Henry Jagrom is an indie filmmaker who directed films such as Always (1985), New Year’s Day (1989), Last year’s Hamptons (1995), and Déjà Vu (1997), according to the New York Times. He was 87 years old.
Both Jagrom’s character and his films tended to divide people. Introduction to H. Alex Rubin and Jeremy Workman’s 1997 documentary about the directorial 1997 “Who is Henry Jagrom?”, PBS’s “POV” website “Acclaimed as the film genius, feminist voice, and the only true Maverick of American film, and others bored as the others who were released by royal fraud (“Eat”, “Babyfever”) obsessively and hilariously confused and abused the boundaries of life and art, challenging the boundaries of filmmaking in his unorthodox style. ”
But the verite style of the deep personal film he developed with photographs of the Stream of Consciousness certainly had its supporters.
Stephen Holden of The New York Times said, “Henry Jagrom’s autobiographical films are introspection staring at the belly button and require patience that many film fans hate to expand.
“Who is Henry Jagrom?” documentary, critic Michael Medved declared his opinion that Jagrom’s film is “moving and thought-provoking,” and director Louis Mal said, “He’s almost completely improvising and improvising. But sorry. Actress Candice Bergen calls Jagrom aggressive and confrontational, but “if you had Henry as a father or husband,” she jokes in the documentary. Dennis Hopper and Ron Silver both praise his innovative methods.
Jagrom came from a very wealthy family. In fact, when he and his second wife, Victoria Foyt, divorced, she got their mansion – set to what was said to be the biggest compound in Santa Monica, and eventually sold for $23 million. The money to buy such a property certainly didn’t come from the box office revenue of Jagrom’s films.
That he didn’t need to cimp his films to fundamentally make him stand out from most or all other independent filmmakers, perhaps contributed a certain undisciplined quality to his work. But the quality was also part of his aesthetic. He often worked without scripting or rehearsals in improvised arrangements that kept him naturally “shaping and “evoking” performances.
He had something to say and needed to document his life in his own film. The best example is “Always,” “Cinemaàclef” in 1985, which, in the words of People Magazine, chronicles the painful breakup of the director’s first marriage, “Jaglom and Townsend are now divorced, as a thinly disguised version of themselves.”
In Jagrom’s 1989 “New Year’s Day,” he plays a middle-aged man in crisis, leaving Los Angeles in New York City and decides to start a new life, but when he arrives at his apartment he is fascinated by two attractive young women. In the following year’s “meals”, the woman meets for a friend’s birthday party to discuss her life and her relationship with food. The love story “Venice/Venice” followed the relationship between American director Jagrom and a female journalist.
Roger Ebert described 1994’s “babyfever” as “another of his fascinating fictional fictional documentaries. The character speaks about the issue seriously and comprehensively. In this case, whether to give birth to a baby or not. As with many of his films, it is almost appealing in itself.
The film Jagrom came out the most was “Last Summer’s Hamptons” in 1995, about a gathering of three generations of skilled theatrical families. Variety states: “Henry Jagrom took a big step in “Last Summer’s Hamptons” with a somewhat entertaining comedy of spirit-evoking manners, if not the achievement of Chekhov, Renoir and, most specifically, Woody Allen. ”
Of “Deja Vu” in 1997, Jaglom’s “a fictional, highly romantic narrative of falling in love with his wife and collaborator Victoria Foyt,” the New York Times stated, “the film is a fascinating advertisement for continuing the assumption of adolescence to continue the adolescence exploration to continue the assumption of a romantic soul to continue the existence of a romantic soul. In itself.”
Any place where Jagrom held in a national conversation about independent filmmaking peaked in the mid- to late 1990s. Later efforts included “Festival of Cannes” (2001), “Going Shopping” (2005), “Hollywood Dreams” (2006), “Irene in Time” (2009), “Queen of the Lot” (2010), “Just 45 Minutes From Broadway” in 2012 (starting as a play), “The M Word” (2014), and “Ovation” (2015).
Jagrom was born into a Jewish family in London. His father, who worked in the import and export business, came from a wealthy Russian family, and his mother was from Germany. They left for the UK for the Nazis, and their family entered the United States in 1939. He picked up the first 8mm camera as a boy.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1959, Jagrom trained with Lee Strasberg in the actor studio and directed the off-Broadway improvisation “The Unusual Denominator,” starring Karen Black and others in 1963.
He also worked at the cabaret before moving to Hollywood in 1965. Under his contract with Columbia Photography, Jagrom has earned guests on television shows including Gidget and Flying Nun, and has appeared in films including Richard Rush’s Psycho Out (1968), Boris Sagar’s Thousand Airplane Raid (1969), and Drive Held Hop Hendue Hop (1969). It has never been completely finished in “The Last Movie” (1971) and Orson Welles’ “Another Side of the Wind.”
In 1967 he went to Israel to film a documentary about the six-day war. He also developed friendships with Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Sally Kellerman, screenwriter Carol Eastman, and BBS Production producer Bert Schneider.
The first film written and directed by Jaglom was 1971’s “A Safe Place,” starring Weld, Nicholson and Welles on Tuesday. His next film, Tracks (1977), starring Hopper, was one of the earliest films to explore the psychological costs of the Vietnam War. His third film, and first commercial success, was the 1980 comic romp, “The Sitting Duck.”
Jagrom wrote four plays performed on stage in Los Angeles: “The Waitning Room” (1974), “A Safe Place” (2003), “Always – Not Not Not Not Not Not Not” (2007), “Just 45 Minutes From Broadway” (2009-10).
Jagrom attracted new attention in the 2013 publication of Peter Biskind’s “My Lunch with Orson: A Conversation Between Henry Jagrom and Orson Wells.” However, as NPR pointed out, it was generally academically bent that recreates the conversation with Wells in Peter Bogdanovic’s 1992 book, This Is Orson Wells, but Jaglom captured Wells by preying on filthy and nasty opinions about fellow celebrities. (“I physically hate Woody Allen. I hate that kind of guy.”).
The director received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Method Fest in 1999. Jagrom had a relationship with actress Karen Black and singer Andrea Markovich.
Jagrom got married twice. He married occasional actress and screenwriter Patrice Townsend from 1979-83, and writer Victoria Voyt from 1991-2013. Both marriages ended with divorce.
He is survived by two children, Sabrina Jagrom and Simon Jagrom.
