THE MEMPHIS TRIPTYCH: Three Stories of Film in Memphis.

Poster for Mike McCarthy's film TEENAGE TUPELO. The film is slated for a Blu-Ray release next year.

I: Golden Years

Memphis. For many, this name conjures images of Elvis Presley, Graceland, Beale St and the Bass Pro Pyramid. For others, the name “Memphis” invokes the smell of cooking barbecue, long considered one of the highlights of Memphis. But for creatives, Memphis is the place where their next big hit will be born, whether it’s music, art or… film.

Film and Memphis have always been deeply entwined with each other, going back as far as the Golden Age of Hollywood. Memphis was, and still is, an extremely important transportation hub, and movie studios needed to take advantage of Memphis’ proximity to railroads, bridges and highways to get movies across the American South. 1925 saw the rise of Film Row on Vance and 2nd street, the hub of studio distribution in Memphis, and by 1937, nine major studios had distribution centers on Film Row– MGM, Warner Bros, Columbia, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, RKO, Monogram and Universal. However, as the Golden Age of Hollywood came to an end and more people just weren’t going to theaters, Film Row gradually became defunct and largely abandoned.

Despite Film Row shuttering, many filmmakers and directors still saw value in Memphis as a place to set a story and use as a shooting location. Many famous films have been set and shot in Memphis, such as Mystery Train and Walk the Line, but one of the most famous is The Firm, the 1993 adaptation of the John Grisham novel of the same name.

II: Fame.

Crosstown Theater at Crosstown Concourse, where both older and local films are shown.

Originally released in 1991, The Firm was the novel that established John Grisham’s career as a writer and just two years after it came out, The Firm was immediately turned into a film starring Tom Cruise and was indeed shot in Memphis. Grisham himself has a lot of connection to Memphis, as when he was four years old, his family moved to Southaven, MS, a suburb of Memphis. Both the original novel and film adaptation of The Firm are also set in Memphis. This is, essentially, a film based on a book with Memphis as its heart, written by an author with a deep connection to the city.

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Grisham revealed that the film rights to The Firm were sold even before a book, and that he learned this from his wife, Renee.

“She said, ‘You need to go call New York,’ ‘Why?’ and she said ‘They’re about to sell the film rights to The Firm.’ There was no book deal on The Firm,” Grisham said in the interview. The rights had the price tag of $600,000 and Paramount Pictures were ultimately the victor in the rights battle. In effect, the film had been cemented before the book deal ever came to fruition, all without Grisham’s knowledge. In the end, Doubleday were the ones who would make the book deal, The Firm would become a bestseller and the film adaptation would go on to earn to Academy Award nominations on top of critical praise.

But The Firm, despite being set and shot in Memphis, is a big-budget Hollywood studio production. What about the local talent? Filmmakers who thrive in small-modest budgets and most of all, filmmakers who truly know Memphis inside and out.

III: Heroes.

Rack of local films for rent at the video store, Black Lodge.

Born in 1971 in Newport News, VA, Craig Brewer is quite possibly one of the most well-known filmmakers working in and around Memphis. Famous for the films Hustle and Flow and Coming 2 America, Brewer’s career began in 2000 and is still working in film today. Currently, he is working to get his next film going which is planned for mid-to-late 2023. Alongside this future project, Brewer is also writing his next Eddie Murphy project, release date to be decided. The two are frequent collaborators, having done work on the films My Name is Dolemite and Coming 2 America, and this upcoming project will make for their third collaboration.

A common thread in several of his films, is Memphis–

“I always tell people I went to the School of Memphis. So much of the city is immersed in this really interesting cultural history, but it’s also just a hotbed of musical activity. I’ve grown up loving blues, rock n’ roll and country, and it seems like Memphis was this magnet for all of these artists that came here from all over and was inspired by a certain attitude, a certain rhythm, and I was able to learn about that,” Brewer said.

It’s not just the city that plays a huge part in the works of Craig Brewer, it is the diverse population that also influences the filmmaker–

“Most of my movies deal with people that maybe are on the fringe of society, people that maybe on a glance would not think you would have anything in common with, but you see that they have a passion, a certain grit, a certain drive. The more you become immersed in a movie or narrative about these characters, you find that you’re interested in them, and I think that’s a Memphis trait, that we have a lot of different people that live here, but there doesn’t seem to be a tremendous amount of judgement. Everybody tends to feel united in our swag,” Brewer said.

Passion and grit can be used to describe the next filmmaker, Mike McCarthy. Born in Tupelo, MS in 1962 and moving to Memphis in 1984, McCarthy works in films, comics and currently works as a sculptor. McCarthy’s films are influenced by B-rated cinema of the 20th century, with him citing Russ Meyer’s sexploitation classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! as one influence on his work. Two of McCarthy’s films that take influence from these traditions are 1995’s Teenage Tupelo and 1994’s Damselvis, Daughter of Helvis. Both of these films are slated for a Blu-Ray release next year.

McCarthy plays with genre in his films, often fusing and blending various genres in order to tell his stories. An example of this is in his film, Teenage Tupelo, which he describes as a “semi-autobio-sexploitation-comedy-drama.”

“Well, I tend to mix genres. I mash ‘em up. Which might be why the commercial market evades me because people do like their genres very clean and that’s the point, but I like horror, science fiction and fantasy. I like certain old forms of grindhouse genres from the 20th century, you know, peep show, sexploitation, blaxploitation, nudie-cutie, stag films. The kinda stuff that Tarantino has made a career of, I was doing those same things in the 90’s,” McCarthy said.

Another influence is Memphis. McCarthy himself was part of the Save Libertyland group and even directed a documentary, Destroy Memphis, that chronicled the failed efforts to save Libertyland.

“It’s totally given me my whole sense of identity and purpose. That along with personal autobiographical things that happened from the moment I was born and I assimilated into myself. My films are very autobiographical with touches of Elvis and his twin brother Jesse with lots of punk rock. Damselvis, Daughter of Helvis was of course, heavily entrenched in Elvis mythology and Elvis worship. A lamentation of that sort of rock n’ roll creativity from the 20th century,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also revealed the creative spirit that flows through Memphis, and its, in McCarthy’s words, confusing, elusive nature.

“If you’re a real artist or a real filmmaker or a real anything, you’re probably looking for work or are dissatisfied with what you’re doing in life and Memphis is not the greatest place fot an artist to be, but that makes it the perfect place because you can sort of get away with murder here, and definitely in Mississippi, and by the time they find the bodies, you’ve got a film history behind you. It’s a place that encourages creativity because, I don’t know why, actually.” McCarthy said.

This same creative spirit, which influenced musicians such as B.B. King and Elvis Presley, can be seen in the filmmaking scene in Memphis. From John Grisham and The Firm, to the myriad of local filmmakers who are inspired and influenced by the city of Memphis to work it into their films in diverse ways.