MCN Interview: Julie Checkoway

Julie Checkoway
Director of Waiting
For Hockney

Documentary film is no longer the niche product it once was. After filmmakers like Michael Moore, Errol Morris and Morgan Spurlock became household names and reality television invaded our airwaves, documentaries are more in vogue than they have ever been. Personally, I've always enjoyed documentaries but more than that, I always enjoyed documentaries about artists. One of my all-time favorite documentaries is Terry Zwigoff's brilliant Crumb, which follows the artist Robert Crumb and tells us about his long, strange journey to cult stardom.

Currently playing at the Tribeca Film Festival is another documentary about an artist, although this artist is of somewhat less renown than Mr. Crumb. The film is called Waiting for Hockney and while I don't think it reaches the heights that Crumb did, it's certainly one of the best documentaries I've seen in quite a while and would make quite a double-feature with that Zwigoff film.

The film follows an artist named Billy Pappas as he endeavors to create something truly original. His idea is to create a portrait; but not just any portrait. In fact, what Billy Pappas aimed to do was to draw a portrait based on a famous Richard Avedon photograph of Marilyn Monroe. If this doesn't sound particularly original to you, then you'd be right; but what Billy Pappas did is to recreate the photograph in such detail, hand drawing all of it, that it will be more finely detailed than even the best photograph. Over the next eight and a half years, Billy Pappas worked solely on this project for eighteen hours a day with the hopes that he would one day be able to show it to the great (and famous) artist David Hockney. Pappas hopes that Hockney will be able to put him in contact with people that would buy that portrait from him and commission him to draw another one.

The thrust of the film is about Billy Pappas and his quest to show the drawing to David Hockney. In the course of his journey, we learn about how Pappas sustained himself (living in his parents house helps) and the team of people that surrounded him (including the mysterious benefactor who calls himself "Dr. Lifestyle") and supported him while he struggled to make his dream a reality.

Pappas' story truly is an engaging one and it speaks to the heart of everyone who is yearning to make something (a book, a film, a painting) and be appreciated for their talents. Sometimes Billy Pappas can come across as a naïve, idealistic fool, but most of the time his naivete is endearing and as the film progresses, our empathy for Billy grows. More than anything, the greatest asset to the film is Billy Pappas himself and the way in which he handles himself. He is both jester and king of this court.

I had the opportunity to talk to the director of the film, Julie Checkoway. This is her first film and sometimes this fact shows, but not in a sloppy way; she has a definite point of view, but the pace of the film allows the viewer to make up their own mind about Billy Pappas while also recognizing where the filmmaker's heart is. She might not have the big name like Spurlock or Moore, but she is definitely someone worth watching.

Here's our conversation:

Noah Forrest: First of all, how did you come across Billy Pappas? And what made you think he could make for an interesting documentary?

Julie Checkoway: I was introduced to the idea of Billy Pappas by Dr. Gary Vikan, the head of the Walters Art Museum and a brilliant thinker. It was Gary who told me that Billy's story was a worthy one (he had been following it for nearly eight years at that time, as something of a wide-eyed bystander), and he had come to understand and think of Billy's story as an epic quest of great personal and artistic risk.

NF: This was your first time making a film and you had no prior experience; how do you think that point of view helped or hindered the end product? Do you think if you had known ahead of time what you know now, that you still would have taken on the endeavor?

