 I would get the Voice because all the movie listings, 684 00:33:23,043 --> 00:33:25,087 all the theaters, the Thalia. 685 00:33:25,087 --> 00:33:26,797 Every Wednesday when the Voice came out, 686 00:33:26,922 --> 00:33:29,383 I would circle my whole week. 687 00:33:31,051 --> 00:33:33,095 I think what happened in the '70s 688 00:33:33,095 --> 00:33:36,765 is you get original voices, 689 00:33:36,765 --> 00:33:39,727 {\an8}but not using the pronoun "I" so often 690 00:33:39,727 --> 00:33:42,312 {\an8}and writing as observers 691 00:33:42,312 --> 00:33:46,233 of these different emerging cultures in the city. 692 00:33:47,526 --> 00:33:48,736 It played a real role 693 00:33:48,736 --> 00:33:51,989 in developing off-Broadway as a venue. 694 00:33:52,114 --> 00:33:54,324 All these different areas, performance art, 695 00:33:54,324 --> 00:33:57,202 that we covered regularly, the dance scene. 696 00:33:57,327 --> 00:33:59,621 {\an8}J. Hoberman on underground movies. 697 00:34:00,789 --> 00:34:04,293 It also had a definitive role in music journalism 698 00:34:05,461 --> 00:34:08,797 that Bob Christgau, more than anyone, put together 699 00:34:08,797 --> 00:34:11,341 and almost an academy of Black writing. 700 00:34:16,597 --> 00:34:19,516 {\an8}The Voice was always the pioneering publication. 701 00:34:19,516 --> 00:34:22,311 {\an8}We would publish stuff, words, 702 00:34:22,311 --> 00:34:23,979 {\an8}that other people wouldn't publish 703 00:34:23,979 --> 00:34:25,731 {\an8}in newspapers at that time. 704 00:34:26,690 --> 00:34:28,484 We covered stories that other people didn't cover, 705 00:34:28,484 --> 00:34:30,778 and we broke news all the time 706 00:34:30,903 --> 00:34:35,824 and were often stolen from by the Times and the tabloids. 707 00:34:35,949 --> 00:34:37,242 They were either stealing the stories 708 00:34:37,242 --> 00:34:38,494 or they were ignoring them, 709 00:34:38,619 --> 00:34:41,246 and it was hard to say which was worse. 710 00:34:42,706 --> 00:34:44,124 If you were interested in the city 711 00:34:44,124 --> 00:34:46,585 and all you wanted to do was write about the city, 712 00:34:46,710 --> 00:34:48,462 {\an8}the Voice was the perfect place for that. 713 00:34:48,462 --> 00:34:50,130 {\an8}I mean, for me, until very recently, 714 00:34:50,130 --> 00:34:51,965 {\an8}my world ended at the Hudson River. 715 00:34:53,050 --> 00:34:54,676 I think the strangest country you can fly to 716 00:34:54,676 --> 00:34:56,428 from Kennedy Airport is America. 717 00:34:59,181 --> 00:35:01,517 No one was really going the streets then. 718 00:35:01,517 --> 00:35:04,186 There had been people over time who had, 719 00:35:04,186 --> 00:35:06,647 but nobody was regularly doing street. 720 00:35:08,148 --> 00:35:10,901 I remember I went to 34 murders one weekend. 721 00:35:11,026 --> 00:35:13,070 I don't think I saw a reporter the whole time. 722 00:35:20,118 --> 00:35:21,829 There was a gang Coney Island called the Homicides, 723 00:35:21,829 --> 00:35:22,663 and I thought, 724 00:35:22,663 --> 00:35:24,957 "Well, what if I just live with them for a while?" 725 00:35:24,957 --> 00:35:27,167 I wrote the piece, and they wanted me to go around 726 00:35:27,167 --> 00:35:29,294 with this guy, James Hamilton. 727 00:35:31,296 --> 00:35:34,091 I'd never gone around with a photographer before. 728 00:35:39,763 --> 00:35:40,764 I wasn't too big on it. 729 00:35:40,764 --> 00:35:41,849 At that point in my life, 730 00:35:41,849 --> 00:35:43,392 I think I thought the perfect magazine 731 00:35:43,392 --> 00:35:45,394 was the New Yorker without cartoons. 732 00:35:46,812 --> 00:35:47,938 And plus, these are people, 733 00:35:47,938 --> 00:35:50,107 they're not called The Homicides for nothing. 734 00:35:50,107 --> 00:35:53,026 But the guy running them was a guy named Outlaw. 735 00:35:53,026 --> 00:35:55,237 His real name was George. Everybody called him Outlaw. 736 00:35:55,237 --> 00:35:57,614 And I became pretty close to him. 737 00:35:57,614 --> 00:35:59,074 He said it'd be all right. 738 00:35:59,199 --> 00:36:00,701 The good thing about working with a gang 739 00:36:00,701 --> 00:36:03,453 is if the main guy says it's all right, then it's all right. 740 00:36:05,497 --> 00:36:06,540 The thing that's really interesting 741 00:36:06,540 --> 00:36:10,586 is that you raise a camera lens to your basic gang kid, 742 00:36:10,711 --> 00:36:11,962 they're either gonna turn away, 743 00:36:11,962 --> 00:36:14,882 or they're gonna like play to it. 744 00:36:16,550 --> 00:36:18,927 James had a way to do it where they did neither. 745 00:36:20,512 --> 00:36:24,224 I think the Outlaw was very moved by James' pictures. 746 00:36:24,349 --> 00:36:27,436 One reason you become a gang member is you want to be seen. 747 00:36:27,436 --> 00:36:30,022 I think he James actually saw him, 748 00:36:30,147 --> 00:36:33,901 and not as a gang guy, but him him. 749 00:36:34,943 --> 00:36:36,278 And I think probably because James just, 750 00:36:36,278 --> 00:36:37,779 he has a respect for people, 751 00:36:37,779 --> 00:36:40,032 and he looks to see who they are, 752 00:36:40,157 --> 00:36:41,617 and he saw George, I think. 753 00:36:43,702 --> 00:36:45,537 And most of them died 754 00:36:45,537 --> 00:36:48,874 not long after the story, in one way or another. 755 00:36:48,874 --> 00:36:53,629 It was a violent scene, Coney Island in the '70s. 756 00:36:56,340 --> 00:36:58,008 I think the most important thing 757 00:36:58,008 --> 00:37:01,803 that we both were lucky enough to have at the Voice 758 00:37:01,803 --> 00:37:03,805 was very much our own point of view. 759 00:37:04,973 --> 00:37:07,267 And we were allowed to express it always 760 00:37:07,267 --> 00:37:12,064 And to grow into it and therefore create a style 761 00:37:12,064 --> 00:37:14,274 {\an8}to the point where I would always recognize 762 00:37:14,274 --> 00:37:15,567 {\an8}a Sylvia picture, and... 763 00:37:15,567 --> 00:37:17,277 {\an8}- I could recognize you. - Yeah. 764 00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:23,951 I think you're much more classical. 765 00:37:23,951 --> 00:37:27,496 I always think of yours as being very elegant, 766 00:37:27,496 --> 00:37:29,539 very beautifully lit. 767 00:37:29,539 --> 00:37:33,627 Yeah, I was very concerned about the composition 768 00:37:34,419 --> 00:37:37,381 to the extent that it was rigid almost. 769 00:37:37,381 --> 00:37:40,592 To me composition was very important too. 770 00:37:40,592 --> 00:37:42,552 But somehow your pictures feel looser than mine. 771 00:37:42,552 --> 00:37:44,846 {\an8}- But I'm much looser. - Yeah. 772 00:37:44,846 --> 00:37:47,057 And also we had all those assignments. 773 00:37:47,057 --> 00:37:47,891 Yeah. 774 00:37:47,891 --> 00:37:50,686 {\an8}We got introductions to people. 775 00:37:50,811 --> 00:37:52,729 Fantastic introductions. 776 00:37:52,854 --> 00:37:55,565 And then we developed our own film and printed it. 777 00:37:55,565 --> 00:37:57,609 I didn't know that you developed all your own. 778 00:37:57,609 --> 00:37:58,443 {\an8}Oh yeah. 779 00:37:58,443 --> 00:38:02,572 {\an8}I came home, I worked at Night in the dark room upstairs. 780 00:38:02,698 --> 00:38:05,367 I dried it in the bathroom in the shower. 781 00:38:06,201 --> 00:38:07,160 Me too. 782 00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:09,121 And they let you keep your pictures. 783 00:38:10,038 --> 00:38:12,165 You and Sylvia couldn't have been more different 784 00:38:12,165 --> 00:38:13,917 in your style of photography. 785 00:38:14,042 --> 00:38:17,129 I thought we got along very well there because of that, 786 00:38:17,129 --> 00:38:19,172 because we worked in different ways. 787 00:38:19,172 --> 00:38:20,007 Yeah. 788 00:38:20,007 --> 00:38:22,509 And with different editors and different writers. 789 00:38:24,344 --> 00:38:27,764 A lot of the pictures I started doing 790 00:38:27,764 --> 00:38:29,641 were for Guy Dupre. 791 00:38:30,475 --> 00:38:34,396 Guy was just as visually aware as I am. 792 00:38:34,396 --> 00:38:36,815 He would even point out things. 793 00:38:36,940 --> 00:38:39,985 It was just a wonderful thing to be side by side, 794 00:38:40,110 --> 00:38:43,864 {\an8}and not being alone, and having a friend there. 795 00:38:43,864 --> 00:38:45,782 {\an8}And there were several people like that for me. 796 00:38:45,782 --> 00:38:49,119 {\an8}There was Anna Mayol, there was James Ridgeway. 797 00:38:50,370 --> 00:38:51,872 Were there really fistfights? 798 00:38:51,997 --> 00:38:53,999 I don't know. I think Stanley Crouch. 799 00:38:53,999 --> 00:38:56,001 Ron Plotkin and Stanley Crouch, I think. 800 00:38:56,835 --> 00:38:57,669 You remember. 801 00:38:57,669 --> 00:38:58,545 I do. 802 00:38:58,670 --> 00:39:00,672 There were a few very fiery people. 803 00:39:00,672 --> 00:39:02,299 There was a lot of fire. 804 00:39:02,424 --> 00:39:03,175 Yeah. 805 00:39:03,175 --> 00:39:04,051 And a lot of arguments. 806 00:39:05,135 --> 00:39:07,054 A lot of people yelled at the boys, 807 00:39:07,054 --> 00:39:09,848 and it was something I got so used to 808 00:39:09,973 --> 00:39:12,059 that, when people visited me in the office, 809 00:39:12,059 --> 00:39:13,935 I would say, "Oh, that's just so and so. 810 00:39:13,935 --> 00:39:15,729 He yells on Wednesdays." 811 00:39:15,854 --> 00:39:17,064 There were fights, there were friendships, 812 00:39:17,064 --> 00:39:17,898 people broke up. 813 00:39:17,898 --> 00:39:20,525 There were loads of sexual relationships. 814 00:39:20,650 --> 00:39:22,486 - Absolutely. - Yeah. 815 00:39:22,486 --> 00:39:24,780 A lot of places now, that could not possibly happen. 816 00:39:24,780 --> 00:39:25,906 That would be a bad thing. 817 00:39:25,906 --> 00:39:29,409 There was just a lot of cross pollination. 818 00:39:31,203 --> 00:39:33,163 I always said it was composed of people 819 00:39:33,163 --> 00:39:35,665 who would never be at the same party together, 820 00:39:35,665 --> 00:39:37,459 people who really hated each other, 821 00:39:38,502 --> 00:39:40,378 but who all appreciated 822 00:39:40,378 --> 00:39:42,005 the kind of freedom the paper offered, 823 00:39:42,130 --> 00:39:44,758 and it was really an immense amount of freedom. 824 00:39:44,883 --> 00:39:46,802 - I mean, crazy. - It was insane. 825 00:39:46,927 --> 00:39:48,678 If I was the editor now, I would go like, 826 00:39:48,678 --> 00:39:50,889 "No, you can't do that." 827 00:39:53,016 --> 00:39:56,269 This is like one of the few times in the history of humanity 828 00:39:56,269 --> 00:39:59,314 that the so-called writers and artists were in charge. 829 00:39:59,439 --> 00:40:00,607 That's really what they were selling. 830 00:40:05,278 --> 00:40:09,074 The leeway to set up the piece the way you want 831 00:40:09,199 --> 00:40:12,577 rather than in a traditional news fashion 832 00:40:12,577 --> 00:40:13,954 was really important. 833 00:40:13,954 --> 00:40:17,582 The first feature I wrote was on James Brown, 834 00:40:17,582 --> 00:40:20,043 and the first paragraph was something like, 835 00:40:20,043 --> 00:40:22,295 "Everybody just calls him James. 836 00:40:22,295 --> 00:40:24,548 We don't call him James Brown." 837 00:40:24,673 --> 00:40:26,174 It's very vernacular. 838 00:40:26,174 --> 00:40:29,094 It's just writing about James Brown 839 00:40:29,094 --> 00:40:32,180 as a familiar, beloved guy in your neighborhood. 840 00:40:32,305 --> 00:40:36,059 And then there were huge, vast ideological conflicts 841 00:40:37,018 --> 00:40:39,688 between feminists, queers, 842 00:40:39,688 --> 00:40:41,481 and whom we called the white Boys, 843 00:40:41,481 --> 00:40:43,441 which was the political writers, 844 00:40:43,567 --> 00:40:46,027 operating from a much more traditional place. 845 00:40:48,446 --> 00:40:50,240 People invaded the front of the book. 846 00:40:50,240 --> 00:40:51,408 Sometimes the front of the book 847 00:40:51,408 --> 00:40:52,993 invaded the back of the book. 848 00:40:52,993 --> 00:40:55,287 There were arguments about who got the cover. 849 00:40:56,246 --> 00:40:59,166 The thing is everyone wrote their pieces on time, 850 00:40:59,166 --> 00:41:01,918 and everybody had their say. 851 00:41:02,043 --> 00:41:04,004 Everybody got into the paper. 852 00:41:05,630 --> 00:41:08,508 I was removed from the Voice in so many ways 853 00:41:08,508 --> 00:41:11,386 because I worked in the political sphere there, 854 00:41:11,386 --> 00:41:12,596 the cultural sphere. 855 00:41:12,596 --> 00:41:13,972 I covered everything, 856 00:41:14,097 --> 00:41:17,893 but I didn't have to get involved with office politics ever. 857 00:41:18,018 --> 00:41:18,935 No. 858 00:41:19,060 --> 00:41:20,395 Because I didn't hang out there. 859 00:41:21,897 --> 00:41:24,441 I would come and deliver and walk away. 860 00:41:24,441 --> 00:41:26,484 I could observe it sort of from a distance. 861 00:41:26,484 --> 00:41:28,361 I loved being part of the family, 862 00:41:28,361 --> 00:41:30,238 which is why I've always liked staff jobs. 863 00:41:30,238 --> 00:41:32,490 I like being part of something bigger. 864 00:41:34,409 --> 00:41:37,162 And this was the Voice, the whole building. 865 00:41:37,162 --> 00:41:38,580 Downstairs was classified. 866 00:41:38,580 --> 00:41:40,123 Editorial was on the top floor, 867 00:41:40,123 --> 00:41:42,375 and that's where I'd deliver these pictures. 868 00:41:44,044 --> 00:41:44,878 He drifted in and out, 869 00:41:44,878 --> 00:41:47,047 but people drifted in and out of his apartment, 870 00:41:47,047 --> 00:41:48,548 which really was part of the paper. 871 00:41:48,548 --> 00:41:51,468 You would just go up there and walk in and hang out. 872 00:41:51,593 --> 00:41:53,136 I talk to other people from the Village Voice 873 00:41:53,136 --> 00:41:53,845 from that time period. 874 00:41:53,970 --> 00:41:55,138 They always talk about you as being 875 00:41:55,138 --> 00:41:58,850 this kind of silent, zen presence amongst all this mania. 876 00:41:59,726 --> 00:42:01,478 Everybody had a crush on you, first of all. 877 00:42:01,478 --> 00:42:02,520 Oh, yeah, yeah, right. 878 00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:03,396 I know that was going on. 879 00:42:03,396 --> 00:42:04,272 We can't go there. 880 00:42:06,983 --> 00:42:08,652 The first story we worked on 881 00:42:08,652 --> 00:42:11,196 was about these Chinese youth gangs. 