Our Editor-in-Chief Charles Finch introduces our latest issue, a celebration of independent California.
In this, our 14th issue, we celebrate a lesser-known side of California—a soulful and sometimes urban California. Within this land of great physical beauty and wildness, which has inspired dreamers and searchers looking to shape their own narratives for over two centuries, lie raw cityscapes and hidden valleys housing residents whose longing for success has often been compromised by the harsh realities of survival in one of the most competitive societies on the planet. These Californians have, through adversity and ingenuity, found their own voice and culture. It is this culture we explore here.
That California has always captured the imagination of free-thinkers and artistic spirits goes without saying. A wide economic demographic and ethnic mix shapes the land with inventors, drifters, and, of course, innovators. And, it has to be said, a fair share of crackpots too. True Californians—at least the ones I have grown to know and love over the past 40 years—cherish the wildness of the spirit of the place where anything is possible, or so it seems. And the geography of the land is breathtaking: here, the wide beaches and breaking waves, ringed as they are by the mountains in the south and north, have bred a culture like none other. Waiting on their boards to catch the right wave, surfers, both old and young, include enthusiastic professionals, urban cowboys, and the Hollywood set. Doctors and tech billionaires. Writers and urban planners and scoundrels and minstrels and so on.
This intoxicating mix of natives and the newly arrived live to surf the giant breakers and venerate nature and the sun; unbothered by the fires and earthquakes, or the traffic and the white light. They are buffered by the rise and fall of the swell, and, if there is no tomorrow, well then, right here and right now is just fine!
In my time living in California, I climbed the mountain ranges and waited tables in the evenings. I made movies both good and bad, and half-starved to death waiting for them to be made. I was never alone in my dreams, though, as you see I was part of a land that both worshipped the new—always the new— and reluctantly sustained the dreams of the old and disenchanted. It was and is the land of hope.
We are, here in our journal, of course going to talk film—but this time we have chosen a few prominent, native Californian rule-breakers, whose work in film blends the artistic and the original with the commercial, and in the mix create great cinema. For this reason we profile Jeff Bridges, Michael B Jordan and Kathryn Bigelow, all of whom have carved their own paths in the world of storytelling while retaining their unique West Coast sensibilities. Kathryn has given us a wide range of stories in her films. Each shares a similar realism and intensity—a visual brilliance—with central characters who see the world differently and with an earnest clarity.
In my time living in California, I climbed the mountain ranges and waited tables in the evenings. I made movies both good and bad, and half-starved to death waiting for them to be made.
Charles Finch
Polish poster for Sunset Boulevard (1950). By Billy Wilder. Courtesy of Posteritati.
Looking beyond the obvious canvas of California brings us to musicians Alana Haim (also an actor) and María Zardoya, and to architecture through the prism of Paul Revere Williams, one of the great Black American architects. He designed the coffee shop at the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Polo Bar—and suite 117, which I happen to know pretty darn well. He was a genius and one can only imagine the struggle he had to overcome.
We can’t have a California issue without Hollywood. So we include Sue Mengers, the consummate showbusiness agent, whose life is in part chronicled by our Paris Editor-at-Large, Natasha Fraser.
There are long reads here too, which I am not going to spoil. I want you to be surprised by this issue. Our Catalina story by Joe Bullmore takes us to the wild and beautiful channel island off the coast of Los Angeles, where Marilyn Monroe lived and wild buffalo still roam. Chiara Barzini tracked down screenwriter Robert Towne for his last interview, exploring his fascination with water. Carlos Aguilar explores Los Angeles as a seductive but ruthless machine of reinvention. Luke Georgiades dives into Heaven’s Gate, the film that brought a studio down, but for us remains a masterpiece. We have hitherto unseen photography of the film’s production to illustrate the piece. The legendary Los Angeles Rebellion director Charles Burnett sat with contemporary director Boots Riley for a special conversation. And in art, we bring you interviews with Ed Ruscha and Mary Weatherford; as well as stories of Marcel Duchamp and more.
Now discover this issue and cherish it for yourself. Between the waves, on the warm sand—wherever you are, hold it on your chest and rest in the warm love it is created with.
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