Two Ramones Films Due

[AKA]

Two Ramones Films Due

Rare interviews, performance footage unearthed

By Colin Devenish and Christina Saraceno
Rolling Stone

A pair of Ramones-related documentaries -- End of the Century: The Ramones Story and Hey! Is Dee Dee Home?, a profile of bassist Dee Dee Ramone -- will debut at the Tribeca Film Festival this May.

End of the Century, which features interviews with members of the Clash, Blondie, Sex Pistols and surviving Ramones members, was co-directed by first-time filmmakers Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields. The documentary begins with the pre-Ramones era in 1968 and holds a tight focus on the band's first years, concluding with the group's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 and Dee Dee's death later that year.

"They really did grow up together," says Gramaglia. "Johnny beat up the other Ramones on the playground, until they became a band. They were as close to a family as you can get. It becomes more than a bunch of guys who don't get along, it becomes brothers. It's like a rock & roll version of The Godfather, the disintegration of the family."

A former employee in the Ramones' accountant's office who had previously dabbled in film, Gramaglia first approached guitarist Johnny Ramone about the idea for the documentary in 1994, but cameras didn't roll until five years later. Featuring unseen live and studio footage, along with extensive interviews with the various incarnations of the group, the film was independently financed, with the directors hopeful for a full theatrical release down the line.

"It's a very dark movie," says Johnny Ramone. "It's accurate. It left me disturbed as I was watching it. I'm basically portrayed as a tyrannical monster, Dee Dee is on drugs, Mark is an alcoholic and Joey is an alcoholic and drug addict at various times."

In gathering the footage, the directors walked a tightrope between the wary and occasionally warring factions of the group, causing delays in assembling the film and ultimately coming at the expense of getting singer Joey Ramone in front of the cameras. "He had his health issues," says Gramaglia. "That was the big thing. He was on chemo and he was very bloated and weak. We had scheduled probably ten interviews that at the last minute he would cancel. Then he broke his hip, and he never really got out of the hospital."

Gramaglia is hoping to track down what could be the Holy Grail for his documentary: three hours of interview footage with Joey Ramone shot by the producers of the Ramones concert film We're Outta Here. "Nobody knows where this footage is," Gramaglia says. "But apparently the producers did three interviews with Joey, where they talked to him at least an hour each time."

Some of the footage on End of the Century comes from Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, who accompanied the Ramones on their final tour of South America. "They were huge down in Brazil and Argentina," says Gramaglia. "He's got great shots of them in a huge stadium filled to see the Ramones. He was actually filming when Dee Dee Ramone showed up to this concert and got in a huge fist fight with Marky in the midst of the crowd."

Agreeing to let the Ramones' story be told meant allowing the odd piece of dirty laundry to hang out on the line for all to see. "I guess I could sit there and be pained by certain things, like, 'Oh God, I don't want people seeing this,'" says Johnny. "At the same time it could have come out by someone else who doesn't do it accurately. It's a portrayal of what it was. I think you feel how hard it is for a band staying together for twenty-two years and what you have to go through and the difficulties of having the certain levels of success we had. We'd play some really big places in South America and then come back and play little clubs in New Jersey."

Hey! Is Dee Dee Home? features interviews with the bassist, who died last year, about his relationships with the Ramones, drugs and late New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders. Director Lech Kowalski had initially interviewed Dee Dee for Born to Lose: The Last Rock and Roll Movie, a film about Thunders. "I think [Dee Dee] was really in the mood to tell his story and to get something across," Kowalski says. "This was a point in his life when he was thinking about writing his book."

Kowalski pulled the title from the song "Chinese Rocks," a staple for both the Ramones and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, and point of contention between Dee Dee and Thunders. "It was a dope anthem that was written by a group of people," says Kowalski, "and there was always sort a tension between them about who actually wrote it."

(March 11, 2003)

[ABlairican Pie]

I remember back in 1980, seeing Rock & Roll High School made me a big fan and I went to see them in Seattle...

How come the Ramones never got as big as the bands they influenced??