I first heard about Courtney Love from fellow Portlander David Chelsea, who was living in the East Village when he met her during a visit she was making to a mutual friend. This was before she had appeared in any film or made any records. Undaunted by her skimpy resume, she told him then she was going to be more famous than Madonna.

David tells me I remembered this all wrong!

Here’s his corrections: I believe she had just filmed Sid And Nancy, but it had not been released. I don’t remember her mentioning Madonna, but she did tell me she intended to become famous and have Belinda Carlisle for her best friend.

Courtney Michelle Harrison was born in San Francisco in 1964. She grew up in a commune in Marcola, Oregon, a tiny town no one ever heard of, and for which she holds no fondness. She wittily references her miserable childhood with her choice of hair accessory, above. After a brief incarceration in Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility, and multiple failed foster home placements, she moved to Portland where she hung out at Satyricon, volunteered at KBOO, attended Portland State University, and worked in strip clubs and gay clubs.

Satyricon, which no longer exists, is where she met both her future bandmate Kat Bjelland and her future husband Kurt Cobain.

Did Courtney become bigger than Madonna/Belinda? She did when it comes to the world of film. And in a strange but true coincidence, the man who guided Courtney to a 1996 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress in The People Vs. Larrry Flynt, is himself an Oregon filmmaker. Milos Forman came to Oregon in 1974 to make One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

Courtney is still interested in being famous. But she has refined her attitude:

Being famous is just like being in high school. But I’m not interested in being the cheerleader. I’m not interested in being Gwen Stefani. She’s the cheerleader, and I’m out in the smoker shed. Courtney Love

Lazlo Kovacs makes himself at home in the Pacific Northwest by improvising a regionally appropriate camera mount inside a production vehicle for Five Easy Pieces. Taken in Eugene, this photo is by cameraman Ron Vidor.

Q: What are you doing, Anne?

A:  My goal is to write about Oregon film history, film by film. Oregon Movies A to Z has been up, in some fashion, since October 2008.

Q: That’s not what it looks like! You’re writing about all kinds of stuff.

A: I also write – not comprehensively at all – about current film events. I go back and blog about older films when I discover one I missed when I was going through that particular year. But chronological progress is still taking place, if you look for it. The forward thrust of my walk through film history is there in the blog, although it is obscured with distractions and digressions.

Right now I am moving through 1993, an unusual, and unusually trying, year. I was warned about it by the panel of fellow critics who spoke at the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival in 2009. They were openly skeptical of my ability to maintain interest in Oregon film, which to them meant films shot in Oregon. I dismissed their concern – I knew they were not factoring in the great films Oregon filmmakers (and actors and writers) had made outside the state boundaries. It was only when David Walker specifically mentioned “1993″ and they all turned, with one motion, David Walker, Shawn Levy, Ted Mahar and Aaron Mesh, to look at me, that I began to have some grasp of what I would have to endure.

I thought my film loving peers were underestimating me when they expressed concern over my headlong flight into a wall of deeply unenjoyable cinema.

But they were right. It took weeks to recover from seeing The Temp (1993), and the one two punch of The Temp followed by Body Of Evidence (1993) nearly caused me to give up movies all together.

A: So how do you identify an Oregon film?

Q: Here’s the rules. I am creating a chronological record of Oregon film history. I define “Oregon film” to include films made in Oregon, and also to include films featuring the work of Oregon artists – directors, actors, writers, you name it – regardless of their location. I try to pair each film with a companion post, either about the director or about the Oregon artist who caused the film to qualify as an Oregon film.

A rule of thumb: I write this history chronologically. Right now I am still in 1993.

Another rule of thumb: I use the year IMDB lists as the year of the film. Oregon Film Commission lists the films by the year of shooting. I list them by year of release.

Handy Guide to Nomenclature:

I denominate as Oregon films all films which qualify under the expanded definition detailed above.

I denominate as an Oregon director an artist who was born/born and raised/raised in Oregon or one who has made Oregon his/her home as an adult.

I denominate as Oregon filmmakers directors who came here to make films. My logic:  how can we call One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest an Oregon film, and not call Milos Forman an Oregon filmmaker? So, in the spirit of inclusion, on Oregon Movies, A to Z, he is one.

But he isn’t an Oregon director.

This distinction is useful because Oregon does happen to have produced an unusual number of internationally recognized directors.

Q: How do  you choose which films to write about?

