{"id":531,"date":"2011-06-17T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2011-06-17T10:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=531"},"modified":"2011-06-17T05:00:55","modified_gmt":"2011-06-17T10:00:55","slug":"everybodys-talkin-about-harry-nilsson-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/06\/17\/everybodys-talkin-about-harry-nilsson-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"(Everybody\u2019s) Talkin\u2019 About Harry Nilsson, Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

In fall 2010 fall the film documentary <\/em>Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin\u2019 About Him)? premiered in selected cities. The film came out on DVD around the holidays, with a great deal of bonus material added. I got a chance to have a wide-ranging conversation with John Scheinfeld, the writer\/director of the film. Continuing from Part Two<\/a>, here\u2019s the third and final part of that discussion.<\/em><\/p>\n

John Scheinfeld:<\/strong> That\u2019s very much the spirit that Harry Nilsson<\/strong> created. Even to the point that you see with his two record producers, Rick Gerard<\/strong> and Richard Perry<\/strong>. They loved the Harry that they knew back then. They are very proud of the work they did together. And they are both very unhappy<\/em> with the way their working relationships ended. And it would have been very easy for them both to say, \u201cJohn, I don\u2019t want to do an interview.\u201d To their credit, they came on camera, shared their memories, and we\u2019re all better off for it.<\/p>\n

You see the pain in both of them; Harry could be difficult. He could be impossible. He could do cruel things. But that was part of having a balanced portrait of this particular artist.<\/p>\n

Bill Kopp:<\/span><\/strong> It\u2019s a nuanced portrait. If it had been full of uncritical, effusive praise, I would have been bored. And it wouldn\u2019t have rung true, because nobody\u2019s perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> With all of the interviews, you didn\u2019t see anybody being all sweetness and light.\u00a0 <\/span>They would tell you what they admired about Harry, and then they\u2019d tell you some story where Harry was crazy.<\/p>\n

The thing about Harry, he didn\u2019t do many interviews\u2026<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> He wouldn\u2019t have been much help anyway!<\/span><\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Right! I found interviews where he\u2019d tell the same story four different ways. And you never could get at the truth. I think a lot of people are that way. Stories are spun or embellished, or you tell them in a way that makes you look better. And that is part of the challenge of being a documentary filmmaker: to get all of the voices together and then figure out where the truth is.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> That\u2019s what\u2019s good about your interviews. These stories aren\u2019t calcified, aren\u2019t blown out of proportion by having been told over and over again. <\/span><\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> Sometimes you catch them not-quite-prepared to answer a question. One case was with Jimmy Webb. We were talking about the Pussy Cats<\/em> sessions, when Harry was talking about having blood on the microphone. He had lost his voice. Jimmy thought about it, and remembered his reaction at the time. And then he couldn\u2019t talk about it anymore. Too emotional. That was a very human moment.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

And there was another one. I don\u2019t think he would have anticipated the question, which was, \u201cWhen was the last time you saw Harry?\u201d And then he told this beautiful story about them being in the car. So it was all right there on the surface emotionally, because, as you say, they had not answered these questions ten times before. And they didn\u2019t know what we were going to ask. Because I never<\/em> submit questions in advance.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a good example of going where the truth takes you. As a Beatles fan, I had grown up with the mythology that Yoko was the dragon lady that broke up the band. And that\u2019s not true: John was really looking for a way out. But when we started out on The U.S. vs. John Lennon<\/em>, I don\u2019t think I knew the depth — the significance — of the love affair between the two of them. We were thinking we were going elsewhere with that story, but the more time we spent with Yoko and other people in their world, the more it became so clear that the love affair had to be an important part of that film.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> As far as Harry\u2019s recordings go, I imagine you did some research there as well, and found some previously unearthed gems. The film from those Gordon Jenkins<\/strong> sessions\u2026I didn\u2019t even know that existed!<\/span><\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> It never aired in this country. And the BBC special In Concert<\/em> aired once over there, and that was it. The superfans knew about this before; I didn\u2019t. Because Nilsson Schmillson<\/em> was so successful, when they went into the studio for the followup album –what came Son of Schmillson<\/em> \u2013 RCA asked Richard Perry and Harry, \u201cWhat can we do for you?\u201d So they decided it would be fun to pay for a documentary crew to come in and shoot them making that album. And the irony is that it was somewhat like a Let it Be<\/em> situation; instead of the making of an album, you got the deterioration of an artist and his relationship with his producer.<\/p>\n

