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| Wes Anderson’s favorite on-set still photographer James Hamilton with 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman and Anne-Katrin Titze on his Village Works exhibition: “They have a display of eight of my photographs, good size prints, including Lou Reed and John Cale and Pattie Smith and Tom Verlaine and Prince and Debbie Harry.” |
In the first instalment with photojournalist James Hamilton, Wes Anderson’s favourite on-set still photographer (James is also the voice of Mole in Fantastic Mr. Fox and makes an appearance in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou), we start out discussing Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Grace Kelly’s Mark Cross bag, the Albert Hotel, Harper’s Bazaar, and everything else that James Stewart’s LB Jeffries eerily has in common with the subject of DW Young’s surprisingly candid Uncropped (a highlight and centerpiece selection of the 14th edition of DOC NYC).
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| James Hamilton on Alfred Hitchcock at the St. Regis: “Just he and Alma and they order up tea and I spent the afternoon having this fantastic time talking more than shooting with Hitchcock.” Photo: James Hamilton |
The documentary features revealing on-camera conversations between James and a number of his colleagues, including Joe Conason, Sylvia Plachy, Mark Jacobson, his partner Kathy Dobie, plus Thurston Moore and Eva Prinz (the publishers of James Hamilton: You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen). Thulani Davis, David Lee, Richard Goldstein, Alexandra Jacobs, Susan Vermazen and Michael Daly share their memories of a journalistic time gone by.
Music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman, who was very familiar with the Village Voice’s extensive cultural coverage which included Robert Christgau’s annual Pazz & Jop Critics’ Poll (1980 Independent Single of the Year award went to 99 Records Bush Tetras Too Many Creeps) and the serious and comprehensive reporting on the social issues of the Seventies and Eighties New York and beyond. Ed introduced me to James’s work in 2022 when we were invited by Thurston Moore and Eva Prinz to their Ecstatic Peace Library Rock ’n’ Roll round table with Jamie Nares and Kyoo Lee at The Algonquin in New York City. The exhibition Linger On: The Unseen Portraits of The Velvet Underground by James Hamilton was on view and we were given an advance copy of Linger On: The Velvet Underground, Legend, Truth Interviews by Ignacio Julià.
From New York City, James Hamilton joined us on Zoom for an in-depth conversation on Uncropped.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Very nice to meet you! Wes Anderson in the documentary compares you to LB Jeffries!
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| Wes Anderson notes that James Hamilton resembles LB Jeffries (James Stewart) in Rear Window |
James Hamilton: Well, there are lots of reasons, I’ll tell you. First of all, I saw that film when I was eight-years-old. We’re talking about Rear Window.
AKT: Of course.
JH: And it made a huge impression on me. It was the first Alfred Hitchcock film I had ever seen and I fell in love with Grace Kelly and Alfred Hitchcock and also the lifestyle. The idea of doing something where you never knew what you’re going to be doing from day to day. That appealed to me at a tender age, that that’s the way to live. And that wound up being true for me. And then a couple of friends from high school… I was at Pratt studying art, I was always painting and drawing,
I had no real interest in photography at all, except the way it portrayed history, but not as an art or anything and I had no experience in photography. So I was painting and drawing at Pratt and had no idea really what I was going to do but a couple of friends and I got this apartment that I am in now in the summer of ’66. We had to come up with rent, $109 a month split three ways.
AKT: Not bad.
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| Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly) and Anne-Katrin Titze’s Mark Cross bags Photo: Ed Bahlman |
JH: So I had to get a job and through a friend of a friend I heard about a photographer who needed an assistant. So I went to see him and we hit it off. I didn’t know anything about anything, especially studio photography. He [Alberto Rizzo] was a fashion photographer. But we loved the same movies, which is always a good sign. Film Noir usually. So he hired me that day and I had to learn on the job and I spent the summer there. The reason I brought all this up was, well that’s the beginning of my photo career.
I stayed with him for two years and never went back to Pratt. I abandoned painting and took on photography from then on, not fashion photography, but basically I was playing in the street and I got to use his darkroom and everything. But my point was that the apartment where I am in is in the exact neighbourhood that Rear Window is set in. As a matter of fact, when he [Jeff, played by James Stewart] talks to Thorwald [played by Raymond Burr], the killer, he says, “Meet me at the bar at the Albert Hotel.” The Albert Hotel is right across the street from me!
AKT: Oh wow!
JH: And the apartment almost resembles mine.
AKT: And could it be that I see crutches behind you?
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| Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly) reads Harper's Bazaar at the end of Rear Window |
JH: Ha, that’s the other thing! I was run over. And in the movie they pan around the room at the beginning of the film and you see that what happened was a wheel hurtling towards him because he was on a raceway and that’s what happened to his leg. You ask for an exciting picture, you’re going to get an exciting picture! So that’s how he ended up with the left leg being smashed. Well, my left leg was run over by a Cadillac Escalade. So my left leg was also injured by a mammoth tire. So I was laid up in a heatwave, as was he. I was basically out of commission for four years.
