Audition for New GVS Film

I got a call from a casting director this week to audition for the new Gus Van Sant film, Restless. I really have no interest in acting anymore. However, I'm willing to make an exception for an opportunity to work with one of the few masters in the industry at the moment.
I didn't really connect to the part at all once I got the sides. It's a big scene for the main character and my guy gets quite an earful. I didn't find anywhere to go either in my preparation or in the room. I showed up and read the lines and tried to take the directions the casting director offered.
I tried to be grateful for the opportunity and to do my best. I was successful at that part. I was up against a lot of the better stage actors in Portland. I'd like to get the part, there's no doubt about that. But I'd also be very happy to see some talented actor like Todd Van Voris or Michael Mendelsohn get a nice part on the big screen.
I was really glad when the audition was over and I could go back to being a non-actor. I like my new life.

I really don't care anymore

Honestly. Truly. I just don't have any interest in artistic process. I don't want to hear actors, directors, writers or producers talk about their work. If it's good I want to see it and be entertained by it. I'm no longer looking for inspiration or to watch someone be good at their craft. I just want to dive in and suspend my disbelief. And if I can't do that, nevermind. Today I had the afternoon to myself for the first time in a while. In the past I would have been at the movies. I checked to see what was playing. Nothing of interest. I want to go and be all in. If I have any suspicion that I might be distracted by artificiality of any sort, forget it.
I saw Inglorious Basterds a few weeks ago. Remind me not to waste my time or money on that dude's films again. Ugh. What a bunch of tedious and gratuitous garbage.
There's a fifth rate television show being filmed in the city where I live. Almost every actor I know has gotten a part on it. They're so thrilled for themselves. I find it really hard to share their enthusiasm. It all strikes me as extremely solipsistic. Who cares? What about that has anything to do with making the world a better place? I'm not talking about saving the world with grand gestures, but more simply the mindfulness to appreciate there's a hell of a lot more going on in the world than one's acting "career". What a joke. The same goes for producers and directors running around talking about their films that no more than a few hundred people will ever see and far fewer will ever like as if they're on par with Spielberg and Scorcese.
Maybe I sound bitter to some. If I'm over it, I'm over it; right? I mean, what's the need to take others down if you're so okay with things? Maybe the answer to that is I've never been okay with this crap, even when I've been guilty of it myself, and I'm very happy to deal with it less and less.

Unsubscribed

I just unsubscribed from indiewire.com. I've been deleting the daily emails for a while now. It's an interesting process giving up something that's been a central part of one's life for so long. I invested so much in film and while I'm not entirely finished, the tools of that trade are becoming increasingly useless artifacts in my current life. There's a nagging voice that says just wait until Dangerous Writing is ready to go out into the world before cutting ties. Which is a big part of why I'm eager to get go of film in the first place - the waiting, the guarding of resources for future use and the overall putting life on hold is something I want no part of any longer.
I love enjoying movies and tv shows as a simple spectator. I love not caring about the other up and comers in the film world. I love not waiting for life to begin.

The Master Says 366

Silence is so accurate.

Mark Rothko

The Master Says 001 Redux

There is no beginning, there is no end; there is only the infinite passion of life.

Federico Fellini

A river derrchee

I've started a new blog that has nothing to do with filmmaking. If you would like to read it, please contact me and I'll send you the URL. I'm keeping it anonymous until I have a better idea of what I intend it to become.
Finding Fellini is just about finished for me. I have nothing more to say about film, either publicly or privately. I didn't plan on it but a switch got flipped early this year.
I'm committed to finishing Dangerous Writing and Made Crooked. The process doesn't move me to blog about it. For now. Should the urge take hold, I can always log in and post something as I don't intend to delete the blog.
Finding Fellini has been a wonderful part of my life for the past four years. I can track my progress as a filmmaker and as a human being reading the nearly one thousand posts. Some of it makes me cringe, much of it makes me proud.
I've changed a lot in this time. I'm grateful to have let go of some of my less appealing character traits and to have become a bit softer, gentler and humblerer.
I bid any remaining readers farewell. Thank you for being part of it. Federico Fellini was a great man. I hope we can all continue to find him.

nc

Happy-Go-Lucky

That's a good film, in'it?
Yeah.

The Visitor

See it.