That magic moment just before dropping the boiling oil on the Christmas carollers; that rich, rare occasion when, by the dark of night, the pumpkin in the patch carves itself into a jack-o-lantern; that mystical way in which the skier defies reason (and physics) by rounding both sides of the tree – this is what goes on in the universe that is Charles Addams’ mind. Charles Addams: Drawn and Quartered delves into the life and art of the famed, internationally renowned New Yorker magazine cartoonist who first offered scenes of unsettlingly macabre humor to a conservative mid-20th century America and then went on to create one of the most enduring television/movie/theatrical franchises in modern memory – The Addams Family – all of which was the direct result of Addams’ unique way of seeing the sinister within the ordinary.
What was Charles Addams truly like?
Friends and colleagues were asked constantly by bank clerks, bellhops, gas station attendants, even Alfred Hitchcock, who once arrived at Addams’ door unannounced to say, “I’ve just come to see you in your natural bailiwick.”
Charles Addams: Drawn and Quartered cultivates this curiosity that Addams evoked by tracing his unique perspective and experiences through his skillfully rendered cartoons, and delving into what shaped his uncanny ability to see the eeriness in the everyday.
The mastermind of Goth humor was born and raised in Westfield, New Jersey. Although referred to as “Colonial Westfield” (founded 1720), most of the homes in this conservative, upscale commuter town were and are Victorian- style structures, shuddering in the shadow of the nearby, monolithic New York City. Westfield prided itself on good principles, good schools and good roads. But there was something beneath the surface.
Addams said, “I was always aware of the sinister family situations behind those Victorian facades.”
Westfield provided an essential background to Addams’ formative years—he later credited walking the streets of Westfield as the source of ideas for his early dark cartoons. It’s not hard to see why:
Addams’ earliest childhood memory was of an old man being run over by a car.
He liked to spend time in the 18th century Presbyterian cemetery. One weathered 18th century tombstone reads ‘I told you I was sick.’
Charles’ boyhood dentist committed suicide in the swamp near Surprise Lake—a spot surrounded by the town cemetery where children liked to skate in winter.
Despite this dark backdrop, Charles Addams had a wholesome childhood and gained a reputation as a mischief-maker.
His mother said he learned to laugh at two months old and never stopped.
He first ventured into the artistic world when he was eight years old—breaking into a Victorian house that was under construction and drawing skeletons on the walls.
“Are people ever disappointed when they meet you?” asked a reporter
“I suppose they are, aren’t you?” Addams deadpanned
Charles Addams liked to perpetuate dark, creepy rumors about himself: that he slept in a coffin, put eyeballs in his martinis, collected instruments of torture and received chopped off fingers from fans in the mail. The most hyperbolic rumor was that Addams would manically redraw certain cartoons over and over, either his famous “the skier” or a ghoul in the maternity ward telling a nurse holding a baby, “Don’t bother to wrap it, I’ll eat it now.” His New Yorker editors would then haul him away to the lunatic asylum.
But it wasn’t all hype. Charles did have a fondness for cemeteries and funerals. He collected human bones and his coffee table was a medieval embalming table. His front door on 25 West 54th Street was decorated with a crossbow, a black #13 and a bat knocker. He liked animals and taunted children.
His colorful yet dark life coincided with a very special chapter in art, culture and literature in New York City.
Despite being known as a master of the macabre, Addams was genteel, witty and endlessly charming – with sophisticated tastes, a man-about-town, a bon vivant.
As a young man, he’d ride down 5th Ave on top of the double-decker buses, looking up at the richly ornate architecture and looming water towers high above on the mid-town rooftops, memorizing every structural feature. Hundreds of Charles Addams’ cartoons precisely depict recognizable buildings in New York. Charles Addams: Mastermind of Goth Humor looks at these landmarks as they exist today, as they appear in archival material from the 1950s and 60s while considering how Addams brilliantly appropriated these environments to place unsuspecting citizens in the middle of strange events on the familiar streets of New York.
Addams loved fast cars, seductive women and black humor. He often ate out with Boris Karloff. In fact, Karloff wrote the introduction to his first published collection, Drawn and Quartered, and was the visual basis for Lurch, the Addams Family butler.
Reportedly, Addams thought of himself as homely Uncle Fester in the Addams Family, but this may have been false modesty. This thrice- married man had a notorious black book, dated Joan Fontaine, Jackie Onassis, and Greta Garbo. Notable guests at his parties included Dorothy Parker, John O’Hara, Burgess Meredith and Lauren Bacall. One cast-off paramour even plotted to murder him.
On one occasion a spooked lover asked him about a noise in the middle of the night. Addams said, “It’s just the little people scraping to get out.”
