Legacy is a messy thing, a rising tide gathering associations until the original artifact, whatever it may be, can never again be experienced on its own merits. Cultural context and interpretive lenses cling to it like barnacles. For some texts, this is seasoning. For others, sediment.
In Chasing Chasing Amy, his directorial debut, Kansas-raised Sav Rodgers takes on the legacy of Chasing Amy, the 1997 film that (re) launched director Kevin Smith’s career and, with it, decades of hot takes. A film about a lesbian who falls in love with a man, Chasing Amy was controversial when it premiered, and has become no less controversial over time. Rodgers nimbly unpacks that controversy en route to a deeper, more interesting meditation on inspiration, collaboration and the versions of stories that last in the public consciousness. Along the way, he reflects on his own relationship to Chasing Amy and the ways his life was changed, even saved, at a young age when he first encountered the film. Before he came out as queer, before he came out as trans, before he became a filmmaker or met his extremely charming wife, Riley, Rodgers had Chasing Amy. It filled a void.
Chasing Chasing Amy, which premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival and became available on streaming in late 2024, features interviews with Smith, lead actor Joey Lauren Adams and other members of Chasing Amy’s cast and crew. Rodgers juxtaposes these interviews with conversations with industry players, scholars and cultural critics who situate Chasing Amy in a broader social context. Rodgers is a thoughtful and generous interviewer, and his talking heads are well-chosen to unpick how one film’s baggage may be that same film’s seasoning. Rodgers’ film lands in an effortlessly nuanced place when it comes to the difference between intent and impact. It becomes easy to see how Chasing Amy’s undercooked portrayal of a lesbian character in a relationship with Ben Affleck might simultaneously be a delicious portrayal of a queer woman whose choices, including the choice of how to label herself, are her own.
Prior to watching Rodgers’ film, I had never seen Chasing Amy, though I was predisposed to like it, with its aging flaws and ill-conceived choices, because I am someone who is drawn to media that requires interpretive effort. Finally watching it, I see it through Rodgers’ personal lens, but also my own eyes at 16, when I hovered by the Gay & Lesbian section at That’s Rentertainment in Urbana, Illinois, not knowing why. I was not on the hunt for a label as a teen. I just wanted to see queer life on screen. Chasing Amy is messy, peopled with characters who don’t always know themselves particularly well and don’t always say the right thing. These days, living in a dual reality where queer stories are gaining both prominence and pushback, I find myself clinging to that lived-in mess.
The most powerful moment in Chasing Chasing Amy comes toward the end, when Joey Lauren Adams, who plays the lesbian in question, gets her chance for a solo interview. Up to this point in the film, Rodgers has uncritically accepted Smith’s perspective on the making of his own film. First, that Adams, Smith’s then-girl friend, was a creative muse, and their breakup after the film’s release left him a better man. Second, that at the 1997 Sundance Festival where Chasing Amy premiered before being taken on by Miramax, there was no whisper of Miramax exec Harvey Weinstein’s predation.
Adams, in a moment of real tension, challenges these perceptions. Smith’s insecurity in their relationship may have fueled an enduring creative vision, but it was also a deeply unpleasant experience that Adams first had to live, and then transmute on camera. And as for Sundance ’97: “There was that energy there,” Adams says. “We all knew what Harvey was.” Smith’s memories are those of triumph and personal transformation. Adams remembers it differently: “That’s what I was doing in my 20s. I was trying to be taken seriously as an actress, and then I was dating this guy who made me feel bad about myself.”
Bravery is a concept often thrown around when discussing stories from marginalized creators, frequently as a replacement for discussion of craft or technique. Chasing Chasing Amy strikes me as brave both in form and in content. The interview with Adams is a heightened moment for Rodgers both personally and creatively, and he navigates it nimbly, refusing to shy away from the way it further complicates a decades-long relationship to a beloved, imperfect film.
Pop culture can be a mirror or a lens or a tool of personal salvation. It can also be something you live with, live through, like any first love or formative experience, until its hold on you begins to fade. As Rogers all but acknowledges as the film concludes, the film that saved his life could have been any film. Happy Together, My Beautiful Launderette, Saving Face or, in fact, Go Fish, the film whose thunder Chasing Amy arguably stole. The gay movies were there, but because of timing (privilege, luck, skill, Miramax), Kevin Smith’s film landed in Rodgers’ lap at a vital moment in his young life, and set the stage for what followed. Smith is lucky that it did.