The Master Says 061

It's finding the soul of the story, and deciding what that is. And when all of the scenes develop from the roots of this tree, which is a philosophical understanding of the story.

Conrad Hall

The Master Says 060

When characters are presented in a static relationship, dramatic tension is apt to be weak (remember 'drama' means the 'thing done'). The beginner is apt to think of character in terms of outward physical appearance, the age, sex, social class or profession of the person in the story. But this matters very little in the sense of the drama. A dramatic character is definable only in relation to other characters or situations that involve tension. A dramatic scene is usually one in which something happens: an incident or an event takes place, the situation between the characters is different at the end of the scene than it was at the beginning. The equilibrium has been altered and there is some narrative momentum that drives the character (and us the audience) to a new situation in the next scene.

Alexander Mackendrick

The Master Says 059

I'm a liar, but an honest one. People reproach me for not always telling the same story in the same way. But his happens because I've invented the whole tale from the start and it seems boring to me and unkind to others to repeat myself.

Federico Fellini

Blurry

Summer of 1995 I returned from several months in Mexico. Before returning home, I spent the remaining money in my checking account twice by putting a final trip to the Yucatan with a girl on my debit card and making a cash withdrawal at an ATM immediately upon leaving the travel agency. That trip is another story that isn't at all blurry -- its pleasures and pains remain blissfully vivid.
The blurry story is my return to Portland. Everything went away before and during the Mexico trip - my Portland girlfriend, my best friend, my place to live, my '73 Buick Riviera, my money as I mentioned and, most notoriously, a few years of sobriety.
I wanted to get everything back but the sobriety. I was staying at my mom's house in Dunthorpe, no place to be without a car. I had the idea that a job as a busser at one of the better restaurants in town would be easier to get and pay just as well as some starting shift as a waiter. I started work immediately. Black bow tie and starched white shirt hustling dirty dishes and setting tables. Drinking every night after work at the same couple of bars that boasted the latest last calls in town followed by boozy after-hours bullshit sessions at some waiter, cook or bartender's apartment. Some nights the whole gang was there. Other nights it was but a couple of us. I was very regular. There was a pretty cocktail waitress at the after work spot that eventually became a bartender and eventually said no to a date with me. There were flings with some of the waitresses at the restaurant where I worked. One of whom lived across the street from me in New York a few years later. And another whom turned up back east as a server at Grammercy Tavern where my wife and I went to celebrate our marriage.

I got incredibly tan while living in Mexico. So much so that two months after my return during which I was still awake on the wrong side of the sunrise more often than not, I still had a pretty deep tan. One night after work I was at the late last call joint with a co-worker - one of the cooks I think. After work I traded my no longer starched white shirt and bow tie for a tee shirt from a surf shop in Puerto Escondido. One minute I was telling lies to the cook and pining over the cocktail watiress cum bartender, the next some woman was all over me. I couldn't tell you if she was pretty or not. A lot thick, dark and curly hair. Tall - ish, I think. I had been waiting for this to happen at this bar all summer. Of course she was attractive; how could she be anything but hot? Two o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday, rubbing an underemployed dude's forearms. She was sure the big muscles in my forearms were from surfing. I didn't bother to tell her it was from hauling tubs of dirty china and buckets of ice all over a huge terraced restaurant. It was the day before my birthday. If she thought she was getting a surfer boy rather than a busboy, I wasn't going to let her down with the dreary truth.
The cook bailed and I ended up at breakfast with this woman and her friend. Breakfast was a pretext to extend the possibilities of hooking up. Somehow I guessed her last name and we ended up at my mom's real estate office by the river. I let her friend make long distance phone calls to her boyfriend. There was a lot of running around to the different offices. Even into the copy machine room. Finally to the break room where there was a fold out couch that I called home when I couldn't make it to Dunthorpe for the night. By this time it was dawn and my birthday.
A few months later I went out with this woman again. By this time things were getting more and more blurry. It was Fall - dark and rainy. All the Summer-time drinkers were getting back to their responsibilities. I was wandering the streets making poetry out of my lonely pain. I was calling women I didn't have but a fleeting attraction for in the middle of the night. I was crashing the '71 BMW a friend sold to me on a payment plan. The woman from my birthday was yet another on my desperate hit list. I remember a few things from our date. She was a flight attendant on international flights. We ate at some fancy restaurant. I had some sort of fish filet on a bed of lentils and a lot of wine. We crossed the street for drinks at a dive bar. We went back to her place in Goose Hollow for duty-free booze and a quallude. Despite our previous encounter and lots of drugs and booze there seemed to be some resistance on her part. Something happened between us - boozy arousal and clumsy attempts at satisfying it. Then I woke up and went to a Latin American history class. After that I wandered around campus in a pained, blurry haze. I saw her from a distance a few months later on Twenty-third. I didn't say hello.

Folk Wisdom 015

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.

Satchel Paige

Dark Tales from Hollyweird

Takes a minute to load and runs almost twenty minutes, but it's worth it.
Courtesy of AC Dickson.

The Master Says 059

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an
answer.

Karl Kraus

Folk Wisdom 014

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Winston Churchill

The Master Says 058

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of
light on broken glass.

