'Billy Joel: And So It Goes' — HBO Documentary Brings Long Island Legend’s Story to Life at Sag Harbor Cinema

It seems a lot of people are talking these days about “Billy Joel: And So It Goes,” the two-part HBO documentary that takes a deep dive into the extraordinary life and music of Long Island’s favorite piano-playing son.

This documentary, which has received high praise, is quite unique given that in it, Joel, a notoriously reserved and private individual, opens up with candor about his persona, his passion for rock and classical music, his partnerships (both romantic and professional) and even the difficulties his Jewish ancestors endured as prosperous merchants living in Germany when Hitler came to power.

It all adds up to a thorough examination of the world’s most famous Piano Man, whom everyone thinks they know, but few truly understand beyond his popular songs.

Even the film’s director, Sag Harbor’s Susan Lacy, began this project knowing very little about her famous subject.

“I did not come to this as a big Billy Joel fan,” she admitted in a recent phone interview. “I think most people, unless you’re a huge Billy Joel fan and loved a hit, didn’t buy his albums or hear the full catalog. That happened to me. I knew ‘Uptown Girl,’ ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ and ‘Piano Man,’ but I didn’t know his catalog.”

In many ways, that made her an ideal director and producer for this project, as she came to it with no preconceived notions about Joel’s life or where the film should take viewers.

“He said from the beginning, ‘Just tell the truth,’” Lacy recalled.

Along the way, she learned a great deal about Joel.

“When I made this film and read his lyrics and listened carefully to the songs, I became quite entranced with his musicality,” Lacy said. “He’s a savant, playing all by ear. He could go to the piano at age 4 and just play what he heard.”

It turns out that after spending a bit of time with Joel, Lacy realized she had a lot in common with him. They both live in Sag Harbor, share a love for classical music and have family members who fled Nazi Germany to escape the Holocaust.

“His father was a classical musician, from whom he got enormous chops,” Lacy said. But Joel’s father abandoned the family when he was young, leaving his mother to raise him and sister Judy in Hicksville on her own. “It had an impact he never really dealt with. This film opened him up to that.”

On Wednesday, August 27, Sag Harbor Cinema will host a one-night-only theatrical screening of both parts of “Billy Joel: And So It Goes.” Lacy is on the nonprofit’s board, and the event is a benefit for the cinema. It begins at 4 p.m. with Part 1 of the documentary. A reception and cocktail party follow on the cinema’s third floor at 6:30 p.m. At 8 p.m., Lacy will be in conversation with the film’s co-director, Jessica Levin, and executive producer Steve Cohen, and Part 2 of the film follows at 8:20 p.m. Admission to the full event is a $150 donation to Sag Harbor Cinema.

As the creator and executive producer of “American Masters,” the documentary series that ran on PBS from 1986 through 2013 before Lacy moved over to HBO where she has continued to make biographical films, she has delved into the lives of renowned and influential figures for decades. And though she may not have initially known a lot about Billy Joel, she has long wanted to make a film on him.

“I started speaking with his management about five years ago, and they weren’t sure it was time for this to happen,” she said. “So it got tabled. I got a call from Sony a year later, and I said, ‘Yes, I was talking to his management already, but that didn’t go anywhere.’”

Then, three and a half years ago, Lacy received a phone call from Tom Hanks at Playtone Productions.

“They had been approached by [executive producer] Sean Hayes to co-produce a film on Billy Joel,” Lacy recalled. “Playtone said, ‘Sure, but only if Susan Lacy made it.’”

Once the film was given the green light, Lacy turned to Steve Cohen, Billy Joel’s longtime creative director, friend and lighting designer, for assistance on tracking down the archival materials. A part-time resident of Springs, Cohen is not only an executive producer of the film, he is also an interview subject.

Cohen, who refers to himself as the “Billy Whisperer,” has known Joel since 1974, when as a 20-year-old with some rudimentary lighting equipment in California, he hooked up with 24-year-old Joel to help produce his shows on the road. When Joel moved back to New York, Cohen followed him, and they have been friends ever since.

“I knew early on if we were going to do this film that Susan was high up on the wish list because of her reputation and experience at ‘American Masters.’ She is an artist’s filmmaker and delves into the craft and creativity about the people who make the art,” Cohen said. “It was a through line in her respect and honor for the creative process.”

Because of his close relationship with Joel and others in his orbit, it was Cohen’s job to help facilitate the various elements for the film — from tracking down and putting archival footage, sound recordings and memories into context, to smoothing the road for interviews of key subjects, including Joel’s first wife, Elizabeth Weber.

“Steve was an incredible facilitator — he’s the one who finally convinced Billy to do this,” Lacy said. “He also encouraged Elizabeth to connect with me. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about this in 40 years. I convinced her to do the film. Steve made sure we had access to the archives to use.

