Angel City seems to me one of my most dated works, perhaps because
it is in the nature of satires, or the embracing of things-of-the-time
(in order to skewer them) that one is necessarily enmeshed with just
what one is out to attack, like B'rer Rabbit's tar baby. Still it has
some pretty funny things in it, even now. And as a film it is for the
money, a pretty spectacular piece, with aerials, a big crane shot, EFX,
all done for a measly (even back then) $6000.
Which brings up a little anecdote. Angel
City was made with 3 investors, a doctor and a few professors out
of La Jolla, California (UCSD), who each put up $2,000 apiece, and I
guess - though they got to see the script first - they thought that
for their big pot of gold they were going to get some kind of Hollywood
thriller/detective story. When they saw it they were appalled and probably
totally mystified, and dropped it like a hot potato. I suppose to them
it was some kind of "experimental" thing, and not the potential
Hollywood potboiler BO-buster they seemed to anticipate. Being utterly
unaware of film realities and how much had been done for how little
they scampered away in dismay. Along the way, they declined to fork
over the remaining $500 which was due of the total budget, such sum
which was to be my pay for it all. However, then ownership also fell
in my hands, and after a nice tour of festivals, good press, and so
on I was able a few years later to sell it to the new UK Channel Four,
for $12,000. My first "profit," I guess. It was my first experience
with "investors" and "producers" and unfortunately
was indicative of future experiences, which seems to prove I don't learn
too well from experience. At least not that kind of experience. Or maybe
it is indicative of a fundamental problem of the film business.
"A really joyous endeavor, a blithe attempt to trash on some of
our most revered institutions. As such it combines the best and sometimes
the worst of Godardian political analysis, bourgeois detective stories,
Sixties mind-fuck, and an homage to Hollywood. It's weird, smart-ass,
and totally irreverent. It's also one of the best $6,000 investments
I can possibly think of, and is proof positive that some of our most
exciting cinema is being put together by the people in the streets,
not in the Bel Aire mansions where the Hollywood honchos live. Thank
God for Jon Jost and his ilk, because they're keeping the art of cinema
alive and well."
- Philadelphia Drummer
"As for Jon Jost's Angel City, it's a sodden, stupid film
by a person who has ideas but has never bothered to structure them in
terms of time and space. Which is what a film is, a structured statement
in time and space. Film space... I loathed the film."
- Amy Taubin, Soho News
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