Director Jerry Aronson on Tom Needham's The Sounds of Film

Tom Needham interviews Director Jerry Aronson about his documentary "Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg." Aronson shares how he met Ginsberg during the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention and their subsequent friendship. Aronson also discusses his journey as a filmmaker and his decision to make a documentary about Ginsberg's life. Hi, this is Tom Needham and you are listening to the sounds of film and boy I am very excited to have on the phone with us today Director Jerry Aronson the director of the incredible documentary life and times of Allen Ginsberg Jerry is an award-winning filmmaker he's also producer film professor Photographer he's done it all but this film life and times of Allen Ginsberg is Is a film that has many lives that it was originally out in 1994, I believe and there's a special to DVD set out now that has over six hours of extra bonus footage, which Terry's going to tell us about teaching some very prominent people Who wanted to say some things about Allen Ginsberg, Jerry. Thank you so much for coming on the sounds of film today No, my pleasure, thank you. Yeah, so I saw this film many years ago and I just rewatched it I forgot how amazing the movie is For our listeners who maybe haven't seen it yet Can you can you tell us the story a little bit about how you came to make this film because you really had Unparalleled access and it's quite an amazing documentary Well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it was it was extraordinary how many things happen sort of Randomly in a way and yet they were meant to happen I mean, I I couldn't even imagine how this would come together But it did but the first part of the story I guess would be how I met Alan So I was going to graduate school in Chicago in 1968 taking photography and filmmaking really excited to be there and I Heard it's actually it started school in 67. And so it was 68 And I heard about this convention downtown Democratic 68 convention and I wasn't very political at the time I was just pretty young and doing my photography and happy and you know being it, you know, basically a very young person All right. I've heard about this convention and I thought I mean it's called photograph because why not, you know So I went down there to Grand Park downtown Chicago and Didn't realize what I was going to be walking into and it was like basically a riot In a sense of and not a funny right a seriously horrible, right? They were I walked in to a tear gas. I walked into They look like students to me, but mostly young people under there, you know, 25 or whatever running around being chased by officers With clubs and no badges on so you couldn't identify them. It was it was chaos And I thought oh god, whatever I got myself into here. I just wanted to take some pictures. So I did I started taking a lot of photos of The situation and I got some really interesting pictures out of it, but then at a certain point. I Had a changed film because it was still photographed and was 35 millimeter film wasn't digital Hadn't been invented yet. And I decided to bend down to change film had no choice really So I was bending down changing film and at that point I Felt this incredible sort of back of my neck hair tingling. Oh, something's happening And I had no idea what it was and so I looked up and I saw a police officer with a club over my head And I thought oh my god This is not good. Not good And I was like, I think 21 and I thought I don't want to die and I was just kind of panicked and at that moment, this is true There's this weird sound at least weird to me that came through the crowd and it was oh And it wasn't just one voice it was hundreds of voices and I'm like what you know and at that point I Looked up and the policeman looked as confused as I did. And so I figured well, I have one choice here and that's to run So I picked up my camera Unloaded and ran and I ran towards the ohm figured why not? You know, so when I got there, I looked back at the policeman. Um, I was faster He was kind of heavy set fellow and I wasn't I could run faster He started to chase me and then somebody tripped him and that was the end of that one So I'm running towards the ohm and I get to this like crowd of like 500 people and sitting sitting in the grass Surrounding somebody and they're surrounded by about maybe two or three hundred police officers Not knowing what to do either. This was a completely Nonviolent moment of mellow sound That again, I didn't know what it was, but it relaxed everybody and it was kind of relaxing me So I worked my way through the crowd and got to the fellow in the center and it was a bearded guy I had no idea who it was And I walked up to him and I said Hi, who are you? And he said Allen Ginsberg. Who are you? I said Jerry Aronson. He said, okay He looked at me like yes What you like and I didn't know what to say exactly and I said boy I kind of I just wanted to thank you for saving my head I guess for maybe saving my wife and he looked at me and he said, oh, well, you're welcome And I thought to myself wow, this guy is really cool So I said, well, thanks again, and I walked away and I said to myself Lucy Allen Ginsberg. I have to look that one up and Anyway, so that was how I met Alan, you