JC: I think that good storytelling is good storytelling. I knew that we had something really powerful with Waiting for Hockney and the question that presented itself was "what is the right vessel for this?" Content really determines form. While the piece initially started out as a story for public radio, it quickly outgrew the time allowed for exploration on radio and also exceeded---because of it's visual nature---what sound (in which I strongly believe) can do alone 99% of the time. We also dallied with making a book out of the story, and were even fortunate enough to sign on, for a brief time, with the best book editor in the world---Jon Karp---before it became clear that Billy could only take so much exposure. So, the real issue was: given that film was the right (and only available genre) for the story, how does one go about learning how to make a film when one has neer done so before? What I did was ask a million questions of everyone I could find. I spoke first to Mark Moskowitz, whose film about Howard Mossman, Stone Reader, I had at that time just seen. I got myself an agent very early on and relied on the agent's feedback throughout the process. I called upon a former student who had gone to film school and was now an exec. at universal to help validate that what I had was worth pursuing, and in hiring folks to do the technical work---everything from cinematography to editing to sound, I relied on recommendations from the best people and also my gut: if people wanted to work on this project, they had not only to have the know-how but a tremendous sense of humor and humanity. They needed the technical skills which I didn't have but they also had to bring to the film the desire to tell Billy's story with as much love, kindness, and dignity as possible. Oh, and they had to be able to laugh at themselves. I laugh at myself all the time. And yeah, if I knew what I know now, I would absolutely make this very same film again. I have zero regrets. This has been an amazing experience with a team of experts and a great deal of love and faith. Bring it on!

NF: The film is very careful not to make too many judgments about Billy Pappas and we see him throughout as both hero and fool; since you were someone who was also taking on a Herculean task by making a documentary, did you feel a kinship with Billy?

JC: I love Billy Pappas. I of course feel a tremendous kinship with him because he is working class, an artist, and a striver. These are all things I've been all my life. During the filming I vacillated back and forth in my thinking. I was sometimes sure that Billy was mistaken in his grandiosity and other times I thought that he just might turn out to be right, and I wanted the viewer to experience that same vacillation, the wonder that I felt at every plot point. And at first, I had no sense of making this film as Herculean. I took it literally one step at a time: hire cinematographer and go shoot three days in Maryland; look at footage; go do next shoot---that sort of thing. I never felt that I was in too deep and felt that I could walk away at any time----until we brought in investors. At that point, I felt an absolute loyalty to them and to the project, an unwavering sense that, no matter how tough things got, I owed the people who had believed in and invested in this project a chance to see if they had been right. So really, the task did not feel Herculean to me (meaning my own task of making a film) until the stakes were higher. Most of the time I felt as though I had been blessed by the gift of coming across a remarkable story and simply had to tell it. Period.

NF: According to the press notes, you helped arrange an interview between Billy and Lawrence Weschler (NYU Professor and friend of David Hockney). What is your approach as a documentarian? Clearly, you are more hands-on than many; do you feel that a documentarian should be so actively involved in what happens in their own film?

JC: I actually wrote the press notes and am going to amend them because this has been a source of confusion for a number of people. I approached Weschler on my own behalf, not Billy's. I had just gone through a difficult pregnancy with my second daughter, and had suffered liver failure. I had come very close to death and now had a newborn whom I needed to care for, in addition to a 5 ½ year old and a husband who needed me. When I called Weschler it was to find out whether there was any chance that Hockney would ever see Billy's portrait, because Hockney had already written a letter to Gary Vikan and Brother Rene saying that he would love to do so but hadn't said when. That's pretty simple. Where it does get a tad complicated is that, when I talked to Weschler that prompted him to be interested and to invite Billy to call him. Since I was the deliverer of that message to Billy, that makes me complicit in the plot to some degree, but I wouldn't overstate this or question my integrity about it. I've thought about it a great deal, and I don't see many other ways around this one.

NF: One of my biggest questions, after having seen the movie, is: what's up with "Dr. Lifestyle?" I get that he helped fund Billy's project, but I'm not really sure why!

JC: Because we wanted to keep the film at about 80 minutes, we ended up cutting a good deal of the back story of the relationship between Billy and Larry. We wanted the focus to be on Billy and his quest. Had I gotten to write the book Waiting for Hockney I would have explored in greater depth the very complicated personal relationship between the two---Billy's utter reliance on Larry's approval and Larry's desire to have someone he could mold and shape-but that was not to be . The key point to take away, I think, is that Larry and Billy had an agreement. A business agreement. They were partners in a caper of sorts. Larry was the Henry Higgins to Billy's Eliza in that Larry wished to bring Billy up in the world, but Larry invested financially in the portrait---and in Billy---because he believed he would get a tremendous return on that investment.

