HAL

The movie Hal

This is one of my favorite types of movies is the bio-documentary where they incorporate video, letters and interviews. Hal Ashby directed one of my favorite movies from the 1970's called Harold and Maude. 

Program description: 

Description

In Amy Scott’s comprehensive and affectionate documentary, the capricious life and career of one of Hollywood’s iconic filmmakers, Hal Ashby, is brought to light. Deftly weaving archival footage, on-camera interviews, and Ashby’s jocular letters and memos (expertly voiced by Ben Foster), Scott reveals a complex and singular visionary who directed some of the most seminal films of the 1970s including the indelible Harold and Maude (1971), The Last Detail (1973), and Being There (1979).

“One of the comparatively unsung luminaries of 1970s American cinema receives a very fine tribute in Hal, an in-depth look at director Hal Ashby. Never a household name like Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, or Lucas and without a genuine blockbuster to his credit, the former film editor nonetheless directed seven of the finest and most emblematic films of the New Hollywood Cinema era. Digging deep into the archives for rare and revealing material to accompany interviews with many of his collaborators and intimates, filmmaker Amy Scott packs a lot into 90 minutes with this insightful and warm look at an artist whose best work always revealed a heightened social conscience.” – Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

Pre-production trailer of Hal

Post Production Trailer - Hal

This is Producer Christine Beebe and her child

An arrogant L.A producer was lateto the movie and arrived 10 minutes after it was over. She was late because she picked a flight which arrived the same time the film started. She said the director couldn't come because our film has been doing so well she was at another film festival. When criticized that it only gave a positive view of the controversial director she said that there was another movie in there for someone else to make about that.

Filmmaker Bio(s)

Amy Scott began her filmmaking and editing career in Chicago after getting her degree in Film Studies at University of Oklahoma. She taught documentary film at Chicago Filmmaker, was a media producer for the University of Chicago, and served as head digital archivist and assistant to Studs Terkel at the Chicago History Museum. Now based in Los Angeles, she worked on a number of shorts, music, videos, and films prior to making her directorial debut with Hal.