This was the 1998 “re-release”  by Echostatic Records of the original 1993 CD. This all paper fold-out presentation has the same artwork as the original jewel-box release but tinted blue. Forty untouched units are available autographed by Hal Hartley (on the back of the inside sleeve).

Many thanks to Janet Ridgeway of Echostatic Records for making these available!

01. Listen to this song at our website.
02. Walk Away TRUST
03. Opening Credits THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH
04. Always Something SIMPLE MEN
05. Cue #32 SIMPLE MEN
06. Good Intentions THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH
07. Cue #16 TRUST
08. Rue Des Jours SURVIVING DESIRE
09. Gonna Miss You SURVIVING DESIRE
10. Closing Credits THEORY OF ACHIEVEMENT
11. Some Kinda Fatigue SIMPLE MEN
12. Cue # 53/62 SIMPLE MEN
13. Mess With Me / End Credits TRUST
14. End Credits SIMPLE MEN

Walk Away, Gonna Miss You, & Mess With Me
Written by Hub Moore
Performed by The Great Outdoors

Always Something, Some Kinda Fatigue
Written by Georgia Hubley & Ira Kaplan
Performed by Yo La Tengo
Produced by Gene Holder
Courtesy Alias Records, Inc.

Good Intentions
Written by Bob and Greg Kendall
Performed by The Brothers Kendall
Produced by Joe Harvard
Published by Skegsongs 1989, BMI

Rue Des Jours
Written & Performed by Ether

Opening Credits The Unbelievable Truth
Written & Performed by James Coleman (aka Phylr)
Published by Cat & Mouse Music/Polygram, BMI

All other music written and performed by Hal Hartley (aka Ned Rifle) and produced by Jeffrey Taylor. Recorded and engineered by Baird Winham.

It’s been 20 years since the theatrical release of The Unbelievable Truth, in which Hal introduced audiences to the talents of Adrienne Shelly, Edie Falco, and Robert John Burke.

We’ve released a 20th Anniversary Edition DVD with lots of pictures and a never-before-seen doc which includes interviews with Hal and Adrienne Shelly (as far as we know, the only footage of them interviewed together) as well as Robert, Martin Donovan, and Thomas Jay Ryan. It is available exclusively on our website.

Approximately 90 minutes, 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, English audio, no subtitles.

The end credits music from The Unbelievable Truth. Available on the Possible Music 1 collection. The 20th Anniversary DVD will be available October 19.

How did you meet the actors: Adrienne Shelly, Robert Burke, Edie Falco and the others?

Robert had been at college with me, in the acting conservatory. So was Edie, but I didn’t know her. She was a few years after us. Adrienne sent her headshot to our offices either in response to an ad I had put in Backstage or just out of the blue. I can’t remember. But I didn’t know her before that. Gary Sauer was in school with Edie. Julia McNeal was a friend of Nick Gomez (assistant editor, later a filmmaker and television director). It was like that – we were all working on one another’s little films and meeting people. Making films was our social scene. Most of my friends were actors.

What were your hopes for the film at the time?

I suppose I believed the film could get a distributor if I could just get it done. I knew it was a very simple film, but it had definite laughs and a certain kind of crude poetry to it. There seemed to be a need for new, smaller, less conventional movies somehow. Everyone sensed it. I really knew very little about the film industry. I was encouraged by Jarmusch’s films and the success they had had a few years earlier. I guess I hoped for something like that to happen – distribution, more films… Beyond that, I didn’t know any better.

Were you surprised at the reception it received?

I have to admit I’m glad I was so naive at the time. Otherwise, I might have been terribly disappointed. We finished the film in the first days of January 1989 and spent months carrying the print around to distributors and film festivals. No one wanted it. Then, out of the blue, we learned we were in Toronto and I was invited to attend. It was a big success with the audiences there. Yes, I was surprised. But probably too excited to think about it clearly. Bruce Weiss did all the talking, the deal making, etc. I was thinking about the next film.

What are your hopes for it now?

