Stephen Applebaum remembered
I won’t pretend I knew him well, beyond one quite legendary evening at the festival that went from an unprintable story with a Hollywood A lister at a premiere party to a punch-up at the TV festival hotel bar. We met a few more times. But I knew some of his work intimately and always looked forward to reading his next submission, the interviews overflowed with insight. He seemed able to coax wisdom and fascinating stories from anyone he spoke with, he had that essential way of keeping them relaxed, I guess. Initially we paid him for a few reviews for FilmFestivals.com, but even when we had none, he continued to send us and upload Q&As that no-one else would publish. I’m not sure if it was so he could demonstrate to the publicists that the interview had been useful, or because he liked what we doing – either way we benefitted.
For Netribution 1 he brought Mark Ruffalo, Kelly Reilly and Michael White at the very start of their film careers, and Jack Cardif or John Boorman late in theirs.
In Netribution 2 he brought so much named talent and stars it made us look like a serious film journal with a budget, when we were completely no-budget bootstrapped. I was only just getting the hang of Netribution’s ‘CMS’ which meant writers could self-publish – and will never forget the night that he got the hang of it too – first an interview with Helena Bonham Carter appeared. Then Lexi Alexander, then Tim Burton. Then came Kevin Costner and Nicole Kidman – all exclusive interviews. I was in awe, and it was probably the pincacle of my experience with ‘user-generated content’ as it became to be known. It’s a great regret I never got to pay him for any of it.
But his impact was much wider – beyond his book on the Wicker Man, he gave Vidal Sassoon his last interview before he died, and managed to get countless confessions and intimate revelations from those he met over the years. He was the first film journalist I got to know, and he taught me a lot about the sometimes humiliating efforts to gain access from publicists, and engagement from interviewees. One I won’t forget is that if stuck for an opening question, he’d go for ‘what was the genesis of the film?’.
I don’t really know how to write a proper obituary for him. I can tell you he started as staff writer on VNU’s What Micro magazine, which you can read from his Blogspot. I haven’t yet figured out how best to memorialise a writer who would have had a public obituary long ago if he’d been film editor of a journal. But there’s nothing – and so for now, in nothing’s space, I’ll revisit his interviews over the coming months and republish some of the highlights and insight from them, starting with what he sent us in 2001.
Before I do, I have to share my biggest regret, of not making more effort to keep in contact with him, beyond the often hostile environment of social media. I didn’t even know he’d died until I checked his Facebook page late last year ahead of reaching out to him about Netribution’s 25th year. The shock of this in part motivated me trying to reach out to everyone I knew back then with this anniversary edition – so to finish here’s a somewhat cliché reminder to re-connect with anyone dear you’ve lost touch with, lest one day you can’t.
Remembering Stephen Applebaum, six interviews from 2001
