Police face off against antiwar demonstrators in The Seventh Day, a 1970 documentary shot by Portland State University students.

A long list of American filmmakers have chosen The City as a subject in documentaries, educational films, and narrative features. The following list is of films about The City which have an Oregon connection.

This list includes both fiction and non-fiction films. It is NOT comprehensive!

The Boy Mayor 1914, directed by Henry McRae. Starring teenager Eugene J. Rich, Portland’s real Boy Mayor. The fictional plot line depicts the “clean up the streets” motive behind the Boy Mayor campaign. Restored by National Film Preservation Foundation, thanks to Michele Kribs, Oregon Historical Society’s film archivist. Shot in Los Angeles.

Dementia 1953, retitled Daughter of Horror 1955, directed by John Parker, Jr.  The City is a moody, expressionist dreamscape in this combination art film/horror film made by the son of Portland theater chain owner, J. J. Parker. Score by George Antheil. Shot in Los Angeles.

Portland Expose 1957, directed by Harold Schuster. Exploitation film, based on real events. The plot line had to be fictionalized so it could be believed. In real life, it was a well known crime boss, not an upstanding small businessman, who blew the whistle on the corrupt union leader who was muscling in on his vice world territory. Shot in Portland.

The Olive Trees Of Justice 1962, directed by James Blue. Banks of barbed wire surround buildings, police are everywhere, bombs go off, tanks roll by, and yet somehow everyday life still goes on.  A young French colonialist tries to locate his childhood friends, and his own identity, in the middle of the chaos. Shot in Algiers.

The Seventh Day 1970, directed by students at PSU’s Center For The Moving Image. Documentary coverage of an anti-war demonstration which erupts into violence. Made by Tjeck Dusseldorp, with Charles Auch and future music video superstar Jim Blashfield. Shot in Portland.

We Are The City 1972, directed by Tom Chamberlin. Portland is never named in this educational film, made for Encyclopedia Britannica. Includes Mayor Terry Shrunk and Neil Goldschimdt (another Boy Mayor, but at that time still a City Councilman). The footage is 95% Portland.

The Case Of The Kitchen Killer 1976, directed by Tim Smith. Self taught 16mm filmmaker’s black comedy uses Portland locations sensitively. Smith was just out of high school when he made this film. The hand of crew member Matt Groening makes a cameo appearance holding a murder weapon. Ben Padrow provides the voice over narration. Shot in Portland.

Who Killed The Fourth Ward? (1976-77) and The Invisible City: Houston Housing Crisis (1978-79), directed by James Blue. Oregon’s first Oscar nominee focused on urban housing conditions for his two longest docs, made for Houston public television. Shot in Houston.

Property 1978, directed by Penny Allen. Eight Portland friends respond to gentrification by deciding to band together to buy a house in their Lair Hill neighborhood. Not a documentary, but inspired by real life events, with some of the participants in the real events joining the cast, playing themselves. Cinematography by Eric Ericson, sound by Gus Van Sant. Shot in Portland.

Talk Radio 1988, directed by Oliver Stone. Based on a play written by Portland artist Tad Savinar and New York actor Eric Bogosian. The play is about urban discontent, but the real reason this film is on this list is that Tad Savinar became one of Portland’s most important urban planners. Shot in Dallas.

Drugstore Cowboy 1989, directed by Gus Van Sant. The fictionalized memoir of a real life felon provides a portrait of a city. Shot as a period piece, set in the 1970’s. Starring Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch and William Burroughs. Van Sant’s ascension to stardom branded Portland as an indie capital. Shot in Portland.

Alien Boy 2012, directed by Brian Lindstrom. Documentary examining the death of James Chasse, Jr., a man with severe and persistent mental illness who was arrested for running away from Portland police, and who died in their custody. Shot in Portland.

Pittsburgh has George Romero, Baltimore has John Waters, and Boulder has the memory of Stan Brakhage.

Portland has Gus Van Sant, Bill Plympton, Matt Groening, Mike Richardson, Jon Raymond, Aaron Katz, Chel White, Jacob & Arnold Pander, James Westby, Jim Blashfield, Joan Gratz, Joanna Priestley, Matt McCormick, Rose Bond, Vanessa Renwick and Will Vinton.

Ever wonder why?

For cities wishing to replicate Portland’s densely populated cinematic scene, here’s a handy “how to” guide.

1.  Start early.

As soon as people were making films in New York and Fort Lee, they were making them in Portland. Portland’s first film studio, American Lifeograph, opened in 1910. That’s the same year movies came to Hollywood.

2. Have a show business friendly mayor.

During the 16 year tenure of theater-owner-turned-mayor George Baker, downtown Portland was wall to wall theaters. John Gilbert, Clark Gable, William Powell, Edward Everett Horton and Eugene Pallette are some of the actors who jumpstarted their acting careers on the Portland stage, some of them in Baker’s own stock company. It was Baker who renamed Seventh Avenue “Broadway”.

