Jonathan Baker: A Vanishing Breed of Multitalented Filmmaker

There are few writer-producer-director-actors left in Hollywood.

Jonathan Baker is that person, after the likes of Warren Beatty, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand and Quentin Tarantino – but not necessarily in that order.

“I try to make movies for the big screen,” says Baker, who is known to many as the co-owner of the Maidstone Hotel in East Hampton, which he owns with his wife, Jenny, and partner Irwin D. Simon. It was Simon who brought in LVD to manage it. The Maidstone has been completely remodeled, and includes an Italian seafood restaurant. The Maidstone partners with Guild Hall and actor Alec Baldwin to produce the the Hamptons Film Festival each year.

“Alec Baldwin is the unofficial mayor of the Hamptons,” Baker said of one of the driving forces behind East Hampton and the film festival, which this year runs October 4-14. “I think if you look at such places as Aspen [Colorado] or Palm Beach [Florida], they don’t celebrate the arts as much as we do here.”

For a director who makes movies designed to be seen on the big screen, he is grateful to the likes of Baldwin and the Film Festival for keeping people engaged with the theater. Baker has nothing against streaming services, but feels his movies need to be seen in the dark of a theater on that big screen.

Baker’s latest endeavor, Fate, is an epic love story that spans 60 years. The cast includes Faye Dunaway, Harvey Keitel, Andrew McCarthy and Cheech Marin. Originally, it was Donald Sutherland who was supposed to star opposite Dunaway. While Baker was and continues to be saddened by the loss of a friend and collaborator, he believes Keitel was fated to be in the film. Baker tells the story of the effort he put into getting Keitel in the film, starting with trying to locate Keitel’s new manager.

“I had met Harvey a year earlier and sent him the script; he never got back to me,” Baker said. “My wife and I were having dinner at Mr. Chow’s, and someone bumps my chair. My wife makes a face and I turn around and it is Harvey Keitel and his wife celebrating her birthday with a friend.”

Baker, of course, walked over to Keitel about the script and was told by Keitel, “If it is meant to be, I will see you again.”

“I finally locate his new manager and send her the script, he loves it, says it is the best script he has read in years,” Baker remembered. Twenty-four hours later, Keitel rings him up and says he is going to do the film. “I say to him, ‘You remember me, don’t you?’ And he says, ‘You’re that guy; now that’s fate.’”

Everything was just falling into place. Baker believes there is a certain fate to the making of Fate.

The love story is not always what it seems but that is part of the beauty of the film, Baker said. He is a little tight-lipped about the plot, not wanting to give too much away.

“Making a movie is like falling in love; you just have to do what you have to and protect the vision at all costs,” said Baker, who acts in about 20% of the film. “I work to create a story inside the vision; that is the magic of what film does. The opposite of an addiction is a connection. That is what I want the audience to walk away with after seeing one of my films. I really believe that is something we’ve lost since the pandemic and the ‘Me Too’ movement, the ability to have a tactile connection with another person.”

He says that with the prevalence of streaming, there are only a few directors who still make movies designed for the silver screen.

“Thank you Tom Cruise…. I want people to walk out of one of my movies and have something to say about it,” Baker said. “Whether they love it or hate it, I want them to walk out with an opinion and talk about the experience.”

A big fan of movies, Baker isn’t afraid to trust his vision.

“A movie should be like going to see a P.T. Barnum show,” Baker says. “It should be a great experience. Movies are a gift we give ourselves as moviegoers, as movie lovers.”

Baker came to the craft of acting through his actress mother, Carol Baker, who would drag him along when she went to acting classes, with Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg and the NYC theater group. After he got the acting bug early, it was Warren Beatty who pushed him into directing, who strongly believed in Baker’s abilities as a writer.

“He told me, ‘If you can do what you do as a writer and can express your vision that clearly and aren’t also a director, you will regret it,’” Baker remembered.

He also credits Robert Evans, who worked in the office next door to him at Paramount.

“I loved everything about him, He told me, ‘If you don’t own the rights to what is on the page, the studios will run over you. You have to either buy the rights or write it yourself,’” said Baker, who acknowledges being something of a control freak — he would write the films himself. He also believes filmmaking can be a family affair.

His 17-year-old daughter, Trease Baker, wrote one of the songs in the film and younger daughter Sienna SoHo has  appeared in all his films.

While he doesn’t knock streaming, he says it is too easy to disengage with the film.

“You can pause it to go to the bathroom or get a snack,” Baker said. “You can download a film and never watch it. The thing with making that commitment to get dressed and come to the theater, pay the $20 and sit through the entire film, you’ve made an investment. Whether you love it or hate it, you’re going to come out with an opinion and you’re going to tell someone else about it. And, that’s what I want.

“I am a fan first, just like anyone else. Films in theaters are art just like going to Broadway plays. I really believe if you come down this rabbit hole with me, you’ll come out of the theater saying, ‘Wow,’” Baker predicts of the film.

He hopes it will hit theaters in spring 2025. If you love films you just might love “Fate.”

Todd Shapiro is an award-winning publicist and associate publisher of Dan’s Papers.