882 00:42:11,196 --> 00:42:12,030 That's right. 883 00:42:12,030 --> 00:42:12,948 But we didn't work together. 884 00:42:13,073 --> 00:42:13,907 We barely saw each other. 885 00:42:13,907 --> 00:42:16,493 I don't even think I really knew him at all, you know? 886 00:42:16,493 --> 00:42:19,621 So he took the pictures that went with the story. 887 00:42:19,746 --> 00:42:21,665 And then I guess everybody liked it, 888 00:42:21,665 --> 00:42:23,333 so then this idea came up 889 00:42:23,333 --> 00:42:25,085 that we should go across the country, 890 00:42:25,085 --> 00:42:27,629 the United States, the whole thing, 891 00:42:27,754 --> 00:42:28,505 The editor at the time 892 00:42:28,505 --> 00:42:30,382 was a woman named Marianne Partridge. 893 00:42:30,507 --> 00:42:31,508 Right? - Yeah. 894 00:42:31,508 --> 00:42:33,551 And she was game to do things like this. 895 00:42:33,551 --> 00:42:37,305 And it was basically picking up stories as we went. 896 00:42:41,017 --> 00:42:42,811 I guess the most memorable one 897 00:42:42,811 --> 00:42:44,729 was the Cullen Davis murder story. 898 00:42:49,734 --> 00:42:52,028 Cullen Davis was this extremely rich Texan 899 00:42:52,028 --> 00:42:54,823 who allegedly murdered his stepdaughter 900 00:42:54,823 --> 00:42:56,992 and his wife's lover. 901 00:42:57,117 --> 00:42:59,411 So he got off, of course. 902 00:42:59,411 --> 00:43:01,329 And then the jury and the judge 903 00:43:01,329 --> 00:43:03,331 went out for a party after the thing, 904 00:43:03,331 --> 00:43:05,709 so we got in there, we were just hanging out with them. 905 00:43:05,834 --> 00:43:06,751 Oh, you know, where we're from, 906 00:43:06,751 --> 00:43:09,713 it's not really customary for the judge and the jury 907 00:43:09,713 --> 00:43:11,631 to have a party after the verdict. 908 00:43:11,756 --> 00:43:13,091 They didn't seem to mind. 909 00:43:13,091 --> 00:43:16,094 {\an8}So I essentially have a sort of a mugshot-style picture 910 00:43:16,094 --> 00:43:18,138 {\an8}of the judge at this party, 911 00:43:18,263 --> 00:43:20,223 {\an8}and Cullen with his new lover, 912 00:43:21,391 --> 00:43:25,061 {\an8}and they both got religion, and everything was hunky dory. 913 00:43:26,271 --> 00:43:28,898 James is cognizant of what you're looking to do 914 00:43:28,898 --> 00:43:31,901 and works at not interfering with that. 915 00:43:31,901 --> 00:43:33,528 Also, it's a challenge 'cause your writing 916 00:43:33,528 --> 00:43:35,989 has to be up to the level of James's photography. 917 00:43:37,198 --> 00:43:38,700 I think James and I are in the same business, 918 00:43:38,825 --> 00:43:41,369 but he just gets there a lot faster and a lot stronger. 919 00:43:42,912 --> 00:43:44,789 It was very depressing in a lot of ways, 920 00:43:44,789 --> 00:43:46,750 'cause I've been driving the car, 921 00:43:46,750 --> 00:43:48,209 I'm thinking about the story. 922 00:43:48,209 --> 00:43:50,170 I gotta alk to this guy and talk to that guy 923 00:43:50,170 --> 00:43:51,755 and talk to this guy. 924 00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:52,797 And Hamilton's just sort of... 925 00:43:52,797 --> 00:43:55,342 He could puts his camera out the door or the window. 926 00:43:55,467 --> 00:43:56,343 He's not even looking, right? 927 00:43:56,468 --> 00:43:58,678 And so now he takes this picture, 928 00:43:58,678 --> 00:44:00,472 and it's better than anything I could. 929 00:44:04,225 --> 00:44:05,060 {\an8}For a lot of stories, 930 00:44:05,060 --> 00:44:07,062 we'd just come up with a story together, 931 00:44:07,062 --> 00:44:08,438 and they were often my ideas, 932 00:44:08,438 --> 00:44:10,148 but I would say, "What do you think about this?" 933 00:44:10,148 --> 00:44:11,316 And he'd go, "Yeah, I like that." 934 00:44:11,441 --> 00:44:13,485 And James would be the guy 935 00:44:13,610 --> 00:44:17,655 {\an8}who was gonna provide the evidence for the case 936 00:44:17,655 --> 00:44:20,116 {\an8}that this is worth your while. 937 00:44:20,116 --> 00:44:22,369 {\an8}And he was brilliant at that, 938 00:44:22,369 --> 00:44:27,082 because we really are of the same mindset. 939 00:44:27,082 --> 00:44:28,041 Absolutely. 940 00:44:28,875 --> 00:44:29,709 We had arguments, 941 00:44:29,709 --> 00:44:32,379 but I don't remember any aesthetic argument we ever had, 942 00:44:32,379 --> 00:44:35,632 and we must've done 50 stories together. 943 00:44:35,757 --> 00:44:36,466 Long stories. 944 00:44:36,466 --> 00:44:38,551 I don't even remember arguments period. 945 00:44:38,551 --> 00:44:40,011 I remember a few arguments. 946 00:44:41,221 --> 00:44:43,723 And the Florida one was like two parts. 947 00:44:43,723 --> 00:44:45,600 I could imagine what everybody else thought, 948 00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,395 like, "Why are these assholes taking up all this space?" 949 00:44:49,229 --> 00:44:50,146 It's a lot of space. 950 00:44:58,071 --> 00:44:59,114 Pictures ran big. 951 00:45:02,409 --> 00:45:04,494 {\an8}Art director happened to be a good friend of ours, 952 00:45:04,619 --> 00:45:06,746 George Delmerico. - That helped. 953 00:45:06,746 --> 00:45:08,581 {\an8}George Delmerico. 954 00:45:08,581 --> 00:45:10,708 {\an8}All photographers were treated really well. 955 00:45:10,708 --> 00:45:12,419 {\an8}He never cropped pictures, 956 00:45:12,419 --> 00:45:15,839 and he just had an enormous amount of respect for the image. 957 00:45:17,507 --> 00:45:21,094 He was an immensely creative guy, an incredible eye, 958 00:45:21,094 --> 00:45:25,098 and an ability to be erudite without being pretentious. 959 00:45:25,223 --> 00:45:28,726 He had this apartment with a skylight on Christopher Street, 960 00:45:28,726 --> 00:45:30,603 and it would snow in through the skylight 961 00:45:30,603 --> 00:45:33,356 and we would just sit up doing newspaper layouts 962 00:45:33,356 --> 00:45:35,024 all the time together. 963 00:45:36,192 --> 00:45:37,694 With Felker you began to see 964 00:45:37,694 --> 00:45:40,613 a more artistic kind of photography, 965 00:45:40,613 --> 00:45:44,117 complimenting the glazer design of the paper. 966 00:45:44,117 --> 00:45:46,911 And George as an art director cultivated all this, 967 00:45:46,911 --> 00:45:49,497 Mapplethorpe and others, Peter Hujar. 968 00:45:53,126 --> 00:45:56,713 It's this merger of art and journalism, 969 00:45:57,672 --> 00:46:01,176 {\an8}where one was not in charge of the other, 970 00:46:01,176 --> 00:46:03,636 {\an8}but rather they were in constant clashing, 971 00:46:03,636 --> 00:46:07,015 constant dialectic, the two elements of the paper. 972 00:46:08,016 --> 00:46:11,186 So you could be as artful as you wanted to be, 973 00:46:12,187 --> 00:46:14,772 but it had to work as journalism too. 974 00:46:14,772 --> 00:46:17,192 You could be as journalistic as you wanted to be, 975 00:46:17,192 --> 00:46:18,693 but it had to work as art. 976 00:46:19,944 --> 00:46:23,114 Sylvia, her work exudes empathy. 977 00:46:23,114 --> 00:46:25,867 With James, his work exudes formality, 978 00:46:25,867 --> 00:46:30,914 but the subject is still there in very, very high relief. 979 00:46:30,914 --> 00:46:33,666 That's a terrific balance and combination. 980 00:46:38,213 --> 00:46:41,466 The only time our paths ever crossed on the road, 981 00:46:41,591 --> 00:46:44,719 taking pictures, we were both assigned accidentally 982 00:46:44,844 --> 00:46:46,930 {\an8}to photograph a photographer. 983 00:46:46,930 --> 00:46:48,556 {\an8}Not only a photographer but- 984 00:46:48,556 --> 00:46:49,390 James Van Der Zee. 985 00:46:49,390 --> 00:46:50,225 James Van Der Zee, 986 00:46:50,225 --> 00:46:51,643 {\an8}one of the great photographers 987 00:46:51,643 --> 00:46:54,062 {\an8}of Harlem. - In Harlem. 988 00:46:54,062 --> 00:46:57,148 {\an8}And so she took my picture, and I guess I took yours. 989 00:46:57,148 --> 00:46:58,149 {\an8}With him. 990 00:47:02,153 --> 00:47:03,821 {\an8}I always felt like I was always fighting 991 00:47:03,821 --> 00:47:04,697 the quality of newspaper. 992 00:47:04,697 --> 00:47:06,241 He was fighting it. I wasn't fighting. 993 00:47:06,241 --> 00:47:08,409 You weren't fighting it. I know you weren't. 994 00:47:08,409 --> 00:47:09,786 You embraced it. 995 00:47:09,786 --> 00:47:10,620 I embraced it. 996 00:47:11,412 --> 00:47:14,499 I liked that messy, grayed out... 997 00:47:14,624 --> 00:47:16,251 See, okay, another difference. 998 00:47:17,418 --> 00:47:19,754 It's more tactile. It's warmer. 999 00:47:21,548 --> 00:47:22,632 You can feel it. 1000 00:47:22,632 --> 00:47:24,968 You can touch the picture, and it's warm 1001 00:47:24,968 --> 00:47:27,345 instead of a cold, shiny paper. 1002 00:47:27,345 --> 00:47:30,348 Yeah, I wanted them to jump off the page. 1003 00:47:31,849 --> 00:47:34,978 James kind of pioneered the closeup picture 1004 00:47:34,978 --> 00:47:37,063 of somebody that would appear in a newspaper. 1005 00:47:37,188 --> 00:47:39,399 Somehow he was able to get this face 1006 00:47:39,399 --> 00:47:42,026 to pop off the back, almost 3D. 1007 00:47:42,860 --> 00:47:45,321 I think that a lot of people have emulated that since, 1008 00:47:45,321 --> 00:47:47,407 because it's so remarkable, 1009 00:47:47,407 --> 00:47:49,951 and he should've got more credit for that. 1010 00:47:50,076 --> 00:47:51,369 But he's not that kind of guy. 1011 00:47:51,369 --> 00:47:56,416 I would be so fanatical about my pictures 1012 00:47:56,416 --> 00:47:58,251 that I would actually go to the plant... 1013 00:47:59,669 --> 00:48:02,297 {\an8}where did the printing, like 5:00, 6:00 in the morning, 1014 00:48:02,297 --> 00:48:05,758 {\an8}just to make sure that the pictures looked good 1015 00:48:06,593 --> 00:48:08,720 {\an8}and had enough contrast and all that. 1016 00:48:10,471 --> 00:48:12,640 {\an8}And sometimes I would even take a black crayon 1017 00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:16,185 {\an8}and I would darken the pictures. 1018 00:48:18,021 --> 00:48:20,231 Then Rupert Murdoch bought New York Magazine 1019 00:48:20,231 --> 00:48:24,277 and the Village Voice, and so there was no Felker anymore. 1020 00:48:24,402 --> 00:48:26,946 The first thing he did was fire the editor, 1021 00:48:26,946 --> 00:48:30,825 and everyone united and said, "We're all on strike. 1022 00:48:30,825 --> 00:48:33,953 You have bought $45 million worth of typewriters 1023 00:48:33,953 --> 00:48:36,623 unless you let the editor fill out her contract." 1024 00:48:36,748 --> 00:48:38,207 I mean, we defeated Murdoch. 1025 00:48:39,584 --> 00:48:41,753 And as a response to this whole thing, 1026 00:48:41,753 --> 00:48:44,005 we published that alligator on the cover, 1027 00:48:44,005 --> 00:48:46,674 on the theory that it was the most unlikely cover 1028 00:48:46,674 --> 00:48:48,760 that would ever be in a newspaper, 1029 00:48:48,885 --> 00:48:51,721 partly as a middle finger raised to Murdoch. 1030 00:48:57,560 --> 00:48:59,437 We took it 100% seriously. 1031 00:48:59,437 --> 00:49:00,980 That was one thing I really liked working with you, 1032 00:49:00,980 --> 00:49:02,523 because it was all about the work, 1033 00:49:02,523 --> 00:49:04,942 and so it was really a good partnership. 1034 00:49:04,942 --> 00:49:05,818 Partners, baby. 1035 00:49:07,153 --> 00:49:07,987 Yes. 1036 00:49:07,987 --> 00:49:09,822 You have to go like this, James. 1037 00:49:09,822 --> 00:49:11,115 Yes, yes. Okay. 1038 00:49:25,338 --> 00:49:27,090 This is the regular refrigerator, 1039 00:49:27,090 --> 00:49:29,634 and this is the wine cooler, 1040 00:49:29,634 --> 00:49:33,388 which is perfect for keeping my film and chemicals 1041 00:49:34,305 --> 00:49:37,475 at the proper temperature, which is about 68 degrees. 1042 00:49:39,894 --> 00:49:43,189 And then, this is my developing tank. 1043 00:49:44,065 --> 00:49:45,191 And what I do, 1044 00:49:47,068 --> 00:49:47,902 is I 1045 00:49:50,613 --> 00:49:51,906 fill this with water. 1046 00:49:52,782 --> 00:49:54,659 This I put developer in this. 1047 00:49:54,659 --> 00:49:56,911 I have fixer in all the time. 1048 00:49:56,911 --> 00:49:59,872 And so what I do is I lower the film. 1049 00:49:59,872 --> 00:50:02,375 These are 35 millimeter reels 1050 00:50:02,375 --> 00:50:04,085 that I spool with film 1051 00:50:04,085 --> 00:50:09,132 and then drop these in, in the dark, 1052 00:50:09,382 --> 00:50:13,428 and develop 'em for whatever length of time. 1053 00:50:13,428 --> 00:50:15,430 Then I put them in in the water 1054 00:50:16,889 --> 00:50:18,891 to stop the developing and rinse them, 1055 00:50:20,852 --> 00:50:22,687 and then I put 'em in the fixer 1056 00:50:22,687 --> 00:50:25,189 to fix 'em for a certain length of time. 1057 00:50:25,189 --> 00:50:28,693 And once they're in the fixer, I can turn the light on. 1058 00:50:28,693 --> 00:50:33,239 And then I put 'em in here, in the water, 1059 00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:35,783 and carry them into the bathroom, 1060 00:50:35,783 --> 00:50:38,077 'cause there's no running water in here. 1061 00:50:38,202 --> 00:50:39,662 When there was Bradley's, 1062 00:50:39,662 --> 00:50:42,081 this fantastic jazz bar downstairs, 1063 00:50:42,081 --> 00:50:44,208 the piano was right under here. 1064 00:50:45,418 --> 00:50:46,878 I would work until 4:00 in the morning, 1065 00:50:46,878 --> 00:50:49,213 and they'd be playing until 4:00 in the morning. 1066 00:51:00,767 --> 00:51:02,852 Often at the Voice, if I wanted to meet somebody, 1067 00:51:02,852 --> 00:51:04,687 I would suggest a story. 1068 00:51:04,687 --> 00:51:06,814 I had always wanted to meet George Romero, 1069 00:51:06,814 --> 00:51:08,608 'cause I loved the way he worked, 1070 00:51:08,608 --> 00:51:12,737 so I enlisted the aid of a critic there named Tom Allen, 1071 00:51:12,737 --> 00:51:15,364 who loved to write about independent filmmakers. 1072 00:51:16,741 --> 00:51:18,951 We hung out at the mall, 1073 00:51:18,951 --> 00:51:22,914 where he was in the process of wrapping "Dawn of the Dead." 1074 00:51:22,914 --> 00:51:26,250 And so I took pictures there, in his editing room, 1075 00:51:26,250 --> 00:51:29,420 and we just palled around for a couple of days, 1076 00:51:29,420 --> 00:51:31,714 just really hit it off. 1077 00:51:31,714 --> 00:51:34,967 And he asked me if I would be his still photographer 1078 00:51:34,967 --> 00:51:35,927 on his next film. 1079 00:51:35,927 --> 00:51:37,970 I said, "But don't I have to get in the union?" 