know Being that story and how did that lead to? like you eventually Having his trust to make this documentary Good question. Well, yeah, okay. Well, first of all, I Was finishing up in Chicago with what I was doing and I started to teach high school on the south side I taught photography for two or three years. It was really wonderful. Great kids were turning out great photographs. It's wonderful, wonderful, I was never going to leave and At the same time was working on another film on Native Americans called the divided trail Which I was trying to finish up Native Americans in in the city of Chicago and what they were going through and I Just found myself being drawn to interesting films and I realized I was going to be if I was gonna be a filmmaker was gonna be a documentary filmmaker because I just found You know real subjects to be so much more fashion. It's fascinating for me fascinating for me then You know fiction. I just I I couldn't write scripts, but I could definitely take photos and film what was happening around me So I was there like two or three years and I don't know what exactly triggered it Except that I decided I had to leave Chicago and travel a bit. So I you know left the school and kind of I was 23 or four at that point and Decided I would drive through Boulder on the way to LA because don't all filmmakers go to LA, right? That was my logic at the time anyway So I did and I was so I stopped in Boulder because I heard it was really fun and cool and hip and all those things Somebody at that time went watch, you know, so I I did and I met some people who were CU students University Colorado students and I also met Excuse me a man who was in charge of the film program at the University at the time. There was no production It was just critical studies. Excuse me It was just critical studies and I'm a little hoarse I apologize and His name is Virgil below and He invited me to meet his wife and have dinner and we chatted a while and I had some really short films That I showed him and I said I'm working on this Native American film about Chicago and he said well you want to I'll get you the editing equipment here and you can hang out at the university for a year and all you can edit the film Here and I thought that was a fantastic offer and I said what I have to give you in return and he said well It would be great to start a production program here, but we can't do it yet But you could have students come in and check out what you're doing How you're editing what your thoughts are as you'd make a film. So I thought that was a fair trade So we did it and a year later. I was hired on to be their first production Faculty member, which was really fun So I thought well, I guess I'm gonna stay in Boulder for a while. So it turns out at the same time completely randomly, of course Allen Ginsberg Met Allen's in New York with his dad who's in the film and the two of them are together at a waiting for a cab and In the cab is this fellow named champion from Rampage a Who this is completely random for Alan to Alan had gone to India for years looking for a guru To just learn from and he had not found the person he wanted and here he and his father at a cab meet a Tibetan Buddhist monk from Tibet who had come through the whole Chinese invasion survived went to Oxford in England and then came to Boulder to start Some kind of you know situation for people to learn Tibetan Buddhism so Alan met his teacher in New York with his father and Rupert Shea asked him if he'd want to come to Boulder So Alan said to do what and Rupert Shea said to teach poetry at my new school called Naropa This is happening at the same time and I had no idea. Yeah So Alan's in Boulder. I'm in Boulder and I thought to myself, you know I and I just still didn't know he was there and I thought to myself About what happened in Chicago and I thought you know, I have to repay this man somehow Maybe ultimately I can make a film about his life and I'm thinking this, you know way before it even started But just it was a thought that maybe this could happen so then one day I Hear about Naropa and they're having poets coming to visit from all over the country And I went to hear a poetry meeting and there was Alan And now by this point, I knew who he was, you know So I went up and talked to him and I said hi You don't remember me, but I remember you and I told him the story really briefly and we chatted a while and um I not became really friends, but I would see him every now and then and this finally led up to Alan decided to have a big party in Boulder in 1982 or three for the 25th anniversary of the Jack Kerouac publication of on the road and he invited as he put it every hippie hippie seat and Poet and anyone who wants to come and this was this amazing parties that turned out and I went to it and there were Two feature films both three feature films documentaries being made at that moment Two about Jack Kerouac and one about William Burroughs and I thought wow Why is there not being one made by Alan? And you know, I thought this would be the interesting. Why not? You know, so I walked up and I said Alan, can I make a film about your life? and he said I Didn't know anything about my Native American film, which actually had gone on to be nominated for an Oscar Which blew my mind or whatever. And so