Brian Taylor: What I find fascinating about watches is that they tell the time, but for collectors, they clearly represent something much bigger. When you started making Chasing Time, were you more interested in the watches themselves, or was your fascination more about what it says about us?
Chris Gary: It wasn’t the watches. I think it’s really interesting teaching people’s passions. That’s the thing that tells a really interesting story. Over someone’s life, someone’s going to care about school for the first 18 years of their lives. Then they become adults, and they care about work. Then they find their partner, and they care about their family. That’s the life cycle that we kind of put ourselves on and that we recognize with everyone. But the things that make us all unique are the things that we’re actually interested in. Whatever it is, the thing that you’re interested in becomes something that you can do quietly when your kids are asleep or when no one’s looking or watching. If you really have a deep passion, it becomes something that anchors your communities. Those communities can become something that you begin to identify with, separate from your family. They have a deeper meaning because it’s a choice you’re making. Your kids aren’t really a choice. Those are your kids, and those are your responsibilities. Your work is a responsibility. It means to an end. But your passions, how someone gets into watch collecting, what they’re interested in, and where they drop the needle in their collections, say so much about what that person actually values.
It becomes a really clear insight into them as an individual without them having to say very much. I don’t know how often you get those opportunities where someone says, “I’m really into 1970’s designed watches.” Then I can draw a box around other things I know they’re interested in, and almost immediately you’re right. I could talk about architecture or any number of things, and that person will be like, “Connection point, connection point, connection point.” Because the 1970’s are so specific and a little funky. A little different bending of shape, because that’s what was happening culturally. What your interests are in watches are often a reflection of what’s happening in the world at that moment. Whether it’s the 1940’s, when we’re talking about war watches, function, or tool watches, that’s a function of wartime. What were the important things happening at that moment? You can track it back to the ’20s, pre-reference watches, and what was happening in the Roaring Twenties and the decadence of that era. You can track time in a very specific way. It’s the same thing with cars or art. You can’t carry around your car everywhere, but you can carry around a watch. You can’t carry around your art, but you can carry around a watch. It becomes a really interesting way of getting a glimpse into the secret life of someone and their secret interests.
Brian: Watching this film, I think you realize really quickly that watches are a work of art. Everyone’s so different and stuff like that. You spent a couple of years following Adam [Golden] through his world. At what point did you realize you weren’t just making a documentary about watches, but a film about the people, their passions, and the stories behind them?
Chris: Before we started. I never felt that the watches were enough. I always felt like it had to be about the people. And here’s the truth of that: because of the value of watches, they’re not necessarily accessible. When you’re talking about a quarter-million-dollar watch, a million-dollar watch, or a two-million-dollar watch, 90% of the people who see the film are like, “That’s unubtanium. That’s in a space where I can’t fathom that,” right? But you can find a point of connectivity with the people. Those people who have the two-million-dollar watches are actually really approachable. That was the thing I wanted to show more and more as I began to see it play out in real time. They’re actually the most open collecting group that I’ve ever seen. If you think about someone who collects cards and they get a really valuable card, what do they do?
Brian: They put it in plastic, they hide it, and they put it away.
Chris: They put it in a place where you can’t touch the card, right? They don’t want you touching the card. They don’t want you bending it. They get it graded, and they put it in that plastic, and you don’t touch it. I’ve done that, but I always say that I don’t touch it .But if you say to me, “Chris, I want to see your watch. That’s a really cool watch,” it doesn’t matter if it’s worth $50 million. They’re going to take the watch off, slide it over to you, and let you interact with that watch. That’s rare. That’s not normal. I can’t think of another type of collector that will do that for you. They’ll talk to you about the nuances. They’ll talk about the case, why this particular case is really interesting, why this particular screw-down case, and what was happening at the moment when it was made. And then they’ll go deep on the case, because the case is what is really interesting about this one or whatever, but that was kind of cool: you get to interact with it. Someone has a really nice car, and the engine is what makes the car work. They’re not going to let you drive the car.
There is a distance between the thing that someone is interested in and their ability to interact with it. What I thought was really cool was that I immediately realized these dudes who are the fathers of collecting, Massena, Davido, John Goldberger, Indo and these guys around the world that we interacted with while making the film, were all willing to be open and share with each other. They didn’t pour their knowledge. They were openly sharing what they were learning about watches because it involved collecting forms. I was like, if I can get that across in this film, then it has legs. We can talk about it. We talked about this before. The biggest fear is that it will become like stamps. It dies, you know what I’m saying?