1080 00:51:37,970 --> 00:51:40,681 He said, "I'll get you in the union." 1081 00:51:40,681 --> 00:51:42,850 And I said, "Well, as long as I can take a leave 1082 00:51:42,850 --> 00:51:43,893 from the paper, yeah." 1083 00:51:43,893 --> 00:51:45,394 So that's what I did 1084 00:51:48,231 --> 00:51:49,774 When I was at Rolling Stone, 1085 00:51:49,774 --> 00:51:51,609 George's publicist said, 1086 00:51:51,609 --> 00:51:55,196 "If you do a story on this movie we're making, 1087 00:51:55,196 --> 00:51:56,572 you can be an extra." 1088 00:51:57,573 --> 00:51:59,033 They had this zombie school 1089 00:51:59,033 --> 00:52:01,577 where you're supposed to learn how to be a zombie, 1090 00:52:01,577 --> 00:52:03,913 which we got there late, so I missed. 1091 00:52:04,038 --> 00:52:06,707 And so I did everything wrong, 1092 00:52:06,707 --> 00:52:09,502 and it was so hilarious, because they were saying like, 1093 00:52:09,502 --> 00:52:10,920 "You walk with your hands like this, 1094 00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:12,463 and I'm walking like that. 1095 00:52:19,095 --> 00:52:20,847 He put me in a whole bunch of scenes. 1096 00:52:20,847 --> 00:52:22,932 {\an8}I think it's 'cause it was so funny. 1097 00:52:22,932 --> 00:52:24,058 {\an8}Okay, let's go. 1098 00:52:24,058 --> 00:52:27,520 {\an8}And I have a closeup, trying to get into Penny's. 1099 00:52:27,520 --> 00:52:30,398 Pop 'em right here. 1100 00:52:30,523 --> 00:52:31,649 I liked his sense of humor. 1101 00:52:31,649 --> 00:52:35,319 He didn't tear his hair out 'cause I missed zombie school. 1102 00:52:35,319 --> 00:52:38,739 And then I went to work for his producer, 1103 00:52:38,739 --> 00:52:39,991 Richard Rubenstein. 1104 00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:43,953 So then James came and did Knightriders." 1105 00:52:43,953 --> 00:52:45,663 James is in that movie too. 1106 00:52:45,788 --> 00:52:48,082 {\an8}He's in every movie he shoots. 1107 00:52:48,082 --> 00:52:51,043 {\an8}Morgan, Morgan, please concentrate. 1108 00:52:54,589 --> 00:52:57,341 The plot is people dressing up as knights, 1109 00:52:57,341 --> 00:52:59,552 King Arthur's Knights, as a matter of fact, 1110 00:52:59,677 --> 00:53:03,222 but on motorcycles, and jousting on motorcycles. 1111 00:53:03,222 --> 00:53:05,850 So it was a really wild summer. 1112 00:53:07,018 --> 00:53:08,811 {\an8}Susan Vermazen wound up being there 1113 00:53:08,811 --> 00:53:11,397 {\an8}the entire time I was, on the set. 1114 00:53:12,231 --> 00:53:14,775 I had met her first when she was a photo editor 1115 00:53:14,775 --> 00:53:16,652 working for Rolling Stone. 1116 00:53:18,070 --> 00:53:20,531 Stephen King was there that summer. 1117 00:53:21,449 --> 00:53:23,659 It was Ed Harris's first major role. 1118 00:53:23,784 --> 00:53:24,619 He was Arthur. 1119 00:53:26,621 --> 00:53:29,332 {\an8}Half the crew were stunt people, 1120 00:53:29,332 --> 00:53:33,878 {\an8}and half of them wound up in the hospital once or twice. 1121 00:53:35,504 --> 00:53:38,049 But they were great, heroic guys. 1122 00:53:38,049 --> 00:53:39,884 Stunts unlimited. 1123 00:53:39,884 --> 00:53:41,719 They were fantastic. 1124 00:53:41,844 --> 00:53:43,596 They could do anything, and they were fun, 1125 00:53:43,596 --> 00:53:47,433 and they were relaxed, and everybody else was so tortured. 1126 00:53:48,851 --> 00:53:50,061 George is a prince, 1127 00:53:50,061 --> 00:53:53,689 totally dedicated and devoted to the crew. 1128 00:53:53,689 --> 00:53:54,857 So much fun to be with. 1129 00:53:55,775 --> 00:53:58,611 He just made the whole process joyful. 1130 00:54:00,237 --> 00:54:02,907 Normally it was stills photographer photographs, 1131 00:54:02,907 --> 00:54:04,700 essentially what the camera is seeing 1132 00:54:04,700 --> 00:54:07,745 so that the pictures can be used for publicity, 1133 00:54:07,870 --> 00:54:10,790 which is the most boring part of that job to me. 1134 00:54:11,958 --> 00:54:13,417 The only way I could have fun doing it 1135 00:54:13,417 --> 00:54:15,461 was to treat it like a documentary. 1136 00:54:15,586 --> 00:54:17,046 George liked that idea. 1137 00:54:17,171 --> 00:54:18,714 I didn't even know that stills 1138 00:54:18,714 --> 00:54:20,549 was a job that you can have. 1139 00:54:21,634 --> 00:54:23,135 {\an8}When I did "She's Gotta Have It," 1140 00:54:23,135 --> 00:54:24,136 {\an8}I didn't know it was something 1141 00:54:24,136 --> 00:54:26,180 {\an8}he was supposed to pay me for. 1142 00:54:26,305 --> 00:54:28,057 I didn't know it was like a job. 1143 00:54:28,057 --> 00:54:29,100 I thought it was just something you did 1144 00:54:29,100 --> 00:54:31,143 'cause your older brother made you do it. 1145 00:54:32,478 --> 00:54:34,146 {\an8}One picture has to tell the story. 1146 00:54:34,146 --> 00:54:37,525 {\an8}You're distilling that scene down to that one frame, 1147 00:54:37,525 --> 00:54:39,026 {\an8}Someone has a gesture, 1148 00:54:39,151 --> 00:54:42,071 {\an8}someone in the moment when they're looking at each other. 1149 00:54:42,071 --> 00:54:43,364 {\an8}And behind the scenes, 1150 00:54:43,364 --> 00:54:45,324 {\an8}that's a good part of the job too. 1151 00:54:46,409 --> 00:54:49,745 {\an8}And you're documenting something for the record, 1152 00:54:49,745 --> 00:54:52,373 {\an8}and only you were there to record it. 1153 00:54:53,708 --> 00:54:55,584 {\an8}The base stuff, the etiquette, 1154 00:54:55,584 --> 00:54:57,586 {\an8}a lot of it's mostly common sense, 1155 00:54:57,586 --> 00:55:00,339 {\an8}things like not moving around if you can help it. 1156 00:55:01,507 --> 00:55:03,843 {\an8}I had a little bit more flexibility with Spike, 1157 00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:07,638 and some of it I learned by getting my head chewed off 1158 00:55:07,638 --> 00:55:09,807 by De Niro or something like that. 1159 00:55:09,807 --> 00:55:12,393 I would get yelled out by the best. 1160 00:55:13,728 --> 00:55:15,896 The summer after "Knightriders," George asked me back 1161 00:55:16,022 --> 00:55:18,399 to photograph the making of "Creepshow," 1162 00:55:18,399 --> 00:55:22,278 and Hal Holbrook and I became great pals. 1163 00:55:22,278 --> 00:55:24,405 We would sneak off on his motorcycle 1164 00:55:24,405 --> 00:55:27,700 and fly ultralights over Pittsburgh 1165 00:55:27,825 --> 00:55:29,785 to the dismay of the producers. 1166 00:55:36,292 --> 00:55:41,297 You know what they used to say about Spencer Tracy? 1167 00:55:41,297 --> 00:55:43,507 Spencer Tracy was playing. 1168 00:55:43,507 --> 00:55:45,051 Spencer Tracy was... 1169 00:55:47,928 --> 00:55:51,182 They thought he was always playing it very cool on the set 1170 00:55:51,182 --> 00:55:53,392 the way he would walk around and kind of... 1171 00:55:54,435 --> 00:55:56,228 He was looking for his marks. 1172 00:56:02,151 --> 00:56:03,778 I think it's very apparent 1173 00:56:03,903 --> 00:56:04,904 when you look at James' photographs, 1174 00:56:04,904 --> 00:56:06,864 oh, that's a James Hamilton photograph. 1175 00:56:08,282 --> 00:56:11,202 I love his street photography, and you know this. 1176 00:56:11,327 --> 00:56:13,079 and your photography of children, 1177 00:56:13,079 --> 00:56:15,289 and your photography of dogs. 1178 00:56:16,791 --> 00:56:19,502 There's a delight that you have 1179 00:56:19,502 --> 00:56:22,296 in the world and how it works. 1180 00:56:23,672 --> 00:56:25,299 On street photographs, 1181 00:56:25,299 --> 00:56:30,221 you capture this split second like, I don't know, 1182 00:56:30,221 --> 00:56:34,016 a lot of times it shows almost a loneliness in people. 1183 00:56:38,354 --> 00:56:40,397 But also the choreography of street life. 1184 00:56:54,787 --> 00:56:55,830 Now it's different 1185 00:56:55,830 --> 00:56:57,748 if you're using a camera and not a phone. 1186 00:56:57,748 --> 00:56:58,791 In what way? 1187 00:56:58,791 --> 00:57:00,126 Because people are used to... 1188 00:57:00,251 --> 00:57:00,918 Everybody takes... 1189 00:57:00,918 --> 00:57:02,670 Everybody taking pictures with phones. 1190 00:57:02,670 --> 00:57:03,546 But if you have a camera, 1191 00:57:03,546 --> 00:57:05,339 it means you're a little more serious about it. 1192 00:57:05,339 --> 00:57:06,549 Yes, I know. 1193 00:57:06,549 --> 00:57:09,051 I just went for a walk in the park. 1194 00:57:09,051 --> 00:57:09,885 Yeah. 1195 00:57:09,885 --> 00:57:10,928 And I took my camera. 1196 00:57:11,053 --> 00:57:14,306 And two women and a bulldog were right there, 1197 00:57:14,306 --> 00:57:15,558 and I stopped with the dog, 1198 00:57:15,558 --> 00:57:18,352 and one of the women say, "Are your photographer?" 1199 00:57:18,477 --> 00:57:19,103 No, it's different. 1200 00:57:19,103 --> 00:57:19,937 And I said, "Yes." 1201 00:57:19,937 --> 00:57:22,231 She said, "What do you take pictures of?" 1202 00:57:22,231 --> 00:57:23,065 Yeah. 1203 00:57:23,065 --> 00:57:24,358 So I said, "Life." 1204 00:57:24,358 --> 00:57:25,067 Yeah. Right. 1205 00:57:26,110 --> 00:57:27,570 The pictures that mean the most to me 1206 00:57:27,570 --> 00:57:31,282 are the pictures that I was so happy and lucky to find. 1207 00:57:31,282 --> 00:57:33,659 Yeah, I think the best pictures, 1208 00:57:33,784 --> 00:57:36,996 it's always some little thing that happens. 1209 00:57:38,539 --> 00:57:40,499 Very often that's the potion 1210 00:57:41,834 --> 00:57:42,877 And when you're in the street, 1211 00:57:42,877 --> 00:57:43,878 {\an8}that's gonna happen. 1212 00:57:43,878 --> 00:57:45,254 {\an8}Yes. 1213 00:57:45,379 --> 00:57:48,674 And you have to be open to anything happening. 1214 00:57:48,674 --> 00:57:50,885 I've been really honing in on James' stuff 1215 00:57:50,885 --> 00:57:52,720 in the last couple years. 1216 00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:55,723 There's this one street work that frigging blew my mind. 1217 00:57:56,724 --> 00:57:58,100 That shot could be a Cartier-Bresson 1218 00:57:58,100 --> 00:58:00,769 It's just perfect. The moment, the framing. 1219 00:58:00,769 --> 00:58:03,063 The wheel's there, and the wheel's there, 1220 00:58:03,063 --> 00:58:05,524 and your eye goes nuts. 1221 00:58:05,649 --> 00:58:07,776 Everything about it is just 1222 00:58:07,776 --> 00:58:10,613 so perfect that it's infuriating. 1223 00:58:11,947 --> 00:58:13,490 Even when I worked on a story 1224 00:58:13,490 --> 00:58:15,242 where we were running through the streets, 1225 00:58:15,367 --> 00:58:17,870 'cause there was a demonstration going on or a riot, 1226 00:58:17,995 --> 00:58:21,874 he could almost do it on the run, decide where the frame is, 1227 00:58:21,874 --> 00:58:24,960 and when the picture appeared, it was amazing to me 1228 00:58:25,085 --> 00:58:27,213 how it looked like somebody had posed. 1229 00:58:32,551 --> 00:58:34,428 And then I love the fact that 1230 00:58:34,428 --> 00:58:36,764 every summer he's there in the water 1231 00:58:36,889 --> 00:58:39,808 with his waterproof camera. 1232 00:58:39,808 --> 00:58:41,644 We're all out there in the waves, 1233 00:58:41,644 --> 00:58:45,522 and he's standing in this place, 'cause he's such a seal, 1234 00:58:45,648 --> 00:58:48,192 but he's there taking photographs, and we're all going up. 1235 00:58:48,192 --> 00:58:50,319 We're all shooting up into the waves. 1236 00:58:50,444 --> 00:58:54,323 But you know what that means is that the wave is breaking, 1237 00:58:54,323 --> 00:58:55,824 and it's gonna break on him. 1238 00:59:11,173 --> 00:59:12,508 That's like when you talk about 1239 00:59:12,508 --> 00:59:14,802 how he's completely in his photographic world 1240 00:59:14,802 --> 00:59:16,011 when he photographs. 1241 00:59:18,472 --> 00:59:20,015 And how journalists have had to say, 1242 00:59:20,015 --> 00:59:23,352 "James, psst, there's a truck coming down the street." 1243 00:59:42,788 --> 00:59:45,374 Only now, when I look back at pictures, 1244 00:59:45,499 --> 00:59:48,627 I can kind of separate the decades and the years. 1245 00:59:49,753 --> 00:59:52,131 Because my contact sheets are like a diary. 1246 00:59:57,386 --> 00:59:59,596 So I can segment time that way. 1247 01:00:01,056 --> 01:00:05,227 I was really happiest when I was working alongside a writer. 1248 01:00:05,227 --> 01:00:07,438 First of all, most of them were my friends 1249 01:00:07,438 --> 01:00:08,689 or became friends. 1250 01:00:08,814 --> 01:00:12,484 Kathy and I did several long-distance stories. 1251 01:00:13,819 --> 01:00:16,071 For you, I think when we worked together, 1252 01:00:16,071 --> 01:00:17,448 we, maybe at the end of the day, 1253 01:00:17,448 --> 01:00:20,784 kind of discussed what we saw or what we felt about it. 1254 01:00:20,784 --> 01:00:24,121 And during the day, you're almost on your own track. 1255 01:00:24,121 --> 01:00:26,665 I was just following along with journalists. 1256 01:00:26,665 --> 01:00:28,042 I didn't create the story. 1257 01:00:28,042 --> 01:00:29,543 It's nothing like what you do. 1258 01:00:29,668 --> 01:00:32,421 Yeah, but you would shoot the hell out of an event. 1259 01:00:33,714 --> 01:00:34,798 Like something like when we did 1260 01:00:34,798 --> 01:00:37,468 Operation Rescue together in LA. 1261 01:00:37,468 --> 01:00:40,304 You shoot outside the clinic when everybody's like 1262 01:00:40,304 --> 01:00:42,848 stopping the women from going in to get abortions. 1263 01:00:42,848 --> 01:00:44,558 You go to Melody Tent 1264 01:00:44,558 --> 01:00:47,269 the Friday night that they have the big rally 1265 01:00:47,269 --> 01:00:49,605 around the baby's coffin. 1266 01:00:49,605 --> 01:00:51,648 Yeah, you're following the journalist, 1267 01:00:51,648 --> 01:00:53,650 but you're really following the journalist. 1268 01:00:53,776 --> 01:00:55,736 You are all over that story. 1269 01:00:57,071 --> 01:00:59,656 One of the great pictures that James took 1270 01:00:59,656 --> 01:01:01,575 for a story that mattered a lot to me 1271 01:01:01,575 --> 01:01:04,370 was when I exposed a Nazi war criminal 1272 01:01:04,370 --> 01:01:07,539 who was living secretly in Westchester. 