yes, I consider myself a filmmaker and he said are you a filmmaker? Yeah, and I said, well, yeah sure. Yeah, I am and he said, okay, let's sign a contract and at that moment The lawyer lawyers left in my brain and he said no no, no, you'll see and then he's everything he signed on those days This was an Indian ink pen. So it'd be permanent forever So you pull that from this pack? He pulled out a piece of paper and he said I found this I have it He said Allen Ginsberg gives Jerry Aronson the right to make a film about his life Right Allen Ginsberg. That's amazing That's incredible And you look a perfect Ginsburg concert. Yeah, that that is incredible In this film. I have to really recommend to people if you haven't seen this movie life in times of Allen Ginsberg I can't believe that's how it started because because The footage that you end up getting in this movie is unbelievable the access as I mentioned earlier One of the things that I really like near the beginning of the film you go through all the decades and you give a really nice Explanation of how Allen's family was a tremendous influence on his life good and bad You talk about His relationship with his mother which is fascinating she suffered from Mental illness, but but they were very close and she was a special person in his life Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what you learned about his mom? Well, yeah, his mom Naomi Was eventually, you know, I guess she was diagnosed being both manic depressive and schizophrenic and She was married to his father Louie and They had two sons together Allen and his older brother Eugene but she had real issues and didn't really not handle a lot of things I guess and there's a Mental hospital in New York called Greystone, which is the mental hospital, I guess and she was in and out of it for years and There's a section in the film where Allen goes to visit her at the age of 13 in the hospital and Then this was her. I think the first actual hospitalization and she and she was just there and Allen and Eugene were staying in a neighbor's house basically because there was no other place to put them right then and Louie was helping out and he was he was a high school teacher his dad dad who was also he was also a poet Anyway, Allen went there at 13 and It's really intense because you know in the film he talks about it and he had photos that him visiting her and it's like really extraordinarily moving because out of his visit Ten years later comes the poem cottage, which is really about Naomi's passing But also about her whole life and how it affected him and it did affect him deeply obviously So he talks about being 13 and how Naomi's saying to him take me home Ellen take me home and Ellen said I'm 13 I I don't even know what to say. I couldn't even take anybody home let alone her you know, and it's I Then the photo which is in the film as I said, the photo is just the two of them He has his arm around her and he he looks 13 years old like a little boy confused And she's just staring at the camera looking but no expression whatsoever Because it sums up the whole Situation I think so that was that was that that's it. Really. I mean it went on for a long time until she passed away in 1957 or eight or something that effect I think she was in her 60s She was mostly in her mostly in Greystone the whole time and she had a frontal lobotomy Finally, that was the time how they cured things and He talks about that in the poem too. It's Yeah, very pretty intense stuff actually and you mentioned that he also had a close relationship with his dad Who you said it was a teacher. He was a poet as well and A very different kind of poet which you go into in the movie Yeah, it was interesting because um, he actually Louis taught poetry at the high school Taught English and poetry and he also published books But he was kind of a classic poet and he and Alan and Alan was not a classic poet And so they would they would have lots of arguments, you know father-son arguments But you know and there's another person here that gets involved So Louie and Naomi finally had got divorced I guess or separated or whatever, but their marriage ended Because Louie was really couldn't handle any of this he was really depressed apparently And then he met the new lady named Edith Edith they got married and Edith Ginsburg and she becomes kind of for me the kind of the angel of the film This is like two people that would go through the whole film non-stop. One is Alan and the second one is Edith I went to interview her and I had no idea. She was a stepmother at this point and Alan was about 22 3 when Louie remarried and Edith became his stepmother And um, I didn't really know I didn't know a lot of things honestly making the film I discovered them while interviewing people which for me is kind of the best way to be I would Do a little preparation to know that it was the name person of the name and whatever the relationship to Alan was But I never wanted to do a lot of research I wanted to let the person and I and I just like to have conversations and let them go where they may Discovered years ago that I would bring a list of questions that after question two or three it was over I would never be calling the list Because people take you in the direction they want and if I try to force them back to my list