Addams disdained marriage and drew many cartoons reflecting these feelings – husbands committing suicide, wives killing husbands, husbands killing wives.
All three of his wives—Barbara Jean Day (‘Good Barbara’), Barbara Barb (‘Bad Barbara’), and Marilyn ‘Tee’ Miller—resembled the cartoon Morticia Addams with a touch of Gloria Swanson. Time Magazine put it best while announcing his divorce from his second wife:
‘Divorced, Charles Samuel Addams, 44, necrographic cartoonist for The New Yorker; by slinky, lanky-haired lawyer Barbara Barb, 36, live ringer for Addams’ lady lurker, after two years of marriage, no children;’
Ultimately, she swindled Addams and his heirs out of more than 75% of any Addams Family profits.
The cartoons and cartoonists in The New Yorker enjoyed their heyday from the 1930s-1970s. Charles Addams’ story is linked with the history of The New Yorker magazine – pivotal in the intellectual and literary life and with New York City itself. His cartoons reflected the social development and cultural shifts of the mid 20th century.
Having perfected his bold “Chas Addams” signature in thick black ink, Charles Addams worked with esteemed colleagues Peter Arno, William Steig, Saul Steinberg, Wolcott Gibbs and James Thurber at The New Yorker—some of the greatest humorists of the 20th century. They collaborated with each other, sharing jokes and gags.
Charles Addams: Drawn and Quartered unfolds in three locations: Westfield, New York City, and Sagaponack—all referred to in Addams work—and includes interviews with people with stories about Addams (there are a lot of them) or had encounters with him (lots of these too!), weaving them together with footage of Addams on the Dick Cavett show and featured in a wide variety of other TV, radio and existing movies. We also intend to interview John Waters, Guillermo del Toro, Tim Burton, Art Spiegelman, Bill Plympton, Angelica Huston and others influenced by Addams. ]
Admirers have mined Addams’ work throughout the decades. His relevance is still in evidence. The Addams Family, a new animated feature, was released this fall, starring Bette Midler, Charlize Theron, and Oscar Isaac.
Charles Addams’ cartoons are dark and delightful, humorous and irreverent, almost Dadaist. His drawings were truly art. His cartoons had the signature unsentimental New Yorker view, yet his murderous characters and misfits were laced with peculiar sweetness. It is ‘normal’ human nature to be fascinated by the ghoulish, in the tradition of Poe and Hitchcock. Most cannot resist the impulse to look at a dead body. Addams indulges these impulses and exposes our deepest fears, but made the exercise inimitably fun.
THE TEAM
Sara Driver - Director
Sara Driver is a filmmaker born in NYC and raised in Westfield, NJ. She grew up skating on Surprise lake. The same lake where when Charles Addams was a boy, his dentist committed suicide. As children, both she and Addams frequented the 17th century cemetery in downtown Westfield. She grew up with the legends surrounding Addams, the love of his cartoons and the people who knew him. SARA DRIVER adapted, produced and directed the film version of Paul Bowles’ short story, YOU ARE NOT I (1982, 48 min.). It premiered in the U.S. at Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre in New York City and was featured at many international film festivals, and museums. In 2011 it was presented in the Master Works section of the New York Film Festival. Her feature film; SLEEPWALK (1986, co-writer, producer, director, 78 min.), won the prestigious Prix Georges Sadoul (1986) given by the French Cinémathèque. SLEEPWALK also won the Special Prize at the 1986 Mannheim Film Festival, and was the opening night selection for the 25th Anniversary of the Semaine International de la Critique at Cannes (1986). SLEEPWALK was also featured at the Museum of Modern Art’s 1987 New Directors New Films Series. In 1993 she made the award-winning feature film, WHEN PIGS FLY (co-writer, director, 94 min.), starring Marianne Faithfull and Alfred Molina. It premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival and was shown at Toronto, Rotterdam, as well as many other international film festivals. She wrote and directed the short documentary, THE BOWERY - SPRING, 1994, part of “Postcards from New York,” an anthology program for French TV. Her most recent film BOOM FOR REAL THE LATE TEENAGE YEARS OF JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT was released in 2018 by Magnolia Pictures in the United States and is distributed throughout the world.
Rachel Dengiz - Producer
Rachel Dengiz is a two time Emmy Award winning producer. She began her career working for independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, where she worked on both COFFEE & CIGARETTES and BROKEN FLOWERS. Her recent films include the documentaries BOOM FOR REAL THE LATE TEENAGE YEARS OF JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT, directed by Sara Driver, THE PUNK SINGER, directed by Sini Anderson, Emmy Award winning MEDORA, directed by Davy Rothbart and Andrew Cohn, the Emmy Award winning web series PARK BENCH WITH STEVE BUSCEMI, directed by and starring Steve Buscemi, the pilot CHOPPED LIVER, directed by and starring Shannon Plumb, produced with Derek Cianfrance, and the documentary television series ELVIS GOES THERE, with host Elvis Mitchell, directed by Toby Oppenheimer, produced by Zero Point Zero Productions. Rachel is the co-founder of New York based production company Bunny Lake Films.
