Filmmaker shows drawings at library

SHARON — A showing of Tom Schiller’s drawings opened at the Hotchkiss Library in Sharon on  Saturday, Oct. 1. But it’s clear that Schiller is, at heart, a filmmaker.

If you are of a certain generation of television viewer, you have never forgotten “Don’t Look Back In Anger,” Schiller’s short film in which a 90-year-old John Belushi visits the snow-covered graves of his fellow Not Ready for Prime Time Players.

Or, if you are interviewing Schiller at the White Hart, he himself makes it clear when you suggest taking his picture in the lounge. He strides into the room and immediately begins setting the scene — arranging an armchair to catch the light correctly, moving a stack of antique books from the other side of the room to put them into the shot.

(To see that photo and others from Schiller’s SNL days, go to The Lakeville Journal Facebook page.)

But when did Schiller realize he was born to be a filmmaker?

“When I was 16,” he said during that interview.

Schiller is lean and boyish with white, curly hair. He seems not totally at ease speaking with a stranger; nonetheless, an elfin grin frequently lights up his face.

He grew up in Los Angeles; his father, Bob Schiller, was an accomplishd television writer. But Tom didn’t want to write for TV. He wanted to make movies.

By 18 he was apprenticing for a documentary filmmaker named  Robert Snyder, working on a film about the novelist Henry Miller.

“I was just learning,” Schiller said. “I was the sound man.”

He launches into the story. “So we were filming Henry at his house in Pacific Palisades, and I got to talking to him afterwards. I was enraptured by him. He was a marvelous storyteller and conversationalist with this thick Brooklyn accent.” 

Those coversations led to a 10-year friendship (“He was one of the greatest influences of my life.”), and the friendship led to Schiller’s first film.

“At his house, [Miller] had this bathroom. He had covered the walls with pictures of writers and artists and poets and attractive women and all kinds of weird stuff. 

“I knew that if he talked about each one of those things, he could tell a concise story. So I set the whole thing in the bathroom and had him talk about each one. 

“It turned out to be a great documentary — my first one. It was shown on PBS, and it continues to be shown to this day.”

DVDs of the film are on sale at the library show. In addition, a number of works by Miller hang alongside Schiller’s.

Finding SNL

How does a documentarian end up in late-night comedy?

“I met this guy named Lorne Michaels — he was working on a show called ‘The Lily Tomlin Show.’ I started hanging out with his group of friends. 

“He kept asking me to join this new show that he was making, a live comedy TV show in New York. I said, ‘I’m not really a TV writer.’

“After a while, though, I did start getting a little tired of Los Angeles …. I don’t know — I needed to get away. 

“So I took him up on it. And in October of 1975, I was one of the first writers on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ It was a huge success. We won Emmys and everything. We were the toast of the town.”

In season three, Schiller started making short films for the show.

“I was in heaven, because I could think of an idea, and 10 days later it would be broadcast on national TV in front of millions of people. 

“I made lots of those things. ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger,’ ‘Java Junkie’ with Peter Aykroyd and Teri Garr, ‘La Dolce Gilda,’ which was a Fellini parody — which, incidentally, I showed for Fellini and he liked it.

“To me, that was the golden period of making short films. I loved every moment of that.”

Another level of heaven

When Michaels left SNL temporarily in 1980, MGM signed him to produce five feature-film scripts. Schiller wrote one, and, “for some strange reason, they chose mine out of all the five to make. 

“It was a wacky film about a young teenage guy who wants to be an artist but instead goes to the moon in a bus. It’s called ‘Nothing Lasts Forever.’

“Now I was even more ecstatic. I was a director. I had written it. I had a studio crew working with me in New York. It was just heaven.” 

After several disappointing test screenings, the studio decided to shelve the movie. But Shiller wasn’t ready to give up yet.

“I heard that the guy from the Cannes Film Festival was in New York, so I snuck a print to him. He calls me up and he says, ‘You have created a masterpiece.” 

“So I went to the president of MGM and I said, ‘Look, they want me at Cannes.’ And he says, ‘Baby, you could get hurt at Cannes.’ I said, ‘Give me a list of films that were hurt at Cannes.’ He said, ‘Baby, I could have a list of 50 on your desk by tomorrow.’ 

“The list never materialized, and I never went to Cannes. Which is my biggest sadness, because all I ever wanted was to be a foreign film director.”

Like some of the SNL shorts, “Nothing Lasts Forever” has lived on beyond all expectations.

“Over the years, it’s been shown at festivals and film clubs and things. It has sort of a cult following. Which in a way is cooler to me — that it’s an underground, sought-after film. 

“It’s had quite a release, despite the fact that it was unreleased. I’m still proud of it. It’s my baby, and I love it.”

Faced with the need to make a living, Schiller started directing commercials.  He ended up making roughly 500 of them and winning several awards.

“I won a gold lion at Cannes — so I won something at Cannes after all — and Cleos and all that kind of stuff. I had a good stretch.”

And then: Cornwall

While working at an ad agency as an advisor, Schiller met the woman who would become his wife, Jacque Lynn Schiller.

“It was love at first sight. We dated for a year, we were engaged for a year, and now we’ve been married for 16 years.”

Schiller grows rhapsodic when discussing his wife.

“She has inspired me and supported me and given me everything I thought I would never get.”

The Schillers bought a cabin in Cornwall 15 years ago and were weekenders before moving up permanently in 2011. Schiller says he doesn’t miss New York at all.

“Right now I’m sort of puttering around. I’m acting in a movie that two friends of mine wrote. I have a player piano, and I’m cataloguing the over 600 rolls that I have for it. I’m doing this exhibition at the Hotchkiss Library. Little things like that.”

As for the show, it turns out that the filmmaker was always an artist as well.

“Over the years, I’ve sort of doodled and drawn little drawings and stuff like that. I’ve been influenced by Steinberg, and Miró especially. Cocteau perhaps.”

Now that the show has opened, what’s on the horizon?

“Mostly enjoying hanging out with my wife and living life quietly up here. It’s a relief.

“I spent one half of my life in LA, one half of my life in New York, and now my golden years in the Northwest Corner. We live up here with our cat, in a lovely home, and I’m very happy.”

Henry Miller: An Art Exhibition runs through Dec. 2 at the Hotchkiss Library in Sharon. For more information, go to www.hotchkisslibrary.org or call 860-364-5041.