It becomes a really bad interview. So Anyway, I film at the time was very expensive. I was shooting film each row was 400 feet long which meant 12 minutes per row limit and I had a really good camera person with me and a really good sound person And I had one production assistant and that was my whole crew myself and three other people And so we went to use house and I had bought for this whole trip to New York because I was going to interview interview Eugene Alan's brother and His aunt Hannah and they're all in the film, but I was gonna do that at this one trip And the first person I decided interview was Edith well, we started I think around 1 in the afternoon and We ended when I ran out of the ten rolls of film that I had I Mean this lady was fantastic and we had such a great rapport It was it was extraordinary on every level and she was extraordinary at every level ultimately everybody passes away as we all do but he just lived to be 99 and Kept and totally Together in every way. No memory issues. Nothing. I interviewed her. I think she was probably I'm guessing now in her late 60s early 70s Just lovely and I'm sure you saw her in the film because she was there all the way through There's some people who can get confused that that's Alan's mother. But no, that's his stepmother But she's the one who really I think helped him in so many ways deal with so many of his own personal crises Just because she was so understanding and so lovely, you know And to me, she's a hero a heroine of the film, you know Well, it's funny you talk about how to do an interview to people who are featured throughout the film Who had TV shows and it just reminded me of how different TV used to be Our William Buckley and Dick Cavett, and I really enjoyed those clips You know it reminded me that like people back then, you know on mainstream shows Would you know, sometimes people who were from different political backgrounds would get together and have conversations? People would talk about serious topics people would read poetry Or do music and it's just something you don't really see anymore today that that footage was extraordinary Yeah, I was really lucky again So, okay, I heard about Alan told me about his interview on the Buckley show And I had never seen it So I decided I had to go find it so discovered that all of Williams shows the show was called firing line Yeah, and he had he was conservative, but he was a conservative of the time which is not a conservative today He was smart rational Basis conservatism on what he believed and it was it was always I found him fun to listen to you know, and He had many people liked it like Alan on just for got counterpoint, you know, and firing line was a good title for the show. So I discovered that the Williams archive was at Yale University So I was in New York for the film and I decided I zipped up to Yale and I asked for the tape and Everything at the time was the earliest videotape was for TV at the time was two-inch videotapes these monster Seven pound tapes for an hour that were really really heavy and big and had to be two inches for broadcast so Yale had An archive they said of about 50 of those tapes at that point And I said, well great, let's let's look so they said sure so we went it's a turnout you're supposed to store tapes Really carefully, so they don't degrade like, you know at a certain temperature and a low humidity and so on and so on So we've been into the closet where their archive was and I'm not putting down, you know, you know universities and nobody knew really at the time and There were these tapes stacked from floor to ceiling Upside down right side up. It was ridiculous actually and then the room was like it felt like was 80 degrees and it felt really Humid. Oh goodness So it turned out the tapes that I the tape I wanted was a very top because it was an early tape Which made it even worse in my mind. And so we climbed to the top. We got the tape down. I said to him Okay, so if I open this tape now, which hasn't been open since This show was aired which is like 10 years This is you can start to see so what happens is when I age this is VHS as many tapes the glue holding the oxide onto the tape that Captures the image the glue starts to dry and the oxides fall off until you have nothing left Okay, which especially no image gone. So I thought and it's been happening. It was happening already of all around TV land, you know in New York LA wherever people were discovering quickly. Oh goodness We have looked this film lasts much longer film is so much better medium So we opened the tape and it was crumbling. I pulled it up and you can see the oxides falling off, you know Okay. So again, here's this random thing before I went there I heard about a week earlier from a guy in New York about a guy about a guy in New York And I called him and he said yeah, I've discovered that if I put these tapes in an oven for 23 minutes or something at 225 degrees the glue on the tape starts to soften and the oxides have to reattach themselves and Then I cool it down very carefully And then I transferred to the newest tape which at the time was one inch tape and I thought to myself Okay, let's see what happens so I told the guys at Yale about the story and I said so you got to trust me Give me this bad broken tape, which I'm not going to