Review of Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004) by Terry D — 12 Jan 2017

I thoroughly enjoyed this documentary, which is a twofold tale of the first real television network for cineastes (i.e. film geeks) of its kind, serving the Los Angeles metropolitan area from the mid '70s to the early '90s, and the visionary master programmer Jerry Harvey who elevated the network to documentary-worthy heights.

Director Xan Cassavetes (daughter of the legendary independent and iconoclast filmmaker John Cassavetes) spun these stories with an engaging and fun style. She accomplished this in a number of ways. There are the great testimonials on the philosophy and workings of Z Channel from many of the key people who were there with Harvey for the station's epic-but-all-too-abbreviated glory days, along with the several featured artists, some of whom benefited from the existence of Z directly and some who were inspired by it before breaking into the business.

Some of my favourite film people are in here -- Jim Jarmusch, Robert Altman, Henry Jaglom, and Quentin Tarantino, among them. Of course, what all of these people have in common is a genuine love for film as an art form and they convey it beautifully in the finished product here.

Also effective and important to this story are the plethora of given examples of Z Channel's diverse programming - titles, titles, titles (I took note of some stuff I haven't seen yet, but want to, such as "The Leopard," "Images," and "Overlord") - which sumptuously show the sheer scope of what was served up for hungry film lover's consumption.

I was most impressed by Z's dedication to airing the complete and uncut versions of such films as "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (15-and-a-half hours long) "Heaven's Gate," "1900," and "Das Boot," to name a few.

Then there's the tragic story of Jerry Harvey, himself. I really liked how Cassavetes used segments of a radio interview of Harvey in the parts of the film that zoomed in closely on his life, which becomes more and more haunting because from the beginning we know how it's going to end.

The whole thing is quite a saga and makes for some truly compelling stuff. The dvd set includes a mini-representation of an issue of Z Magazine and is a terrific added bonus. I quite like the writings and stylings of critic F.

X. Feeney, who was a featured contributor in this film as well as serving as one of its producers. There's also an additional disc of extras. This dvd set is a true treasure indeed.