1273 01:01:07,539 --> 01:01:09,625 And then, when he opened the door... 1274 01:01:09,625 --> 01:01:10,542 He went like this. 1275 01:01:12,753 --> 01:01:15,005 I was doing a lot of investigative reporting 1276 01:01:15,130 --> 01:01:17,841 at that time, with Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett. 1277 01:01:18,717 --> 01:01:21,553 {\an8}Wayne Barrett was notoriously the toughest writer 1278 01:01:21,553 --> 01:01:24,431 {\an8}at the Voice on politicians or anybody. 1279 01:01:25,599 --> 01:01:28,477 We could actually force a mayor out of office, 1280 01:01:28,477 --> 01:01:31,897 which we did in the case of Koch, thanks to Wayne Barrett. 1281 01:01:33,273 --> 01:01:36,819 We went after Giuliani. We went after all office holders. 1282 01:01:36,944 --> 01:01:39,530 I remember Wayne throwing a pencil at Giuliani. 1283 01:01:41,782 --> 01:01:44,368 The first sort of big assignment we did together 1284 01:01:44,368 --> 01:01:46,120 was the Philippines. 1285 01:01:47,496 --> 01:01:50,791 {\an8}And I had never done any farm reporting. 1286 01:01:50,791 --> 01:01:53,377 I had done stuff in Central America. 1287 01:01:53,502 --> 01:01:56,755 I'd been to Haiti and Honduras and Nicaragua. 1288 01:02:00,968 --> 01:02:03,637 After we came back from the Philippines, 1289 01:02:03,637 --> 01:02:06,181 we both wanted to do the same thing again. 1290 01:02:08,100 --> 01:02:12,729 And then the students began this huge protest in Beijing. 1291 01:02:12,729 --> 01:02:14,440 And the day before we left, 1292 01:02:14,565 --> 01:02:18,026 the army assaulted the students in Tienanmen. 1293 01:02:19,069 --> 01:02:22,906 We hooked up with these students from Beijing University. 1294 01:02:22,906 --> 01:02:24,741 They thought they were gonna be dead. 1295 01:02:24,741 --> 01:02:27,327 They all told me, "The army is going to come 1296 01:02:27,327 --> 01:02:28,829 and kill all of us." 1297 01:02:28,954 --> 01:02:31,415 The government had set up these makeshift morgues 1298 01:02:31,415 --> 01:02:34,710 around the city because they killed so many people. 1299 01:02:34,710 --> 01:02:39,339 And we broke into a morgue and unzipped body bags. 1300 01:02:39,465 --> 01:02:40,549 This was late at night, 1301 01:02:40,549 --> 01:02:43,218 and I was using a flash, 'cause I had to, 1302 01:02:43,218 --> 01:02:45,304 and that gave us away. 1303 01:02:45,304 --> 01:02:48,140 And so then we were chased out of there. 1304 01:02:48,140 --> 01:02:53,145 And it was great to be with Joe in a situation like that. 1305 01:02:55,731 --> 01:02:57,608 We sent the film back to New York 1306 01:02:57,608 --> 01:02:59,443 via diplomatic pouch. 1307 01:02:59,443 --> 01:03:01,570 So The Voice got the film, developed it, 1308 01:03:01,570 --> 01:03:03,030 and ran on the front page. 1309 01:03:03,155 --> 01:03:04,698 That was a big deal 1310 01:03:04,823 --> 01:03:05,866 Because nobody else had. 1311 01:03:05,866 --> 01:03:08,869 Nobody had pictures of the dead except James. 1312 01:03:16,084 --> 01:03:17,503 It was on Monday night. 1313 01:03:17,503 --> 01:03:19,838 Monday night was closing night, 1314 01:03:19,838 --> 01:03:23,342 and David Schneiderman, who was the editor then, 1315 01:03:23,342 --> 01:03:25,511 he came out of his office 1316 01:03:25,511 --> 01:03:29,806 and stopped to talk to some people in the art department. 1317 01:03:29,806 --> 01:03:33,727 And then he said, "Well, someone could do a picture 1318 01:03:33,727 --> 01:03:37,689 every week on the front over the contents page. 1319 01:03:38,607 --> 01:03:39,441 That that would be good. 1320 01:03:39,441 --> 01:03:40,776 Do you know somebody like that?" 1321 01:03:43,153 --> 01:03:44,404 I jumped. 1322 01:03:44,404 --> 01:03:47,324 I learned that from George, to jump. 1323 01:03:49,952 --> 01:03:51,870 Well they gave me a title, 1324 01:03:51,870 --> 01:03:56,708 and they put it up there like in a big marquee 1325 01:03:57,042 --> 01:04:01,004 {\an8}and it said "Sylvia's Plachy's Unguided Tour." 1326 01:04:02,297 --> 01:04:05,217 {\an8}And that's why everybody remembered it, 1327 01:04:05,342 --> 01:04:07,636 because whoever remembers the little... 1328 01:04:07,636 --> 01:04:08,470 That's right. 1329 01:04:08,470 --> 01:04:10,514 Thing underneath the picture? 1330 01:04:10,514 --> 01:04:13,809 I wanted it to be a picture that could be anything, 1331 01:04:13,934 --> 01:04:17,437 and that was the most wonderful thing I have ever had. 1332 01:04:18,272 --> 01:04:22,401 That was the lure to attract me away from The Voice 1333 01:04:22,401 --> 01:04:23,819 to go to New York Observer. 1334 01:04:23,819 --> 01:04:26,154 'Cause they offered you an unguided tour. 1335 01:04:26,154 --> 01:04:28,240 They said you could do two pictures a week there, 1336 01:04:28,240 --> 01:04:29,700 anything you want. 1337 01:04:29,825 --> 01:04:31,910 You were free to choose whatever you wanted. 1338 01:04:31,910 --> 01:04:32,869 Yes. 1339 01:04:32,869 --> 01:04:33,704 - And they ran. - How about that? 1340 01:04:33,704 --> 01:04:35,581 Did they ever object to a choice? 1341 01:04:35,581 --> 01:04:36,415 Never. 1342 01:04:36,415 --> 01:04:37,583 How could they? 1343 01:04:39,418 --> 01:04:43,297 So Fred sent me out on my very, very first assignment. 1344 01:04:44,464 --> 01:04:48,594 {\an8}There's this notorious punk rocker named G.G. Allin, 1345 01:04:48,594 --> 01:04:51,597 {\an8}and he was known for a couple things. 1346 01:04:51,597 --> 01:04:53,390 He wanted to die on stage. 1347 01:04:53,390 --> 01:04:56,310 He was also known to drink laxatives 1348 01:04:56,435 --> 01:04:59,229 before he went on stage, and he wore diapers sometimes 1349 01:04:59,229 --> 01:05:02,232 and he'd throw his loose shit at you 1350 01:05:02,232 --> 01:05:03,775 in the audience. 1351 01:05:06,737 --> 01:05:11,533 {\an8}So I went to this subterranean club, and he had a diaper. 1352 01:05:11,533 --> 01:05:13,619 {\an8}Luckily he didn't throw shit at me. 1353 01:05:13,619 --> 01:05:15,704 {\an8}But he was rolling around on the ground, 1354 01:05:15,829 --> 01:05:16,997 and it was just nuts. 1355 01:05:17,122 --> 01:05:19,875 I was photograph... 1356 01:05:19,875 --> 01:05:22,669 I was photographing like... 1357 01:05:22,669 --> 01:05:25,130 Half using my camera as a shield 1358 01:05:25,130 --> 01:05:26,548 in case something came at me. 1359 01:05:28,550 --> 01:05:30,427 We were provocative with a cause. 1360 01:05:30,427 --> 01:05:33,180 Look, Tom Wolfe's definition of journalism was, 1361 01:05:33,180 --> 01:05:35,474 "Do you believe people live like this?" 1362 01:05:35,599 --> 01:05:37,809 That's always was my attitude. 1363 01:05:39,019 --> 01:05:40,812 Is there really a performance artist 1364 01:05:40,812 --> 01:05:45,067 who shoves yams up her butt, claiming poetry, 1365 01:05:45,067 --> 01:05:48,070 and then shits it out at a nightclub 1366 01:05:48,195 --> 01:05:50,489 while declaiming this remarkable verse, 1367 01:05:50,489 --> 01:05:53,950 this transformative, terrifying verse. 1368 01:05:53,950 --> 01:05:57,412 Like watching Medea, the Greek tragedy. 1369 01:05:57,412 --> 01:05:59,414 She was on the cover of the paper. 1370 01:06:00,499 --> 01:06:02,042 And you shot the photo, James. 1371 01:06:02,167 --> 01:06:03,835 It seemed like an appropriate photo. 1372 01:06:03,835 --> 01:06:06,421 I mean, for Karen Finley. 1373 01:06:06,546 --> 01:06:07,422 Guys at the front of the book, 1374 01:06:07,422 --> 01:06:09,633 the white boys were the investigative journalists 1375 01:06:09,633 --> 01:06:11,301 were just absolutely furious 1376 01:06:11,301 --> 01:06:14,680 that they didn't see that as that's what our paper is, 1377 01:06:14,805 --> 01:06:16,556 which kind of delighted everybody else. 1378 01:06:16,556 --> 01:06:18,100 It was always about space. 1379 01:06:18,100 --> 01:06:19,601 Who's gonna get the more space? 1380 01:06:19,726 --> 01:06:21,186 But you work in both sides, right? 1381 01:06:21,311 --> 01:06:23,647 I was doing pictures for every... 1382 01:06:23,647 --> 01:06:25,440 In every aspect of the paper. 1383 01:06:26,274 --> 01:06:31,321 Portraits, features, criticism, restaurant pictures. 1384 01:06:31,738 --> 01:06:33,949 Jim Walcott was the TV critic, 1385 01:06:33,949 --> 01:06:37,285 and they would send over these handouts from the TV shows, 1386 01:06:37,285 --> 01:06:38,787 and all of them, they were terrible pictures, 1387 01:06:38,787 --> 01:06:42,040 {\an8}so I would shoot my own pictures off the TV screen 1388 01:06:42,040 --> 01:06:44,042 {\an8}and have fun with it. 1389 01:06:44,042 --> 01:06:46,753 So I was doing just about everything you could think of. 1390 01:06:49,548 --> 01:06:52,467 There were so many schools of art, 1391 01:06:52,467 --> 01:06:55,011 so to speak, practicing. 1392 01:06:55,011 --> 01:06:58,640 James was going to certain clubs and hearing certain music. 1393 01:06:58,765 --> 01:07:02,018 I was going to different clubs and hearing different music. 1394 01:07:02,018 --> 01:07:04,563 There was just so much cultural activity, 1395 01:07:04,563 --> 01:07:08,525 some of which ended up sort of being in conversation 1396 01:07:08,650 --> 01:07:11,111 {\an8}with other facets of that culture. 1397 01:07:11,111 --> 01:07:14,197 {\an8}So there was all this innovation going on. 1398 01:07:14,197 --> 01:07:17,659 {\an8}The Voice created that kind of cross pollination 1399 01:07:17,659 --> 01:07:19,536 that keeps replicating. 1400 01:07:21,037 --> 01:07:24,124 In the '80s you get people like Greg Tate, 1401 01:07:24,124 --> 01:07:29,171 who had an original voice that tons of people imitated. 1402 01:07:29,838 --> 01:07:32,424 But he was able to blend 1403 01:07:32,424 --> 01:07:35,677 what was something personally meaningful to him 1404 01:07:35,802 --> 01:07:40,098 with why it had ramifications for the rest of the culture. 1405 01:07:42,017 --> 01:07:44,102 AIDS changed the tenor of the paper 1406 01:07:44,102 --> 01:07:46,980 and in a way made it more militant. 1407 01:07:46,980 --> 01:07:50,317 We had to cope with this epidemic that was in our midst, 1408 01:07:50,317 --> 01:07:52,819 and we were the epicenter of the epidemic. 1409 01:07:52,819 --> 01:07:55,530 So a lot of emphasis was placed on 1410 01:07:55,530 --> 01:07:57,616 questions of health and mortality, 1411 01:07:57,616 --> 01:07:59,576 especially for young people. 1412 01:07:59,576 --> 01:08:02,662 There was this new attitude of seriousness, 1413 01:08:02,788 --> 01:08:06,333 that you couldn't be disengaged from the events around you. 1414 01:08:09,336 --> 01:08:10,670 I had never photographed anyone 1415 01:08:10,670 --> 01:08:12,214 essentially on their deathbed, 1416 01:08:14,925 --> 01:08:18,345 but that's what I was doing in some cases. 1417 01:08:18,345 --> 01:08:20,472 At first, I didn't know how to approach it, really. 1418 01:08:20,472 --> 01:08:22,641 I had to be comfortable with the person. 1419 01:08:22,641 --> 01:08:25,143 I had to make them feel comfortable with me. 1420 01:08:26,061 --> 01:08:30,565 All of it had to be done with care. 1421 01:08:33,360 --> 01:08:35,654 I think The Village Voice must look handmade 1422 01:08:35,654 --> 01:08:37,113 to people who read it now, 1423 01:08:37,113 --> 01:08:40,158 compared to the kind of slick, polished writing 1424 01:08:40,158 --> 01:08:41,993 and art that there is now. 1425 01:08:41,993 --> 01:08:44,287 But that's okay. That's a different aesthetic. 1426 01:08:44,412 --> 01:08:47,207 It's just that there's a loss and there's a gain, 1427 01:08:47,207 --> 01:08:49,376 and the gain is this incredible flexibility 1428 01:08:49,376 --> 01:08:52,045 to make something perfect in so many different ways. 1429 01:08:53,296 --> 01:08:56,591 But the loss is putting your hands on something 1430 01:08:56,591 --> 01:08:58,885 and then creating it anew 1431 01:08:58,885 --> 01:09:02,973 so that it's a merger of aesthetics that is uniquely yours. 1432 01:09:04,432 --> 01:09:05,976 Did having that direction, 1433 01:09:05,976 --> 01:09:09,187 purpose with the assignments, was that beneficial to you? 1434 01:09:09,187 --> 01:09:10,438 Oh, sure. 1435 01:09:10,438 --> 01:09:12,858 'Cause it was necessary for me to communicate. 1436 01:09:12,858 --> 01:09:14,901 In a way that was the biggest challenge, 1437 01:09:15,819 --> 01:09:18,822 is to make the work lucid, clear 1438 01:09:18,822 --> 01:09:22,784 and appropriate to the story and whatever job I was doing. 1439 01:09:24,536 --> 01:09:25,662 it was a challenge, it was a lot of fun, 1440 01:09:25,662 --> 01:09:27,998 and I loved just taking pictures for myself. 1441 01:09:29,916 --> 01:09:31,960 I never felt worn out by the work, really. 1442 01:09:33,962 --> 01:09:36,882 The thing is you would have super serious 1443 01:09:36,882 --> 01:09:38,300 important stories, 1444 01:09:39,175 --> 01:09:41,219 but you also would always have a sense of 1445 01:09:41,344 --> 01:09:45,599 some of just the sheer joy and oddity 1446 01:09:45,599 --> 01:09:48,143 and craziness of the world. 1447 01:09:48,268 --> 01:09:51,938 I think that mixture is so important. 1448 01:09:51,938 --> 01:09:56,526 So much now, it's like we're super serious or super shallow. 1449 01:09:58,945 --> 01:10:01,823 And I think we really need this other sense of life 1450 01:10:01,823 --> 01:10:06,870 as being very wacky, fun, joyful, heartbreaking. 1451 01:10:11,291 --> 01:10:14,461 When we were working at The Village Voice, 1452 01:10:14,461 --> 01:10:18,256 it was before the computer, mostly, 1453 01:10:18,256 --> 01:10:21,551 and so people would get up from their desk 1454 01:10:21,551 --> 01:10:23,595 and go over to the other desk 1455 01:10:23,720 --> 01:10:26,139 and argue with someone if they had a problem. 1456 01:10:26,264 --> 01:10:29,851 And everything was much more personal, much more hands-on. 1457 01:10:29,976 --> 01:10:32,020 Then the computer came in, 1458 01:10:32,020 --> 01:10:35,273 and then I noticed that everybody became more like robots, 1459 01:10:35,273 --> 01:10:37,817 and if you wanted to complain to someone, 1460 01:10:37,817 --> 01:10:38,985 you sent them an email, 1461 01:10:38,985 --> 01:10:41,446 and everybody just looked ahead of themselves, 1462 01:10:41,571 --> 01:10:44,741 and it was less open, and nobody talked to each other, 1463 01:10:44,741 --> 01:10:47,577 nobody touched each other, nobody yelled at each other, 1464 01:10:47,577 --> 01:10:48,745 nobody loved each other. 