steal. I'll take it back to New York I'll get it put through the process and let's see what happens. They say great. So we did it and It worked okay. I mean if you look carefully when you're watching the film, there's a few little black specks here and there but nothing serious It's doable and it worked so there you have the so I brought it all back to Yale and I said Just a word of advice. I would suggest here's this fellow's number if you want this archive to be Exist in about a year or less. I would do this immediately and they did Oh, wow, they say so they saved the Buckley archive because of that, too So those are the kinds of things that just kept happening. It was like kind of everything was a miracle in a way I thought of it. Yeah, whoever think that like an Allen Ginsberg Documentary would lead to William Buckley's Entirely catalog being saved. Yeah, this is one of many many stories Yeah, but yeah, so did and and there I have it now a cabins show. It's a little bit newer and his tapes were fine and again the way the beginning film The way the film begins if you noticed and remember probably is, you know, I intercut Starting off to introduce Alan. I figured I'll do a little bit of Buckley Yeah with one side of introduction and I'll do a little bit of Cabot So Cabot loved Alan and William. Well, they're alien I found out later Alan William actually were friends, but that doesn't mean they could not have fun sparring with each other Yeah, and that's what they did. So I just cut back and forth between like three cuts of William saying Kind of nasty things about Alan and three cuts of but you know That's a cab and saying kind of nice things about Alan I thought this would show the two sides about Alan and let's move on but it was really a fun to do and the other thing that happened with the Bucky show if you remember was Liam had Alan read a poem. Yeah that Alan had written under the influence of as he put it influence of LSD And I believe this is repeats that us under the influence Analysis Yes, and it's just called Wales visitation and he reads it on the air for almost like five minutes It was a I think it I think it was on PBS William at the time. There's no commercials he reads this poem unbroken for about four minutes and William really likes it and smiling all the time and um, and then you know, they go into their political discussions and William, you know, it's naive and whatever whatever but um It ends which was extraordinary to me was Alan said, you know, why don't I just play a song for you and William goes, okay and Alan picks up his harmonium famous little harmonium and Sings, Hare Krishna over and over and he's trying looks like he's trying to Harry Krishna. Will you make a submission? That was an amazing moment. I just couldn't even believe that existed I know and then to see William smile. Yeah. Yeah, it's just a real smile Like it worked, you know That was it's incredible. We're speaking with Jerry Aronson and we're talking about the life and times of Allen Ginsberg and man There is so much I wanted to talk to you about and I think we may be running out of time But but I want to mention that. Oh my god, really? Okay. Yeah, but I mean I can go on a little bit longer if you'd like Okay, let's go a little bit longer One of the things that's extraordinary which some people may know already, but but I have a feeling some of our listeners don't it's just the the breadth of people that he crossed paths with in his lifetime and The number of people that he influenced later on He was sort of like a Forrest Gump figure in the sense that like I mean He ended up being with people like William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac And you know all of the beat writers and so forth but but then he ended up like being with Dylan and the Beatles and I mean the list goes on and on and You mentioned a lot of these different people in the film It's extraordinary And then as I said in this bonus footage that you have there's so many other people that have stories about Ginsberg as well Like how did that happen? Why was he someone that was able to just kind of end up in the right place with all these incredibly? Influential people and he was influential too and affected other people at the same time. I mean it was extraordinary Well, here's a perfect example of that actually When the Beatles broke up So Alan had met Dylan and Dylan loved Alan's poetry and Dylan really considered Alan a friend And so Dylan went to England to in 1965 and the film don't look back was made about Bob's trip his first trip to England and Alan went with him or met him there or something, but they were there together off and on and Dylan introduced Alan to the Beatles. That's how he met the Beatles Through Bob and this is Bob did his concert at Albert Hall and Alan was there for that and So they became pretty good friends and then through Bob as I said, he met Paul and John so on and so on When when John and Yoko moved to New York and And Paul was also ultimately in New York at times off and on There was only one per and then there was some you know, it wasn't I don't know I can't I don't understand totally what was going on with the Beatles but I understood from both Yoko and from Paul that the only person who could Talk to both of them as friends back and forth and no problem