Julie Goldman - Producer
Julie Goldman is an Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning producer and executive producer of documentary features and series. She recently produced Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner One Child Nation, released by Amazon Studios, and Ringside which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. She produced Oscar-nominated, Emmy Award winning films Life, Animated and Abacus: Small Enough to Jail and Oscar-shortlisted films God Loves Uganda; 3 1⁄2 Minutes, Ten Bullets; Buck and Sergio; executive produced Oscar shortlisted films Weiner, Art and Craft and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. Julie also produced and executive produced Emmy Award-winning films The Music of Strangers, Solitary, Best of Enemies, the Emmy- nominated series Humans of New York and the new Showtime series Murder in the Bayou. Julie received the Amazon Studios Sundance Institute Producer’s Award and the Cinereach Producer’s Award.
Christopher Clements - Producer
Christopher Clements is an Emmy Award-winning and Peabody Award-winning producer and partner at Motto Pictures. He recently produced Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner One Child Nation which was acquired by Amazon Studios and Ringside premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. Chris executive produced Steve James’ Emmy Award-winning and Oscar- nominated Abacus: Small Enough to Jail; Weiner, which won the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the 2017 Academy Award; two Sundance 2018 premieres, Inventing Tomorrow and The Cleaners; and the new Showtime series Murder in the Bayou. Chris co-produced Life, Animated, which was nominated for the 2017 Best Documentary Feature Academy Award, and won three Emmys, including the award for Best Documentary in 2018. Christopher is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the Producers Guild of America (PGA), British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS).
Carolyn Hepburn - Producer
Carolyn Hepburn is an Emmy winning producer who joined Motto Pictures in 2010. She recently produced Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner One Child Nation which was acquired by Amazon Studios and executive produced Ringside which had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. She produced the Emmy nominated and Oscar shortlisted 3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets; Take Your Pills, which premiered at SXSW and was acquired by Netflix; and Take Back the Harbor, which premiered on Discovery. She co-produced Life, Animated, which was nominated for the 2017 Best Documentary Feature Academy Award, and won three Emmys, including the award for Best Documentary in 2018. She executive produced Charm City, shortlisted for the 2019 Academy Award; Love, Gilda, the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival Opening Night Film; Weiner, shortlisted for the 2017 Academy Award; Art and Craft, Emmy nominated and shortlisted for the 2015 Academy Award; and the new Showtime series Murder in the Bayou. Carolyn is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the Producers Guild of America (PGA), British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS).
Dan Braun - Executive Producer
Dan Braun is the co-founder and co-president of New York based sales, production and distribution company Submarine Entertainment. Submarine has been involved with the sale of five out of the last eight academy award winning documentaries; Citizenfour, 20 Feet From Stardom, Man on Wire, The Cove and Searching for Sugar Man. Other films in Submarine’s portfolio include: Shirkers, Three Identical Strangers, The Price of Everything, Pick of the Litter, Life Animated, Whose Streets, Weiner, Iris, Blackfish, The Wolfpack, Food Inc, Batkid Begins, The Overnight, Finding Vivian Maier, Best of Enemies, Tiny Furniture, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, Muscle Shoals, Meru, Tangerine, Creep, Dior and I, The Unknown Known, Winter’s Bone, Tabloid, Witch Hunt, Chasing Ice, and The Cave of Forgotten Dreams among others. Mr Braun is also a film producer whose work includes the documentaries Kusama-Infinity, Burden: The Story of Chris Burden, Fire Music, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, and Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy. Braun is an Emmy and IDA Award winning executive producer on the documentary series Wild Wild Country and also executive produced doc series Evil Genius and The Devil Next Door and many feature documentaries including Kill Your Idols, Blank City, Sunshine Superman, Rude Boy: The Story of Trojan Records, Streetlight Harmonies, RATS, I Called Him Morgan, Echo in the Canyon, The Quiet One, Bad Reputation and Pick of the Litter. Braun also leads the team on the development of the classic horror comic book properties Creepy & Eerie, published by Dark Horse Comics where he is both a writer and an editor. Braun won an Eisner Award for his work on The Creepy Archives.