1465 01:10:49,621 --> 01:10:54,501 It was through a machine, sanitized, clean and dead. 1466 01:10:57,045 --> 01:10:59,839 There can be no Bohemia in Manhattan anymore 1467 01:10:59,965 --> 01:11:02,968 in an organized sense, because it's too expensive. 1468 01:11:02,968 --> 01:11:05,011 So Bohemia is dispersed. 1469 01:11:05,136 --> 01:11:07,389 It's in 80 different places. 1470 01:11:07,389 --> 01:11:08,348 That's not the same. 1471 01:11:08,348 --> 01:11:10,684 And to me, that's almost a political statement, 1472 01:11:10,684 --> 01:11:14,813 because it reduces the power of Bohemia substantially 1473 01:11:14,938 --> 01:11:17,482 and makes it into another commodity. 1474 01:11:17,482 --> 01:11:20,068 And so it's the commodification of New Yorkness 1475 01:11:20,193 --> 01:11:23,113 that makes New York in some way insufferable. 1476 01:11:23,238 --> 01:11:26,116 But I go to the Square during the pandemic, 1477 01:11:26,116 --> 01:11:29,494 and lo and behold, the kids are resplendent 1478 01:11:29,494 --> 01:11:33,498 in neo tie-dyes and blue hair and all of that, 1479 01:11:33,498 --> 01:11:35,625 and it's incredibly moving to me. 1480 01:11:37,210 --> 01:11:40,046 So there's still this kernel in the Village, 1481 01:11:40,046 --> 01:11:43,174 and maybe in New York, too, of the unmanageable. 1482 01:11:43,299 --> 01:11:45,051 And I think what the Voice really stood for 1483 01:11:45,051 --> 01:11:48,346 above all else is unmanageability. 1484 01:11:48,346 --> 01:11:51,307 Never knew what you would find when you opened the paper. 1485 01:11:51,307 --> 01:11:54,561 Its positions were completely unpredictable. 1486 01:11:54,561 --> 01:11:57,313 So that kind of unmanageability, to me, 1487 01:11:57,313 --> 01:12:00,650 is a quality that maybe New York still has. 1488 01:12:00,650 --> 01:12:01,776 You come here as a banker, 1489 01:12:01,776 --> 01:12:04,487 but you leave as some kind of weird person 1490 01:12:04,487 --> 01:12:05,739 that you never were. 1491 01:12:05,864 --> 01:12:09,409 So I think everybody from Hamilton to everyone else 1492 01:12:09,409 --> 01:12:11,202 who was at the paper for any time 1493 01:12:11,202 --> 01:12:14,122 just became a different self as a result. 1494 01:12:14,122 --> 01:12:15,832 They became new, 1495 01:12:15,832 --> 01:12:18,209 and they photographed their new selves, 1496 01:12:18,334 --> 01:12:20,670 or they wrote about their new selves, 1497 01:12:20,670 --> 01:12:22,839 and I think that's very special. 1498 01:12:34,768 --> 01:12:37,312 I told you I worked with Craig Claiborne, right? 1499 01:12:39,355 --> 01:12:40,857 You wanna see Craig Claiborne? 1500 01:12:43,068 --> 01:12:43,902 Come here. 1501 01:12:51,242 --> 01:12:53,286 He's even on a checkered tablecloth. 1502 01:12:59,876 --> 01:13:01,920 I spent seven years photographing the great chefs 1503 01:13:01,920 --> 01:13:02,796 who came to Craig's house 1504 01:13:02,796 --> 01:13:04,756 to cook for his New York Times pieces. 1505 01:13:07,592 --> 01:13:09,302 Here's a shot with some of his pals 1506 01:13:09,302 --> 01:13:11,221 on a particularly wild weekend. 1507 01:13:17,143 --> 01:13:19,521 I did manage to do a lot of freelance work. 1508 01:13:19,521 --> 01:13:21,022 I was never a good hustling for it. 1509 01:13:21,022 --> 01:13:24,067 It was usually when somebody came to me. 1510 01:13:24,067 --> 01:13:25,860 I didn't love doing freelance, 1511 01:13:25,860 --> 01:13:28,905 because I no longer had control over my work. 1512 01:13:28,905 --> 01:13:31,324 But Susan Vermazen was the photo editor 1513 01:13:31,324 --> 01:13:32,575 at New York Magazine, 1514 01:13:32,700 --> 01:13:35,245 so she would call me often for pictures. 1515 01:13:35,245 --> 01:13:36,955 Almost all of it was color, 1516 01:13:36,955 --> 01:13:39,207 and so I had a chance to do much more color 1517 01:13:39,207 --> 01:13:40,750 than I normally would've done. 1518 01:13:44,671 --> 01:13:48,299 Because he was so established at New York, 1519 01:13:48,299 --> 01:13:52,345 if I would say something like, "You cannot crop this photo," 1520 01:13:52,470 --> 01:13:53,388 they would listen. 1521 01:13:55,348 --> 01:13:56,391 But not always. 1522 01:13:58,184 --> 01:14:02,689 He did Jane Pauley, and he did Denzel Washington. 1523 01:14:03,690 --> 01:14:07,318 And some people said that's why Dinkins won the election, 1524 01:14:07,318 --> 01:14:10,155 because James did him so sympathetically. 1525 01:14:10,155 --> 01:14:13,449 Oh, and Giuliani. This wasn't a cover. 1526 01:14:13,449 --> 01:14:16,578 And when James got back, he said to me 1527 01:14:16,703 --> 01:14:20,039 he reminded him of Boo Radley. 1528 01:14:20,999 --> 01:14:23,042 and Robert Altman, that's another one, 1529 01:14:23,042 --> 01:14:25,587 and Altman never forgot him. 1530 01:14:25,587 --> 01:14:27,255 'Cause people who are really smart 1531 01:14:27,255 --> 01:14:29,757 want James's look at things. 1532 01:14:31,509 --> 01:14:36,139 And then the preppy murder cover became a very famous cover. 1533 01:14:36,139 --> 01:14:38,808 He was good-looking and tall and rich, 1534 01:14:38,808 --> 01:14:41,311 so it was like all the elements for a story 1535 01:14:41,311 --> 01:14:44,063 that was just being covered to death. 1536 01:14:45,899 --> 01:14:48,484 So James went and shot him, 1537 01:14:48,484 --> 01:14:50,361 and the pictures came back, 1538 01:14:51,821 --> 01:14:55,074 and people thought he just made him look so good. 1539 01:14:55,074 --> 01:14:57,160 He looks like a model. It's like a GQ cover. 1540 01:14:57,160 --> 01:14:59,537 And it's like, no, it's not. 1541 01:14:59,662 --> 01:15:02,498 I was determined to get beneath that surface, 1542 01:15:02,498 --> 01:15:05,001 because it was a very polished surface. 1543 01:15:06,294 --> 01:15:09,214 I remember if you covered up one side of his face, 1544 01:15:09,214 --> 01:15:10,173 he looked normal, 1545 01:15:10,173 --> 01:15:12,175 and if you covered up the other side of his face, 1546 01:15:12,175 --> 01:15:13,635 he was psychotic. 1547 01:15:20,141 --> 01:15:22,977 Vanity Fair and a lot of other publications 1548 01:15:22,977 --> 01:15:27,023 would call me to photograph criminals for some reason. 1549 01:15:27,023 --> 01:15:29,859 A lot of murderers and terrorists and people like that 1550 01:15:29,859 --> 01:15:33,363 and usually in jumpsuits in prison. 1551 01:15:33,363 --> 01:15:36,449 And I was on death row to photograph Henry Lee Lucas. 1552 01:15:36,449 --> 01:15:39,953 And George Bush commuted his sentence, 1553 01:15:40,078 --> 01:15:42,080 and he didn't get death in Texas. 1554 01:15:42,080 --> 01:15:44,958 That's hard to get out of. 1555 01:15:48,711 --> 01:15:52,090 Tienanmen Square led to the London Sunday Times Magazine 1556 01:15:52,090 --> 01:15:56,052 asking me if I would go to Ethiopia to cover the war there. 1557 01:15:56,052 --> 01:15:58,471 I told the Voice I'll be gone a few weeks 1558 01:15:58,471 --> 01:15:59,514 and it turned into months, 1559 01:15:59,514 --> 01:16:03,601 because we were with a rebel convoy in the middle of nowhere 1560 01:16:03,601 --> 01:16:05,019 and no way to communicate 1561 01:16:05,019 --> 01:16:06,813 with the outside world or anything. 1562 01:16:08,356 --> 01:16:11,609 James for a while turned into this type of person 1563 01:16:11,734 --> 01:16:13,611 that we got to know out in the field. 1564 01:16:13,736 --> 01:16:17,323 They're adrenaline junkies, and I had a little bit of that. 1565 01:16:17,323 --> 01:16:18,908 He had a lot of it. 1566 01:16:21,661 --> 01:16:24,205 It's hard to look at a lot of those pictures. 1567 01:16:24,205 --> 01:16:26,791 There was death all around, 1568 01:16:26,791 --> 01:16:28,876 'cause I was covering the famine as well. 1569 01:16:32,505 --> 01:16:34,507 We were driving overland at night, 1570 01:16:34,507 --> 01:16:35,675 and I was in a petrol truck, 1571 01:16:35,800 --> 01:16:37,719 and there were mines all over the place, 1572 01:16:37,719 --> 01:16:40,430 and then trucks were exploded all along the route. 1573 01:16:40,555 --> 01:16:42,724 In a way I was sort of grateful to be in a petrol truck, 1574 01:16:42,724 --> 01:16:45,935 because I knew it'd be fast. 1575 01:16:45,935 --> 01:16:46,894 The reason we drove all night 1576 01:16:46,894 --> 01:16:49,564 is 'cause the government MiGs were not qualified 1577 01:16:49,564 --> 01:16:51,733 to bomb at night. 1578 01:16:51,733 --> 01:16:54,277 I was either taking pictures recklessly, 1579 01:16:54,277 --> 01:16:56,154 I mean dangerously, 1580 01:16:56,279 --> 01:17:00,116 or I was running and not thinking about taking pictures. 1581 01:17:01,200 --> 01:17:03,369 One time I was literally being chased 1582 01:17:03,369 --> 01:17:06,080 by MiGs firing rockets. 1583 01:17:06,080 --> 01:17:08,458 It was a terrifying time. 1584 01:17:08,583 --> 01:17:10,293 We just wanted to be invisible. 1585 01:17:11,419 --> 01:17:14,130 But I had to take pictures too, so. 1586 01:17:14,130 --> 01:17:17,925 But it was a very difficult coming down from that trip, 1587 01:17:17,925 --> 01:17:19,969 'cause it was a long haul. 1588 01:17:21,054 --> 01:17:23,139 It takes a certain amount of dedication. 1589 01:17:23,139 --> 01:17:24,515 - And experience. - A lot of dedication 1590 01:17:24,640 --> 01:17:28,061 to do that, and I think it would take over your life. 1591 01:17:28,186 --> 01:17:30,146 I can't imagine having a partner and doing that. 1592 01:17:30,146 --> 01:17:32,023 Yeah. 1593 01:17:32,023 --> 01:17:35,026 Anyway, I'd never seen that kind of horror in war. 1594 01:17:55,713 --> 01:18:00,009 I left the Voice sometime in the late winter of '93. 1595 01:18:00,009 --> 01:18:01,511 Joe Conason had mentioned 1596 01:18:01,511 --> 01:18:03,888 that I'd be a good fit at The Observer, 1597 01:18:03,888 --> 01:18:05,890 where he was working. 1598 01:18:06,015 --> 01:18:07,767 They offered me something I could not refuse, 1599 01:18:07,767 --> 01:18:10,144 which was two pictures a week that were anything I wanted. 1600 01:18:10,144 --> 01:18:11,229 Anything he wanted. 1601 01:18:12,271 --> 01:18:13,147 They ran very large. 1602 01:18:13,147 --> 01:18:14,690 It would be a picture on page two 1603 01:18:14,690 --> 01:18:16,567 and then a picture on page four. 1604 01:18:16,567 --> 01:18:19,987 {\an8}You'd turn the page and the second one would be there. 1605 01:18:19,987 --> 01:18:22,740 {\an8}So in order to limit myself a little bit, 1606 01:18:22,740 --> 01:18:26,202 {\an8}once I took one picture, I had to think of some way 1607 01:18:26,202 --> 01:18:29,747 {\an8}the second picture would relate to it in some funny way. 1608 01:18:29,747 --> 01:18:34,001 So that's what I would do to make a game of it for myself. 1609 01:18:34,127 --> 01:18:35,795 He was always making puzzles, you know, 1610 01:18:35,795 --> 01:18:38,339 and letting people figure out what he was doing. 1611 01:18:38,339 --> 01:18:39,882 - That's right. - It was really fun. 1612 01:18:41,551 --> 01:18:44,178 I was captivated by The Observer. 1613 01:18:44,178 --> 01:18:46,514 It's hard to describe now 1614 01:18:46,639 --> 01:18:50,977 {\an8}how much of a monumental thing it was when it came out. 1615 01:18:50,977 --> 01:18:54,063 This pink paper, same color as the Financial Times, 1616 01:18:54,063 --> 01:18:55,523 but so different. 1617 01:18:56,899 --> 01:18:58,818 It was a challenge to be a photographer 1618 01:18:58,818 --> 01:18:59,444 on the salmon... 1619 01:18:59,569 --> 01:19:01,154 You're telling me. 1620 01:19:01,154 --> 01:19:02,280 I would dare say 1621 01:19:03,739 --> 01:19:05,032 The main thing I remember about it, 1622 01:19:05,032 --> 01:19:07,660 I was reading "Sex and the City," 1623 01:19:07,785 --> 01:19:09,245 the Candace Bushnell column 1624 01:19:09,245 --> 01:19:11,080 that became the famous TV series. 1625 01:19:11,080 --> 01:19:15,334 The column is fantastic. The TV show is very different. 1626 01:19:15,334 --> 01:19:17,420 What struck me about it was, 1627 01:19:17,420 --> 01:19:20,214 {\an8}on the front page of this broadsheet, 1628 01:19:20,214 --> 01:19:23,509 {\an8}you'd have a column like "Sex and the City" 1629 01:19:23,509 --> 01:19:28,306 {\an8}cheek by jowl with politics, financial news. 1630 01:19:28,306 --> 01:19:30,016 It was social journalism, 1631 01:19:30,016 --> 01:19:33,102 and it was just as important as the other stuff. 1632 01:19:34,020 --> 01:19:36,939 A few years later, Peter Kaplan became the editor, 1633 01:19:36,939 --> 01:19:39,317 who was just a complete force of nature 1634 01:19:39,317 --> 01:19:43,112 and really made the paper into something bigger. 1635 01:19:43,112 --> 01:19:46,157 Peter, one of his mentors was Clay Felker, 1636 01:19:46,157 --> 01:19:49,827 and what he had to offer was real estate, 1637 01:19:49,827 --> 01:19:51,954 meaning on the page, 1638 01:19:51,954 --> 01:19:56,626 and great editing and wonderful headlines. 1639 01:19:57,460 --> 01:19:58,961 I couldn't believe the kind of stuff 1640 01:19:58,961 --> 01:20:01,172 they'd run on the front page. 1641 01:20:01,172 --> 01:20:03,966 For a moment, it was this place where all these writers 1642 01:20:03,966 --> 01:20:06,511 could really do whatever the hell they wanted. 1643 01:20:17,313 --> 01:20:20,441 I didn't really work with writers so much there, 1644 01:20:20,441 --> 01:20:24,820 and it was almost entirely New York based, New York stories. 1645 01:20:24,820 --> 01:20:28,407 The Voice was about New York as well as many other things. 1646 01:20:29,825 --> 01:20:34,205 The things that Peter wanted to cover was who's powerful? 1647 01:20:34,205 --> 01:20:36,874 What are they doing? What are their plans? 1648 01:20:36,874 --> 01:20:40,211 Whether it's politics, business, culture, 1649 01:20:40,336 --> 01:20:43,089 how does the power structure really work? 1650 01:20:43,089 --> 01:20:46,342 Unlike the Voice, which was sort of critical of the media 1651 01:20:46,342 --> 01:20:49,303 in a way that wasn't always welcomed, 1652 01:20:49,303 --> 01:20:50,888 The Observer was kind of the pet. 1653 01:20:50,888 --> 01:20:53,683 I mean, everybody in the media in New York 1654 01:20:53,683 --> 01:20:55,393 read it every week. 1655 01:20:56,811 --> 01:20:59,981 {\an8}Peter brought in some great illustrators. Barry Blitt. 1656 01:21:00,106 --> 01:21:01,482 {\an8}Drew Friedman. - Great artists. 