was Alan For what that's worth, you know, and so when Alan passed away He made a bunch of phone calls in 1997, he made a bunch of phone calls to all these people he knew and His calls were I'm dying. He had liver cancer. I'm dying. I'm gonna long. I'm gonna live Is there any I can give you anything you want? and he called me about 30 or 40 people or more, you know friends and acquaintances and When he passed away I asked his people if they could give me that list and they did and then I just started calling people If they wanted to be interviewed, so let me give you some of the names of people There's just there's so many I won't do them all but ones that kind of stand out for me. It's really interesting interviews They're alphabetical. You ready? Yeah, ready Okay, Joan Baez Beck Bono Johnny Depp Laurence Ferlinghetti Philip Glass Abby Hoffman Ken Kesey Timothy Leary Paul McCartney Yoko Ono I'm not done yet. Patti Smith Hunter S Thompson and Waltman Andy Warhol And there's more but you get the idea and I had the honor of interviewing these people who I never could have interviewed except by mentioning the fact I'm doing kind of a tribute DVD to Alan because the film was finished and I needed to It was going to be distributed as a DVD and there was so many things I couldn't put in the film I wanted to keep it at a reasonable length 85 minutes But I had hours of all these other people and I thought why not? So this DVD is six hours of extras amazing and After speaking to all these people Why do you feel? That that's so many of these important figures Were willing to come forward because they're asked to do documentaries all the time Why was Alan such an important figure to them that they were willing to do this? I? Think it's probably because I'm guessing here that it's the same reasons. I thought he was an amazing person It's because he was he was um He was a really good poet number one and but he was really honest and true about everything He was nonviolent and he would talk to people about whatever they wanted to talk to and he was a friend He was a true one of those people, you know, he's my friend I mean everyone talks about that in different ways about how Alan was somebody they admired and that he was a friend and I guess part of it too is he was never a groupie. He would never like, you know, it was genuine And and he is genuine or it was I'm sorry. Well, he isn't like I'm so excited that you know No one has ever made another film about him. I don't know why so this is the only film about Alan and I'm so Excited that it's it's my film about this person. I think is somebody I really admire and trust and I just found this little clip Ellen wrote me a personal note about the film before the film was made and I have another story after that if we have time But yeah, it says, okay Is this he wrote it in the book of his first hardcover book of his poetry from 1980 to 19 I think 90. I'm not sure the date. It's the first read book. Let me see. It's collected bones Sorry for 1947 to 1980 and he gave me a copy and inside he wrote dear jury Here's complete poetry's beginning to end as of 1980. I Thought best to be simple in construction Straight chronology since the poems themselves are already a semi collage And here's me. This is funny. I hope your film. Mm-hmm. I hope your film doesn't get tangled in ideas It can be straightforward chronology if that's possible Happy New Year, Ellen Misberg, excuse me Yes, I thought to myself oh he's directing me now But that was before I was even editing really and I thought Then when I got down to it all these hours of footage I went. Oh my god How am I going to do this and it also realized he was right chronology by the decades The 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s because it made the most sense He was just such an amazing story to tell in such a short time. So that's that worked, you know I think it worked so it absolutely does and I want to once again highly recommend if you haven't seen it yet You have to go out and see life in times of Allen Ginsberg There's a to DVD set collection deluxe edition and it has over six hours of extra bonus material Which Terry was just describing and and I believe also the film is going to be available on streaming services as well. Is that true? Yeah, it's right now. It's available as of excuse me as of the 24th, it's available on Apple and on Prime video as a Pay-per-view well Jerry I want to thank you for sharing all these stories and I have a feeling we could probably go another three hours But I'd love to just give you an open invitation to come back on and we can talk some more Maybe exclusively about some of those bonus material because it's pretty fascinating that the list of people Very few people can get all those notable You know innovators to come on and and talk for a documentary the way you did so it's really a testament to you to Alan and His life and his work Jerry I want to thank you so much. Once again, the name of the film is life in times of Allen Ginsberg and Jerry, do you have a website or anything like that that you'd like to direct people to? Yeah, I do. Actually. It's a Ginsberg movie Dot-com perfect. Okay, Jerry. Thank you so much. It was really a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you When you finish recording, okay. Okay. Thanks