Caveh Zahedi
"I Loved D.A. Pennebaker"
2019. Caveh Zahedi looks back on his friendship with the all-time great documentary filmmaker, who passed away last week.
I first met DA Pennebaker at the Florence Film Festival in 1990. It was my first film festival ever. I was there with my first feature. He was there with Depeche Mode 101.
He told me he thought my film was better than Stranger Than Paradise, a film that was, for me, a magical work of genius that existed in some untouchable Platonic realm. For my film to be compared favorably to that sacred text was something I would never have even dared imagine. But I loved him for saying it and have loved him ever since.
I remember meeting Chris Hegedus for the first time and how I liked her right away. She was so down to earth. Once, when she was in San Francisco on her birthday, we
went hiking together to the top of a hill overlooking the Castro district where I had recently shot a crucifixion scene for one of my films. During our hike, she told me the story of how she and Penny met. I remember talking with her about the likelihood, given the age difference between them, that he would die first. I also remember talking about what that would be like for her.
I saw Chris and Penny many times over the years, usually at film festivals, or in New York, or when one or both of them would be visiting California.
Penny shot the Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars concert film. I was a huge Bowie fan and was always trying to get him to tell me more Bowie stories. I remember him telling me that the Bowie in real life was nothing like his on-stage persona. Rather, he was organized and efficient - like an accountant. I also remember him telling me about the time Bowie talked him into carrying the suitcase with the drugs inside, because no one would suspect him.
When The War Room was nominated for an Oscar, Chris and Penny invited me to their Oscar Party. One of the people who happened to be there was Victoria Williams, the country singer whose music I had been obsessed with ever since I saw her open for Harry Dean Stanton at McCabe’s. Penny and Chris had made a short film about her which they had sent me (on VHS). Watching the short had inspired a huge crush. But she seemed to be going out with the lead singer of The Lemonheads (who was also there), so my romantic aspirations were soon dashed.
When The War Room didn’t win, we were all disappointed but Penny seemed the least ddisappointed. He said that he never expected to win. He was just enjoying the ride.
Penny was preternaturally young. He was in his 70s when I met him and he seemed like a man of 40. I remember thinking “Gee, I hope I’m as alive and razor sharp in my 50s as he is in his 70s.”
Penny was hard to describe. He was an utterly unique person. He was a free spirit before that term even existed. He was a role model for how to live the art life with dignity, curiosity, empathy, and joy. He was interested in absolutely everything.
A few years ago, my wife and young son and I visited Chris and Penny at their apartment. His hearing had started to go a little and it occurred to me how hard that must have been for him. He had always been such an attentive listener and such a keen interlocutor.
A few years later, I started working on a film about Timothy Leary’s Millbrook experiment. During the course of my research, I discovered that Penny knew Leary and had filmed his wedding at Millbrook! I couldn’t believe it. Penny sent me a copy of the film. I kept meaning to make time to ask him to tell me Timothy Leary stories, but that conversation kept getting deferred and then it was too late.
The last time I saw him was when I invited Chris and Penny to show Unlocking the Cage to my Contemporary Independent Cinema class. Afterwards, we decided to get a bite to eat. I suggested a restaurant a block away and we started off in that direction. But Penny was having a hard time walking (he was 92 by then) and he seemed exhausted by the effort. I felt bad for making him walk that far. There was a place much nearer we could have gone to.
As lunch was ending, I thought to myself: “I wonder if I’ll ever see Penny again or if this might be it.” I remember giving him an extra big hug in an “in case I never see you again” kind of way. I remember watching him and Chris walk away. I remember wondering what it would be like for Chris when Penny died.
Two nights ago, a friend posted a picture of Penny on Twitter, but I didn’t understand why. And then last night, someone I was working with said: “Did you hear that DA Pennebaker died?” I literally fell over. It was a strange sensation. It was as if I had been punched. It seemed both impossible and inevitable. I was having a hard time processing it.
The person I work with looked stunned. “I knew him,” I explained.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize.”
He felt guilty for telling me and I kept trying to reassure him that I was glad he did. I sat there a while, in shock. I tried to let in the enormity of what had just happened, but I couldn’t. I was in the middle of working and there was someone else there. I felt guilty for making him wait while I processed my emotions so, after a few minutes, we went back to work.
I am not good at grieving. I don’t know how to do it and my instinct is to move on as soon as possible. But I can’t quite digest this one.
There will be plaudits and praises. And they will be justified. But words fail in the face of the love that Penny inspired and will continue to inspire for as long, to quote Dylan Thomas, as forever is.
I wanted to cry. I want to cry right now. I loved him. He wasn’t just a cinematic giant. He was an incredibly beautiful person with an utterly unique and beautiful soul. He was like no one else I’ve ever met.
Be more vulnerable.
Penny had 8 children and there was something about him that was paternal. He seemed like someone who had had children young.