By: debbie lynn elias
TCM. Turner Classic Movies. What began almost 20 years as a “love letter” to the Golden Age of Hollywood has become a driving and thriving force in the global movie zeitgeist. Showcasing “classic films” and bringing them to old and new audiences alike, TCM is a champion of film and film preservation. But TCM is much more than “just” a television network showing “classic” movies. TCM has expanded to include merchandising, cruises, special events and film festivals.
Returning this year for the fourth time to the heart of Hollywood and the grandeur of the Chinese Theatre, Cinerama Dome and Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the TCM Classic Film Festival is a place where the community of movie fans share their love of classic movies with each other by way of a shared experience and seeing films as they are seldom seen today – on the big screen. As with its programming, TCM Classic Film Fest 2013 revolves around a theme and this year that theme is Cinematic Journeys: Travel in the Movies. Transporting the moviegoer not only through great storytelling, but with travel as a central theme, TCM Classic Film Festival 2013 goes on a fascinating cinematic excursion.
While the public faces of TCM and the TCM Classic Film Festival may be film historian Robert Osborne and the “next generations” of Hollywood “royalty”, among them, Ben Mankiewicz, Illeana Douglas and Drew Barrymore, behind the scenes are key players who help bring a century of movies to the public through programming not only the network, but the film festivals. Two of those key players are Charles “Charlie” Tabesh, Programming Director of TCM and TCMFF, and Genevieve McGillicuddy, Marketing Director in Charge of Branding and Managing Director of TCMFF.
I had a chance to sit down in this exclusive interview with Charlie and Genevieve, the latter of whom I had the pleasure to interview for TCMFF 2012, and talk TCM, TCM Classic Film Festival 2013 and, of course, just what exactly is a “classic film.”
My heroes! You fill a void in the world with what you do with TCM!
CT: Thank you. We certainly appreciate that.
This is so exciting to have both of you here in person. And the first thing I have to ask is the question that always come up when I start talking and writing about TCM Classic Film Festival – What defines a classic film to each of you?
GM: Boy, that’s a good question. Internally at TCM and whenever we get asked a general question about how do you define classic film, we typically say, “There is no definition.” I like to think that the choice is very personal and that there are a million people out there and there are a million definitions. I guess my personal definition of “classic” would be something that I know I enjoy going back to that I‘d recommend to others and that I think is a film that I simply enjoy.
CT: Two answers to that to sort of jump on what Genny was saying. For TCM there‘s no hard and fast definition. It really is about context. We have a different film festival on air every night. If a movie fits within a certain context, it fits. So, 31 Days of Oscar is an entire month of Oscar nominated movies. If a movie was nominated for an Oscar, it belongs in that month even if you might not think it was a particularly good movie. And there were some that were nominated for Best Song; the movie might not be good, but on a night of Best Song nominees that movie might be appropriate. Or, if you‘re looking at the career of an actor, you might want to look at all of their movies both, not so good and good. You want to see their entire career. That’s what matters for TCM. For me personally, I think Genevieve had a great answer there. For me growing up, one of the best movie theater experiences I has was Airplane!. So we’re showing it now (at TCMFF 2013) and to me, it’s a classic. I think to a lot of people my age it’s a classic. To a lot of people who are older that we get feedback from, some people say, “That’s not a classic. That’s 1980.” There’s no age cut-off for me personally in terms of what’s a classic. I think a movie that was made last year we probably couldn’t really call that a classic. We would still play it if it was in the right context but I wouldn’t personally call it a classic. ESPN Classic sometimes plays the game that was on the night before and calls it an “instant classic.” I’m not ready to do that.
One of the interesting things that TCM has developed over the years, and I know both of you have been directly involved with this, are breaking things down into the different categories such as The Essentials, Travel Films, Musicals, Silents and Essentials Jr., and developing thematic ideas. You’ve carried that in to the festival. How do you go about conceptualizing these different categories and themes that you develop?
GM: I think the ideas come from all over.
CT: Ideas come from everywhere. We brainstorm. People will give ideas. Outside people will give ideas. But to the broader point, I started at TCM 15 years ago, and I came from Encore and the model was so different. Encore was, you license big movies, you play them 45 times a year and you maximize your revenue and the amount of money you spent by playing the movie over and over and over again. I went to TCM and the first thing I was told that was drilled into me was, “We do a different theme every night. We‘re always themed. The movie always has a reason for being on the channel.” I didn’t invent that but I’d like to think I took it and ran with it for the channel. I love it. It’s fun. It makes programming so much more fun. There are a million different ways to look at a movie. It could be theme, it could be genre, it could be actor, it could be that these are movies like how the disabled are portrayed over the years, or how gays and lesbians have been portrayed over the years, or 31 Days of Oscar, or studios. That’s kind of the fun part of the job. I think it’s not only fun, but people reacted to that. People have sort of appreciated that. People are, “Okay. I might have seen this movie before but not in this context.” I think that makes it interesting for the audience. There’s somebody behind the scenes giving some thought as to why the movie’s on. It’s not just on. When we started the film festival, we wanted to make it much like we do the channel and that was one of the things that we do on the channel so that’s how we approach the film festival as well.
