Zioncheck Goes Hollywood

Ex-Seattleite, ex-Stranger-nic and ex-grassroots campaign manager Phil Campbell wrote a book that we loved about Grant Cogswell's run for City Council in the wake of WTO. The book is Zioncheck for President, which we've discussed with Phil in the past. Now Stephen Gyllenhaal has bought the rights to the film adaptation and plans to produce the thing DIY style here in Seattle.

In keeping with the grassroots spirit of Zioncheck for President, Gyllenhaal said he wants to make the film with very little money. Digital video technology now makes it possible to shoot a film cheaply and without sacrificing on quality, he said.

"Zioncheck for President is about doing things by the skin of your teeth," Gyllenhaal said. "And I want to do things the same way."

He added: "I want to film in Seattle because that's in keeping with Zioncheck, too. Seattle is a beautiful city, and there's a lot going on there. The music and the progressive politics are important to this story.

"And I do not want to come to Seattle and try to overwhelm the city with a film production — I'll let the city overwhelm the film production. It's a more creative way to work. It's a partnership."

Hear that, Battle in Seattle? It's a partnership!

Here's a clip from our interview with Phil:

A lot of the issues from the campaign the book covers and the characters involved are still front and center in Seattle. Do you follow Seattle politics at all? The monorail? The book is finished, but do you feel any compulsion to go back and add a second epilogue now that, for example, the monorail is on the ropes?

Nope, no second epilogue, no dramatic re-entrance. One of the things I did when I stopped working on Grant's campaign was to stop obsessing over local news. That felt necessary to me because I wanted to write about Seattle during a particular time period - from WTO protests through 9/11 - and if I allowed myself to fret over the present I'd lose touch with my perspective on the past.
I have read some local news articles sporadically but I don't really have an opinion the way I used to. It's a shame monorail's having so many problems, that's for sure. But I've got other ideas I want to pursue. Like Detroit. I may want to write about the city of Detroit next. I spent summers with my grandma there when I was a kid. To me, a city like Detroit is much more interesting than Seattle. Seattle is all about fog, dreams, and the subconscious, with a few well-attired hikers parading by. Detroit is grit and steel and crime. I may want to explore harder realities for a while.