A: Its true. I can’t write about all Oregon films. I choose the films I write about based on the following criteria.

1. Availability

2. Fame, of the film itself or of one of its principals

3. Whether I feel like it

This year, the third Oregon Movies, A to Z has been in existence, saw a tremendous rise in the numbers and the visibility of Oregon film. An almost freakish number of Oregon filmmakers came to national attention, pretty much all at the same time. Eight at Sundance, one at New Directors, one at Tribecca, one at Anthology Film Archives, two picked up for distribution by Oscilloscope. Then there was Carrie Brownstein’s Portlandia, which she co-produced. That’s in addition to Gus Van Sant at Cannes with Restless, Bill Plympton making the Oscar short list with The Cow Who Wanted To Be A Hamburger, and Chris Eyre’s A Year At Mooring.

In the contest for best reviews this year, there is a running tie between Cold Weather and Meek’s Cutoff, with Cold Weather slightly ahead. Meek’s Cutoff fans are dazed by the unexpected nature of the film they saw, while Cold Weather’s fans applaud Aaron Katz’ ability to integrate a recognizable genre and still maintain his distinctive style.

Throughout all of this, I remained focused on writing primarily about Oregon film history, not Oregon’s wildly prolific current scene. The current explosion, of course, has everything to do with the past. Gus Van Sant was not born under a cinematic cabbage. Neither was Aaron Katz, Matt McCormick, James Westby or Vanessa Renwick.

Q: What is ahead for Oregon Movies, A to Z?

A: That giant sucking sound you heard last year was Oregon Movies, A to Z being pressed into service to cover the news of film premieres, film awards, breaking news of Oregon directors going into production. Nature abhors a vaccum! I post about current events because it fills a need, and allows me to link to previous posts which illuminate a connection to Oregon film history.

Q: So if you don’t always like these movies you’re watching, and writing about, why are you doing this?

3.  I am making sense, slowly but surely, of one of the great mysteries of life in Oregon, namely, what do we do here which has helped us create such wonderful directors?

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Thank you, Katherine Wilson, for the behind the scenes shot of Lazlo Kovacs preparing to shoot more of Five Easy Pieces.

Joaquin Miller, pony express rider/lawyer/horse thief/literary figure.

When did Oregon writers start exploring the bi-culturality of our state ?

(This list is an excerpt of a previous post, designed for people who are list crazy.)

1873: Joaquin Miller writes Life Among The Modocs: An Unwritten History

1883: Sarah Winnemucca writes Life Among The Piutes

1890: Frederick Homer Balch writes Bridge of the Gods

1902: Eva Emery Dye writes The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark,with Sacajawea at the center of her narrative

1940: Yellow Wolf dictates Yellow Wolf: His Own Story to Lucullus Virgil McWhorter. Movie connection: In 1975, the television movie I Will Fight No More Forever dramatized the events to which Yellow Wolf was eyewitness in 1877.

1960: Don Berry writes Trask

1962: Ken Kesey writes One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Movie connection: In 1975, Milos Forman’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest won Best Picture and four other Academy Awards.

1987: William Kittredge writes Owning It All.

1993: Elizabeth Woody writes Seven Hands, Seven Hearts

1995: Craig Lesley writes Winterkill

1998: Chris Eyre directs Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals.

2000 Marv Ross and Thomas Morning Owl, Jr begin writing & composing The Ghosts Of Celilo

2010: Matt McCormick writes & directs Some Days Are Better Than Others

2010: Jon Raymond writes Meek’s Cutoff

The above book list is not comprehensive! I am not covering all related works of art, nor all artists. Please feel free to add names/titles I have omitted.

For people who would like to know more about the books on the list — see Walt Curtis Recommends: Top Nine For Oregon Bookworms. Another great list, created by David Milholland and Walt Curtis,  can be found on the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission website.

Gray H. Whaley’s brand new guide to the first five decades of European American presence in Oregon uses the Chinook concept of “Illahee” (homeland) as a counterbalance to the American concept of “Oregon”, the idea of an empty, fertile wilderness bequeathed directly to settlers by God. The title of the book,  Oregon and the Collapse of Illahee: U.S. Empire and the Transformation of an Indigenous World, 1792-1859, uses words which imply the erasure of Native American culture: “collapse” and “transformation”.

However, in real life, in the Oregon I live in, erasure is not the right word for what happened to the First Oregonians.

Testimony to that could be seen on stage and screen last month.

