Hartley, Hal 1959-

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HARTLEY, Hal 1959-

PERSONAL:

Born November 3, 1959, in Islip, NY; son of an ironworker; married Miho Nikaido (an actress). Education: Attended Massachusetts College of Art, 1977-78; graduated (with honors) State University of New York—Purchase, 1984.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Office—Possible Films, Inc., 302A West 12 St., Box 334, New York, NY 10014. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Worked as ironworker, electrical grip, and freelance production assistant; production assistant for Action Productions; writer and director of motion pictures.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Prize from Houston Film Festival, and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, Sundance Film Festival, both 1991, for Trust; prize from Deauville Film Festival; best screenplay award, Cannes Film Festival, 1997, for Henry Fool.

WRITINGS:

SCREENPLAYS, EXCEPT WHERE INDICATED; AND DIRECTOR

The Unbelievable Truth (also see below), Miramax, 1989.

Trust (also see below), Fine Line Features, 1991, included in Simple Men and Trust, Faber, 1993.

Surviving Desire (for television), Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), 1992.

Simple Men (also see below), Fine Line Features, 1992, included in Simple Men and Trust, Faber and Faber (London, England), 1993.

Amateur, True Fiction Pictures, 1994, Faber and Faber (London, England), 1994.

Flirt, True Fiction Pictures, 1995, Faber and Faber (London, England), 1996.

Henry Fool, True Fiction Pictures, 1997.

Soon (play), produced in Salzburg, Austria, 1998, produced in Costa Mesa, CA, at Orange County Performing Arts Center, 2001.

The Book of Life, True Fiction Pictures, 1998, Faber and Faber (London, England), 1998.

No Such Thing, True Fiction Pictures, 2001.

Hal Hartley: Collected Screenplays, Volume 1 (contains The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, and Simple Men), Faber and Faber (London, England), 2002.

Writer and director of short films, including Surviving Desire, Kid, Dogs, Theory of Achievement, Ambition, NYC 3/94, Kimono, and The Cartographer's Girlfriend.

Contributor of short films to Alive from Off Center for PBS.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Girl from Monday.

SIDELIGHTS:

Hal Hartley is an independent American filmmaker whose work is distinguished by an offbeat, humorous perspective. "In less than a decade," wrote Justin Wyatt in Film Quarterly, "Hal Hartley has emerged as one of the most distinctive voices within the amorphous category of the commercial American independent cinema. The Hartley features… are marked by self-conscious narrational devices and wonderfully understated performances serving a narrative meshing the everyday with outrageous and extraordinary acts. The result is most often a twisted and darkly comic view of the foibles of the American middle class in the late twentieth century."

Hartley became interested in film while a student at the Massachusetts College of Art. Wanting to make his own movies, he left Massachusetts and studied filmmaking at the State University of New York—Purchase, from which he eventually graduated with distinction. With little prospect of finding work with a major studio, Hartley borrowed several thousand dollars from a bank, persuaded a friend to do likewise, and then convinced several other friends, relatives, and acquaintances—including ex-classmates—to donate their time and talent during a hectic two weeks of filming in the Lindenhurst, New York, neighborhood where he grew up.

The result of Hartley's efforts was The Unbelievable Truth, a comedy which he wrote and directed. In the feature, a young man returns home after a prison stint and finds work as an auto mechanic. He eventually falls in love with his boss's daughter, a high-school student who is obsessed with the nuclear holocaust but nonetheless determined to realize a modeling career in New York City. In the Los Angeles Times, Kevin Thomas conceded that The Unbelievable Truth is "deceptively slight on the surface," but affirmed that it is nonetheless "an antic romantic comedy" that "actually gets somewhere." Caryn James likewise acknowledged in the New York Times that The Unbelievable Truth "is the kind of small-scale independent movie with a familiar story behind it," but she contended that the film, despite its familiar premise, realizes "an archness and shrewd pessimism that seem to reinvent 1950s cool in the face of contemporary culture." She described The Unbelievable Truth as a "droll, lucid black comedy."

With The Unbelievable Truth, Hartley had worked hard not only during the actual filmmaking but afterward as well, as he tried to obtain distribution for the work. He gained a distributor only after The Unbelievable Truth proved a surprising favorite at the Toronto Film Festival. After the film was released to generally favorable reviews, he managed to secure a more sizeable budget—slightly more than half a million dollars—for a following work.

Trust, Hartley's second film, is another tale of unlikely romance. Here a teenage girl discloses her pregnancy to her father, who almost immediately thereafter suffers a heart attack and dies. Abandoned by her boyfriend, who is more interested in football, the heroine befriends a somewhat older factory worker who is so suffused with rage and suspicion that he has armed himself with a grenade. Both lead characters are the products of domestic dysfunction, and both are considerably unhappy with their various predicaments. The heroine, however, believes that their affinity for each other constitutes true love, and she endeavors to prove as much to the unhappy hero.

