An indie film trailblazer
Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas often are credited with creating a bastion of independent filmmaking in the Bay Area. But the actual founder is John Korty. He arrived here first, in 1963, and made one of the first known indies, “The Crazy-Quilt,” three years later.
In 1968, he agreed to speak at a panel on filmmaking in San Francisco only after learning that Francis Ford Coppola would be a fellow panelist. But on the designated day, Korty found himself seated next to an empty chair.
He recalls that “about 15 minutes into the panel, this teenager in tennis shoes comes rushing in, and he leans over and says, ‘Francis is still shooting in Nebraska and he sent me. My name is George Lucas.’ ”
Lucas was astounded to learn that Korty had already made three lowbudget features (the others are “Riverrun” and “Funnyman”), all in Northern California.
“George grabbed me by the shoulder and said, ‘We have got to find a pay phone. I am going to call Francis because you are doing exactly what he says he wants to do — making films outside of Hollywood.’ ”
They reached Coppola by phone, and two weeks later he and Lucas arrived in separate station wagons at Korty’s studio in Stinson Beach. Seeing his movie screen, two arc projectors, editing table and sound equipment, they realized movies really could be made cheaply away from Hollywood. “Their mouths just dropped,” Korty recalled.
Though not famous like Coppola and Lucas, Korty, 79, has had a productive career lasting more than 50 years. He won an Emmy in 1974 for directing “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” starring Cicely Tyson, and an Oscar four years later for his documentary “Who Are the DeBolts? And Where Did They Get Nineteen Kids?” about a blended Bay Area family. His animated shorts were staples on “Sesame Street” for 15 years.
‘Love Story’ sequel
In 1978, Korty was brought in to direct “Oliver’s Story,” a sequel to the popular “Love Story.” He found two actors he thought would be perfect as the movie’s key characters and submitted their names to producer Peter Guber. “Peter went, ‘Who are these people — New York stage actors? We need movie stars.’
“The two people he turned down were Meryl Streep and Bill Hurt. The movie would have been totally different with them in it,” said Korty, who wound up with a bomb starring Ryan O’Neal and Candice Bergen.
It’s little wonder that Korty keeps returning to the sanctuary of independent filmmaking. With indies, he can control his creation. The trajectory of “The Crazy-Quilt,” for example, began when he became enamored of a story by Bay Area psychiatrist Allen Wheelis.
When Korty asked him how he came to write it, Wheelis said he thought about his practice and realized that many people manufacture unhappiness because they compare what they thought life would be like and how it turned out. Depression can result when it doesn’t turn out the way they thought.
The movie has two main characters: a man who has no illusions about anything and a woman who has illusions about everything. “We look at how they would get along,” Korty said.
The late film critic Pauline Kael, an early champion of Korty, called his film “a lightly told comedy-fable on sex differences, on attitudes to life, and on marriage itself.”
The screening at the Rafael is one of the few ways to see “The CrazyQuilt.” It was shot in and around Stinson Beach and features droll narration by Burgess Meredith. The lead roles are played by Bay Area character actor Tom Rosqui and Ina Mela, a New York schoolteacher, who plays his wife. She was recommended to Korty by a friend who had a date with her and thought she matched the description of what the director wanted.
“Our budget was so low, we couldn’t afford to bring her here for an audition. So I had a friend go with her to Central Park and shoot some 16mm footage of her walking around and smiling,” Korty said. “She was one of those people who came alive as soon as you turn the camera on them.” He doesn’t think Mela did another film. “She went back to teaching Latin and Greek.”
Asked if he learned anything from making “The Crazy-Quilt,” Korty said with a laugh, “This sounds terrible, but I don’t think I necessarily learned much. I knew what I wanted to do. Basically, I was in rebellion against Hollywood films. I thought everything they did, I wasn’t going to do.
“I thought Hollywood films were artificial. They used too much makeup. I was basically trying to come down from that with real people and realistic dialogue and shooting without a lot of lights and filters. So there wasn’t much going on in terms of learning. I just made the film the way I wanted to make it.”
With the flowering of television, it would seem Korty would find some first-rate TV series appealing. But he’s not interested. “Frankly, I have never wanted to do more than one film at a time because to me making a single film is an all-consuming project. To say, ‘We want you to make 13 episodes of this’ or seven of another, I just think, ‘No thanks’ because the only way to do that is to repeat yourself,” he said.
Korty picks projects that pique his curiosity, such as a shop in Alameda that restores grand pianos. His documentary, “Miracle in a Box,” follows the restoration of a 1927 Steinway for 15 months. “It is just a fascinating process,” he said.
Friends with Coppola
He remains friends with Coppola and Lucas, but their schedules don’t permit time for hanging out. Korty essentially sees them at two big parties Lucas throws every year, one in the summer, the other during winter.
“People always think that we get together and exchange wonderful creative ideas,” Korty said. “But basically when we see each other, we end up just talking about our kids.”