Matt McCormick originally imagined Carrie Brownstein in the role in Some Days Are Better Than Others which he eventually gave Renee Roman Nose. Roman Nose plays a woman who in the course of her work sorting donations to Goodwill discovers a funeral urn filled with the remains of a human being. McCormick didn’t write his screenplay with the goal of balancing his tiny cast racially, it just happened in the casting.

Umatilla musician and music historian Thomas Morning Owl, Jr co-wrote the stage musical The Ghosts Of Celilo with Marv Ross over a period of ten years. The Ghosts of Celilio is based on true events which occurred when The Dalles dam inundated a ten thousand year old fishing village in 1957. Morning Owl Jr has appeared in both Portland productions of The Ghosts Of Celilo, playing the heavy.

The ghosts of Celilo also haunt Chief Bromden, the character played by Tim Sampson in Portland Center Stage’s production of Dale Wasserman’s adaptation of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Sampson is the son of Will Sampson, the actor who made his debut playing the same role in Milos Forman’s 1975 film. Wasserman’s stage treatment preserves the centrality Ken Kesey’s novel assigned to Bromden, a bi-racial, self elected mute whose stream of consciousness narrates the action.

In Meek’s Cutoff, Rod Rondeaux plays the Cayuse Indian who crosses paths with a hopelessly lost, and perilously thirsty, wagon train. Screenwriter Jon Raymond based his script on an actual event, recorded in an 1845 pioneer diary.

All four stories – Meek’s Cutoff, Some Days Are Better Than Others, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Ghosts Of Celilo – seamlessly incorporate  European American and Native American characters. Meek’s Cutoff and The Ghosts Of Celilo were based on historic events; Some Days and Cuckoo’s Nest based on imagined ones.

Whether the events were real or imagined, all four Oregon writers – Jon Raymond, Matt McCormick, Ken Kesey and Marv Ross –  told stories set in biracial worlds, possibly because that choice most faithfully reflects the world in which they live.

When did Oregon writers start exploring the bi-culturality of our state ?

1873: Joaquin Miller writes Life Amongst The Modocs: An Unwritten History

1883: Sarah Winnemucca writes Life Among The Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims

1890: Frederick Homer Balch writes The Bridge of the Gods: A Romance of Indian Oregon

1902: Eva Emery Dye writes The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark, with Sacajawea at the center of her narrative

1940: Yellow Wolf dictates Yellow Wolf: His Own Story to Lucullus Virgil McWhorter

1960: Don Berry writes Trask

1962: Ken Kesey writes One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

1983: Ron Finne directs Tamanawis Illahee: Rituals and Acts In A Landscape

1987: William Kittredge writes Owning It All

1993: Elizabeth Woody writes Seven Hands, Seven Hearts

1995: Craig Lesley writes Winterkill

1998: Chris Eyre directs Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals

2000 Marv Ross and Thomas Morning Owl, Jr begin writing & composing The Ghosts Of Celilo

2010: Matt McCormick writes & directs Some Days Are Better Than Others

2010: Jon Raymond writes Meek’s Cutoff

In Meek’s Cutoff, the wagon train has to decide whether they want to kill the one human being they have found in the desert or entrust their lives to him. Oregon literature has been grappling with the repercussions of the decisions we made ever since.

Two of these four stories deal with the damming of Celilo Falls, an event which is pictured on the front of Whaley’s new book. So maybe we add Whaley as the fifth story teller.

The above book list is not comprehensive! I am not covering all related works of art, nor all artists. Please feel free to add names/titles I have omitted.

For people who would like to know more about the books on the list — several are on Walt Curtis Recommends: Top Nine For Oregon Bookworms. Another great list can be found on the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission website.

For people who like contemplating how international Oregon’s film history really is – here is my Christmas present to you: a list of directors who came from afar to the big scenic back lot we call home to make movies. I include the photo of Sean Connery teaching a handstand because that is the way I sometimes feel myself. I want to turn you upside down. No, Oregon film history is not an endlessly excruciating list of mediocrities. Yes, I think we have a legacy we can learn from.

So, to balance out the post documenting the fondness Europeans have for Oregon directors,  I compile here a list of directors from other countries who chose Oregon as the location for their films.