The cameras were there a lot during the making of the album. It was never finished; there was a rough cut made some time in the 70s. We learned that the rough footage was in a salt mine in Pennsylvania! Sony was quite helpful; we got about ten minutes of raw film that was transferred. So a lot of the studio stuff — with Harry and Richard and Ringo, and a young Peter Frampton<\/strong>, and Klaus Voormann<\/strong> and Ray Cooper<\/strong> \u2013 came from the film that was shot for this aborted documentary.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll put this one to you: there\u2019s one extraordinary photo in this film that speaks to Beatles fans. I found this photo and said, \u201cThis has to be in the movie.\u201d Do you know the photo I\u2019m talking about? It\u2019s a Polaroid, shot at the beach house in Santa Monica\u2026<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Yes! With Paul McCartney<\/strong>!<\/span><\/p>\n

JS: Right. It\u2019s a photo with Harry, Paul and John, and who is John talking to but Linda McCartney<\/strong>. And this, at a time when the prevailing knowledge was, \u201cOh, they\u2019re not speaking.\u201d So not only were they talking, they were hanging out with each other. And with Harry. He had the ability to bring all these people together.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> When I saw it, I wondered if it was from around the time when Paul showed up at the studio where John was, and Paul played drums. Stevie Wonder<\/strong> was there, Jesse Ed Davis<\/strong>\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> That\u2019s all around this same time. The bootleg of it was called A Toot and a Snore<\/em>.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> I have it.<\/span><\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> And \u201csnore\u201d is appropriate. It\u2019s not very good.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> You listen to it once, and then you put it on the shelf.<\/span><\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> The media has a tendency to want to tell stories in a very simple way, to make everything black and white. Life is just not like that. So just as Yoko wasn\u2019t the dragon lady, so true is it that John and Paul did<\/em> talk to each other.<\/p>\n

And that is one of the things that I\u2019m very proud of about Who is Harry Nilsson<\/em>: we have really textured storytelling that gets to the truth, but in an entertaining way.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Beyond a fond appreciation for Harry the man and the artist, what would you like the \u201ctakeaway\u201d for the viewer to be?<\/span><\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong> The takeaway should be this: Here\u2019s a guy \u2013 kind of a hip artist \u2013 who\u2019s been under the radar because his career wasn\u2019t all that long in the scheme of things; he died young. He missed the internet age in which his work could have spread everywhere. This is an artist worth knowing. This is an artist who created an extraordinary body of work that ought to be known to more people.<\/p>\n

I was doing a lecture on documentary filmmaking, at an east coast college. One of the questions was, \u201cWhat are you working on now?\u201d I told them about Who is Harry Nilsson<\/em>. And I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019d never been in a room where a hundred people were staring at me as if to say, \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d The name meant nothing<\/em> to them.<\/p>\n

So I said, \u201cHe did the theme song to this wonderful movie, a song called \u2018Everybody\u2019s Talkin\u2019.\u201d And a few heads nodded. And then I said, \u201cAnd he did this goofy little song that was a hit in the 70s called \u2018Coconut.\u2019\u201d And more heads nodded. And I told them about this great animated film The Point<\/em>. More nods. I mentioned a few more hits, and got a few more nods. And when I told them, \u201cAnd he wrote \u2018One is the Loneliest Number,\u2019\u201d almost everyone said they knew that.<\/p>\n

And I said, \u201cSee? You know the music<\/em>, but you don\u2019t know the man<\/em>.\u201d And we hope to remedy that with the film Who is Harry Nilsson<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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