https://jonjostvol2.wordpress.com/2025/11/06/henry-s-rosenthal-and-me-part-1/

Henry S. Rosenthal and me (Part 1)

I don’t recall when I met this man – 1985? 86? – but I do recall why. I’d moved to San Francisco with my then partner Alenka Pavlin, and at first we’d stayed, subletting, in a nice spacious loft, while the owner, filmmaker John Knoop, was off on a long trip. Maybe. As someone who travels a lot and can’t drag many things with him, and pre-Facebook, most of my where/when memories are a bit fuzzy, lost in the smear of places I’ve lived, a year here, 4 months there, 2 years somewhere else, and even 5 years once.

Along with the places there’s also the shuffle of faces – the long list of friends scattered around the globe. Facing the end of our sublet from Knoop we shopped around for a new place, and answered an ad for a “loft” south of Market (SOMA). We met the landlord, Rosenthal, going to check it out – the “loft” description was rather misleading: the place in fact was one of a cluster of 6 or so very small cottages on Natoma Street, and the “loft” was a shelf below the ceiling just big enough to put a mattress in for sleeping, though far from being able to stand in.

The little court was kind of cute, and though small, we took a cottage. It turned out to have an illustrious past, or so it was rumored, as a whore house, with each little cabin serving as two “cribs” for the working girls to conduct their trade. At the back of the court was a bigger cottage, divided in two, above which a large flat plywood painted red rooster above it, apparently to advertise the old biz. It has all been torn down since we lived there.

So this man became my landlord, and, as it turned out, was apparently producing a film by famed Bay Area artist-experimental filmmaker Bruce Connor. I’d known Bruce from a few decades earlier when both he and I had served on the BoD of the Canyon Film Coop. The film they were making was about a well-known gospel group, forget which; it was never completed. Rosenthal did have some of Connor’s larger graphic works in storage in the 4 floor warehouse which he owned and lived in, at 535 Stevenson, an alley parallel to Market street, only a half block away. The place also had other art items, apparently sourced from Rosenthal’s father, a wealthy businessman from Cincinnatti, who among other things was a collector. So there was a Warhol print (real), and, as the father had specialized in him, a number of Kurt Schwitters collages.

At some point, I suppose early on, I let it be known I was a filmmaker and gave Rosenthal some DVDs, or maybe VHS. One of them was of Last Chants for a Slow Dance, which apparently hit him quite powerfully, and he waxed on and on about Tom Blair, and would quote lines from it, one being “small man just can’t get ahead” which he found quite funny. Not his problem. Being myself, I did not jump at this obvious matter, and it was 6 months or so, after we’d become no longer renters, but “friends.” Alenka and I went to the warehouse, named “The Complex,” for meals and get-togethers with Rosenthal and his then-wife, Carola Anderson, who came from Healdsburg, northern California. They were a kind of artsy couple, doing music in just intonation, and they had a supposed organization and archive for such work, which struck me as the kind of thing a rich child might have as a kind of hobby, like a big model train set. The music they did, along with their air about it, was rather pretentious, and as “music,” utterly pedestrian.

With Rosenthal salivating about Blair and Last Chants, I finally proposed maybe making a film together, which he bit at, though he wanted Blair as actor. I’d fired Tom twice, the last time being rather ugly and not so long before. But I said, OK, contact him if you want, feeling rather sure he’d decline. He didn’t though, and so Sure Fire kicked into gear. Rosenthal would play producer, and he did raise about half the $75,000 budget, while I raised the other half via some grants, if I recall properly from the NEA and the New York Foundation for the Arts. In setting this up, I let Rosenthal know I was a tax resister, and had been my whole life, and that I wished to keep me off-paper.

He fancied himself a kind of libertarian, and was OK with this, and as friends, we made verbal agreements about the film, we’d split 50/50 on any incomes, and at a later point we agreed we would not copyright it and subsequent films as at that time it required giving a print to the Library of Congress, which was costly, and we’d just use the copyright bug. He tucked it under his already existing LLC, Complex Corporation, and agreed verbally to everything. He was a friend and I trusted him.

The making of Sure Fire became a nightmare, about which you can read here:

https://thefilmsofjonjostcom.wordpress.com/sure-fire/

Much of the difficulty was caused by Rosenthal, though Tom Blair also played a significant role in the problems. When the film, shot in Super 16, was finished shooting in Utah, I was more or less not on speaking terms with the actors (except Kristi Hager), or Rosenthal, and I declined to edit the film at that time, and left to live in New York.

While in New York, being the way I am, I gravitated towards making a film there, and did the kind of casual research I tend to do, sucking up the place I am living in, trying to tune into its qualities. Coming up with a vague idea, against a friend’s advice, who said they were totally script driven, I approached American Playhouse, a PBS production unit, and in two brief meetings with Lindsay Law, its executive head, making clear there was no script and there would not be one, I secured a budget of $200,000 or so, to which a grant I received from the NEA brought a total budget of $240,000.

