A Story About George Hickenlooper and the Summer of 2008

By now you have probably heard that the filmmaker George Hickenlooper, who co-directed the landmark documentary HEARTS OF DARKNESS, the much appreciated MAYOR OF THE SUNSET STRIP and a number of other features, documentaries and shorts, died on Saturday in Denver at the very young age of 47.

Many of the reports stated that Hickenlooper was in town for the Opening Night screening of his new fiction film, CASINO JACK, at the Denver Film Festival.  But that wasn't until this Thursday.  He was in Denver this weekend to support and film the last few days of his cousin John Hickenlooper's campaign for Governor. 

I met George for the first time several years back at the St. Louis Film Festival.  George was from St. Louis, I was too, and on more than one occasion he and I were both called back to film-related events sponsored by Cinema St. Louis.

While I didn’t know George well - we'd mostly converse politely when we'd find ourselves back in Missouri - I ended up spending a good deal of time around him and his cousin John in Denver during the summer of 2008 – and the story I can tell from that experience says something special, I think, about George’s character.

When we were preparing to shoot my ensemble film CONVENTION, I knew that I wanted to see how the city operated during the 2008 DNC – how would a town the size of Denver handle hosting duties for what would be one of the biggest events of the new century.

At that moment, the answer was in serious question – fund raising was going slow, there had been flubs – not to mention an ACLU lawsuit – from the city’s dealing with local protestors and there was still the question of who would be the Democrat's nominee.

But when we started to inquire about access to the city of Denver, specifically the Mayor’s office, we discovered that another documentary project was already in the door.  Mayor Hickenlooper’s cousin George was making a television pilot (it would later be repurposed as a film) to be called HICKTOWN that would focus on the Mayor and his staff as they planned and hosted the DNC.

Because my idea for CONVENTION focused more on the worker bees in the Mayor’s Office than on the Mayor himself, I got in touch with George to ask if he might share his sandbox with me.

Let me be clear about this – I had no reason to think that George would say yes.  In fact, documentary filmmakers can be, I’ll say it delicately, territorial when it comes to their subjects.

Just over a year ago, a major row erupted on a popular documentary forum when an established filmmaker asked to have access to another filmmaker’s subject.  Their films covered similar territory and while the more novice filmmaker’s film would focus in its entirety on this subject, the established one just needed a single interview.  The novice firmly and repeatedly refused.  He could see no way that his sharing his subject – with whom he apparently had an exclusivity agreement – would benefit him.  Nothing the other filmmaker offered – not a time limit on the interview or approval of the material – would convince. 

Tellingly – and possibly because the novice was a regular on the forum while the more established filmmaker was not – most of the other filmmakers on the forum who chimed in agreed with the novice.  Sometimes berating the other filmmaker for even pursuing the matter, they urged the novice to hold his ground.

There was no good reason to share.

So, going in to my conversation with George Hickenlooper, who made at least two films that I consider to be truly great, I had no reason to believe that he would think there was a good reason to share, to let me in to the same meetings that he’d be filming for his pilot, to give me access to his main subject.

But this is what he said: “I’d never do that to another filmmaker.” 

And so, for two weeks in August 2008, George Hickenlooper and I (and our respective teams) danced around his cousin, the Mayor, and his staff.   Sometimes awkwardly, I’ll admit.  I’m pretty sure that George is in at least two shots of CONVENTION with a camera in his hand.  I haven’t seen HICKTOWN yet but I’ll assume I’m in there somewhere.

And at the end of the night, we’d repair to Denver’s famous Late Night Lounge and recap the day we’d both have.  There was a certain amount of competition, I suppose, just as there was when we’d be jockeying for position.  But I never got the sense that George had changed his mind about letting me (and my soon-to-be mini-army of docmakers) into his world, never felt like he wished he’d said “no”.

So while I celebrate George’s great work, his passion for documentary and narrative filmmaking, his outspoken qualities and mourn his way-too-early passing, I offer the nicest thing I can say about him in a filmmaking world that all-too-often only looks out for oneself:

George Hickenlooper liked to share.

Thanks, George.  We'll miss you and your films.