Filmstalker: Hendrix film, finally?

It looks like we're finally set to see a Jimi Hendrix film, although this one isn't going to be based on fact.

Slide is a fictional drama that will see the character of Jimi Hendrix pulled into another story and used for dramatic effect. The upside of this is that there will be no requirement for his music to be used and therefore the complex issues that have plagued the biographical films won't feature a part here.

The film is written and will be directed by R.H. Greene. It tells the story of a lost weekend in the sixties when Hendrix disappeared. The story will have two gangsters racing to get away from the boss that they've double crossed, accidentally kidnapping Jimi Hendrix. This is the time period when Hendrix was at his best and worst, the highest point of his career and the lowest of his drug addictions.

On the journey not only does Hendrix clean up his act, but he also teaches the two gangsters about honesty, turning them into good guys, or so the story from The Hollywood Reporter tells us anyway.

The article confirms that no music will be used in the film and that this is a fictional road trip film, not a biographical film in any way, and adds to the growing slate of fictional material on the legendary lost weekend of the star.

Well it's not the screen outing that we wanted for the character of Jimi Hendrix, I think I'm sure that I speak for almost everyone in that if we were to see a film about the man then it would be better to be a biographical one. I certainly would love to hear about the man behind the legend and less about what never happened on a lost weekend.

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Thank you so much for your interest in my upcoming film SLIDE.

Some of the initial coverage used the word "fiction" to describe this project, so it's probably inevitable to see it here, and certainly nobody's fault. After digging into the various (actual) accounts of Jimi's kidnapping and dramatizing what seemed to me the most likely sequence of events, I want to say that this initial report was a simplification bordering on inaccuracy.

The finished script is actually inspired by a pervasive story that has circulated for 40 years saying that Jimi Hendrix was kidnapped shortly after his performance at Woodstock and held for several days. I did extensive research on Jimi, the incident itself and the period, and discovered among other things that Jimi had told two of his closest associates (including his fiancee) it was true, though their accounts of what Jimi said happened varied. The details died with the participants, but there's strong circumstantial evidence something occurred, and the known facts, including the actual murder of a Hendrix associate during the same time period, have all been adhered to in SLIDE.

SLIDE is therefore much more grounded in actual events than, say, LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, to name a terrific film that blends real events and actual personages with created characters. And Jimi is onscreen at least as much as any other character.

Additional reports that Jimi teaches one of his kidnappers some sort of a life lesson are news to me. Nothing like that is in the script, and nothing like that will be in the movie.

It's inevitable that reporting on something that hasn't happened yet will contain speculation, so no harm no foul. Still, at this point in the process, I'm pretty much the only one who in a sense has seen the movie. So I thought it would be a good thing to add my voice to the dialogue.

Despite the fact that SLIDE necessarily contains conjecture and speculation (for no definitive version of this story exists), I promise to do my best to make the movie and the depiction of Jimi within it as truthful as humanly possible.

best, R. H. Greene

Posted by: R. H. Greene | December 8, 2009 6:39 PM