Brian: I remember that part in the movie
Adam Golden: It came from a place of truth. My dad’s a stamp collector, and that’s where it came from. He has a sizable stamp collection. I don’t know how crazy valuable it is, but it has real value, and he has it insured. He would tell me, “You’re going to inherit this one day.” And I’m like, “Okay, you got a book of matches for me?” Because that’s the only way I’m ever going to realize that value, because I don’t care about stamps. Unfortunately, I don’t share his passion for those. I’ve also noticed that there’s not a younger generation getting involved in it. To Chris’s point, it’s hard. You could open up a stamp book and show people, but it’s hard for other collectors to interact with that. I think it’s the same way with baseball cards.
It’s a really valid point you just made [Chris], but it’s kind of a dying hobby. Whereas watches and watchmaking are very alive. I’d like to say stamps are a little bit lifeless. Watches are full of life. They’re breathing with life, with young talent, art, history, legacy, and new technology. The watch I’m wearing right now is from these two young watchmakers, young guys in their early twenties, who breathe their whole lives into these watches. They’re pushing the boundaries of what’s technically possible and creating something innovative in the space and beautiful at the same time, and harmonious. It’s something that’s continuing to evolve, whereas stamp collecting, unfortunately, is not. My dad once told me he went to D.C. several years back for a stamp show. He came back and joked that he was the youngest person there. My dad’s in his seventies. And I’m like, “Dad, that’s a problem. That’s a real problem.”
Brian: I know baseball cards went through a dip for a long time, and then they’re going through a lot bigger thing. I’ve always been fascinated by the line between passion and obsession with watch collecting. You’re dealing with craftsmanship, history, money, and sometimes status. After spending so much time around collectors, where do you think that line exists? And do you see someone crossing it?
Chris: I think, actually, Adam does a good job in the film of putting into words what I hadn’t been able to put into words yet. Pre-COVID, I was a collector, but I never even thought about selling a watch before COVID. I just collected the watches, and I would look at them in that way. I would go to the bank, take a watch in, put it in the bank safe, and take a watch out. It was a massive collection. Then the value thing started happening, and it was like, “Oh, I bought this for eight, and now it’s worth 30.” That would be stupid as a former trader in finance, not to cash in on the value. So then you started trading things that you were emotionally connected to. Over the course of the project, what I began to clearly identify was that collectors are the purist. They are truly purist . They fall in love with something, and then it hurts them when that thing is gone, when they can no longer look at it or interact with it. They’re not interested in how much you could go from one dollar to a million dollars. It does not change their point of view. It’s not paper money at that point. Their emotional connectivity to that thing means so much more than the value of the thing. I went through a transition myself personally, but now I’m going back to how I was pre-COVID.
There are watches that I gave up to finish the film because we needed the money to finish the film. That bothered me. I called Adam, and I was like, “This really fucking bothers me.” My wife knows it bothered me. I got to a point where I was like, “I’ll never do that again,” even though it was for something I think is really, really great, which is finishing a film that we needed the money to finish. But those watches meant something to me. I’m just not like the watch he sold me for my fortieth. Of all the watches I’ve ever had, that watch has never been for sale. It will never be for sale. My wife doesn’t understand why I like these things, at least the watches I have. I cherish that watch, not because it was my fortieth, but because it actually speaks to the beginning of my journey, my real beginning of my journey, and what mattered to me. It’s a 5508, so a tropical submariner. It mattered to me. I didn’t buy it when I first saw it. When I first saw it, I got a different watch. I kept telling her, “I made a mistake.” We were in a car driving home, and I was like, “I made a mistake. I should have bought the other watch.” And she was like, “What are you talking about? That watch was ugly” and I was like, “No, there was beauty. There’s personality. I’m talking about these things.” And she’s like, “What are you talking about? Are we talking about the same watch?” Then I called him, and I was like, “Please don’t sell the watch. I’ll come back to get the watch tomorrow.” And that thing that happened that day. Those are the collectors.