1657 01:21:01,482 --> 01:21:03,234 {\an8}Yeah. Victor Juhasz, 1658 01:21:03,234 --> 01:21:05,194 {\an8}Philip Burke and Robert Grossman. 1659 01:21:06,404 --> 01:21:10,491 {\an8}He had the best illustrating staff in New York. 1660 01:21:10,491 --> 01:21:11,325 - We would never- - On the front page, 1661 01:21:11,325 --> 01:21:13,286 Almost never run pictures on the front page. 1662 01:21:13,286 --> 01:21:14,120 We would run... 1663 01:21:14,120 --> 01:21:15,871 There were no photographs on the front page. 1664 01:21:15,871 --> 01:21:17,123 This was a bit of a sore point. 1665 01:21:17,123 --> 01:21:20,001 Nobody knew I existed as a photographer there. 1666 01:21:25,423 --> 01:21:27,758 James is quiet, and I'm very talkative, 1667 01:21:27,758 --> 01:21:29,302 and I tend to Jabber on, 1668 01:21:29,302 --> 01:21:31,095 and that was always a problem 1669 01:21:31,095 --> 01:21:31,929 when I was interviewing people. 1670 01:21:31,929 --> 01:21:34,390 I mean, maybe it disarmed some people. 1671 01:21:34,390 --> 01:21:36,559 And I would observe James being silent 1672 01:21:36,559 --> 01:21:38,185 and how effective that was. 1673 01:21:38,185 --> 01:21:41,439 It was sometimes a reminder to shut up. 1674 01:21:41,439 --> 01:21:43,190 I'd love to see him work, 1675 01:21:43,190 --> 01:21:45,901 and I grew up in '70s and '80s New York, 1676 01:21:45,901 --> 01:21:49,155 and I always felt, yes, I recognized that bit of grit 1677 01:21:49,155 --> 01:21:52,658 even in his most formal portraits. 1678 01:21:52,658 --> 01:21:55,870 I was always surprised at how slightly naughty 1679 01:21:55,995 --> 01:21:57,622 some of them would turn out to be. 1680 01:21:57,622 --> 01:21:59,665 I would say there's a surprising number of photographs 1681 01:21:59,665 --> 01:22:01,751 where the legs are... 1682 01:22:01,751 --> 01:22:03,419 There were the subjects revealing 1683 01:22:03,419 --> 01:22:05,504 their most vulnerable part. 1684 01:22:08,716 --> 01:22:09,967 The mid to late '90s was the era 1685 01:22:09,967 --> 01:22:12,303 when The Observer really thrived. 1686 01:22:12,303 --> 01:22:17,141 We worked outta this crazy, madcap townhouse on 64th Street, 1687 01:22:17,141 --> 01:22:18,976 and that was part of the appeal. 1688 01:22:19,101 --> 01:22:21,270 Completely not up to fire code. 1689 01:22:21,270 --> 01:22:24,190 You'd walk in, and there was a swirling marble staircase. 1690 01:22:24,190 --> 01:22:26,484 It was gorgeous. It was like something out of a movie set. 1691 01:22:26,609 --> 01:22:27,860 Peter had a knack for making you feel 1692 01:22:27,860 --> 01:22:30,321 like you were starring in a 1930s screwball comedy. 1693 01:22:30,321 --> 01:22:31,489 I mean, what a way to live. 1694 01:22:32,365 --> 01:22:33,449 {\an8}It was "His Girl Friday." 1695 01:22:33,449 --> 01:22:35,409 {\an8}I felt like Rosalind Russell. 1696 01:22:35,409 --> 01:22:36,911 {\an8}Yeah, don't worry. I'm on the job. 1697 01:22:41,791 --> 01:22:43,501 The person that I connected with there 1698 01:22:43,501 --> 01:22:45,002 was Peter Bogdanovich, 1699 01:22:45,002 --> 01:22:47,797 because they asked me to photograph him, 1700 01:22:47,797 --> 01:22:49,715 and then we became kind of friendly. 1701 01:22:50,633 --> 01:22:52,593 They wanted to have a little picture of him 1702 01:22:52,593 --> 01:22:53,969 next to his column. 1703 01:22:53,969 --> 01:22:57,098 He would write about the DVD of the week. 1704 01:22:57,223 --> 01:22:58,182 But it was a tiny picture, 1705 01:22:58,182 --> 01:23:01,060 and they would have my credit there every week. 1706 01:23:01,060 --> 01:23:02,687 And I thought that's stupid. 1707 01:23:03,604 --> 01:23:07,316 But then I decided that I would have some fun with Peter, 1708 01:23:07,316 --> 01:23:10,069 so I would tell them the name of a character 1709 01:23:10,069 --> 01:23:12,363 from a film instead of my name. 1710 01:23:13,656 --> 01:23:16,409 But they would be as obscure as I could make them 1711 01:23:16,409 --> 01:23:18,452 to amuse Bogdanovich. 1712 01:23:19,537 --> 01:23:22,123 And I didn't hear from him about it 1713 01:23:22,123 --> 01:23:22,957 until one day he called me. 1714 01:23:22,957 --> 01:23:26,877 {\an8}He said, "All right, all right! Who is it?" 1715 01:23:26,877 --> 01:23:30,381 {\an8}'Cause it was somebody that he didn't recognize suddenly. 1716 01:23:40,683 --> 01:23:42,977 I was staying in a hotel in Gramercy, 1717 01:23:43,102 --> 01:23:45,563 and I was told somebody's coming from The Observer 1718 01:23:45,563 --> 01:23:46,814 to take your picture. 1719 01:23:46,814 --> 01:23:49,275 And I thought, "Oh, it's gonna be one of those ones 1720 01:23:49,275 --> 01:23:52,486 right in in the inside second page of The Observer." 1721 01:23:52,611 --> 01:23:54,071 I love those. 1722 01:23:54,071 --> 01:23:56,240 It's where you see who's in town. 1723 01:23:56,240 --> 01:23:57,366 And for the first time in my life, 1724 01:23:57,366 --> 01:23:59,076 I'm one of the people who's in town. 1725 01:24:00,077 --> 01:24:02,705 A guy shows up. He said, "Hi, I'm James." 1726 01:24:02,705 --> 01:24:07,001 He's very kind of gentle, and he's sort of looking at me 1727 01:24:07,001 --> 01:24:10,254 and looking at the space, and kind of guides me over here, 1728 01:24:10,254 --> 01:24:13,549 and everything's done with a kind of light touch. 1729 01:24:13,674 --> 01:24:15,885 I don't get the sense he's actively doing something 1730 01:24:15,885 --> 01:24:17,470 to set the mood. 1731 01:24:17,470 --> 01:24:19,638 He's just being himself 1732 01:24:19,638 --> 01:24:22,683 and watching what's in front of his camera. 1733 01:24:22,683 --> 01:24:24,727 But we talk about movies. 1734 01:24:24,727 --> 01:24:27,897 And quickly I get... 1735 01:24:27,897 --> 01:24:29,398 I think he knows everything. 1736 01:24:35,112 --> 01:24:37,072 And at the end of it he says, 1737 01:24:37,072 --> 01:24:38,157 "You should come over one day, 1738 01:24:38,157 --> 01:24:39,617 and I'll show you some of my..." 1739 01:24:39,617 --> 01:24:42,161 Because he told me I took a picture of this... 1740 01:24:42,161 --> 01:24:44,997 So my normal reaction to that would be, 1741 01:24:44,997 --> 01:24:48,334 "Thank you one. Maybe one day we will." 1742 01:24:48,334 --> 01:24:52,588 But in this case I was like, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow." 1743 01:24:53,589 --> 01:24:57,968 And so I went, and he's living above the Reservoir Bar 1744 01:24:57,968 --> 01:24:59,929 on University Place, 1745 01:25:00,054 --> 01:25:03,015 and he's got a Jeep, and it has a press pass on it. 1746 01:25:03,015 --> 01:25:05,476 He seems to be able to park anywhere he wants. 1747 01:25:06,769 --> 01:25:09,188 And he's got this amazing spot 1748 01:25:09,188 --> 01:25:11,607 that's essentially he's living in a dark room 1749 01:25:12,483 --> 01:25:14,193 filled with print, 1750 01:25:14,193 --> 01:25:18,155 and quickly I'm seeing Francois Truffaut and Akira Kurosawa. 1751 01:25:19,782 --> 01:25:24,787 And also sort of reportage. And I'm fascinated. 1752 01:25:25,621 --> 01:25:29,625 And he's also quoting movies left and right, 1753 01:25:29,750 --> 01:25:31,836 and I'm trying to keep up. 1754 01:25:31,836 --> 01:25:33,295 And I know a lot of 'em, 1755 01:25:33,295 --> 01:25:34,713 but I don't know a lot of 'em. 1756 01:25:34,839 --> 01:25:36,006 {\an8}And I remember thinking, 1757 01:25:36,006 --> 01:25:38,926 {\an8}"This is James Stewart in a 'Rear Window.'" 1758 01:25:39,051 --> 01:25:40,135 This is the guy. 1759 01:25:41,345 --> 01:25:43,681 And there are thousands of these pictures. 1760 01:25:43,806 --> 01:25:46,767 And I felt like it's all one body of work, 1761 01:25:46,767 --> 01:25:48,143 even though it's so many kinds of things. 1762 01:25:48,143 --> 01:25:50,062 But he was an institution. 1763 01:25:51,355 --> 01:25:54,400 He's been a part of my circle of New York friends 1764 01:25:54,400 --> 01:25:56,485 and New York life ever since then. 1765 01:25:56,485 --> 01:25:58,112 Then, we liked him so much, 1766 01:25:58,112 --> 01:25:59,321 we said, "Why do we need somebody else 1767 01:25:59,321 --> 01:26:01,365 to take pictures on our movies? 1768 01:26:01,365 --> 01:26:03,033 Why don't you do that?" 1769 01:26:03,033 --> 01:26:05,160 I'd rather have you document our movie 1770 01:26:05,160 --> 01:26:06,829 like it's part of the city 1771 01:26:06,829 --> 01:26:08,205 rather than having someone who does things 1772 01:26:08,205 --> 01:26:10,249 that the studio is telling him to do. 1773 01:26:10,249 --> 01:26:13,127 So he took pictures on the set of "The Royal Tenenbaums." 1774 01:26:14,795 --> 01:26:17,172 It was really fun to watch him work, 1775 01:26:17,298 --> 01:26:19,049 because he was all over it. 1776 01:26:19,049 --> 01:26:22,261 He just was in control of every aspect of the film. 1777 01:26:27,850 --> 01:26:31,186 I abandoned 35 millimeter around 1985 1778 01:26:31,312 --> 01:26:33,022 and started working with this guy, 1779 01:26:33,147 --> 01:26:37,151 which is Pentax 645, which is a big camera. 1780 01:26:39,695 --> 01:26:41,488 And I would hold it like that. 1781 01:26:43,407 --> 01:26:45,743 But this is the sound it makes. 1782 01:26:45,743 --> 01:26:48,746 It doesn't have batteries in it, but it's a real clunker. 1783 01:26:48,746 --> 01:26:50,748 It makes a really loud noise. 1784 01:26:52,333 --> 01:26:55,419 So I wouldn't shoot while they were filming, 1785 01:26:55,419 --> 01:26:57,796 which most still people do. 1786 01:26:57,796 --> 01:26:59,089 I would run in at the end 1787 01:26:59,089 --> 01:27:02,509 and set something up briefly, and then run out. 1788 01:27:02,509 --> 01:27:04,845 The thing is, the old way on movie sets 1789 01:27:04,845 --> 01:27:06,513 was the camera's gonna make a sound, 1790 01:27:06,639 --> 01:27:08,015 and so what you ended up with was 1791 01:27:08,015 --> 01:27:12,227 a guy with a big blimped camera with a long lens 1792 01:27:12,227 --> 01:27:13,812 who's meant to go over there, 1793 01:27:13,812 --> 01:27:17,399 taking pictures that are essentially 1794 01:27:17,399 --> 01:27:20,110 something like still frames from the movie. 1795 01:27:20,235 --> 01:27:22,446 Essentially he's photographing movie stars 1796 01:27:22,446 --> 01:27:24,323 from the wrong camera angle. 1797 01:27:24,323 --> 01:27:27,034 James's approach was that he was really more interested 1798 01:27:27,034 --> 01:27:29,328 in what was happening around the set, 1799 01:27:29,328 --> 01:27:31,288 and to me, that's what's worth getting, 1800 01:27:31,288 --> 01:27:34,124 so that's why I always liked having him instead, 1801 01:27:34,124 --> 01:27:36,001 along with the fact that we can wrap 1802 01:27:36,001 --> 01:27:38,545 and then we can go off and have a drink somewhere. 1803 01:27:39,964 --> 01:27:42,675 Wes wanted me to make photos for a lot of the props. 1804 01:27:43,550 --> 01:27:44,677 Book jackets. 1805 01:27:47,137 --> 01:27:48,055 Magazines. 1806 01:27:49,348 --> 01:27:50,641 Even an album cover. 1807 01:27:51,558 --> 01:27:53,060 We had a lot of fun with that. 1808 01:27:54,228 --> 01:27:58,273 And then I went to India for "Darjeeling Limited," 1809 01:27:58,273 --> 01:28:01,527 and Wes had his great crew of actors 1810 01:28:01,527 --> 01:28:05,990 and my dear friend, Bob Yeoman, who shoots all his films, 1811 01:28:05,990 --> 01:28:09,284 and Adrian Brody, who I knew from the age of five, 1812 01:28:09,284 --> 01:28:11,328 because he was Sylvia Plachy's son. 1813 01:28:12,287 --> 01:28:13,622 It's just much more fun 1814 01:28:13,622 --> 01:28:15,749 if I know the people that I'm working with, 1815 01:28:15,749 --> 01:28:16,750 if they're friends. 1816 01:28:17,668 --> 01:28:21,797 I'm sure that I shoot more than most still photographers do, 1817 01:28:21,922 --> 01:28:24,717 because subsequently people would complain about it, 1818 01:28:24,842 --> 01:28:27,052 that I'm doing too much. 1819 01:28:28,721 --> 01:28:31,765 One of my very best friends was Bill Paxton, 1820 01:28:31,765 --> 01:28:35,144 and he directed a film called "Frailty," 1821 01:28:35,144 --> 01:28:37,354 So I worked on that with him. 1822 01:28:37,354 --> 01:28:38,814 That was great. 1823 01:28:38,814 --> 01:28:40,983 We lived in across the hall from each other in a motel, 1824 01:28:40,983 --> 01:28:43,277 and we would plot out scenes every night. 1825 01:28:44,278 --> 01:28:47,239 Bill is a friend since the early '70s. 1826 01:28:47,239 --> 01:28:49,033 He's like a brother to me. 1827 01:28:50,075 --> 01:28:50,909 Whenever I went to LA, 1828 01:28:50,909 --> 01:28:53,704 whatever I was doing, I would stay with him. 1829 01:28:53,704 --> 01:28:56,790 So one night he said, "You wanna come on my paper route?" 1830 01:28:56,790 --> 01:28:58,167 This was before he made it big, 1831 01:28:58,167 --> 01:29:00,961 and he was actually delivering papers every night. 1832 01:29:04,506 --> 01:29:07,801 {\an8}And he actually was the scout on "Carrie." 1833 01:29:07,801 --> 01:29:09,261 {\an8}He found that house. 1834 01:29:13,724 --> 01:29:18,270 He knew a lot of great haunts and places to go in LA. 1835 01:29:19,396 --> 01:29:23,484 We went to a lot of cemeteries and Keaton's grave. 1836 01:29:23,609 --> 01:29:25,861 And Bill is buried just up the hill from there. 1837 01:29:27,488 --> 01:29:29,990 {\an8}And then I worked with Noah Bombach 1838 01:29:29,990 --> 01:29:32,409 {\an8}on a film called "The Squid and the Whale." 1839 01:29:32,534 --> 01:29:36,663 {\an8}Noah would put me in his films, little cameos, subsequently. 1840 01:29:39,875 --> 01:29:41,710 {\an8}Some of the bears are not well served. 1841 01:29:41,710 --> 01:29:44,546 {\an8}The work is more intimate than the space 1842 01:29:45,380 --> 01:29:46,215 {\an8}Still feels weird. 1843 01:29:46,215 --> 01:29:48,759 {\an8}I feel like my parents are splitting up. 1844 01:29:48,884 --> 01:29:50,594 And then Wes put me in his films too. 1845 01:29:51,804 --> 01:29:52,930 {\an8}I put him in the Royal Tenenbaums 1846 01:29:52,930 --> 01:29:54,348 {\an8}because I liked the way he looked. 1847 01:29:54,348 --> 01:29:58,393 {\an8}He's photogenic, and he looked like belonged in this house. 1848 01:29:58,393 --> 01:30:00,687 I figured he could probably play bridge, 1849 01:30:00,687 --> 01:30:02,147 which is what he does in the scene, 1850 01:30:02,272 --> 01:30:04,483 {\an8}because he generally knows how to do things. 