With Trust, Hartley won further praise from critics in leading publications. James in the New York Times, for instance, noted the film's "droll and distinctive manner" and observed that "Hartley's characters look realistic, act cockeyed and turn out to be just right." She also wrote that the film is "richly detailed." In the Washington Post, Hal Hinson deemed Trust "dark and yet boldly, brightly colored, talky yet filled with glowering silences." Hinson paired Trust with The Unbelievable Truth as "cool, strikingly original case studies of middle-class anomie," and he described Hartley as a filmmaker with a "sure, distinctive voice."

Hartley also wrote and directed Simple Men, in which two brothers—a thief and a student—team up to search Long Island for their long-gone father. In the course of their quest, the brothers encounter a variety of individuals, including a melancholy biker and a cantankerous nun. Vincent Canby, in his New York Times review, remarked that these characters "have a wit, a humor and a spontaneity that completely belie their deadpan expressions and their parroting of cliches." He also noted similarities between Simple Men and the movies of French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, adding that Hartley's film "looks very handsome."

Unlike many filmmakers who began as independent artists but ended up sacrificing their autonomy to work in the lucrative Hollywood mainstream, Hartley is concerned with maintaining his creative control. Regarding his creative control, he told Rita Kempley in the Washington Post, "I can't imagine working without it." Steve Weinstein wrote in the Los Angeles Times that Hartley conceded, "My films are too idiosyncratic to bank a lot of money on. I understand that."

Hartley continued to explore the possibilities of film. His 1994 production, Amateur, a vehicle for actress Isabel Huppert, is a melodrama about an amnesia victim who gradually realizes that she has been responsible for some considerably malevolent actions. And his 1996 production, Flirt, is a trice-told love (infidelity) story that takes place in three different countries, with three different love triangles being depicted. Nation reviewer Stuart Klawans likened Flirt to a puzzle and found it gratifying for its avant-garde qualities, if not its plot.

Hartley's Henry Fool, the 1997 winner of the best screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival, is more broad in scope than his previous works. In it Hartley portrays Henry Fool, a voluble, portly convict released from prison, and Simon Grim, a skeletal tongue-tied garbage man who wants people to know that he is intelligent. As the plot unfolds, Henry takes up residence in the same house as Simon. Henry aspires to write a world-renowned memoir and gives Simon a notebook, prompting him to write too. In the end, the two protagonists switch places, with Simon winning the Nobel Prize for a poem. The film perplexed reviewers. "If all this stuff occurred in a newcomer's film, it could be dismissed as a wearisome attempt to be an enfant terrible," wrote Stanley Kauffmann in New Republic. "But Hartley's first three films showed a jeweler's eye and the ear of a poetic anatomist; and these gifts are not completely missing from Henry Fool. So Hartley Past makes us wonder what Hartley Present is up to." Kauffmann continued, "He knows as well as we do that this new screenplay is nonsense and that some of his sequences are aggressively disgusting. But why? We keep trying to peer around the edge of the film, to see why it exists. The mystery remains." While to some the film might appear to be boring, Nation reviewer Klawans suggested that "viewers with a little more patience may discover that Hartley's mannered style actually does Henry full justice. The blanks (whether in time or in the actors' expressions) are like spaces that allow sounds to resonate, both high and low. In the upper register, you hear notes of fantasy, including inventions that magically redeem both Henry and Simon. The lower register vibrates with realism—harsh, complete and therefore all the more unexpected." James Greenberg appreciated the film's dissection of "the loopy rhythms of life in the '90s" in his Los Angeles Magazine review. "Around the edges, [Hartley] is able to comment on political fanaticism, fame and the Internet. Having captured the disorder of everyday life, the film unfortunately tips into melodrama and attempts to tie up all the loose ends. Better not to give order to these delightfully idiosyncratic lives," Greenburg concluded.

During the late 1990s, Hartley's reputation took a down turn, yet he persevered in putting his vision on film. He followed Henry Fool with The Book of Life,in which the filmmaker explores the world of computers. It features Jesus in a stylish suit, returning at the end of the millennium to administer the Apocalypse. Jesus talks to his Heavenly Father, expressing his feelings about his role, while the Henry Fool character returns to play Satan. In his 2001 film, No Such Thing, Hartley tells the tale of a female journalist who tracks down the reptilian Monster in Iceland and brings him to New York City for the expected media circus. In this film, "monster fable and social satire are mingled to mutual confusion and distress," American Prospect reviewer James Parker stated.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Prospect, May 20, 2002, James Parker, "What's in a Name?," pp. 26-27.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, GA), July 31, 1998, Eleanor Ringel, " Henry Fool Keeps Emotional Distance," p. P9.

Christian Science Monitor, June 12, 1998, " Henry Fool: American Film Favoritism or Worthy Picture?" p. B3; June 26, 1998, David Sterritt, review of Henry Fool, p. B2; July 10, 1998, David Sterritt, review of Henry Fool, p. B2; March 29, 2002, "A Hollywood Monster with International Flair," review of No Such Thing, p. 15.