3. Support innovation.

Oregon’s oldest source of print media, The Oregonian, responded to the puzzling new medium of radio by setting up a station, KGW, right in their own building, the Oregonian Tower. Radio later served as an Early Warning System to identify the talent of Portlanders-gone-Hollywood Mel Blanc, Suzanne Burce (renamed Jane Powell by MGM) and Johnnie Ray.

4. Grow your own film processing lab.

After WWII, Portland inventor Frank Hood went to work for a brand new electronics firm (originally conceived as a radio supply store) named Tektronix. He processed films he made for them, after losing patience with the delays of sending films to out of town labs. Eventually, he went into business as Teknifilm Lab. A filmmaker himself, he acted as teacher and mentor to customers. More important to the development of independent filmmaking in Portland:  Hood’s lax attitude toward payment schedules, which subsidized generations of Oregon artists working in film.

5. Provide a home for an exiled Hollywood film scholar.

Andries Deinum came to Portland during the blacklist. His vision of film as a mode of social discourse laid the groundwork for PSU’s Center For The Moving Image, housed in Lincoln Hall. Jim Blashfield, Bill Plympton, and Matt Groening were among the faithful attendees of the Center’s influential screening series, run by the Portland State Film Committee.

6. Provide a day job for the guy who wants to mentor the guy who wants to revive the archaic art form of stop motion animation.

Homer Groening led a dual life – ad man by day and experimental filmmaker by night. He had a family, a home, and his own business doing what he loved – and he did it all without leaving Portland. Aspiring filmmaker Will Vinton paid attention, and followed suit. His career, like Groening’s, would encompass both television commercials and art house films, but on a much larger scale.

7. Work with, not against, a pair of cinema addled students who want to start a regional film center.

When Sheldon Renan succeeded in persuading National Endowment for the Arts to seed regional filmmaking, they went looking for the right person to submit a grant for a film center in Portland. They were pointed to Brooke Jacobson and Bob Summers, members of the Portland State Film Committee. Brooke and Bob wrote the grant, Portland Art Museum acted as fiscal sponsor, and the Northwest Film Center went into business. This year marks its 40th anniversary.

8. Work with, not against, a visionary film preservationist who wants to create a moving image archive.

Lew Cook was trained as a newsreel photographer by the first generation of Portland filmmakers. His stop motion film, The Little Baker, made circa 1925, proved prophetic when it came to Portland’s future claim to cinema history. He and Thomas Vaughn conceived Oregon Historical Society’s moving image archive, and Cook personally trained the preservationist, Michele Kribs, who currently presides over it.

To re-cap: by the end of the 1970’s, Portland had a film program at Portland State University, a film archive at Oregon Historical Society, and a regional film festival (now the NWFF) located at Portland Art Museum. That nucleus of film creativity on the park blocks was balanced by a film processing lab, an emerging animation studio, and a warehouse waiting to be filled with  filmmakers’ offices over in northwest Portland. No one entity owned the scene – the infrastructure and the support system served all comers.

The following timeline concentrates on factors which contributed to a culture where independent filmmakers supported each other in Portland. It does not address the important role played by Hollywood productions shooting in Oregon. The symbiotic role of Hollywood and the Indies in Portland is embodied in the career of Gus Van Sant who slips and slides with ease between these two worlds.

A timeline:

American Lifeograph founded 1910

Lewis Moomaw makes The Chechacos 1924

Lew Cook makes The Little Baker c1925

PGE makes It Can Be Done c1936

Tektronix founded 1946

Frank Hood founds Teknifilm Lab, early 1950’s

Andries Deinum arrives 1957

Homer Groening starts his own ad agency 1958

Center For The Moving Image founded 1965

Bob Summers and Brooke Jacobson found Northwest Film Center 197o, with a push from Sheldon Renan

Tim Smith and Matt Groening make Drugs: Killers or Dillers 1972

Ron Finne, Tom Taylor and Brooke Jacobson found Northwest Media Project 1974

Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner make Closed Mondays 1974

Don Zavin makes Fast Break 1977

Penny Allen makes Property 1977

Rose Bond makes Gaia’s Dream 1982

Gus Van Sant makes Mala Noche 1985

Bill Plympton makes Your Face 1987

Matt Groening makes The Simpsons 1987

Jim Blashfield makes Leave Me Alone 1988

Joan Gratz makes Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase 1992

Gus Van Sant makes Good Will Hunting 1997.

Vanessa Renwick makes The Yodeling Lesson 1998

Miranda July makes The Amateurist 1998

Chris Eyre makes Smoke Signals 1998

Will Vinton makes The PJ’s 1999

Travis Knight makes Coraline 2009

Jon Raymond writes & Neil Kopp produces Meek’s Cutoff 2010, one of five Oregon films at Sundance in 2011.

This post is dedicated to Portland filmmaker/film writer David Walker, who inspired it by raising the question “how rare is regional filmmaking, anyway?”