Auteur Watch - K.C. Hodenfield

Our last auteur is K.C. Hodenfield, which just goes to show that, even though Hollywood is one of the toughest businesses to make it in, as long as you keep your head down, do the work, don't make eye contact with the stars, keep going to the various doctors and dentists that everyone has to see eventually anyway, you just might be able to claw your way just above the middle, especially if you've got a little army of unpaid interns to do most of the heavy lifting for you. In the case of the director, or 'auteur' as us film snobs are wont to refer to them as, there are the assistant... sorry, Assistant Directors. You've got your First Assistant Director, your Second Assistant Directors and, on some of the bigger films, your 2nd Second Assistant Directors. Let's see if I can quickly find one!... got it! Okay, I think I got him already, but there's the old reliable Julian Wall... hmm!  I coulda swore someone actually got that credit listed.  Apparently it's just too embarrassing.  Nevertheless, there must be something to that Assistant Directorship.  Plenty of guys do it... and probably some girls too.  Betsy Magruder, there you go.  There's at least one.

But, as the example of K.C. Hodenfield shows us, there's still some room for lateral movement.  Let's start at the beginning with... his life as a production assistant.  And even though the general public thinks of Howard the Duck as a stinky bomb, in Hollywood it's thought of as a noble attempt by George Lucas to spread his wings and try to get out from under the eagle's shadow cast by his beloved Star Wars franchise... if only briefly.  Also, their monolith was way cooler than 2001's ever was, and they did make nice use of ... whatever technology was used on the title of the film to make it move with the camera.  Whatever happens after that... I can't vouch for.  Jeffrey Jones gets electrified, a portal from another dimension gets sealed, followed by a rock concert... all those things people want to see in a movie, but without the pleasant continuity that these celluloid affairs usually have.  Up next: something called My Demon Lover... did the first Mannequin come out first, or just around the same time?  Close enough.  Well, this kind of fantastical plot was just in the air as those go-go '80s were winding down (and AIDS was ramping up...).  And even though the plot of My Demon Lover seemed almost too tailor-made for church groups in particular and anti-sex leagues in general, well... turns out they wanted to make their own films too!

And so, not content to stay in that narrow Production Assistant lane on that highway we call Hollywood, it was time to move up.  But K.C. Hodenfield didn't get greedy.  See, the average schmow looks at the director getting raised up with the camera on that big crane, and says to themselves "Well, hell!  Even I could do that!"... even though they're afraid of heights.  That's rule #1 in the DGA handbook: "When the crane goes up, don't fall out of the chair."  Thank Gawd for video playback!  No, K.C. Hodenfield looked instead to the Assistant Directors, saw them cracking the whip on the crew and the extras and the non-stars of the cast and said to himself, "I might be able to do that."  Probably had some younger siblings he "practiced" on in his ill-spent youth.  But choices of genre were hard to come by, so in keeping with the theme of My Demon Lover, his first First Assistant Directorship was on a minor classic called Zombie High... well, hopefully it was a fun shoot.  But there must be something to it!  It's apparently available on Blu-Ray, where the fine cinematography of both Brian Coyne and David Lux can be enjoyed as though you were seeing it in the theatre 35 years ago!  Soon after came something even more obscure than that: 1987's Siesta starring Ellen Barkin and Martin Sheen.  Well, some, like Ellen Barkin and K.C. Hodenfield would go on to better things; others, like Martin Sheen, some would argue that his best work was already behind him... oh, right.  "The West Wing."  I've got Season 1 somewhere!

Well, K.C. Hodenfield got a taste of the big time as a First Assistant Director, but... somehow, the assignments weren't that great.  And so, a bold decision was made: go back to the day job, hope for the best.  Well, he lucked out with the assignments: Midnight Run, Tucker: The Man and His Dream and In Country... okay, so they can't all be The Godfather, but in Hollywood terms, it's in the right neighborhood!  And speaking of The Godfather, after that long slog of ungodly hours, getting the stars' coffee orders right, not making eye contact with said stars... the big break finally came.  Second Assistant Director on The Godfather Part III.  Now... okay, sure, again, to you and I in the general public a film like The Godfather Part III is a big, stinky bomb that we wouldn't even watch if it were shown on the AMC channel and what not, but to a Second Assistant Director?  A gold mine.  I mean, if you survive meeting all the other members of the Coppola family, you're halfway to Hollywood royalty yourself!  And besides, Francis himself didn't want to make this film himself at first... but, things change.  I mean, it's like how fans of The Police have to grapple with the existence of "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86."  For me,it was that trio's way of saying to their fans... we've all moved on, and you should too.  But Stewart Copeland looked like he was having such fun!  ANYWAY, the first half of the '90s was a bit of a hard scrabble (for K.C. Hodenfield) until (the movie) Twister hit.  And look!  K.C. himself got to be a 2nd Second Assistant Director on that minor classic, Memoirs of an Invisible Man.  Wonder if he still had to interact with Chevy Chase a lot?  Hmmm...  And so, K.C. Hodenfield managed to somehow survive those crazy '90s and keep his career: yoga, tofu, vegetarianism in general... people had to get ready for when Jesus comes back!  I forget... did he?  Anyway, it was just up and up for K.C. Hodenfield.  Turns out there's room on Michael Bay's coattails after all!  The world is basically K.C.'s oyster, but I guess he's not greedy.  Doesn't seem to want to become a director proper... the only thing left now is to become a major stockholder in the Marvel (C)(TM)(R) Cinematic Universe.  You know, like Jon Favreau.  That one will be hard to pull off, though.  But K.C.'s latest and greatest is something called Shazam! Fury of the Gods.  It's in the right neighborhood, if nothing else!  Or maybe early retirement is in the cards!  Who knows?  What's a good age for a First Assistant Director to retire?  Oh well; that's above my pay grade.  One final toast to K.C. Hodenfield: Assistant Director Extraordinaire!