Meet the Makers: George Hickenlooper

[George Hickenlooper graduated from Yale University in 1986. He was born on May 25, 1963 in St. Louis, Missouri and raised there, Boston, and San Francisco. His interest in film began in childhood and stemmed from his great-uncle’s (Leopold Stokowski) involvement in the movie Fantasia (1940). Hickenlooper’s interest also bloomed from his father being a playwright and his mother starting a guerrilla theater troop, which would protest the Vietnam War. Both of his parents told him the techniques of story telling whether to make an aesthetic or political point. Hickenlooper’s first short Super 8mm films were animated and made with this grammar school friend Kirk Wise who, years later, would go on to direct Beauty and the Beast (1991) for Walt Disney. While attending a Jesuit high school, Hickenlooper turned to live action short filmmaking. Many of those shorts (Telefission, A Day in the Life, A Black and White Film, and The Revenant) were premiered on Public Television in St. Louis and Kansas City. Hickenlooper spent one summer studying at the USC School of Cinema and Television, and then went on to Yale for a B.A. in History and Film Studies. After graduating, Hickenlooper interned for producer Roger Corman and in 1991 authored the book Reel Conversations (Citadel Press), a collection of interviews with film directors and critics. Hickenlooper made his professional directing debut with Art, Acting, and the Suicide Chair: Dennis Hopper (1988) (TV), a short documentary about Dennis Hopper. However, he made his breakthrough when he premiered Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991), the internationally acclaimed documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now (1979), at the Cannes Film Festival.] – IMDB.com

OK, I apologize for the shear length of this mini-bio, but I just simply find this filmmaker to be an absolutely fascinating individual… plus, he’s a hometown boy from my ‘hood. Oh yeah, I am also shamefully behind on the Meet the Makers feature, so to any of you who actually read this monthly feature of mine, I sincerely apologize for totally slacking off over the last month or so.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991) — My God, what an amazing piece of documentary filmmaking! Easily in my Top 5 picks of all time for documentary features, this film is a milestone in the relatively small and less popular sub-genre of docu-films on the making of non-docu-films. The movie is both intensely dramatic, occasionally candid and humorous, unflinchingly honest and often difficult to watch (in a good way). For the longest time this movie was incredibly hard to come by and, much to my chagrin, not a single version of the ‘Apocalypse Now’ DVD ever included this film with its extras. ‘Hearts of Darkness’ is the telling of the story behind the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s epic war film ‘Apocalypse Now.’ The DVD finally came out in November of 2007. Granted, I must give due credit in stating that Hickenlooper co-wrote, co-directed this film with Fax Bahr, but they both accomplished one helluva achievement.

The Low Life (1995) — Considered by some to be a somewhat depressing, often difficult to watch film about a group of helpless losers, I found this movie oddly intriguing and in some strange ways very honest about many things that many of us can relate to, but refuse to admit. The film stars Rory Cochrane, Kyra Sedgwick, Sean Astin, Ron Livingston and James LeGros. The film is well-acted and equally well-directed. This is a true indie film that doesn’t pander to the Hollywood standards of phony filmmaking.

The Big Brass Ring (1999) — Hickenlooper first made this as a short film by the same name (1997) which is actually based upon an earlier version of the script written by none other than Orsen Welles. The film was shot in three locations… Alhambra, California; Alton, Illinois; and Saint Louis, Missouri. The story follows a politician names Blake Pellarin, who is campaigning for office. While on the campaign trail, he makes a stop in Saint Louis. While there, Pellarin becomes burdened with the secrets of his past and must deal with the possibility of these parts of his past ruining his chances of winning the election. Surprisingly, the film never got a theatrical release. The film stars William Hurt in an under-appreciated great performance as Pelklarin, along side Miranda Richardson and Nigel Hawthorne.

Factory Girl (2006) — Hickenlooper’s latest film, it follows the rise and fall of Edie Sedgwick, played by the attractive young starlett Sienna Miller. Sedgwick was a small-town girl with big city aspirations. She goes out to New York and manages to fall into favor with Andy Warhol and his group of artistic social abnormalities, who all take her in and promise to make her the next big thing. Edie finds herself living large as they do manage to develop her into an icon of the sixties, but not necessarily always in the way she’d imagined. Before long, Edie finds herself losing touch with reality and losing her money, fame and friends even faster. Eventually, Edie has lost everything and ends up lower than where she began. She ended up dying an untimely, unfortunate death. This film does a fine job of depicting the fascinating journey she took, painting a portrait of this troubled woman that is part Mona Lisa and part Dorian Gray. The film also stars Guy Pearce as Andy Warhol, Hayden Christensen, Jimmy Fallon, Mena Suvari and Illeana Douglas.