“He would say, ‘There’s a better performance of this song,’ but he did not influence the film,” Lacy stressed. “He knew the performances, and we couldn’t make it without him, but he was not creatively involved in making the film. That’s important to understand.”

“I was incredibly disciplined in what I talked about and said to them,” Cohen explained. “I wanted to make sure Susan and Jessica weren’t influenced by me.”

Cohen notes that the interesting thing about the archives is that important performances were usually one-offs recorded on ¾-inch videotape.

“There were parts of tours, or in-house video systems or old TV performances,” Cohen said. “Billy wasn’t the kind of guy who didn’t record things. He just didn’t feel comfortable in front of the camera.

“For that reason, you could never capture fly-on-the-wall footage because everyone was hamming it up,” he continued. “Because I was there, I could expand on the reality around those events. I gave the material to Jessica and Susan, and I filled in the blanks. I pointed out the best performances. I got Elizabeth predisposed to doing this film. Susan developed a friendship with her. She said, ‘Well, I have photos of that time.’ Christie [Brinkley] had a video camera on her shoulder the whole time they were on the road. I said, ‘Let me go through it. I’ll digitize it.’

“My take is Susan Lacy came to the project with cursory familiarity with Billy Joel, but she was not familiar with his backstory, life and personality,” he added. “Not knowing is a plus. It lets you discover things at the same time. She introduced me to Jessica as the producer — Jessica was a huge Billy Joel fan and was not only passionate, but knew every song. It became apparent to Susan that Jessica would play a bigger role in the production. She could put Billy Joel’s music under every visual. At some point in that process, they needed to split the roles and share the responsibility.

“There was a healthy back and forth, and we were all the beneficiaries of that collaboration,” Cohen continued. “It was a true partnership. As much as Susan had an understanding of the arc of this film, Jessica went in, got under the hood and got Susan to vet her decisions.”

In terms of interviewing Billy Joel himself for the film, Lacy accomplished that over the course of multiple sessions.

“Billy and I connected on a couple levels early on. My mother was a concert pianist, so we talked about the kind of music he loved,” Lacy said. “Our first two interviews were on neutral territory — one was totally about classical music, inner voicing, studio compositional structure — he showed me how he had used the classical training in his songs. We also talked about the romantic piano music that he loved. We could talk about it in ways not everybody can. I could’ve made a whole movie on just his classical influences.

“The other thing was that our fathers both came from Nazi Germany in the same year — 1937 — and both served in the military,” Lacy added, “mine in intelligence, his in the infantry. We have almost identical photos of our fathers from that time. I lost family in the Holocaust as well. We were both from well-to-do families. His was much richer than mine, but both our families lost it all.”

“Susan is very clever how she did it,” Cohen said. “The first interview was about classical music, the second was on his family background. By interview three, she was able to get him to delve into his life and open up.

“He’s an extrovert behind the piano, but an observer the other times,” he continued. “Billy never saw himself as being an insider. He always felt he was on the outside looking in. Music and performing is his thing. When he looks at this film, he’s kind of gob smacked by the attention.

“People are listening to these songs in a new way,” he continued. “I think he’s very grateful. He’s used to being vilified. There’s a bit of him waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Now that she’s completed the film, Lacy has developed great respect and admiration for Billy Joel’s intelligence and sheer talent. Audiences who see the film with only a passing knowledge of his career will no doubt see the same.

“He is a performer. A natural performer, a vivacious performer,” Lacy said. “When he was young, I think he was a very shy person and very funny. Without a doubt, he’s the most comfortable at the piano. He walks into a room and he’s not comfortable until he sees a piano.

“He’s never forgotten who he is or where he came from,” Lacy added. “He’s a very humble guy, and there are times where he’s really tired of being Billy Joel. I think that celebrity did not come naturally to him in any way. He’d be the first to say he doesn’t think he looks like a rock star, more like a pizza delivery man. He has natural born humility from a hardscrabble background and childhood. It wasn’t an easy childhood, and it wasn’t an easy road to fame. In rock star terms, it took a long time.

“Even fame wasn’t easy, and he was battling critics all the time,” Lacy continued. “They couldn’t pigeonhole him. They thought he was derivative. Critics caused him pain. He tried to put on this thug outfit — a leather jacket — and tear up critics’ reviews on stage.”

But now, as he steps away from the piano and into his private life as a husband, father, friend and the guy who can be found behind the keyboard at parties, with “Billy Joel: And So It Goes,” the musician is finding what has long eluded him — pure appreciation and love for his talents.

“He said, ‘I’m a little overwhelmed by the positive response,’” Lacy noted. “‘As you know, I’m more used to slings and arrows.’”

Sag Harbor Cinema is at 90 Main Street in Sag Harbor. For more information about the screening of “Billy Joel: And So It Goes” on Wednesday, August 27, contact sagharborcinema.org.