Entertainment Weekly, May 5, 1995, Lisa Schwarzbaum, review of Amateur, p. 52; January 22, 1999, "Hartley Makes 'Fool' Gold," review of Henry Fool, p. 111.

Film Criticism, fall, 1999, David Andrews, "Poking Henry Fool with a Stick," review of Henry Fool, p. 1.

Film Journal International, April, 2002, Erica Abeel, review of No Such Thing, p. 36.

Film Quarterly, fall, 1998, Justin Wyatt, "The Particularity and Peculiarity of Hal Hartley," p. 2.

Harper's Bazaar, July, 1996, Elizabeth Pincus, review of Flirt, p. 56.

Houston Chronicle (Houston, TX), July 17, 1998, Louis B. Parks, "The Obscure and the Obvious Collide in Hal Hartley's Henry Fool, "p. 1.

Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, May 26, 1995, Desmond Ryan, review of Amateur, p. 526K6000.

Los Angeles Magazine, June, 1998, James Greenberg, review of Henry Fool, p. 105.

Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1990, Kevin Thomas, review of The Unbelievable Truth, p. 6; August 16, 1991, pp. F13-14; November 13, 1992, pp. F14-15; June 26, 1998, Kevin Thomas, "Fate, Friendship Intertwine in Darkly Funny Fool, "p. 6; November 2, 2001, Mike Boehm, "Hal Hartley Trades Irony for a Serious Look at Cults in His First Play," review of Soon, p. F31; November 3, 2001, Michael Phillips, "In His Seriocomic Soon, Hal Hartley Reexamines the 1993 Disaster in Waco, Texas, in a Series of Tightly Choreographed Tableaux," p. F2; March 29, 2002, Kevin Thomas, "Hartley's Fable in Defense of Monsters," review of No Such Thing, p. F8.

Nation, August 26, 1996, Stuart Klawans, review of Flirt, pp. 25-26; July 13, 1998, Stuart Klawans, review of Henry Fool, pp. 35-36.

National Review, August 3, 1998, John Simon, review of Henry Fool, pp. 55-56.

New Republic, April 24, 1995, Stanley Kauffmann, review of Amateur, p. 31; September 2, 1996, Stanley Kauffmann, review of Flirt, p. 24; July 13, 1998, Stanley Kauffmann, review of Henry Fool, p. 26.

New Yorker, April 17, 1995, Terrence Rafferty, review of Amateur, p. 110.

New York Times, July 20, 1990, p. C11; July 26, 1991, p. C16; October 11, 1992, p. B11, B20-21; October 14, 1992, Vincent Canby, review of Simple Men, p. C22; September 29, 1994, Caryn James, review of Amateur, p. C16; October 6, 1995, Stephen Holden, review of Flirt, p. C21; October 9, 1995, Stephen Holden, review of Flirt, p. B3(N); June 13, 1997, Stephen Holden, review of Flirt, p. D22; June 19, 1998, Janet Maslin, review of Henry Fool, p. E13; July 3, 1998, Stephen Holden, review of Henry Fool, p. E1; October 10, 1988, Stephen Holden, review of The Book of Life, p. B18; March 19, 1999, Stephen Holden, "Millenium May End with a Bang or Whimper," p. E29; January 8, 1999, Janet Maslin, review of Henry Fool, p. E33(W); March 29, 2002, Elvis Mitchell, "Yes, Someone for Everyone, Even Someone with Fangs," review of No Such Thing, p. E24.

Observer (London, England), January 29, 1995, review of Amateur, p. 20.

Premiere, August, 2002, Jason Clark, review of No Such Thing, pp. 79-80.

Rolling Stone, April 20, 1995, Peter Travers, review of Amateur, pp. 88-89.

San Francisco Chronicle, December 20, 1996, Mick LaSalle, "Film's Flirt Is One Long Tease," p. C8; July 1, 1998, Mick LaSalle, " Henry Fool Has Brains, Heart," p. E3.

Sight and Sound, February, 1994, Ben Thompson, reviews of Ambition, Surviving Desire, and Theory of Achievement, p. 64; March, 1997, Geoffrey Macnab, review of Flirt, pp. 47-48; November, 1998, Ryan Gilbey, "Pulling the Pin on Hartley," review of Henry Fool, pp. 8-9, Geoffrey Macnab, review of Henry Fool, pp. 53-54.

Spectator, January 14, 1995, Mark Steyn, review of Amateur, p. 36.

Times Literary Supplement, February 3, 1995, Richard Combs, review of Amateur, p. 18.

US Weekly, April 8, 2002, Andrew Johnston, "Monster Mash," review of No Such Thing, p. 84.

Variety, May 21, 2001, Derek Elley, review of No Such Thing, p. 22.

Wall Street Journal, April 13, 1995, Amy Gamerman, review of Amateur, p. A12.

Washington Post, August 4, 1990, p. 61; August 16, 1991, Hal Hinson, review of Trust, p. D1; July 24, 1998, Michael Colton, "Giving the Devil His Due," review of Henry Fool, p. B01, Michael O'Sullivan, "'Henry' Foolery from Hal Hartley," p. N37.