GM: I would say another thing about the festival programming that I think is simply unique to being able to do an in-person event, would be the fact that the threads of programming are very much film driven at the festival but Club TCM programming very much compliments what‘s going on with regards to special guests being here and the films that we’re showing. For example, we’ll have a conversation with Tippi Hedren that’s completely separate from the screening of The Birds. Or a conversation with Kevin Brownlow which hopefully enhances your experience and understanding of going to something like The Big Parade or It, which will be screening as well.
CT: I think that’s a good point, too. A lot of what defines programming is the packaging that’s around it, both at the film festival and on the channel. To give another example, we started another series called Race in Hollywood several years ago and that was how African-Americans have been portrayed by mainstream Hollywood from the earliest days of film up until the present. So that included Spike Lee. It also included Birth of a Nation and everything in between. If we just played those movies without any context, it wouldn’t make any sense. “Why are you playing these movies?” We had an expert, a professor, who’s going to be joining us again at the film festival, to come on and talk about it within that context, and it’s his intros that made that a programming event. The movies were important but they were meaningless without that context that was given around the film. That’s how we approach the film festival as well.
I like that you say that because for the over 20 years I‘ve been working as a critic, I always try and give some kind of backstory in my reviews, especially with political films or historical films, and I like to give factual background to give people a context as to where the film comes from and how it impacts us. It‘s very important at TCM and I credit you with inspiring me to continue that education and enlightenment in my own work.
GM: Thank you. That makes us happy.
Once you decide on your themes and categories for films be it for the Festival or for on-air programming, it becomes a Herculean effort to find and determine the films to plug into the appropriate theme. You cannot single-handedly find all these films.
CT: It’s not single-handed. [laughing] Genevieve will have ideas or Scott McGee who’s on our stuff or other people will say, “This is a great idea. You should think about this movie.” To be honest, I don’t always remember where ideas come from so I want to give credit where it’s due, but I certainly don’t know as much as you might think. People send ideas to me and from there I might watch a movie or learn about a movie that I haven’t seen before. That happens all the time. But it’s certainly not an individual process other than the final decision is an individual process. Leading up to that final decision is ideas from everywhere; and core people on the team moreso than others. Genevieve and Scott [McGee] contribute more to the program just because of their passion.
One of the interesting things about TCM that I don‘t think many realize is that it‘s not just “Ted Turner‘s library.” You have brokered deals with studios and distributors to bring their films in for TCM viewing, including Fox who has their own on-air movie channel and who is very proprietary.
CT: They were very proprietary. That took awhile. That was a very important thing that I definitely since being at TCM, didn’t want us to be the Turner Library Channel. We’re the classic movie channel. From there we really went out and tried to get all the studios. Fox was one of the last ones, probably the last one; one, because they started to loosen their restrictions. They changed the format of Fox Movie Channel to be “less classic” so I think for that reason they were more open to licensing them and, I think we just beat them down over time.
GM: It’s really important from a brand perspective for the network, for the festival, etc., that we are able to be working with all studios, working with all archives. We want to be in the middle of that conversation and be as, Charlie said, the “classic” film network and not just the Turner Library. So, it’s important for us in terms of that context and the festivals that he puts together that we‘re as comprehensive as possible and to that you’ve got to work with everyone. We’re very proud of the fact that that’s what the brand represents. We also feel that’s why the studios all work with us.
In working with the studios you also find out about libraries that may come up for sale, do you not?
CT: A couple time of year, somebody will call us, not major studio libraries although that does happen sometimes, but smaller libraries, people will come and say, “Why don’t you guys buy us.” We looked into it once or twice and what we learned is that we‘re really good at the tv part of it. We think we’re good at the tv part of it. But we’re not really good at the home video part, at the international distribution part, at the other ways that you need to monetize a library to make purchasing it make sense.
GM: These are other areas of expertise.