Josh Braun - Executive Producer
Braun is the co-president of Submarine Entertainment, a hybrid sales, production and distribution company. Mr. Braun is an executive producer of the recent and upcoming documentary features APOLLO 11, WHIRLYBIRD, EDGE OF DEMOCRACY, CIRCUS OF BOOKS and TELL ME WHO I AM. Submarine's recent and upcoming non fiction series titles include THE DEVIL NEXT DOOR, Evil Genius, The Keepers, Lenox Hill, Pick of the Litter, and WILD WILD COUNTRY for which Mr. Braun won the Emmy for best documentary series in 2018. Recent films sold and represented by SUBMARINE include American Factory, Honeyland, One Child Nation, Echo in the Canyon, Tell Me Who I Am, Watson, Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary, Edge of Democracy, The Kingmaker, Midnight Family, Sea of Shadows, Circus of Books, XY Chelsea, Ernie and Joe, Three Identical Strangers, Shirkers, The Oslo Diaries, Crime and Punishment, Joan Jett: Bad Reputation,Legend of Cocaine Island, and Pick of the Litter. Submarine has been responsible for the sale of five out of the last ten Academy award winning documentaries; Citizenfour, 20 Feet From Stardom, Man on Wire, The Cove and Searching for Sugar Man and Submarine has represented documentary films at the Sundance Film Festival that ended up winning the the grand jury prize for the last five years consecutively.
Ron Mann - Executive Producer
Toronto filmmaker Ron Mann is one of Canada's foremost documentary filmmakers. Mann established his international reputation while in his twenties with a series of award-winning theatrical documentaries, including Imagine the Sound (1981), Poetry in Motion (1982), Comic Book Confidential (1988), Twist (1992), and Grass (1999). Ron’s other films include Go Further (2003), Tales of the Rat Fink (2006), Know Your Mushrooms (2008), In the Wake of the Flood (2010), Altman (2014) and Carmine Street Guitars (2018). Ron has also acted as executive producer on the documentaries Brakhage (1998), Examined Life (2008), Mighty Uke (2010), Lunarcy! (2012), Mermaids (2016) I Called Him Morgan (2016) as well as the television series Pure Pwnage (2010). In 2002, Ron also founded FILMS WE LIKE, a boutique distributor of documentary, independent and international films in Canada. Beginning with Sam Green and Bill Siegel's The Weather Underground (2002), Films We Like has released over 300 films and counting.
Fred Elmes - Cinematographer
Frederick Elmes' interest in photography began when his father gave him his Leica camera and he soon built his own darkroom to gain more control over his images. Elmes studied fine art photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology and The George Eastman House and he then pursued his passion for cinema by earning a Masters in Fine Art from New York University where he studied under Beda Batka – an accomplished Czech cinematographer. Batka impressed upon him that cinematography was all about using the camera to tell a story. Combined with his education and a great admiration for the work of Ingmar Bergman's cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Elmes embarked on his career as Director of Photography. Offered a fellowship at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, he was fortunate to meet two icons of independent cinema - John Cassavetes and David Lynch – who were early influences that would inform his work throughout his career and he would eventually collaborate with. His body of work consists of feature-length narrative and documentary films as well as television and commercial films that has taken him all over the country and the world including Mexico, South America, Europe, and Asia. Previous films that illustrate Elmes’ unique style that will inspire the visual look and tone of the Charles Addams Documentary are Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986); Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990); Night on Earth (Jim Jaramusch, 1991), and The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jaramusch, 2019). Other notable films from Elmes’ illustrious filmography include: River's Edge (Tim Hunter, 1986); The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, 1997); Ride with the Devil (Ang Lee, 1999); Kinsey (Bill Condon, 2004); The Namesake (Mira Nair, 2006); and Paterson (Jim Jaramusch, 2016).
Adam Kurnitz - Editor
Adam Kurnitz is a Brooklyn-based film editor. His work includes the documentary feature Gimme Danger (Cannes, 2016) Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (TIFF, NYFF 2017) Missing People (Hot Docs, Doc NYC '15) as well as the narrative short Touch (Palm Springs International Short Fest, NBCUniversal Short Film Festival '15). He's also worked on For Ahkeem (Berlin International Film Festival,Tribeca Film Festival 2017) and Death Metal Angola (Rotterdam Film Festival '13). He is currently cutting a feature length documentary for Todd Haynes.
Beck Underwood- Designer/ Animation Consultant
Beck Underwood has been affiliated with NYC based production company Glass Eye Pix since its inception over 30 years ago, working in a variety roles as producer, writer, production designer and art director. She has designed the logos and additional promotional materials for many of their films. Underwood is also a stop motion animator whose work has appeared in film festivals and on Disney channel, Nickelodeon and PBS. She recently collaborated with Sara Driver, creating an animated sequence for the documentary, Boom For Real and the logo animation for Hell’s Kitten Productions. Beck is also a proud member of The Lower Eastside Girls Club, both as a mentor and an animation instructor.