NF: I remember when the portrait that Billy had been working on for eight years was finally revealed, that I was a bit under whelmed. But later, when we get to see it closer and closer, we can appreciate all the detail that went into it. Was it difficult to find the appropriate time to edit in the portrait within the framework of the film? It's kind of a show-stopper.

JC: The reveal is intended as a show-stopper. I wanted you to experience what everyone seeing the portrait experiences: a complex set of reactions leading, at last to a judgment. I had a similar reaction to the portrait when I first saw it in the Pappas's kitchen after a full year of immersing myself in the story and choosing to delay the viewing. At a distance the raw and unframed portrait's gestalt is powerful but cannot possibly convey the extraordinary detail. The Marilyn one sees at arm's length is hard to look at. Geralyn White Dreyfous has said that not only is the original Avedon photograph one of Marilyn in a moment of contemplation and even quiet despair (this was just after she had had a miscarriage) but that Billy's portrait of Marilyn looks like an even more worn-down, working class Marilyn who might have spent her life as a waitress. It's a tired Marilyn, a worn Marilyn. But up close, there's no denying this portrait is a miracle of detail. And the obvious place to show it is, of course, the moment at which Hockney is seeing it inside his own house. At that point the viewer is meant to be the proxy for Hockney---getting to decide for him or herself what effect the portrait has----after all the build-up that precedes the unveiling.

NF: How upsetting was it to be working on this film for so long, only to be unable to show the meeting with Hockney? I wonder if perhaps the film might be better for it because we get to see Billy's reaction before later finding out the truth.

JC: The best thing that ever happened to this film was that Hockney remains off-stage. Metaphorically and philosophically, though we didn't plan it this way, it's as it should be. When a man has his audience with God---when Moses saw the burning bush---no one was there to film it. Meeting God or one's own god is a personal and isolated moment. And what one takes away from that meeting is one's alone. Even though Charlie Scheips may attempt to puncture what happened that day, for Billy, he was validated by Hockney. Though he chose not to say it on camera---for a variety of reasons---he has told me that Hockney's reaction was precisely what he wanted. Billy's goal, Billy has said, was to find out if what he had done was indeed "unprecedented." Billy got that from Hockney.

NF: Was there any thought to this being a short film or did you know as soon as you met Billy that his story had to be a feature?

JC: Never was this to be a short film. It needed to move swiftly in the first half and slow down in the second half in order to mirror the manic energy of Billy and his team when they set out and then the slow and powerful realizations that Billy begins to have as the film moves on. But what I was aiming for was a reasonable recreation (without making the film last 10 years) of the frustrating and existential waiting for Billy that Billy had while waiting for Hockney.

NF: Do you have any updates about where Billy Pappas is now? Is he working on anything else?

JC: Billy came to the premiere with bells on and his whole family in tow. He's thrilled to have a chance to show the portrait, really, for the first time to the public, and is hopeful that 1) he will find a buyer for Marilyn and 2) that he will receive additional commissions. Both hopes are not only possible, they're in the works. I think this will open some doors for Billy, just not maybe yield precisely the immediate fortune he may be expecting but more and different opportunities that are far more valuable and ultimately more lucrative and emotionally rich, as well, in the long term.

NF: Last question: what are some of your favorite films (either documentary or feature)?

JC: Spinal Tap. Best in Show. Anything that plays with the line between fiction and non-fiction, that acknowledges how close in our culture these two things are. We are becoming realer than real now. And on the other end of the spectrum, my favorite film of all time is the sentimental Capra flick, It's a Wonderful Life. I'm a sucker for the coming of age story, the story in which a character can discover, by dint of happenstance, that his or her understanding in the world is in need of adjustment. Like my brother, with whom I made the film, I'm also a tremendous fan of Being There and all films about individuals who move through the world without ever having their innocence punctured at all, characters whose naivete point out the sin of cynicism that is the other side of the sin of sentimentality.

May 7, 2008

- Noah Forrest