'Halos' a tangled story of drugs, death and publishing
Advertiser Staff
The film "Horns and Halos" captures an unlikely connection between three men — a U.S. president, a discredited author and an underground publisher — whose paths to power become tangled in a book.
In October 1999, a short article appeared in the New York Times: St. Martin's Press had recalled "Fortunate Son," the first published biography of George W. Bush. At the time of its recall, the book was No. 8 on Amazon.com's best-seller list — no doubt because of the book's widely publicized allegations that Bush had been arrested for cocaine possession in 1972. However, Bush wasn't the only one with a hidden past. Citing distrust of the author, J.H. Hatfield, the publisher pulled the book from stores after learning that he was a convicted felon.
J.H. Hatfield
Several weeks later, small underground imprint Soft Skull Press, the self-styled "punk of publishing," announced that it would republish the book. But getting "Fortunate Son" back on the shelves was not all that easy. Operating out of a tenement basement on New York City's Lower East Side, 29-year-old founder Sander Hicks struggled without significant success for more than a year to get the book back into stores and into the national consciousness. After months of lawsuits, bad press and disagreements with the distributor, Soft Skull made one final desperate attempt to make a splash at the 2001 Book Expo of America. Against the author's wishes, Hicks revealed the sources for the book's cocaine allegations, with electrifying consequences.
'Horns and Halos'
When faced with difficult decisions, there is rarely one clear answer. "Horns and Halos" reveals the complexities of the decisions rather than simply the results. As screenwriter and scholar Robert McKee states, "True character is revealed in the choices human beings make under pressure."
To tell the story, filmmakers Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky worked in the cinéma-vérité tradition of the Maysles Brothers (makers of 1970's "Gimme Shelter," a documentary of a Rolling Stones concert turned violent in Altamont, Calif.) to bring the viewer into the world of underground publishing. "Horns and Halos" is also peppered with sit-down interviews that help unravel the details of this bizarre story. Participants such as Pete Slover, the journalist who broke the story about Hatfield's past, and Mark Crispin Miller, media critic and an avid defender of the book, shed light on the complexities of the story.
The filmmakers have a history of making films connected to the underground music community. In addition to shooting, editing and directing "Horns and Halos," Hawley and Galinsky have made two feature films together ("Half-Cocked," 1995, released on video by Matador records, and "Radiation," shown at Sundance in 1999). They have made over 50 short-subject videos. David Beilinson co-produced the film. He is a documentary producer for PBS's "In the Mix."
"Horns and Halos" was an official selection of the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival and 2002 Rotterdam International Film Festival.
Reviewer David Sterritt of the Christian Science Monitor said the film "reaches out to anyone interested in politics, publishing or the uneasy marriage between big money and mass communication."
