A Conversation With Hal Hartley – Hammer to Nail. Still playful after all these years, catching up with The Unbelievable Truth last week was something of a difficulty, certainly more so than catching up with its director, Hal Hartley. While I didn’t have to trek all the way up to the SUNY Purchase library (where both he and I attended film school) to have a look at the VHS in one of the smelly, white walled screening rooms in which I and surely many generations of Purchase film students have watched it, some minor detective work was needed to track down a copy of Hartley’s at turns funny and beguiling feature debut, a delightfully po-mo romp that introduced us to a voice that in many ways defined the spirit of American Independent Cinema in the early nineties. Hartley’s Trust (1990), Simple Men (1992) and Amateur (1994), set in the suburbs of Long Island but seen through Hartley’s rogue and philosophical sensibility, are examples of a type of American cinema that has become both commonplace and all too rare.
HH: No. Hal Hartley. Hal Hartley / TROUBLE AND DESIRE / Hal Hartley. Hal Hartley. Hal Hartley's stylized filmmaking techinque has rendered him one of the most influential independent filmmakers in America. "The Unbelievable Truth" is one of my favorites. Hal Hartley: Trouble and DesireFilmography, images, sounds, quotes, reviews, and even screenplays from the director whose stylized, quirky movies have developed a cult following.
Hal Hartley: A Fan PageThis devoted fan offers images from his favorite Hartley films. Hal Fool: The Push, Pull and Play of Hal HartleyA fascinating interview with IndieWIRE's Anthony Kaufman. No Such Thing (2002)Hal Hartley's new film asks the question: Are there really monsters? I say: who cares when Sarah Polley is back on the screen, asking the questions. The new math(s) (2000)The Ensemble Sospeso presents the world premiere of award-winning director Hal Hartley's newest work, a short film with live music by Louis Andriessen. Henry Fool (1998)Sony Picture Classics official site. Trust (1990)Forget Parker Posey. News: Hartley Changes Tune at Sundance. Sundance 2005: A Streaming Video Interview with Hal Hartley. What Ever Happened to Hal Hartley? - NewYorkmetro.com. “I remember a magazine wanted to do a big photo spread with a bunch of us—Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, six or seven of us—the new indies,” recalls New York’s onetime next-great-auteur, seated at a long wooden table in the living room of his nearly empty West Village apartment.
“Maybe I was just an asshole, but I refused to do it.” Back in the early nineties, Hartley could shrug off that kind of attention. Many of his excellent early films were shot in his native Long Island on shoestring budgets, offering breakthrough roles to Parker Posey, Edie Falco, and Martin Donovan. The Unbelievable Truth, Surviving Desire, Simple Men, and especially his literate 1990 romance, Trust, were smart suburban dramas peppered with deadpan philosophizing, scored with Yo La Tengo tracks and Hartley’s own guitar playing—arty anthems for a generation of film lovers, embraced by a small, proud subculture and held very tightly by it. “Distributors always wonder, Who’s going to see this movie?”
Possible Films - Hal Hartley.