Kelly Reichardt on Adam Yauch
“From the very start, Adam was involved and excited to weigh in on all things. He’d offer up ideas and be extremely cool about letting those ideas go if I had something else in mind. I basically had my way with all the artwork, the trailer, I got to put the emphasis on a theatrical run and even chose the theater I wanted to open in. What film company lets a filmmaker do all that? Adam, having somewhere back in time strived for those same artist controls, was used to not following all the prescribed rules. In fact, often I would end up being the square in the room — worrying about the re-styled TOHO-SCOPE, DayGlo green bumper (it’s an oscilloscope screen, which is a cathode ray tube, showing waveforms), or when in Oscilloscope’s first press release for “Wendy and Lucy,” Adam, the co-president of the company, referred to me and Michelle Williams hooking up as a real “Wu Banger” (it’s a joint sprinkled with crack).”
(…)
“Adam brought his scene-making skills to Oscilloscope’s headquarters, located way west on Canal Street. You take the elevator up to the 6th floor and the doors open onto a paneled wall full of oddball art. Make a left to the recording studio and straight ahead is the film office — a large loft, all wood and old glass — nothing extravagant. Kind of utilitarian with its desks full of young people in their suits and skirts (O’Scope dress code) in a semi-communal space. People working there know they are part of something special.”
I was at the Oscilloscope offices last year to interview Lynne Ramsay. And it’s exactly as Reichardt describes: oddball art, toys, figurines everywhere, posters everywhere, all wood like the wood that’s only found on desks in high school or in libraries, and old glass that makes the entire space feel especially scholastic or what you might imagine the Daily Bugle to look like. As if John Jonah Jameson, Jr. is yelling from his office, Peter Parker, nearby. The “dress code” is pretty terrific too. I remember texting my editor that everyone looked like a Beastie, a red carpet Beastie that is. The office is way down on Canal, so far down that you wonder if you’ve made a wrong turn or walked past it. Intentional or not, once you find it and ride the elevator up, the space does, as Reichardt says, feel very special—near bootleg and brave.
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