Today, the 20th Anniversary edition of THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH becomes available. You can order it here on director Hal Hartley’s website. This little film, put in the can for around $55K, and finished for about $125K, launched many a career (Hal, Adrienne Shelly, Edie Falco, Robert John Burke, Kelly Reichardt, Nick Gomez, Danny Liener, Bob Gosse, Whitney Ransick, Mike Spiller, Sarah Cawley, Chris Rogers and many more). It changed my perspective on getting things done, on not waiting for others’ acceptance or approval, and to instead use the power and will we all need to maintain. I am confident it holds many lessons still for us all and am eager to leap into it again. But what does it’s creator have to say? Hal speaks:
A friend asks me what, after twenty-two years, I might have learned (or not learned) from making my first feature film, The Unbelievable Truth, in 1988. What did I learn? The same thing I always learn (borrowing from Henry Miller): make films the way you like and die happy. What didn’t I learn? Everything. That’s why I’m still at it, I suppose.
