[Filmmaker Sarah Kernochan will answer questions following screenings of her films IMPROMPTU at 5:30 pm and MARJOE at 8:30 pm on Saturday March 23rd at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Interview by Bob
Ignizio
At the age of 24
Sarah Kernochan co-produced and directed MARJOE, a film about
evangelist (and later B-movie actor) Marjoe Gortner. Released in
1972, the film went on to win the “Best Documentary Feature”
Oscar in 1973 for Sarah and her filmmaking partner Howard Smith. She
then went on to release two albums on RCA records as a
singer-songwriter, and in 1977 her novel Dry Hustle
was published.
After
a little more than a decade away from movie making, Sarah wrote her
first screenplay for the 1986 hit film 9
1/2 WEEKS, and from there
went on to write or co-write several more films, including the critically
acclaimed SOMMERSBY (co-written with Nicholas Meyer and adapted from the 1982 film THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE)
and the hit thriller WHAT
LIES BENEATH? (co-written with Clark Gregg). In 2002 she
won her second Oscar, this one in the “Best Documentary Short”
category, for Thoth,
about the life of New York-based street performer S. K. Thoth. More
recently in 2011, Sarah's second novel Jane Was Here
was published. And those are just some of the highlights of what can
only be described as a varied and interesting career.
Sarah
Kernochan will be at the Cleveland Cinematheque on Saturday March
23rd for screenings of IMPROMPTU,
a film she wrote the screenplay for that was directed by her husband
James Lapine, at 5:30 pm followed by MARJOE
at 8:30 pm. Sarah will answer questions after both films. In the
meantime, I had the opportunity to ask Sarah a few questions of my
own via email, and she was kind enough to answer.
