nce upon a time in Los Angeles, in the early days of cable, there was a channel called Z. Launched in the late '70s, well before Netflix and TiVo, it gave Angelenos a chance to catch an eclectic mix of televised programming, be it The 400 Blows or The Empire Strikes Back. Alexander Payne and Quentin Tarantino were among those influenced by its programming; Robert Altman and Paul Verhoeven credit Z with helping their careers take off.
    The mastermind behind the schedule, Jerry Harvey, was a guardian angel of filmmakers who predicted there'd be an appreciative audience for a director's original vision. But Harvey also had a dark side, and his depression got the better of him. In 1988, with the future of Z Channel in doubt, Harvey shot and killed his wife before turning the gun on himself.
    Director Xan Cassavetes, daughter of the Hollywood legends John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, discovered Z as a teenager after being grounded by her father for sneaking out at night. Her memories of the channel's programming inspired her first documentary. She speaks with Hooksexup about how Z introduced countless L.A. kids to art-film sex and possibly snagged Annie Hall an Oscar. — Lily Oei

Could it have existed anywhere besides L.A.?
It helped that Jerry could call studios here and ask for certain things nobody else wanted. Obscure films — and at that point, that meant things like an Altman film — no one would see. Things that would come out for a week and disappear. There was no DVD or video at that point. Jerry played all of Altman's films, all of Paul Verhoeven's films. He brought them to the attention of people in the industry, who then let them continue to make movies.

Supposedly Annie Hall owes its Oscar in part to Z Channel.
I think it was the lowest-grossing Academy Award winner. No one paid to see it in the theaters, and it wasn't out for very long. Z Channel played it relentlessly. So many Oscar voters are in L.A., so they saw it, loved it and voted for it. That helped Z Channel become a vehicle for studios, who wanted their big movies on Z Channel for Academy consideration. They started showing "for your consideration" programming, and played films that were in the theaters — big, huge films.

And Harvey championed the original versions.
He used Z Channel as the very first forum for the director's cut. He was able to broadcast the masterpiece instead of a massacred version. He proved there was a market for the director's vision. The legacy is DVD extras and outtakes. How accidental a production was this for you, not having made a documentary before?
It's really funny how that happened. I had been two weeks away from shooting a fiction film that was three years in the making. At the last minute, one of the investors transferred his money into a horror film, and we had to shut down. Everyone was really depressed, so we went out drinking and started talking about all the great films that meant the most to us and would have a hard time being made today. Every single film I remembered, I remembered seeing on the Z Channel. And I was like, Wait — did you ever hear of this? Some people said "no," others were like, "Omigod, yes." I became obsessed with the fact that I had forgotten it, and it wasn't a point of reference. That's when I decided to make a documentary, to keep its memory alive. I didn't really know about Jerry Harvey until much later. Learning what you did, you could have easily gone the E! True Hollywood Story route —
Yeah. I know. People were like, "Are you going to recreate the crime?" and I said, "Ah, no." Jerry Harvey's life was incredibly dark.
He was marked from the beginning. When your only two siblings commit suicide, and you have a sadistic father and passive mother, your life is so incredibly stacked against you chemically and emotionally. I always think of Jerry Harvey and Z Channel in this way: what's most surprising isn't that his life ended up like that — that he killed his beautiful wife and Z Channel went off the air. It was a miracle that Z existed at all, that he was able to rise above his demons to do something good with his life. There's an audio interview with Jerry Harvey that runs through the documentary. It has a pretty ghostly effect on the story.
I loved hearing not only Jerry, but the interviewer, who was so cautious of him. It seems like they were talking from the beyond. How difficult was getting access to material and interviewees?
Fifteen years had gone by, which I think helped people to talk about it. Everyone clearly was ambivalent about their feelings. Here was a guy who saved the work of artists that meant more to him than anything in the world. He was a friend who appreciated them when no one would. His ex-wife, and a lot of the people on the personal side, wanted to talk, but it was hard for a lot of them. They said, "I have nothing good to say," and then they'd come in and only say good things. I'd ask, "Do you want to say anything else? I want you to represent your feelings, express the fact that you have some anger." But their anger had just turned to this helpless sadness. Were you astonished that the Z Channel story was never mentioned before?
I Googled Z Channel, I Googled Jerry Harvey — there was nothing. I guess people wanted to forget. Even the last owners of Z Channel, who turned it into a sports channel. It wasn't great publicity when the guy in charge of your station kills himself and his wife. I think they were pretty happy not to keep the torch alive. Did you opt not to mention your father's productions — or were they never on Z?
They did put some John Cassevetes stuff on, although Jerry was never able to secure the big retrospective. For some reason, my father wasn't in a good mood the day he was asked, and he made some impossible demands Jerry couldn't give him. But he snuck a lot of things on. There was a retrospective of him as an actor. John Cassevetes was not a Z guy. He thought retrospectives were for dead people. How do you think Z Channel influenced you?
For me, and for many others who watched it, it set a tone for the rest of our lives, as far as insight into other cultures and eras, and what's possible. It made us tolerant and open-minded. We're so accustomed to living in a society where people don't respect or regard people who offer things to us. And people don't give things with love anymore, only with the intent to make money. Z Channel is an incredible reminder of how things are supposed to be given. Really, the philosophy that people are not interested in what they don't know is a dangerous thing.  n°

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession runs on IFC on May 9. A full weekend of Z Channel programming (including Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows, Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Oliver Stone's Salvador) runs May 14 and 15.