AKT: Doesn’t Grace Kelly at the end switch the book she is reading to Harper’s Bazaar?
JH: Alright, I can’t tell you anything! That only occurred to me recently, because they had a screening of Uncropped in Sag Harbor. This past Good Friday they had a screening in this gorgeous brand-new movie theatre they built from the ashes after the Sag Harbor Cinema burned [in 2016].
AKT: I heard about it from Volker Schlöndorff first.
JH: Yes, state-of-the-art fantastic theatre! And they said, would you like to show something that you like on Saturday? And I said, what about Rear Window? That’s when I jogged my memory that of course she’s reading Harper’s Bazaar where I wound up being staff photographer. It’s very … you see what I mean, right?
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| Patti Smith with Tom Verlaine in 1975 Photo: James Hamilton |
AKT: Yeah. I have my Mark Cross bag in the other room.
JH: Your Mark Cross weekend bag!
AKT: It’s not that big.
JH: Overnight bag. Well, you’re a Hitchcock fan obviously.
AKT: Obviously, and I’m very curious about your afternoon with Hitchcock and Alma at the St. Regis!
JH: That was fantastic. Because I was staff photographer at Harper’s Bazaar. I had five staff jobs, you must know that. All in New York, which is already some kind of record maybe. So I had an enormous amount of control over my work and I also had an enormous entrée. I could photograph almost anyone I wanted passing through town. Sometimes I could travel to do that. So I knew that Hitchcock was promoting Frenzy in 1972.
Being on staff at Bazaar I suggested to them, are you doing anything about Hitchcock? And they said no. But I just set it up so I could meet him. So I go to the St. Regis, knock on the door and he comes to the door. There’s no publicity people there or anything. Just he and Alma and they order up tea and I spent the afternoon having this fantastic time talking more than shooting with Hitchcock. That’s the kind of thing I could do and that was one of my favourite sessions.
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| James Hamilton’s photos of The Beastie Boys and Jack Nicholson in the final weekly print edition of the Village Voice, collection Ed Bahlman Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
AKT: There’s this great photo you took of Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni on a sofa, reaching out to opposite sides. What was that situation?
JH: That was the same sort of situation. Well, that was actually an assignment. If you’ve seen much of my work, you see that hotel rooms were the setting for many many pictures. Sometimes I could use the room, sometimes I could not. I could use that because I liked that they were on opposite ends of the couch. It’s a joy to meet those guys, as you can imagine. Again, we had fantastic conversations because I knew so much. I mean 81/2 is one of my all-time favourite films, so we had all kinds of great conversations about all his films really.
AKT: I have a prop here [I hold up the Linger On book].
JH: I think they’re hard to find! Later on I’m going over to a bookstore to talk about that book.
AKT: Thurston and Eva gave it to me.
JH: Oh that’s great!
AKT: I was at The Algonquin.
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| Village Voice Pazz & Jop Critics’ Poll 1980 Independent Single of the Year award went to 99 Records Bush Tetras Too Many Creeps |
JH: Oh, you were?
AKT: Not at the opening of the exhibit when you were there. They had different events with Jamie Nares, Richard Hell, and others. Which bookstore will you be at today?
JH: There’s a bookstore smack in the middle of St. Marks between 2nd and 3rd called Village Works, a very small, lovely little bookstore. They have a display of eight of my photographs, good size prints, including Lou Reed and John Cale and Patti Smith and Tom Verlaine and Prince and Debbie Harry. Anyway, a number of people that are hanging on the wall there and they have a display of the books, I hope, because that’s partly what I’m going to be talking about [on April 25].
AKT: You took a picture of Bush Tetras and I have someone here who would like to say hello, Ed Bahlman of 99 Records.
Ed Bahlman: Hello James!
JH: Hello, how are you?
EB: I’m great! What a joy to watch Uncropped!
JH: I’m glad you saw it!
EB: So many memories!
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| James Hamilton’s photos of Nico and Lou Reed at The Algonquin Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
JH: Yeah, I think David Young did a fantastic job. Because it’s so much about the era. Long gone in many ways, but it was really a fantastic thing.
EB: The editing is perfect.
JH: I thought so too. I mean, a movie with talking heads could have been pretty bad. I think he kind of boned up by looking at a lot of films about photography, about photographers, as a matter of fact.
EB: Well, the Village Voice was very important to me also when I started 99 Records.
JH: Oh, I see.
EB: They were always supportive in their music picks for Voice Choices.
JH: Christgau, yes.
EB (holding up the Village Voice copy): The last weekly print edition! And there you are!
JH: There I am is right!
EB: And Sylvia [Plachy] too!