After I had personally raised all this money, I asked Rosenthal to be production manager, since he’d done that well enough for Sure Fire. He said he would only do so if he was listed as “producer” and I – not really giving a shit about such things – foolishly said OK. And, despite the mess he’d caused on Sure Fire, he was still a “friend.” My thought, discussed with him at the time, was that he would, in working with me, learn how to be a producer, and in my mind that would relieve me of that part of making films, which I loathed. I am almost allergic to money. I also made clear that he would not be around the actors or the shooting as he’d caused serious problems in the previous film. He accepted this.

After finishing the shooting of All the Vermeers in New York, I moved back to San Francisco to edit and to work with John A. English on the music. And then returned to finishing Sure Fire, doing the edit, overseeing the music, done in this case by Erling Wold. A sign which I should have read as a basis to end our partnership was when it came time for me to be paid for Vermeers – as budgeted (by me), with the money I had raised every penny of, and which I brought in on budget – was that Rosenthal initially was reluctant to pay, and used the phrase that it was “his” money. I noted this, but at that time thought it was just rather misguided of him, and not something pathological, which it turned out to signal. I did get my pay and put the matter aside.

With these films finished, we went to Sundance, the Berlin Festival, Montreal, SWSX and other places, together. Rosenthal was catapulted into the big leagues. My thought was that he’d get introduced to how this little slice of the film world worked, part of his learning process. I recall his first time going to Berlin, along with Carola, wearing a Brooks Brothers suit, a haircut suitable for it (super straight & nerdy) and in the swirl of those people there to schmooze, wheel and deal, mostly dressed in denims, networking and all that stuff, he stood there forlorn, with his briefcase, thinking deals would walk up to him owing to this errant business costume.

He made no sales, while I did – largely because I’d made good films which were hot items in Berlin, and at that time it was a nexus for selling. The films were sold to German, Italian, Czech and other distributors and broadcasters, and generated well over $100,000 in sales. Buyers approached me and I would turn them over to Rosenthal to deal with the paperwork – in effect he acted as a secretary/accountant. As the funds used for making the films – grants and the American Playhouse – did not have to be returned, it left a decent sum with which to do further films.

On returning to the US, with money available to work with, I turned myself to my next film, The Bed You Sleep In, which cost about $100,000 – and for which I personally secured, for free, through Bob Harvey, a Panavision package of their best camera, lenses and other things. Rosenthal acted again essentially as a production manager and accountant, and once again was kept away as much as possible from any interactions with the actors and crew. The film was shot in a month, in Toledo, Oregon, and edited relatively quickly with Wold doing the music in close collaboration with me in San Francisco.

Having inadvertently written a script while preparing to make Bed, I decided, since there was sufficient money from prior sales remaining to do so, to make another film, Frameup. Rosenthal did not want to make the film, though the money was there to do it, and after resisting it, with me underlining it was our money, not his, I again secured a free Panavision package, this time including a Worral head, and went off with Ann-Marie Miguel to northern Idaho and back to coastal Oregon, and shot the film, in 35mm, in two weeks, with a budget under $50,000, with a crew of two – me and Anne-Marie. Rosenthal was not present during most of its making.

Again the films went to Sundance, Berlin and other festivals. This time in Berlin Rosenthal seemed to have learned something and ditched the Brooks Brothers suit, though again he had apparently no clue on what to do, and all sales again were generated by myself and the buyers were passed along to him. I had become a modest name in this little slice of the film business and the films sold a bit more widely, returning all the money spent on them and more. I do recall during a press meeting, hosted by Ulrich Gregor, letting Rosenthal sit with me playing my “producer” and listening to him laud me as a filmmaker who could do so much with so little money, and how nice that was, and I was tempted at that time to say that you can’t do anything with money the “producer” hasn’t and can’t seem to raise. Outside the initial $35,000 for Sure Fire, he’d raised zero of the money for all four of the films; I had raised it all, from grants and from AP, and from generating sales from the films I’d made.

Somewhere in this period I recall watching Rosenthal sitting at his desk, a sizable half-circular one with a marble top, once owned by James Brown he told me, and talking on the phone with one of the band members from the group Crime, to which he’d belonged for a year, and getting the person, who was in desperate need of a fix, to sell his rights to the songs for $100. After he’d done this, he sat at the desk, looking like the archetypal shyster-kike, rubbing his hands together with a malignant smile, saying how he’d made such a deal and beat his “friend.” As distasteful as that looked too me, it seems it did not occur to me to say “over” and terminate our relationship, not seeing he could and would do the same thing with me.

I don’t recall the time – perhaps after Vermeers and Sure Fire were done, perhaps later, but I think not, we were invited to Paris, to discuss distribution as I recall. It was a business trip. With adequate time to prepare, Rosenthal neglected to line up one appointment regarding distribution or production; once there he made none. Rather he preferred to go to a sports center and play table tennis. I recall being highly disappointed with him, masquerading as a “producer” and not even attempting to do the minimal when he had a “hot” item at hand. His “rich kid” side was on display. Around this time I met another hustler, around same age as Rosenthal, and we established a relationship over some time, and regarding Rosenthal he said the problem was he was not “hungry.”