CT: The storing of the film part of it. All of this stuff that comes with buying a library, it doesn’t, at the end of the day, really make sense for TCM the way that it currently exists. We did do a long term, 40 year tv deal for the Hal Roach library. Now, that’s great because we can use that for a long time until hopefully I’m not at TCM anymore because I’ll be retired [laughing], but we can do that for tv. But to buy something like that, it just doesn’t make sense.
With the films that you do have in the TCM library itself, you mention preservation, and that is such a key element that goes hand in hand with the concept of classic film. How does TCM store and preserve the films that they do have?
CT: Most of the preservation is done by the studios themselves because they own the assets. And again, having said that, we get involved a little bit with one, or partner with the Film Foundation, Martin Scorsese’s organization. We have an annual deal with them where we contribute money to their organization and they’re very good partners for us and with us, so we help that way. There are some times when films aren’t associated with a studio that come along, maybe a silent film that somebody wants to work on or maybe an independent film that a small distributor might get like Shirley Clark’s films are out now through Milestone and we helped fund the restoration by buying a television window in advance so we know that our money now is gonna go towards that restoration and down the line we’ll get to play it on the channel. We contribute in some ways and indirectly in some ways. The big studio films are almost always done through the studios themselves.
GM: And this isn’t necessarily restoration, but I’d also like to point out that via the Festival, we are directly responsible for having some new prints struck each year and actually putting some films back into circulation in 35mm which is great to know. I’ve heard back from the community and I think Charlie has too, that other programmers can have those available for use at other venues as well, other festivals.
And this year, what are the big films that TCM is returning to the glory of 35mm?
CT: I Am Suzanne! is a restoration and new print from the Museum of Modern Art. We helped fund that. Flying Down to Rio is a new print that we funded through Warner Brothers. The Desert Song is a new print of a movie that hasn’t been seen in decades. Oh, Plan 9 From Outer Space, we helped. And then there are others that are newly restored from the studios or from the archives and we’re getting it from the archives. The Academy has brand new prints of On the Town and The Narrow Margin that we’re screening for the first time, the first public screening of those prints. So we can’t take credit for funding those but we are premiering them.
What is the greatest gift that classic movies has given to each of you?
CT: I grew up an only child in an urban setting with a lot of weekends where I had a lot of time on my hands. So, I think in that sense, just discovering – I remember being a little kid loving the Francis the Talking Mule movies and that leading to more and more on Sunday afternoons or Saturday afternoons watching Tom Hatten in Los Angeles.
I was watching him in Philly!
CT: [laughing] So there you go! For me there was a sense of discovery of “wow” – I can be entertained. I can learn about other cultures. I can hear great music through these films through that. I learned about not just the storytelling, but I learned about what goes into film that makes it so good. Hopefully, that broadened my perspective on other things, too. Hope it gave me more empathy in this world, but I definitely think it expanded my horizons and hopefully that’s translated into life as well.
And for you, Genevieve?
GM: I would echo some of what Charlie said. I, too, got into classic film when I was younger, probably 10, 11, 12. At first I liked the aesthetics, I liked the music, I liked the way the films looked, I liked the way it made me feel as though I could time travel and I think specifically, and actually the theme of this year’s festival really speaks to this, specifically being able to travel to other places, cultures, times, other worlds through film is incredibly compelling, especially when you‘re younger and it‘s really opening up your eyes to, “Wow! There’s so much more out there.” I’m a huge Bond fan and I know that it’s not really the same these days in watching the Bond movies and being able to travel the globe in that way, but once upon a time you would go to the movies, you would go to a Bond movie and you could literally see the world through it. I really love travel today. I think part of that was sparked by seeing films like that and to be able to do that even if I couldn’t where I grew up, even if I couldn’t travel to those places when I was growing up at the time. I think the other thing about classic film is that because I care so much about it, I’m fortunate enough to be able to work in a place where I can explore that passion and share it with others. I’ve just so many incredible people that have been a part of making these films. So working at TCM has really been enriching and exciting for me, too.
And if there‘s one film that each of you could tell the public to go see at the Festival, what would it be.
CT: The General.
GM: I think it would be – oh, gosh – honestly, The Ladykillers. I think that’s a film that’s still under appreciated in this country and I think it’s one of the best comedies ever made. I just think it’s genius. I think The Ladykillers would be my choice. Tough call between that and The Lady Eve. With all these films, one thing I’m particularly excited about with this year’s festival is the fact that we seem to have such a range of comedies this year. I think if you are seeking that experience par excellence in terms of being with a crowd and being able to watch these films on the big screen, to be with an audience to watch a comedy there’s nothing better.
TCM Classic Film Festival 2013 runs April 25-28, 2013. For more information or to purchase tickets and/or passes go to www.tcm.com/festival.