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| Linger On: The Velvet Underground, Legend, Truth Interviews by Ignacio Julià Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
JH: Sylvia is going to be at one of the screenings. [Ed holds up the Village Voice 1980 Pazz & Jop Independent Single of the Year Critics’ Poll award for 99 Records Bush Tetras Too Many Creeps] Oh look at that!
EB: Robert [Christgau] called me up and said, you won the Pazz and Jop Poll Independent Single of the Year.
JH: That’s so great!
EB: I had to go to the Peppermint Lounge and go on stage and accept it and give a speech.
JH: The Peppermint Lounge was around?
EB: Yeah, I couldn’t believe it. I got a call the day before.
JH: That’s amazing.
EB: But your photographs, not only of the music people, with Mark [Jacobson] and Joe Conason, Wayne Barrett - the Village Voice was great.
JH: It was a great paper. Kathy [Dobie], my partner, who is sitting here, we actually met at the Village Voice on a story. She, as many writers will tell you, will say it was one of the greatest experiences of her career, that kind of freedom to write long and deep and pretty much anything you wanted. You could go to them with stories easily and they would take them. So it was a great experience for me, for all the writers I knew and joined on stories.
EB: Yes, and they were so open too. I started the shop in ’78 with only independent US and import records that I air-freighted over. They came out on Friday in the UK and I had them in the shop on Saturday. I went to JFK airport, I had a broker who did the customs paperwork.
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| Ed Bahlman with a signed copy of James Hamilton: You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen at Village Works Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
JH: You know I sold records at Bleecker Bob’s, right?
EB: That was in the documentary, right? I was at 99 MacDougal Street and he moved to West Third. He was not happy about that!
JH: Right! I bet not! I was only in the store that was across the street from the Bleecker Cinema, up those iron stairs.
EB: When Public Image’s Metal Box came out [in 1979], my partner from the shop [Gina Franklyn] was in London. She was able to have them directly from Virgin through Richard Branson. 99 was the first to have Metal Box in the US. The next day some guy comes in and wants to buy five. And my customers say, don’t sell them to him, he’s from Bleecker Bob’s! I said, he’s paying full price and the tax, of course I’m going to sell them. And we had plenty!
JH: You didn’t want Bleecker Bob as an enemy. He could be violent.
EB: We never had an interaction.
JH: That’s good. He would bodily throw people down those metal stairs. He could be tough.
EB: A lot of people were upset with the way he ran his business. That’s why I thought I could do it, because the prices he was charging for imports. He was clearly marking them up because he was one of the few places that had any, even months after they came out. It’s really great to say hi to you!
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| Bush Tetras and DNA photos from James Hamilton: You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
JH: Thank you!
AKT: I have one more point I would like to ask you about. At the start of the documentary you speak about the world of analogue and how you, I think you said, miss the sense of rediscovery. The time it takes between the taking of the photo and developing of it!
JH: That may be the case for a lot of photographers who started out in analogue because it is a great experience to be surprised by what you got. Everything about it being so handmade made it more difficult but more fun in the end. Because of the element of surprise. You just never knew exactly what you were going to get and it was exciting. It was exciting to see the image come up in the developer, I mean, all of that was magical.
The only experience I had as a child with that was a friend of my parents was a very prominent fashion photographer and he showed me how to work in the darkroom a little bit when I was a kid and I was fascinated. I’m surprised I wasn’t hooked then. But I had no idea how to work a camera and I wasn’t technological and all that. But the important thing I would say is to get past the camera and past the equipment. But once you have, it all becomes enormous fun and really is a magical thing. I never got jaded by that experience.
AKT: The anticipation to see the result used to be longer.
JH: It could be days. I have film that I’d actually never gotten around to developing. That’s how hard it was to get off the treadmill, because I was working every day, pretty much.
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| James Hamilton quotes a line from Rear Window: “Meet me at the bar at the Albert Hotel.” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
AKT: There is the beautiful German word Vorfreude for anticipation, which literally translates to pre-joy. On the opposite end of Schadenfreude.
JH: Yeah right! Were you a photographer ever? Did you take a camera when you did interviews?
AKT: Yes, I did and I do. Let me take a screenshot right now! It is great to meet you!
JH: You too!
AKT: Have fun at the bookstore!
JH: Thank you so much! And bye Ed!
Coming up - More with James Hamilton on his long and illustrious career, the star-studded parties he covered for Harper’s Bazaar, the sheer endless array of famous people (Diane Keaton with her cat Buster, Arthur Miller in contemplation) he shot in hotel rooms and elsewhere, his large collection of photo books, including August Sander and Jacques-Henri Lartigue, James’s work for the Village Voice, covering war zones, the horrors encountered in Ethiopia, and a recommendation to see the powerful and poignant Käthe Kollwitz exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which runs through July 20.
Uncropped will be available digitally on Amazon and Apple TV starting on Tuesday, 7 May.