1851 01:30:04,483 --> 01:30:08,195 {\an8}And I feel like I thought probably his mother played bridge. 1852 01:30:08,195 --> 01:30:10,781 "Life Aquatic" I had a part as a photographer 1853 01:30:10,781 --> 01:30:12,199 and blew my line 1854 01:30:12,199 --> 01:30:14,535 in front of hundreds and hundreds of extras. 1855 01:30:14,660 --> 01:30:17,162 I was a nervous wreck doing that. 1856 01:30:17,287 --> 01:30:18,163 {\an8}Captain Zi... 1857 01:30:18,163 --> 01:30:19,498 {\an8}Captain Zissou, can I get a shot of you 1858 01:30:19,498 --> 01:30:20,541 {\an8}with Captain Hennessy? 1859 01:30:20,541 --> 01:30:21,416 {\an8}Where? 1860 01:30:25,879 --> 01:30:27,172 Make it quick. 1861 01:30:27,297 --> 01:30:29,258 He's also in "Fantastic Mr. Fox." 1862 01:30:30,217 --> 01:30:32,302 {\an8}28 pine cones fired, 22 targets hit. 1863 01:30:33,846 --> 01:30:35,347 Decoy phase, go. 1864 01:30:35,472 --> 01:30:38,350 Every day I receive a photograph from James, 1865 01:30:38,350 --> 01:30:40,519 and I put it in a special file, Hamilton's, 1866 01:30:41,645 --> 01:30:46,150 and it's an incredible ongoing document 1867 01:30:46,150 --> 01:30:49,069 of the times and places of his life. 1868 01:30:49,194 --> 01:30:52,364 But when I think of New York, my life here, 1869 01:30:52,364 --> 01:30:54,366 James was always a part of it. 1870 01:30:54,366 --> 01:30:57,619 I have a lot of experiences of crawling into that Jeep 1871 01:30:57,619 --> 01:30:59,454 and buzzing around this place. 1872 01:30:59,580 --> 01:31:01,707 Not a comfortable way to get around at all, 1873 01:31:01,707 --> 01:31:03,834 but you can get a lot done. 1874 01:31:21,059 --> 01:31:23,520 Most of my history is living in New York, 1875 01:31:23,520 --> 01:31:27,232 and the people that pass through are the portraits. 1876 01:31:28,609 --> 01:31:30,527 I think that's what I've done mostly, 1877 01:31:30,527 --> 01:31:32,571 is document my life in New York. 1878 01:31:32,571 --> 01:31:34,489 It's like a diary really. 1879 01:31:40,871 --> 01:31:42,873 I had met James in the '80s 1880 01:31:42,873 --> 01:31:45,209 when he photographed Sonic Youth, 1881 01:31:45,209 --> 01:31:47,085 and it was for a Village Voice piece. 1882 01:31:47,085 --> 01:31:48,587 I didn't know who he was. 1883 01:31:48,712 --> 01:31:50,631 I just remember being somewhat kind of bratty 1884 01:31:50,631 --> 01:31:51,465 when I went over there. 1885 01:31:51,590 --> 01:31:53,967 I had a hat that I had picked up on tour 1886 01:31:53,967 --> 01:31:55,677 that was just kind of terrible. 1887 01:31:55,677 --> 01:31:58,430 It was like a cap that said "party till you puke in it," 1888 01:31:58,430 --> 01:32:00,015 So I just loved wearing this hat 1889 01:32:00,015 --> 01:32:01,808 because it was so offensive and terrible 1890 01:32:01,808 --> 01:32:03,435 and I wore it for this shoot. 1891 01:32:03,435 --> 01:32:06,104 And James was, he was very easy to deal with, 1892 01:32:06,104 --> 01:32:08,607 as most photographers can be really persnickety, 1893 01:32:08,607 --> 01:32:10,234 but James was just kind of very mellow, 1894 01:32:10,234 --> 01:32:12,152 and he kinda shot and kinda shot. 1895 01:32:12,277 --> 01:32:15,030 At some point he just sort of looked at me and said like, 1896 01:32:15,030 --> 01:32:16,448 "Let's lose the hat." 1897 01:32:29,002 --> 01:32:30,212 You've done a few album covers. 1898 01:32:30,212 --> 01:32:33,340 The "Songs for Drella," I had no idea you had done that. 1899 01:32:33,340 --> 01:32:35,342 You have to look at those contact sheets. 1900 01:32:35,342 --> 01:32:37,844 You've got hundreds of head shots of John Kale, 1901 01:32:37,844 --> 01:32:41,265 hundreds of headshot of Lou Reed. 1902 01:32:41,265 --> 01:32:44,017 And then there's one shot 1903 01:32:45,560 --> 01:32:48,563 where Lou has a cigarette like this, 1904 01:32:48,563 --> 01:32:51,525 and he has this great big teethy smile. 1905 01:32:51,525 --> 01:32:52,401 Oh yeah. I remember that. 1906 01:32:52,401 --> 01:32:54,111 And it's just like, "What?" 1907 01:32:54,111 --> 01:32:56,029 I'm with the loop, like, "What?" 1908 01:32:56,029 --> 01:32:56,905 He's smiling! 1909 01:32:56,905 --> 01:32:58,615 Lou Reed's smiling! - He's smiling! 1910 01:32:58,615 --> 01:33:00,742 For a journalist! 1911 01:33:08,709 --> 01:33:12,713 Lou is like really sneering in this one. 1912 01:33:14,756 --> 01:33:15,549 Well. 1913 01:33:15,549 --> 01:33:16,550 Classic. 1914 01:33:16,550 --> 01:33:18,927 I think this is long before he was with Laurie. 1915 01:33:19,052 --> 01:33:22,848 I did some work on one of her record covers, "Big Science." 1916 01:33:24,224 --> 01:33:27,519 And you shot her with Anne Waldman at the Nova Convention. 1917 01:33:27,644 --> 01:33:29,187 I did. That was way back. 1918 01:33:29,187 --> 01:33:31,648 She's like a little kid. 1919 01:33:31,773 --> 01:33:32,691 How are you thinking 1920 01:33:32,691 --> 01:33:33,984 you're gonna use these in the book? 1921 01:33:35,193 --> 01:33:38,322 Full page, full bleed if possible, without cropping them. 1922 01:33:38,322 --> 01:33:40,574 We never crop James Hamilton's photographs. 1923 01:33:40,574 --> 01:33:41,491 Wow. 1924 01:33:44,119 --> 01:33:45,579 Never. 1925 01:33:47,039 --> 01:33:49,833 I didn't start out to be a portrait photographer. 1926 01:33:49,833 --> 01:33:52,377 I sort of had to be, 1927 01:33:52,377 --> 01:33:55,547 because that's what a commercial photographer was 1928 01:33:55,547 --> 01:33:56,548 {\an8}in my area. 1929 01:33:57,799 --> 01:33:59,301 It was always journalism. 1930 01:34:01,136 --> 01:34:04,431 Anytime it was a portrait, I just wanted James. 1931 01:34:04,431 --> 01:34:06,683 I didn't want anyone else. It would be boring. 1932 01:34:07,976 --> 01:34:11,313 James sees who you are. 1933 01:34:11,313 --> 01:34:13,899 His portraits are so revealing. 1934 01:34:15,359 --> 01:34:18,945 He just had such a point of view in every photo, 1935 01:34:18,945 --> 01:34:21,073 without you being hit on the head with it. 1936 01:34:23,784 --> 01:34:25,869 You would just respond to this film 1937 01:34:25,994 --> 01:34:28,372 like somebody punched you in the chest, 1938 01:34:28,372 --> 01:34:31,458 grabbed your heart, twist it, and take it back out. 1939 01:34:33,668 --> 01:34:35,462 Hamilton had this way of being able to, 1940 01:34:35,462 --> 01:34:36,797 no matter what that person, 1941 01:34:36,922 --> 01:34:40,258 that phony moron we were doing a story on 1942 01:34:40,384 --> 01:34:42,719 was trying to cover up all these years, 1943 01:34:42,719 --> 01:34:44,888 Jimmy would get there, and he'd take a picture, 1944 01:34:44,888 --> 01:34:46,848 and he'd reveal that one thing 1945 01:34:46,848 --> 01:34:48,767 that the guy had been trying to hide. 1946 01:34:53,021 --> 01:34:55,816 {\an8}I just took for granted that, if we had 15 minutes, 1947 01:34:55,816 --> 01:34:57,442 James would get a great shot. 1948 01:34:59,236 --> 01:35:01,279 He just knew how to do that. 1949 01:35:01,279 --> 01:35:05,492 I think his imagination actually saw a finished product. 1950 01:35:07,077 --> 01:35:09,329 With these junkets and things like that, 1951 01:35:09,329 --> 01:35:11,456 when I would photograph film people or theater people 1952 01:35:11,456 --> 01:35:15,001 or even music people, the time was limited 1953 01:35:15,001 --> 01:35:17,838 that you had to create something. 1954 01:35:17,838 --> 01:35:21,967 Doing portraits of celebrities became a very 1955 01:35:21,967 --> 01:35:25,804 in and out, 15-minute process. 1956 01:35:25,804 --> 01:35:26,847 There were exceptions. 1957 01:35:26,847 --> 01:35:29,307 There was this great time with Daniel Day Lewis 1958 01:35:29,307 --> 01:35:31,810 when "There Will Be Blood" came out. 1959 01:35:31,935 --> 01:35:34,771 We were in a room together for a long time 1960 01:35:34,896 --> 01:35:37,274 and talked much more than I photographed. 1961 01:35:37,274 --> 01:35:39,025 Didn't he do that dance from... 1962 01:35:39,025 --> 01:35:40,485 Oh yeah, both of us, 1963 01:35:40,485 --> 01:35:42,320 {\an8}we were talking about "Treasure of Sierra Madre," 1964 01:35:42,320 --> 01:35:45,407 {\an8}and I said, "I love the moment where Walter Houston 1965 01:35:45,407 --> 01:35:48,285 does that dance when he finds gold," 1966 01:35:48,285 --> 01:35:51,288 and so we both got up and did the dance together. 1967 01:35:55,876 --> 01:35:56,918 I was thinking of James 1968 01:35:56,918 --> 01:35:59,546 in relation to a photographer like Avedon 1969 01:35:59,671 --> 01:36:02,632 and his famous pictures of the Chicago Seven. 1970 01:36:02,757 --> 01:36:07,220 They're so posed, even though the actors are acting out, 1971 01:36:07,220 --> 01:36:08,972 the background is so evident 1972 01:36:08,972 --> 01:36:10,891 that there's a self-consciousness 1973 01:36:10,891 --> 01:36:13,810 that James' photos don't have, 1974 01:36:13,935 --> 01:36:16,104 because there's a journalistic element, 1975 01:36:16,104 --> 01:36:19,065 because he's not thinking in gallery terms. 1976 01:36:19,065 --> 01:36:23,445 I prefer James, frankly, because that combination is richer. 1977 01:36:26,823 --> 01:36:30,285 It was a lot of fun to photograph people in my apartment, 1978 01:36:30,410 --> 01:36:32,370 because they were always surprised 1979 01:36:32,370 --> 01:36:34,998 by the threadbare environment. 1980 01:36:36,416 --> 01:36:38,877 That was in my apartment. This was in my apartment. 1981 01:36:38,877 --> 01:36:40,587 I love that. 1982 01:36:40,587 --> 01:36:41,713 Beastie Boys. 1983 01:36:43,006 --> 01:36:45,217 This was an assignment for Vanity Fair, 1984 01:36:45,217 --> 01:36:47,052 having lunch with Liberace. 1985 01:36:47,177 --> 01:36:48,470 Lunch with Liberace. 1986 01:36:48,470 --> 01:36:49,679 Lunch, that was... 1987 01:36:49,679 --> 01:36:51,932 Raise your hand if you've had lunch with Liberace. 1988 01:36:57,479 --> 01:36:58,855 A lot of them interested me 1989 01:36:58,980 --> 01:37:01,900 much more than just being celebrities. 1990 01:37:01,900 --> 01:37:04,694 A lot of them I cared so much about their work, 1991 01:37:04,694 --> 01:37:06,863 not particularly their image. 1992 01:37:06,988 --> 01:37:10,742 I wanted them to be portrayed the way I wanted to see them, 1993 01:37:10,742 --> 01:37:14,329 wanted a stranger to know something about them. 1994 01:37:18,458 --> 01:37:20,669 Besides Joni Mitchell, there were only two occasions 1995 01:37:20,669 --> 01:37:22,671 where I was photographed with a subject. 1996 01:37:22,671 --> 01:37:25,340 One was I went with Jamaica Kincaid 1997 01:37:25,340 --> 01:37:27,801 to do an interview with Salvador Dali, 1998 01:37:27,801 --> 01:37:29,386 and she photographed me with him. 1999 01:37:29,386 --> 01:37:31,137 I set up the camera. 2000 01:37:31,137 --> 01:37:34,683 And then that picture of Godard and me on the balcony. 2001 01:37:34,683 --> 01:37:36,977 He was very nervous about being so high up, 2002 01:37:36,977 --> 01:37:38,853 so I stood next to him, 2003 01:37:38,979 --> 01:37:41,273 and he felt a little more comfortable. 2004 01:37:42,315 --> 01:37:45,527 And Godard and Kurosawa a meeting for the first time. 2005 01:37:46,736 --> 01:37:48,863 They're almost identically dressed. 2006 01:37:48,989 --> 01:37:51,533 And I didn't ask them to pose at all. 2007 01:37:51,533 --> 01:37:53,410 I just said, "Stand over by the window." 2008 01:37:53,535 --> 01:37:55,662 And they both did this with their hands. 2009 01:38:04,963 --> 01:38:07,215 We were told one day that Jared Kushner 2010 01:38:07,215 --> 01:38:08,633 was gonna buy the paper. 2011 01:38:08,633 --> 01:38:10,677 I wasn't in on the inner workings 2012 01:38:10,677 --> 01:38:12,846 of the office at all, really, 2013 01:38:12,846 --> 01:38:15,265 and I didn't know how much it was gonna change. 2014 01:38:15,390 --> 01:38:18,143 And at first it didn't change very much. 2015 01:38:18,143 --> 01:38:19,728 But then it just slowly turned 2016 01:38:19,728 --> 01:38:22,063 into this kind of a business paper. 2017 01:38:23,565 --> 01:38:26,151 This guy had come in, Kushner, and bought the paper 2018 01:38:26,151 --> 01:38:28,737 for reasons that were extraneous to journalism. 2019 01:38:28,862 --> 01:38:30,280 He had no real interest in journalism, 2020 01:38:30,280 --> 01:38:33,700 didn't know anything about it, didn't really care about it, 2021 01:38:33,700 --> 01:38:37,162 which meant that everything that was good about the paper 2022 01:38:37,162 --> 01:38:39,080 was going to disappear. 2023 01:38:39,080 --> 01:38:42,626 He wanted to create a narrative about his family, 2024 01:38:42,626 --> 01:38:45,253 because his father had just gotten out of prison. 2025 01:38:45,253 --> 01:38:47,797 I think Peter was optimistic at first, 2026 01:38:47,797 --> 01:38:49,883 and Peter's innovation was, quite boldly, 2027 01:38:49,883 --> 01:38:51,426 he decided he was gonna make The Observer 2028 01:38:51,426 --> 01:38:54,346 into a tabloid rather than a broadsheet. 2029 01:38:54,346 --> 01:38:58,266 The New York Post, that was what Jared admired and knew. 2030 01:38:58,266 --> 01:39:01,311 Jared was also very alert to sites like Gawker. 2031 01:39:02,562 --> 01:39:04,481 He wanted shorter articles. 2032 01:39:04,606 --> 01:39:07,609 So Peter, he really rallied. He made it into a tabloid. 2033 01:39:09,027 --> 01:39:11,154 I was photographing a lot of business people 2034 01:39:11,154 --> 01:39:13,281 and real estate people. 2035 01:39:13,281 --> 01:39:17,035 I was still doing a portrait a week of anyone I wanted. 2036 01:39:17,035 --> 01:39:20,288 But it was becoming way less interesting 2037 01:39:20,288 --> 01:39:23,124 because of the way the paper had turned. 2038 01:39:23,249 --> 01:39:24,334 Who left first? You or me? 2039 01:39:24,334 --> 01:39:25,627 I can't remember who left first. 2040 01:39:25,752 --> 01:39:28,171 Well, I got run over, so that was... 2041 01:39:28,296 --> 01:39:31,216 I was hanging around for the money, and it wasn't much. 2042 01:39:31,341 --> 01:39:32,926 Threatens to feel like a metaphor 2043 01:39:32,926 --> 01:39:35,470 for print journalism in general. 2044 01:39:35,470 --> 01:39:38,390 Well, you could certainly look at it that way. 2045 01:39:38,515 --> 01:39:39,224 People don't remember it. 2046 01:39:39,224 --> 01:39:41,101 When I go and talk to young journalism students now, 2047 01:39:41,101 --> 01:39:42,727 they have no idea what I'm talking about. 