'Z Channel' on the Air

When Harvey took over in 1981, the Z Channel (which shut down in 1989) evolved into Los Angeles's must-see station, with a bevy of films for everyone, not just movie geeks. Z Channel showed silent films, foreign films, westerns, soft-core porn films, obscure cult flicks and B-movie pulp. And it was a pioneer of the director's cut film, bringing back many movies from the edited dead, including "1900," "The Leopard," "Heaven's Gate," "Once Upon a Time in America" and "The Wild Bunch."

Because it was watched by so many people in L.A., including significant numbers of members of the film academy, Z Channel was very influential. It was considered responsible for helping Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" win Best Picture in 1977 and for bringing James Woods a nomination for his performance in Oliver Stone's 1986 "Salvador."

The documentary shows some outstanding clips from more than 50 films. It also spends time with many actors, directors and critics who were helped directly or influenced by the channel, including actors Jacqueline Bisset, Woods and Theresa Russell; film critic F.X. Feeney; and directors Robert Altman, Jim Jarmusch, Alexander Payne, Quentin Tarantino and Paul Verhoeven.

One of the movie's out-there high points is Tarantino's gimlet-eyed rave about the onscreen sexuality of Laura Antonelli, whose body and work were often found in films on the Z Channel.

The Z Channel meant a lot personally to "Z Channel" director Cassavetes, who grew up in Los Angeles and watched it all the time. (Cassavetes, also a musician, happens to be the 39-year-old daughter of film indie pioneer John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands.) When she learned there was a genius behind Z and that he killed himself, she found out more about him and then decided to make the documentary.

"I think there's never been anything like Z," says Cassavetes, calling from Los Angeles. Harvey had "a very unsnobbish, unpretentious love of films and a desire to share those films with other people. And this was Hollywood movies, auteur films, cult, B-movies, soft-core porno films, westerns, everything."

As for Harvey's mental illness, she didn't try to psychoanalyze him or make a big deal of his macabre exit.

"If you look closely at any individual suffering from mental illness, you can't put any one person and their demons into one diagnosis or category," Cassavetes says. "Because of my personal relationship with Z Channel, I felt more at liberty to have my own take on Z. Jerry was a human being; I never tried to completely understand him. It wasn't a creative choice to break it down. I felt like it was important to let everyone who knew about him say what they had to say."

Harvey's family history, which included the suicide of a sister and emotionally dysfunctional parents, meant "this guy had a lot stacked against him from the beginning, personally as well as in the family," she continues. "But to me, it's a more of a miracle, when you look at every experience he went through, that he was able to rise above that and nurture filmmakers and give that respect to [Z Channel] audiences."

Cassavetes's "Z Channel" has done its tour of festivals and has had some theatrical showings in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. But these showings were made possible through special permission from various film studios; many of the excerpted scenes shown in the movie have not been cleared legally for anything other than presentation on the Independent Film Channel (IFC). It was made for IFC, on which it will air Monday at 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. (It airs again May 14, 15, 21 and 27 at different times. And on May 14 and 15, IFC will also show some Z Channel-sponsored classics, such "Heaven's Gate," Orson Welles's "F for Fake" and Nicolas Roeg's "Bad Timing." Visit www.IFCtv.com for more information.)

-- Desson Thomson

HEY, SKATEBOARDERS

You're a skateboarder and you're reading this column? Dude, you are so renaissance! Get this: There's a national skateboarding competition (for amateurs only, who are older than 13) to promote the upcoming summer movie "Lords of Dogtown." Here's the deal: In 34 cities across the nation, amateur skateboarders will perform on a basic street course before a panel of judges. Three finalists will then compete live in front of celebrity judges on MTV's "Total Request Live."

The location in this area will be the Gaithersburg Skate Park (506 S. Frederick Ave.; 301-258-6350) Saturday at noon. Registration begins at 11. There is no fee. The movie, scheduled to open June 3, is based on the lives of skateboarding pioneers of the 1970s, known as the Z-boys (they were also the subject of the 2001 documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys"). The movie stars Emile Hirsch as Jay Adams, Victor Rasuk as Tony Alva, Heath Ledger as Skip Engblom and John Robinson as Stacy Peralta.

-- Desson Thomson

'DONKEY SKIN' RESTORED

Closing out the AFI Silver Theatre's retrospective of the films of Jacques Demy ("The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"), a restored 35mm print of the French director's 1970 take on the Cinderella story, "Donkey Skin," will screen for one week, beginning Friday, at the theater, 8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring (Metro: Silver Spring).

Set in a colorful, picture-book kingdom situated somewhere between 17th-century France and the swingin' 1960s, Demy's trippy adaptation of the Charles Perrault fairy tale features songs by Michel Legrand; Catherine Deneuve as a princess disguised (barely) as a scullery maid; Jacques Perrin as her Mickey Dolenzesque Prince Charming; and the arrival of an anachronistic helicopter to close the book on the film's happily-ever-after wedding scene. It's weird, over-the-top fun, even without drugs. Tickets are $8.50. Call 301-495-6720 for information or 301-495-6700 for prerecorded program information.

-- Michael O'Sullivan

Alexandra Cassavetes, director of "Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession."