Media & Policy Center: Bitter Tears
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Program note: Harry Wiland's 1969 film production Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music will be broadcast as part of PBS's P.O.V. series on August 5, 2008. "Fresh on the heels of his Folsom Prison album, Cash reveals the dark intensity and raw talent that made him a country music star and cultural icon.... [This film] paints an unforgettable portrait that endures beyond the singer's 2003 death."
Harry converts an idea for a Johnny Cash movie into a place for himself in the 16mm documentary world
By Robert Rowe
Pangolin Magazine
February 1970
I find it increasingly difficult to walk through the streets of New York without being accused of interfering with someone's cinematic exercise in directing, acting or photographing. What is worse, indoors, all conversations turn to films: what do you think of movies X, Y, and lately "Z." Instead of questing for the Great American Novel, everyone verbally cranks out his or her own version of the Great American Movie. It is no long even chic to be an out-of-work actor or writer; "I'm a filmmaker," says the young man at the place where you sign up for unemployment compensation. There are perils to this film orientation for those unaffected by the urge to create cinematically: one does not mind the occasional touch for ten or twenty bucks from friends still trying to make it as writers, but it becomes a bit much when semi-total strangers hit you for five or ten thousand dollars in return for a sliver of he action their latest celluloid epic.
So what does all this digression have to do with my friend Harry the filmmaker and how he promoted his idea for a Johnny Cash movie into reality? I merely point it out as a way of backgrounding my first introduction to Harry Wiland. Wary of 26-year-old filmmakers, for the reasons mentioned above, I soon discovered after meeting Harry that he was looking for backers to invest in a documentary film on Johnny Cash. He asked if I knew anyone who might be interested in the project. Being a product of the great American Southwest, I nimbly figured that this Eastern dude obviously didn't realize the boundaries of Johnny Cash's popularity. Mentally, I drew a line encompassing Nashville, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, and the Gulf Coast. Outside of America‘s underbelly, I thought, who has every heard of Mr. Cash – it's like going into Daly's Dandelion and ordering a Dr. Pepper.
Many months later, the Cash film completed, and shown to great acclaim on television, I spotted Harry. We were both privates in the same Army Reserve unit. I was there for the last time before getting out. We were girding for the pro forma harassment dished out every week by monosyllabic morons dressed in doorman's costumes.
Harry told me that the Cash movie had been sold as a feature film, had already opened in the South and was good for a $1M gross worldwide, according to Variety. The film had been made for one-tenth of that amount. "How about an interview, Harry. Tell us how to make successful movies, tell us about Johnny Cash and June Carter."
"Call me at my office," he said, while cornering two officers interest in movie investments. I left quickly that night, not wanting to see what I imagined to be Harry's exit in a Bentley.
"Nowak Associates," the operator said, with all the hurried throatiness of a show biz young thing.
"May I speak to Mr. Wiland, please?"
"Who's calling?"
"Robert Rowe."
"Who?"
I repeated, suppressing the temptation to say "Richard Burton." A few days later I arrived at Nowak and Associates, a small production company in Manhattan that Harry joined after the completion of the Cash film. Harry was very tweedy, a shade lighter than his brown moustache, with coat off and vest unbuttoned.
We talked about school days. He went to Brooklyn College and got a degree in chemistry. From there, Harry went to the University of Massachusetts for a doctoral program in genetics. "I was a bad scientist for the same reasons that I'm a good filmmaker," he said, with a degree of nonchalant ego awareness. "I was too concerned with too many things. Filmmaking is one area where being a dilettante pays off. Having a thousand ideas word for, not against you." In his dissatisfaction with science, Harry corresponded with scientist-turned-novelist C.P. Snow. The two have met, and Snow has given the go-ahead for Harry to do a filmed interview with the author in England.
Wiland dropped out of the PhD program at Massachusetts and enrolled in Columbia's Film School, where he later received a Master of Fine Arts degree. "I have a hole I my living room wall that I may cover with it," he said. Harry does not give the school high marks. "We had to force the university to take filmmaking seriously. At the University of Massachusetts I had access to hundreds of thousands of dollars of lab equipment. At Columbia film school, we didn't have anything." In the 1968 revolution at Columbia, film school students were in the vanguard demanding change. The result was $30,000 in equipment for the film school, which translates into two 16mm cameras and a sound recorder. "Then we ran into the problem that the equipment is too valuable to take outside," he added. "I understand the situation has changed somewhat since then."
Wiland developed his idea for the film on Johnny Cash while still a student at Columbia. "I had seen him once on the Johnny Carson show, dressed all in black and looking sort of mean. Then I saw his show at the Westchester County Fair. I knew that this man is very exciting, visually." Harry wrote to Cash's agent, suggesting a film.
"My idea was not to do a film putting down or exploiting him, but to catch Johnny Cash as Johnny Cash. Look, we could have made the film in any number of ways. We could have done an expose on Cash without a single bit of music." Harry pointed out that Cash had been on film before, but that the earlier appearances were in connection with the early Nashville exploitation style of filmmaking. "Cash would sing a song, then the film would cut to 10 minutes of stock car racing, then he'd do something else," Harry explained. Cash and his agent wanted no more part of that movie genre. They met with Harry, accepted his proposal and agreed to cooperate. All that was missing was $100,000 to produce the movie. The ordeal was about to begin.
Harry now had a partner, Roy Hyrkin, in the project. They both knocked on countless doors. Armed only with his idea and Cash's letter of approval, Harry went to one of his instructors at Columbia, Arthur Barron, who also makes documentary films. Barron liked the idea and eventually became the film's producer. Harry and his partner ended up as co-producers.
For seven months, Harry and Roy searched New York for production money. They were turned down everywhere: Hollywood studios, television networks, and potential sponsors for a Cash TV special. Harry saves his most vituperative scorn for the networks. "TV eats the bird; it's so corrupt and they're doing nothing. They said, ‘who is Johnny Cash? He only appeals to people in Arkansas.' The networks would say ‘no' to anything. You could tell them, ‘I have an interview with God, narrated by Moses, and they'd automatically reject it."
Harry delights in pointing out the paradox associated with many of the organizations that rejected the idea only to align themselves with Cash later on. Pepsi-Cola and ABC both rejected the idea. Now, the network has a Johnny Cash show and one of the sponsors is Pepsi. The Walter Reade organization, now distributing the feature-length film around the world, passed up the chance to won part of the movie. Cash had "limited appeal" was the reason they cited in turning down Harry's proposal.
Harry's fundraising approach was seeing anyone and everyone, to run down every prospect and potential prospect. "I was working nights as a lab technician, and pushing the project during the day. But we wouldn't let up and we couldn't give up." The relentless search for financing continued. Going to Arthur Barron and, in effect, giving him a large proportion of control, was instrumental in getting money. Barron had credits; Harry and Roy did not. Barron convinced Public Broadcasting Laboratory to buy the rights to two showings of their proposed film on Johnny Cash. The money PBL put up paid for most of the costs of producing "Cash!" The young filmmakers' strategy of combining forces with someone more experienced than them proved successful.
"I'll take the credit for the idea," Harry said casually, "but the film is more Bob Elfstrom's baby." Harry acknowledged that there had been conflicts with Barron as to how the film should be made. Harry quickly added, "But he made the right choice in choosing Bob to direct the film."
The film was shot in 7 weeks, working in Nashville, in Cash's Arkansas birthplace, with his parents in California, in concerts and on the road. It was all shot by a small crew. Robert Elfstrom doubled as director and cameraman, shooting 40 hours of 16mm color film and Al Dater took sound. Harry and Arthur Barron were each on location about 50% of the time. Back in New York, Larry Silk edited the footage.