Likewise when distributing Vermeers, he and the fledgling distributor Strand Films decided to open the film simultaneously in 5 or 7 cities, including NYC. As it turned out they could not find a good cinema in New York, and opted for one in the Village which 2 months earlier had been a porn place. I asked them not do so, as the place was inappropriate, and said we should wait until the film ran up some BO elsewhere and then try to get a suitable place. They both said no. It opened in NYC with the other cities, with a nasty review by the NYTimes critic of the time, Vincent Canby, and ran one week. In Los Angeles it opened to 7 good reviews and none bad, on the first day of the 1991 riots, and the cinemas were closed the whole week. It thus did no BO and was pulled, by Hollywood logic, never mind the circumstances. Vermeers received a Best Independent Film of the Year award from the LA Film Critics association.

The film ran 6 months in Chicago and San Francisco, most likely on the strength of two “thumbs up” from the Siskel and Ebert television program. I had personally intervened to get them to look at the film, as Ebert had favorably reviewed my first short film in Chicago, way back in the ’60’s, giving me a wedge to write him personally and ask him to take a look. He and Siskel did look at it and I am sure most the box office was owing to their thumbs. Neither Rosenthal or Strand had any means to get such treatment, or did anything remotely equivalent.

In the period after completing Vermeers, in winter of 1991, MoMA in NYC did a retrospective of my work, every feature from Speaking Directly through Vermeers, 12 films, running a month. It got good press, etc. In the little bubble of “American independent filmmaking” I’d become a “name.” After this I made Bed and Frameup, and my little flame burst brighter.

It was at this time, I think spring of 1992, that a friend of mine, Jill Godmilow (who died this past month), gave me rights to the Raymond Carver book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, for which she’d written a script, obtained the rights but found herself unable to raise funding. She had let me use her Steenbeck to edit Rembrandt Laughing and seen some of my films, Bell Diamond and Slow Moves among them, and told me she thought if anybody was right for Carver it was me.

I discussed it with Rosenthal, and we were under the press of shooting a scene in June, to retain the copyright. In three months he raised zero dollars – with me as a hot movie name and Carver blazingly hot. Nor would he put his own money in. After this I decided Rosenthal was useless as a “producer,” having seemingly learned nothing in the 3 years we’d “worked” together. I told him I wished to terminate our partnership. I moved to Rome in May 1993, and within two months had secured a producer, Enzo Porcelli, to make a film in Rome. I wasn’t even trying to do so.

It was some time in this period that Rosenthal, furtively, without informing me, applied for the copyrights on the films, violating our verbal agreement we would not do so. He claimed to the Library of Congress that he had a “letter of assignment” in which I turned over the rights to him. No such letter ever existed, nor any verbal agreement to the same effect. Curiously, the Library apparently does not require the person applying in such a manner to show the letter. Henry S. Rosenthal, in applying for and securing the copyrights in this manner committed fraud. Far worse, he showed himself as a person utterly lacking in ethics, and with no moral character at all.

When I did find out about this, I consulted with my friend, Tom Luddy, who referred me to a Bay Area lawyer conversant with show business, copyrights etc. I did retain her, at a cost of about $5000, and filed a suit against Rosenthal. He expressed surprise that I had done so! The lawyer, on looking into the matter, informed me that to make a case would cost a minimum of $50,000, and further, that I would probably lose – in America (a) the legal system exists to protect the wealthy and (b) “possession is 9/10ths the law.” I certainly did not have that kind of money, nor did it make sense to spend money on a predicted loss.

Following this I contacted a group, California Lawyers for the Arts, and agreed to an arbitration process. I provided the lawyer with ample proof of where the money had come from, Rosenthal’s behaviors, etc. Rosenthal argued that my having made the graphics for the film which included a copyright bug and Complex Corporation, constituted a “letter of assignment.” The lawyer ruled in favor of Rosenthal and I was told to pay the costs for the arbitration and sign the end paper which included a non-disclosure agreement. I declined both. The lawyer was Jewish and I sincerely suspect there was some collusion involved. Tribal behavior.

As Rosenthal held the originals for all the films in his basement at 535 Stevenson, I did not publicly reveal the story, as he could have done whatever he wished with them and I feared the worst. Though I did tell people privately, friends, and when some “business” matters were at hand I would inform people of the reality. In hindsight I regret that I did not immediately make his actions public, as had I done so, it may have alerted people to his nature, and spared them damage.

I will continue with further information on Henry S. Rosenthal’s acts with my work, and his treatment of others in a coming post, and including emails he has written and other related things, such as other illegal acts he has committed.

Anyone with further information on Henry S. Rosenthal and anything he has done which would be of interest is welcome to comment below, and leave, if wished, a contact method.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5807186&forum_id=2:#49490001)