Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004) is a documentary about 1970's to 1980's Los Angeles pay cable station Z Channel, directed by Xan Cassavetes, daughter of the late Hollywood director/actor John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands.

Z Channel was one of the first pay movie channels in the US, preceding HBO and Showtime, and serving the bucolic
rolling hills neighborhoods of Los Angeles where studio heads and filmmakers lived but couldn't get decent television reception.

Z Channel promised an eclectic variety of films, including foreign, silent, documentary, overlooked, under-appreciated, erotic as well as mainstream films, without commercials, uncut and letterboxed when possible. It was a hit, and everyone from industry folk to everyday viewers went along for the film education ride only Z Channel provided.

In the early 80's, Jerry Harvey came on board as Programming Director, and became a man who was almost single-handedly responsible for getting so many great films shown to the public. The documentary details the rise and fall of both Harvey and Z Channel, as Harvey pursued a purist vision of film as art and translated that into the programming, yet was suffering from mental illness which resulted in life-ending tragedy. The night Harvey and Sam Peckinpah ran Peckinpah's version of The Wild Bunch at the Beverly Canon Theater in 1974, the Director's Cut was born. Later, on the Z Channel, Harvey would premiere many more, from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and Once Upon a Time in America to 1900 and Heaven's Gate. 

Cassavetes gives us insight into Harvey's constant battle with personal demons, yet reveals his complete dedication to preserving, exposing, and exalting films in a way never again duplicated. On a local radio program taped in Santa Monica, the interviewer comments on how dedicated Harvey is to film, but asks if
he's interested in doing anything outside of film. Jerry Harvey cynically mumbles, laughs, "what do you mean"? We see hazy, slo-mo shots of various LA locales, fade into the sunset.