Harry explained his disagreement with Barron on how "Cash!" was to be treated. "The film is a bit wordy. Cash is not a talker. He's great when he reacts to people. Arthur's attempts to have Cash explain how he overcame some of his earlier problems – drugs and alcohol abuse – didn't work out. It was too much like CBS Reports. I was more interested in showing the artist." I interrupted to ask how you could separate the work of any artist from his life, including his problems.
"Cash is an elusive person. I've traveled with him, stayed in his house. Yet I know nothing about him, really, and I don't want to. He is simply, complicated man," Harry said, heeding what seemed to be an inconsistent remark. Harry related how he had often passed time with Cash talking about history. "He has a mind and real depth. He doesn't have sophistication and isn't concerned by the absence. You can see the sensitivity in his face, or when he makes a remark like when he and his wife June Carter were walking through a prison. June said, ‘This isn't as bad as Folsom.' Johnny just replied, ‘a prison is a prison.' Cash can do well anywhere, goofing on Fourth Street with Dylan, playing to a sell-out crowd at the London Palladium or relaxing with cotton farmers back in Arkansas."
Harry described the house Cash lives in outside of Nashville. "It's a beautiful stone place with winding stairs made from railroad ties. He has a swimming pool carved right into the rocks of the hill he's on. And the guy who designed the house didn't go to college, either. Cash seemed to dig that." Convinced of Harry's devotion to Johnny Cash, I asked about the singer's second wife, June Carter, who accompanies her husband on stage. Harry hastened to assure me that June Carter is not some vacuous Southern belle who popped out of a mint julep bowl. "She's smart, and very mature. You could see her poise in the way she handled the prison audiences. Did you know she studied acting with Lee Strasburg?
"One of the reasons I wanted to make this film," Harry pronounced, "is because I am tired of New York dictating what others should be. That sophisticated superiority is something that pisses me off. You have to let other people be what they are," he said.
We turned to filmmaking and the problems facing young people trying to make movies. "I used to think that it was only done in Hollywood, and that you had to be some big shot's relative. Filmmaking has become very decentralized, because you can make features for one-tenth of what Hollywood says it should cost. Now, you can appeal to different audiences. With the Cash film, for example, all we need is a "good share of the youth and rural audiences, and then we don't have to do very well in New York to still come out making money."
For Harry, the investment in efforts, ideas, and knocking on doors has paid handsomely. Now affiliated with Nowak Associates, he has co-produced another country music film, The Nashville Sound, scheduled for release this summer (1970). Harry teamed with theatrical impresario Ed Wilson, in producing the film. He is on the verge of signing a contract for another music special with Earl Scruggs, with a guest appearance by Bob Dylan. Harry seems unconcerned about getting trapped in a music bag. Applying one of his own maxims for filmmakers, Harry is actively pursuing several film projects at the same time. "There isn't any formula to filmmaking. I found out it isn't a case of the director being the creative person and the producer being all business. There has to be flexibility and cooperation," he said.
"Today, you can have a going production company for $20,000 worth of equipment. You don't need that much money if you rent equipment. With a good idea and 50% of a budget raised you can complete a film by making deals and trades. But hang on to a percentage of your own film." Harry warns. "We cut back our salaries on "Cash!" (released in theaters as "Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music) in order to each own a piece. We couldn't even pay Cash for appearing so we offered him a percentage," Harry said.
Harry showed me the promotion material that is sent to the hundreds of theaters where the Cash film is scheduled to appear. The movies now has the critical blessings of the New York Times, and is booked for release in United Kingdom, Europe, and even Asia.
"What a change," I said. "Remember when you were driving a cab?" Harry laughed. The door opened. Amram Nowak, head of the production company, entered the room.
"Harry, do you want to play tennis at 10 o'clock tonight?" It was 15 degrees outside. Indoor tennis in January is a Manhattan luxury.
"Sure," Harry replied. "Look, can I borrow your car," he asked. Nowak hesitated a moment before saying yes and leaving the room. "That's the first time I've asked him," Harry said, somewhat proudly.
He turned to my companion and me. " Can I give you guys a lift?"
To my surprise, it wasn't even a Bentley.
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