2048 01:39:44,312 --> 01:39:46,147 It was just something in the moment. 2049 01:39:46,147 --> 01:39:47,691 That's sort of what journalism is. 2050 01:39:47,691 --> 01:39:49,734 A lot of journalism doesn't hold up. 2051 01:39:49,734 --> 01:39:51,903 That's not what journalism does. 2052 01:39:52,028 --> 01:39:53,113 It's the first draft of history. 2053 01:39:53,113 --> 01:39:55,824 It could be a really good first draft, 2054 01:39:55,824 --> 01:39:58,284 but it's not meant to last. 2055 01:39:59,994 --> 01:40:01,955 And James' photographs, 2056 01:40:01,955 --> 01:40:04,457 those are gonna last in a different way. 2057 01:40:14,092 --> 01:40:15,844 So this is where it happened. 2058 01:40:15,969 --> 01:40:18,596 I was walking down Montague 2059 01:40:18,596 --> 01:40:21,975 to photograph her Corcoran real estate office here. 2060 01:40:21,975 --> 01:40:24,269 I stepped off the curb. 2061 01:40:24,269 --> 01:40:27,981 Cadillac Escalade hit me from behind. I went down. 2062 01:40:28,106 --> 01:40:31,192 And the wheel stopped right here on my leg. 2063 01:40:32,318 --> 01:40:36,156 And the wheel of the Cadillac Escalade is about that wide 2064 01:40:37,115 --> 01:40:40,994 and separated my foot from my leg structurally. 2065 01:40:42,078 --> 01:40:44,456 And so I was lying in the street, 2066 01:40:44,456 --> 01:40:49,002 and my very first thought was, 2067 01:40:49,002 --> 01:40:51,796 "Thank God I never have to work at The Observer again." 2068 01:40:52,630 --> 01:40:54,340 That's how bad things had got. 2069 01:40:58,678 --> 01:41:00,597 My second thought was, "I hope I don't have a limp." 2070 01:41:00,597 --> 01:41:03,808 And it was four separate surgeries. 2071 01:41:03,808 --> 01:41:04,976 It was very tough on both of us. 2072 01:41:04,976 --> 01:41:08,480 We were living on credit cards very much for the whole time. 2073 01:41:09,397 --> 01:41:11,941 The only really fortunate thing about that accident 2074 01:41:11,941 --> 01:41:14,652 was worker's comp kicked in. 2075 01:41:14,652 --> 01:41:15,570 And if that hadn't happened, 2076 01:41:15,570 --> 01:41:17,489 we would've had to sell this place. 2077 01:41:19,699 --> 01:41:21,826 This was the end of my journalism career. 2078 01:41:21,826 --> 01:41:24,204 I certainly couldn't work for all those years 2079 01:41:24,204 --> 01:41:25,622 that I was laid up. 2080 01:41:25,622 --> 01:41:28,374 It was a bad time for journalists everywhere, 2081 01:41:28,374 --> 01:41:29,584 and this was '09. 2082 01:41:31,044 --> 01:41:33,129 And it hasn't gotten any better since. 2083 01:41:33,963 --> 01:41:37,008 It's continued to be bad. In fact, it's gotten worse. 2084 01:41:37,133 --> 01:41:38,468 When I started, 2085 01:41:38,468 --> 01:41:42,055 we didn't even let the ad people on our floor. 2086 01:41:42,055 --> 01:41:46,309 It was like church and state, edit and advertising. 2087 01:41:46,309 --> 01:41:50,480 And by the time I left, people were doing stories 2088 01:41:50,480 --> 01:41:52,690 in order to get the advertising. 2089 01:41:52,690 --> 01:41:54,526 It's like, why even do it? 2090 01:41:54,651 --> 01:41:57,153 How could you say what you really wanna say 2091 01:41:57,153 --> 01:41:59,280 if an advertiser's gonna be offended? 2092 01:42:01,032 --> 01:42:03,910 They started shortening all of the stories, 2093 01:42:03,910 --> 01:42:06,329 and I don't think it's necessarily 2094 01:42:06,329 --> 01:42:09,082 because people no longer read long pieces, 2095 01:42:09,082 --> 01:42:10,625 but that's what we were told. 2096 01:42:10,750 --> 01:42:13,336 By the way, if you're a freelancer, you get paid per word. 2097 01:42:13,461 --> 01:42:15,839 People ask me to freelance all the time, 2098 01:42:15,839 --> 01:42:18,550 sometimes for no money whatsoever. 2099 01:42:18,550 --> 01:42:23,054 But definitely they gave me these per-word rates 2100 01:42:23,054 --> 01:42:25,765 that were unbelievable. 2101 01:42:25,890 --> 01:42:28,184 "What do you mean 10 cents a word?" 2102 01:42:28,184 --> 01:42:30,395 It's just like, "What can I do with that?" 2103 01:42:31,396 --> 01:42:34,482 The overwhelm of text and image, 2104 01:42:34,482 --> 01:42:36,317 the economics of it don't work. 2105 01:42:36,317 --> 01:42:38,152 If there's so much text, 2106 01:42:38,278 --> 01:42:40,613 then of course the price of it is gonna go down, 2107 01:42:40,613 --> 01:42:42,282 the quality is gonna suffer. 2108 01:42:44,784 --> 01:42:47,996 We were so lucky to work during the times that we did. 2109 01:42:47,996 --> 01:42:51,624 The kind of leeway we had to totally tell the story. 2110 01:42:51,624 --> 01:42:53,293 You didn't even have the internet. 2111 01:42:53,418 --> 01:42:56,337 There was no reporting by reading back then. 2112 01:42:56,337 --> 01:42:58,381 Reporting was shoe leather. 2113 01:43:00,383 --> 01:43:04,470 There are people right now who are 18, 20, 22 years old 2114 01:43:04,470 --> 01:43:08,850 who want to do exactly what it is that we did. 2115 01:43:08,850 --> 01:43:10,310 They wanna tell stories. 2116 01:43:10,435 --> 01:43:12,729 They wanna go deep into a subject. 2117 01:43:12,729 --> 01:43:14,939 They wanna photograph the hell outta something. 2118 01:43:14,939 --> 01:43:17,692 They've got all the talent and all the hunger in the world. 2119 01:43:17,817 --> 01:43:19,360 And where is it for them? 2120 01:43:20,361 --> 01:43:21,404 Are we gonna get to the point 2121 01:43:21,404 --> 01:43:23,740 where nobody tells these stories, 2122 01:43:23,865 --> 01:43:27,076 nobody reads them, they don't exist? 2123 01:43:27,076 --> 01:43:29,954 I don't know, 'cause I don't know where they will exist. 2124 01:43:31,623 --> 01:43:34,876 For a lot of us, we were never gonna do anything else. 2125 01:43:34,876 --> 01:43:37,378 I didn't have an alternate career. 2126 01:43:37,503 --> 01:43:39,339 I never even thought about something else to do. 2127 01:43:39,339 --> 01:43:41,132 This was the only thing that you were gonna do, 2128 01:43:41,132 --> 01:43:44,886 and it was make it or break. 2129 01:43:44,886 --> 01:43:46,346 Yeah. Yeah. 2130 01:43:50,141 --> 01:43:51,225 What do you do with it all 2131 01:43:51,225 --> 01:43:52,435 at the end of the day? 2132 01:43:52,435 --> 01:43:53,561 What do you do with it all? 2133 01:43:53,561 --> 01:43:54,395 Yeah, 2134 01:43:54,395 --> 01:43:57,231 We bury it with us, like the pharaohs. 2135 01:43:57,357 --> 01:44:00,568 I have a system, but I'm not keeping up with it. 2136 01:44:01,569 --> 01:44:03,029 And there was no time, 2137 01:44:03,029 --> 01:44:07,575 because that was the middle of our life, when we were busy. 2138 01:44:07,575 --> 01:44:09,953 I had a home. I had a child. 2139 01:44:10,078 --> 01:44:11,996 I just did what I had to do, 2140 01:44:11,996 --> 01:44:15,375 and there are all these pictures that are... 2141 01:44:15,500 --> 01:44:16,334 Just sitting on contact sheets. 2142 01:44:16,334 --> 01:44:20,546 They're sitting on contact sheets and screaming. 2143 01:44:21,506 --> 01:44:22,340 That's true. 2144 01:44:22,340 --> 01:44:23,466 Saying, "I'm here! Take me out!" 2145 01:44:26,177 --> 01:44:28,972 That's true. And there's just no time. 2146 01:44:31,849 --> 01:44:34,268 I think once you had a pause, 2147 01:44:34,268 --> 01:44:37,730 you realized that you had this giant body of work 2148 01:44:37,730 --> 01:44:41,526 that you had to start looking at and cataloging 2149 01:44:41,526 --> 01:44:44,362 and thinking about where it's gonna go. 2150 01:44:44,487 --> 01:44:45,154 That's what I did. 2151 01:44:45,154 --> 01:44:49,867 I went through my archives to sort things out. 2152 01:44:51,452 --> 01:44:54,831 And it gave me time to do the musician's book, 2153 01:44:54,831 --> 01:44:57,458 which I probably never would've had the time to do. 2154 01:45:00,753 --> 01:45:04,340 James has these physical objects, these souvenirs, 2155 01:45:04,340 --> 01:45:08,678 that is the preservation of half a century or more 2156 01:45:08,678 --> 01:45:13,683 of New York City's greatest moment, grittiest moment. 2157 01:45:14,017 --> 01:45:16,352 And right now they're all just sitting in boxes. 2158 01:45:16,352 --> 01:45:18,312 They're not in a stock agency, 2159 01:45:18,312 --> 01:45:22,608 this gold mine of 65 years of New York City. 2160 01:45:22,608 --> 01:45:23,443 Not yet. 2161 01:45:23,443 --> 01:45:24,277 55 years. 2162 01:45:25,111 --> 01:45:25,987 55. 2163 01:45:27,572 --> 01:45:30,324 He'd always just wanted to do what he wanted to do, 2164 01:45:30,324 --> 01:45:32,452 and he didn't really care about fame. 2165 01:45:32,452 --> 01:45:34,829 I don't think he would've turned it down, 2166 01:45:34,829 --> 01:45:36,956 but it wasn't like he got an agent 2167 01:45:36,956 --> 01:45:40,043 or he was seeking out big jobs or anything like that. 2168 01:45:41,502 --> 01:45:45,381 You have to be really creative and entrepreneurial 2169 01:45:45,381 --> 01:45:48,051 to succeed with photography now. 2170 01:45:48,051 --> 01:45:50,344 But he's anti-entrepreneurial 2171 01:45:52,138 --> 01:45:55,433 James's work, it's refreshingly devoid of ego. 2172 01:45:55,558 --> 01:45:58,311 Let's put it that way. 2173 01:45:58,311 --> 01:45:59,520 During the internet age, 2174 01:45:59,520 --> 01:46:01,898 where a lot of photographers were disseminating their work 2175 01:46:01,898 --> 01:46:02,940 into the public sphere, 2176 01:46:02,940 --> 01:46:06,861 James' work was just like not seen at all. 2177 01:46:06,986 --> 01:46:08,321 Your social life got in the way 2178 01:46:08,321 --> 01:46:09,113 of becoming an art star. 2179 01:46:09,238 --> 01:46:11,741 My hedonism got in the way everything. 2180 01:46:13,159 --> 01:46:14,118 It totally did. 2181 01:46:16,913 --> 01:46:20,291 My whole career was all about having fun, I have to say. 2182 01:46:20,291 --> 01:46:22,919 I wasn't interested in putting pictures on walls. 2183 01:46:22,919 --> 01:46:27,423 I was interested in doing the next thing. 2184 01:46:38,434 --> 01:46:40,561 Like many pictures that James took, 2185 01:46:40,561 --> 01:46:42,647 like the pictures in China, 2186 01:46:42,647 --> 01:46:45,066 like some of the pictures in the Philippines, 2187 01:46:45,066 --> 01:46:47,068 he should have won a Pulitzer Prize. 2188 01:46:47,068 --> 01:46:48,611 For the presser picture, 2189 01:46:48,611 --> 01:46:51,447 it became a really important photograph, 2190 01:46:51,447 --> 01:46:54,617 because it so captured the kind of corrupt essence 2191 01:46:54,617 --> 01:46:57,453 of the teamsters and their leadership. 2192 01:46:57,453 --> 01:46:59,247 What we came away with was the satisfaction 2193 01:46:59,247 --> 01:47:00,581 of doing the work, which was great. 2194 01:47:00,706 --> 01:47:02,291 - More than great. - More than great. 2195 01:47:02,416 --> 01:47:05,795 But some of those pictures deserve recognition 2196 01:47:05,795 --> 01:47:06,796 they did not get. 2197 01:47:09,257 --> 01:47:10,967 James really is a treasure, I think. 2198 01:47:10,967 --> 01:47:14,720 And beyond his work, also, is his approach to his work. 2199 01:47:15,680 --> 01:47:18,349 That is a very pure way to approach what you do 2200 01:47:18,349 --> 01:47:19,350 and who you are. 2201 01:47:20,685 --> 01:47:21,477 And you think of all the things 2202 01:47:21,477 --> 01:47:24,105 that are in such short supply these days: 2203 01:47:24,105 --> 01:47:27,400 value, actual value, honesty, 2204 01:47:27,400 --> 01:47:29,485 and, coupled with that, integrity 2205 01:47:29,485 --> 01:47:31,612 and a kind of sense of fun. 2206 01:47:31,612 --> 01:47:33,239 James, he likes being alive. 2207 01:47:33,364 --> 01:47:35,992 He likes seeing life around him. He likes looking at it. 2208 01:47:35,992 --> 01:47:39,162 He likes feeling it. He likes investigating it. 2209 01:47:40,872 --> 01:47:42,623 He likes being on a story. 2210 01:47:44,083 --> 01:47:45,459 And whatever the story, 2211 01:47:45,459 --> 01:47:49,714 he goes with that same seriousness, intensity. 2212 01:47:49,714 --> 01:47:51,340 And he's not looking to just grab shit. 2213 01:47:51,340 --> 01:47:54,218 He's not looking to get an image, sell an image. 2214 01:47:55,136 --> 01:47:57,388 He's looking to find, refine. 2215 01:48:00,057 --> 01:48:03,186 He's a good person to have still around in this age. 2216 01:48:04,478 --> 01:48:05,271 The Voice is gone, 2217 01:48:05,271 --> 01:48:08,691 but James Hamilton is still out there. 2218 01:48:24,540 --> 01:48:26,584 I'm always being reminded of films. 2219 01:48:26,584 --> 01:48:28,461 I think about films a lot. 2220 01:48:28,461 --> 01:48:30,838 Films in my past and my history. 2221 01:48:30,838 --> 01:48:32,840 Because they were very important to me. 2222 01:48:33,674 --> 01:48:36,928 And I can take myself back to being in the theater, even, 2223 01:48:36,928 --> 01:48:38,638 when I first saw a film. 2224 01:48:38,638 --> 01:48:41,515 I mean, they're anchors for memories, which I love. 2225 01:48:58,699 --> 01:49:00,534 I always thought I was either gonna be a painter 2226 01:49:00,534 --> 01:49:02,662 or a filmmaker when I was young. 2227 01:49:02,662 --> 01:49:04,080 But I was never technological. 2228 01:49:04,080 --> 01:49:05,456 I never owned a camera. 2229 01:49:05,456 --> 01:49:08,918 And then the idea of doing film intimidated me too, 2230 01:49:08,918 --> 01:49:10,711 because I was not a writer, 2231 01:49:10,711 --> 01:49:12,296 and I always thought that I would have to write 2232 01:49:12,296 --> 01:49:13,464 whatever I filmed. 2233 01:49:14,924 --> 01:49:17,885 And again, the technology and working with a lot of people. 2234 01:49:18,719 --> 01:49:20,805 It was not until I worked on movie sets 2235 01:49:20,805 --> 01:49:24,100 that I really saw the most fun job as the director, 2236 01:49:24,100 --> 01:49:27,937 but also the most challenging, intimidating, 2237 01:49:27,937 --> 01:49:30,690 and the farthest away from the way I am, 2238 01:49:30,815 --> 01:49:32,817 which is working alone. 2239 01:49:32,817 --> 01:49:35,027 And then, when I did finally buy a camera 2240 01:49:35,027 --> 01:49:38,239 and started shooting, I just was totally content 2241 01:49:38,239 --> 01:49:42,743 with the moment and stories made up of moments. 2242 01:49:42,743 --> 01:49:44,662 So I didn't really feel like I needed 2243 01:49:44,662 --> 01:49:48,541 to pick up a video camera or get a movie camera. 2244 01:49:48,541 --> 01:49:50,376 I loved the still.