You can identify really clearly when someone says “not for sale,” they mean it. It’s not a marketing tool. I say Harry Potter Horcrux . That watch is carrying a piece of something, a soul of something. Whatever piece of it lives inside of that watch when you have it and it’s yours, it’s speaking to you in a certain way, too. And Harry Potter is the parcel-tongue type thing. This is speaking to me in such a way that I’m not going to let someone else have my Horcrux, unless it’s my own kids. Over the course of making the film, you could tell the difference. I don’t judge people who are speculative, because anything with value is realized when you sell it, not when you have it. And that’s from a quant standpoint, not an emotional standpoint. From an emotional standpoint, value is realized when you live with it. You have to live with the thing for it to become yours. If you keep it in a safe and keep it in a space where you never interact with it, it’s not valuable in an emotional way. But if you live with it and make your mistakes with it, and you ding it up and say, “Oh, this time I went on that trip,” or if you look at pictures of vacation and it was awesome, and that watch is the one you’re wearing, all of a sudden that watch becomes part of that experience. Now it’s more valuable. It’s more valuable than it was when you bought it. That’s the thing I began to become quite clear of when we were filming. Like Massena, he fucking loves his watch.
Adam: He’s loved watches his entire life. We’re talking about one of the people in the film, an older Italian gentleman and a pioneer in the industry. He’s had watches that he purchased years and years and years ago for, let’s say, $10,000, that the brands themselves have offered him seven figures for their museum. And he’s like, “No.” Can you imagine turning that down? Just because, like Chris says, he can’t imagine his collection not having it and him not owning it, and him not being able to walk into his bank vault or wherever he stores them, take it out, wear it, and enjoy it. He just can’t fathom his life without it. Turning down that kind of return on investment is intense. I think it’s admirable. I don’t know many people who have that kind of fortitude. I guess everybody’s financial position is different, but regardless, I’ve had some clients who really could use the money when faced with that position. I’ve had clients faced with that decision who could really use the money and chose not to because, again, same thing. But I have clients who have more money than God and took the profit, which makes no dent in their life whatsoever.
It’s the ego principle thing. It’s like, “See, I was smarter. I bought that watch at the right time.” And I say, “It’s not, you know, right? You’re literally worth the entire GDP of a small nation. What do you want?” Everybody’s different, but collectors are special. And I think it’s not just true for watches. I think it’s true for a lot of other things, too. They’re a special breed because they’re able to connect with an object and experience whatever it is in such an intense and special way that not having it changes the fabric of their being not having it.
Chris: There’s that couple in New York. I don’t know if you saw the documentary about the husband and wife, the older couple, art collectors. Their apartment may have been twice the size of this room, but they’d been collecting art for 60 years. Basquiat’s laying around. Their stuff wasn’t on the wall. Their home was filled with art, stacked everywhere, and they would not sell a single piece of art. That collection, and this is the kind of meta but real truth of it, meant that they existed. And that’s something bigger than the thing itself. I think that sometimes that’s what collecting is. You’re in search of something that says that you’re here. It’s the idea of a mark, something that says, “I was here.”
Because the thing is, you won’t be remembered beyond your grandkids, if you’re lucky. And so then, what was the mark that you made during your time? How do you mark your time on this Earth? I think that sometimes the only way we do that is through the objects that we accumulate, the whole piece of us, and then passing that thing on. I don’t look at it in a morbid way. I look at it as quite romantic. There’s something to be said about even though someone may not be able to say it, you can observe that if you’re paying attention and listening to them. You can observe that this is how they’ve made their mark, and this is what they’ve put their time into. This is how they put themselves into this space. And I think that’s what the film celebrates. I hope it celebrates that a little bit.
Brian: I think it does. I have an immense physical media collection. I had a friend who had a conversation with me, and he’s like, “Well, what are you going to do with it when you die?” I was like, “I’m going to give it to my daughter.” I’ve already told her she has to watch every movie in the collection. And he’s like, “Why are you going to do that to her?” I’m like, “What do you mean, why am I going to do that to her? I’ve spent years on this. I mean, how much money and how many years have I spent on this? I’m not just going to let it go somewhere. She’s got to take it.” And not only that, there’s film history here. I’ve got everything from the Bergman set to Godzilla sets. Watch all this. Watch these movies and learn how the world has changed in a hundred years, because movies are a window into the time. It’s been great talking to you all. I love watches. I love watching you hunt down stuff, and I think it’s a great little story to tell. I think for everybody who’s a collector, no matter what you collect, I think it will speak to them.
Chris: Thanks, Brian. Thank you.
Member of the North Texas Film Critics Association, and lover of all things Cinema
Brian Taylor
Member of the North Texas Film Critics Association, and lover of all things Cinema
