Filmmaker L.M. “Kit” Carson, who helped write “Paris, Texas” and played a key role in launching the careers of fellow Texans Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, died Oct. 20 at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. He was 73.
He had been hospitalized since February, said his son, Hunter Carson. The cause of death was not disclosed.
In addition to being a producer, writer and director, Carson had several acting roles, including the title part in the 1967 faux documentary “David Holzman’s Diaries,” which was the debut film of director Jim McBride. But Carson was also known for helping young filmmakers.
“My dad made it OK,” Hunter Carson said, “for filmmakers to chase the craziest ideas” — including an offbeat comedy about three bumbling friends who scheme to pull off crimes. “Bottle Rocket” (1996), which was the first feature directed by Anderson and featuring actor Wilson, was just fragments of black-and-white film when they first showed it to Carson.
“They showed me 12 minutes of scattered shooting,” Carson said in a 2011 interview by Sam Adams for a website. “I was like, ‘Great, you got a script?’ ”
Carson guided them through writing one and raised the money to make a short version of the film.
He further arranged for it to be shown at the Sundance Film Festival, where it caused enough of a stir to obtain financing for a full movie. Carson was credited as co-producer.
“What I find interesting,” Carson said in the Adams interview, “is that the Internet is again using that type of model for learning how to tell stories.”
He co-directed the 1971 documentary “The American Dreamer,” about Dennis Hopper, and went on to work on various projects in the 1970s and ’80s, including a 1983 English-language adaptation of the French New Wave classic “Breathless.”
— Los Angeles Times