I hope it finds a new generation of admirers. But I think it will be hard. I’m curious to see if the younger generation has any time for something like this. But, of course, there are the old fans too – many people write in to the website asking where they can find the film on DVD. So, we really tried to produce something that would be fun and interesting for them.

You’re distributing the re-release yourself.

Yes, that’s not so hard to do these days. The company has a website and it’s a store. It’s just as easy to buy something of mine from there as it is to buy it from Amazon or wherever. Not as cheap, though! Amazon is incredible! But still it seems people like a direct contact with the artist sometimes.

How did the documentary that is included on the DVD, Years Later, come about?

In 2004 I sold some licenses to a few of my films to an Australian home video distributor and they wanted what is called added value material – behind the scenes footage, etc. We never made that sort of thing on the earlier films. But it was really important for the Australians to have these things. So I suggested that if they paid a little more for the licenses I’d come up with something. I was able to interest Kyle Gilman, who eventually became my editor, and DJ Mendel, who is mainly an actor but who also directs films… They were interested in interviewing all of us – me and the actors, primarily, but as many folks as we could gather from all the films. In the end it was only a few of the actors and me. We made these little added value films for the distributor but there was a lot of other footage left over. A few years after Adrienne’s death I was able to return to the original footage and thought that maybe something should be done with it. And then, of course, we needed this added value material for The Unbelievable Truth re-release… So, we all came back to the footage and thought about what to do with it. There was really very little discussion of The Unbelievable Truth, so that was a problem. Adrienne and I seem to have been discussing Trust. And Tom, Martin, Bob… they all had some interesting things to say about some of the later films. After a while it seemed we should just address the entire 20 years since the first film was made. Finally, DJ rattled off my resume like I was being arrested or something and we cut together a collage from all the films. Twenty years of work in about a minute and a half. It feels like that sometimes!

What’s it like for you to watch The Unbelievable Truth now?

I miss Adrienne. Otherwise… I’m surprised at how many of my major preoccupations are already there in this first film. It would be a good double-bill with No Such Thing. Not just because Burke is in both, but… Though they are wildly different types of film they both come at this cynicism, this defeat… these things in both films are overcome by a selflessness, a humility… ultimately a sanity one or more of the characters reaches at the end.

Hal interviewed by Jack Patrick, Production Assistant  and Press Coordinator

Originally released in 1993.

01. Listen to this song at our website.
02. Walk Away TRUST
03. Opening Credits THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH
04. Always Something SIMPLE MEN
05. Cue #32 SIMPLE MEN
06. Good Intentions THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH
07. Cue #16 TRUST
08. Rue Des Jours SURVIVING DESIRE
09. Gonna Miss You SURVIVING DESIRE
10. Closing Credits THEORY OF ACHIEVEMENT
11. Some Kinda Fatigue SIMPLE MEN
12. Cue # 53/62 SIMPLE MEN
13. Mess With Me / End Credits TRUST
14. End Credits SIMPLE MEN

Walk Away, Gonna Miss You, & Mess With Me
Written by Hub Moore
Performed by The Great Outdoors

Always Something, Some Kinda Fatigue
Written by Georgia Hubley & Ira Kaplan
Performed by Yo La Tengo
Produced by Gene Holder
Courtesy Alias Records, Inc.

Good Intentions
Written by Bob and Greg Kendall
Performed by The Brothers Kendall
Produced by Joe Harvard
Published by Skegsongs 1989, BMI

Rue Des Jours
Written & Performed by Ether

Opening Credits The Unbelievable Truth
Written & Performed by James Coleman (aka Phylr)
Published by Cat & Mouse Music/Polygram, BMI

All other music written and performed by Hal Hartley (aka Ned Rifle) and produced by Jeffrey Taylor. Recorded and engineered by Baird Winham.

Hal Hartley’s first feature film, shot in the early fall of 1988. A comedy of errors surrounding a beautiful college bound girl disturbingly preoccupied with the threat of nuclear destruction. Nevertheless, she falls in love with a handsome ex-con who is rumored to have murdered, many years before, the father of his high school sweetheart. A warm-hearted satire about idealistic young love, capitalist moralizing in the home, forgiveness, skepticism, and the need for work one loves.