Germany: F. W. Murnau,  City Girl (1930)

France: Jacques Tourneur, Canyon Passage (1946)

Hungary: Andre De Toth,  Indian Fighter (1955) &  Day Of The Outlaw (1959)

England:  J. Lee Thompson, MacKenna’s Gold (1969)

Czechslovakia: Milos Forman, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest ( 1975)

Scotland: Bill Forsythe, Breaking In (1988)

Canada: Ivan Reitman, Kindergarten Cop (1990)

Australia: Simon Wincer, Free Willy (1993)

Germany: Uli Edel, Body Of Evidence ( 1993)

To be clear – there are some turkeys on this list. But I will leave you the fun of sorting out which movies you like, and which you would like to disown.

In the literary category: these directors stayed home, but adapted works by Oregon authors.

Russia: Sergei Eisenstein,  Oktyabr (1928) based on John Reed’s Ten Days Which Shook The World

Japan: Goro Miyazaki, Gedo Senki (2006)  based on Ursula LeGuin’s Tales of Earthsea

I am sure there are more! I am especially interested in foreign directors who have adapted Oregon authors, so please let me know if there is a film which should be on this list.

Born: Kansas City, Missouri, 20 February 1925.

Education: Attended University of Missouri, Columbia (three years).

Military Service: Bomber pilot, U.S. Air Force, 1943–47.

Career: Directed industrial films for Calvin Company, Kansas City, 1947; wrote, produced, and directed first feature, The Delinquents , 1955; TV director, 1957–63; co-founder of TV production company, 1963; founder, Lion’s Gate production company (named after his own 8-track sound system), 1970, Westwood Editorial Services, 1974, and Sandcastle 5 Productions; made Tanner ‘88 for TV during American presidential campaign, 1988; directed McTeague for Chicago Lyric Opera.

Awards: Palme d’Or, Cannes Festival, and Academy Award nominations for Best Film and Best Director for M*A*S*H , 1970; New York Film Critics’ Circle Award, D.W. Griffith Award (National Board of Review), and National Society of Film Critics Award, all for Best Director, for Nashville , 1975; Golden Bear, Berlin Festival, for Buffalo Bill and the Indians , 1976; Academy Award nomination for Best Director, New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film and Best Director, for The Player , 1992; Academy Award nomination for Best Director, for Short Cuts, 1993. more

The little lady with the big voice on the Central Park teeter totter (OK, so you can’t see the teeter tooter, but its there) is Oregonian Ren Woods.

Director Milos Forman collaborated with choreographer Twyla Tharp in this sequence, where police horses dance along with the flower children. I lived in New York in 1979, and I never saw this happen, but then this is a period piece set in the 60’s, when it probably did.

When Milos Forman adapted the 1968 Broadway musical Hair to the big screen, he drew on the talents of a huge cast which included at least one Oregonian, Ren Woods (not pictured above).

Woods’ role was not large, but then neither was that of Nicholas Ray, who Forman cast as a general.

I hereby claim Hair as an Oregon film, on the basis of Ren Woods’ contribution.

Michael Douglas, Milos Forman, Louise Fletcher, Jack Nicholson and Saul Zaentz celebrate their 1975 Oscar sweep for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

From filmbug.com

“I holed up in the Chelsea Hotel in Greenwich Village, he recalls, sleeping 23 hours a day. My close friend Ivan Passer, another Czech filmmaker, would visit a psychiatrist, tell him my symptoms, and then come back to my hotel to relate what the doctor had said.”

Forman was close to a nervous collapse in 1973 when he got a package from Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz containing a copy of Ken Kesey’s hit novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

This apparently jinxed project had been turned down by all major Hollywood studios: “Who wants to go see a film about a bunch of loonies?” Douglas and Zaentz asked Forman if he would be interested in making a film of the book. “Of course I said yes. I loved the novel from the start and thought it would make a wonderful movie. This showed me that it’s much more comfortable to slip into a state of acute depression here than back home. In Prague, if the government says, ‘no-you can’t make this film,’ that’s it. But in America, if one studio tells you ‘no,’ the next day comes along Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz who say, ‘yes-we want you to make this film.”

When Milos Forman came to Oregon to shoot One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, he was following in the footsteps of three of his new colleagues.

Star Jack Nicholson had just finished directing his own Oregon film.

Producer Michael Douglas had just finished starring in his own Oregon film.

Father Kirk Douglas, who gave the film rights to Kesey’s novel to son Michael, began his own producing career years before with his own Oregon film.

Total number of Oregon filmmakers working on Cuckoo’s Nest: 4 (counting Milos himself)