Anton Chekhov

The Best Music Video EVER

Sweet September

Been a long while since I've blogged about the folly and fodder in my life. Basically I've been trying to keep things simple. Not an easy task for anyone in the modern world. I've been working a lot, including three of the past four weekends. It's busy production-wise in Portland these days. Feast of Love, the Morgan Freeman movie and some big car commercials out of LA as well as politicals and the regular stuff.
Neil Kopp, my buddy that produced But A Dream, is producing Gus Van Sant's new film Paranoid Park. I'm excited for him and for Portland. Paranoid Park is the park between Washington and Stark at SW 9th Avenue known for the punkers and freaks that made it home. There's a parking lot beneath where much of the action used to happen. I'm not sure how much of the histroy of the park is to influence the film or if they're even going to shoot it in the actual Paranoid Park.
June took her first steps last Saturday. We were all quite proud. Maisie started Montessori school and is very excited about her lunch box that she decorated with a glitter pen and some patches. Henry is now in the first grade and rides alongside me to school on his bike sans training-wheels. Nicola has been working a lot as well and is off to New York next week.
We've been landscaping our front yard. I moved four nine hundred pound boulders into place by myself last weekend. Very primal activity -- pivot rocks, pry bars, brute strength. Satisfying work.
I watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang last night. Don't think it will make the Master Moments anytime soon, but I enjoyed it. Val Kilmer was funny and RJ Downey Jr was at his better. I liked Michelle Monaghan. Angela Lindvall was in it as well. I think she's very beautiful and had the fantasy of casting her and Michelle as the San Antonio girls in Original Glory. Angela is an Okie after all.
I'm searching my schedule to carve out some time to edit London Calling, But A Dream and Made Crooked. It's really not looking very good. I'm going to have to let something in some area of my life go. I don't know what that is just yet. I'm exploring the possibilities.
I had to be somewhere very early this morning and threw on a down jacket to beat the chill. Feels cozy.
Recently, I read a great novel called Towelhead about a 13 year-old Lebanese-American girl gone to live with her father in Houston during the Gulf War. It would make a great film. Alan Ball optioned it when it was published, but nothing has happened with it so far. A few years ago, I would have given some energy to the what if of getting a hold of that. Now that I'm a little more grounded and realistic about my resources, I would be happy to see it made, knowing full well that it's way beyond a guy like me. I haven't let go of someday, but I'm more in tune with what's right in front of me.

¡viva!
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 057

All of my life I been like a doubled up fist... poundin', smashin', drivin' - now I'm going to loosen these doubled up hands and touch things easy with them.

Tennessee Williams

Folk Wisdom 014

The winds of grace are blowing all the time.
You have only to raise your sail.

Sri Ramakrishna

The Master Says 056

Love, and love alone, is capable of giving thee a happier life.

Ludwig van Beethoven

The Master Says 055

To be or not to be. That's not really a question.

Jean-Luc Godard

The Master Says 054

What I admire most ardently in Jung is the fact that he found a meeting place between science and magic, between reason and fantasy. He has allowed us to go through life abandoning ourselves to the lure of mystery, with the comfort of knowing that it could be assimilated by reason. My admiration is the sort that is felt for an older brother, for someone who knows more than you do and teaches it to you. It is the admiration we owe to one of the great travelling companions of this century: the prophet-scientist.

Federico Fellini

The Master Says 053

I'm not a good critic myself. I'm a very poor witness. I put everything out of shape and I'm very partisan. I won't have any argument; discussion bores me. The critical spirit appears in me in the form of doubt. It's paralysing. For someone of my temperament, exercising the critical faculty is masochistic. Why mummify what has moved you, why become lukewarm about it, why mortify it, why extinguish it? It's a physical fact: I can't bear people who try to define me too precisely.

Federico Fellini

The Master Says 052

The point of life is to fail at greater and greater things.

Rainer Maria Rilke

But A Dream - Joey Boyd as Naitani

Naitani
Originally uploaded by Signore Direttore.

Robert Bresson Interview

But A Dream - Neil & Neal

Folk Wisdom 013

The Romans create a desolation and call it peace.

Tacitus

I told you not to call me here!

I told you not to call me here!
Originally uploaded by Signore Direttore.

Summer of '03. On location in Geneva, NY for ROAD as Production Designer.

Walk Like An Egyptian

Ever wonder why Egyptians are depicted in such a contorted fashion? In a word, essentializing. Each body part was recorded in its most characteristic aspect. The face and feet in profile combined with frontal shoulders and hips. A very strange contortion to our eyes.
Film editing treats its subjects in the same manner, cutting from one angle to the next in order to reveal the subjects most characteristic aspect.
John Cassavetes rails against essentializing. He claims it is dishonest and artificial. Maybe. Or could it be that getting to the most revealing thing through the artificial means of film editing is as, or perhaps ever more, truthful than following your wife and your friends around with a camera?
In two or three thousand years, assuming celluloid lasts that long and anybody is left on this globe to view it, will the grammar of our films seem as absurd and contorted as Egyptian wall painting does to us? Will they sing a silly song about us?
Walk like an hollywoodian.

Musing,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 050

I write to discover the next room of my fate.

Saul Bellow

Felicidades

My friend Michael got married yesterday. It was a beautiful ceremony attended by many friends and family from both near and far.
I was touched.
Congratulations Mike and Laura. May your happiness together continue.

Molto amore,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 049

Most movies use music the way athletes use steroids. There's no question that you can induce a certain emotion with music -- just like steroids build up muscle. It gives you an edge, it gives you a speed, but it's unhealthy for the organism in the long run.

Walter Murch

The Master Works 002

Apocalypse Now
1979
Francis Ford Coppola

The Compound Scene - Capt. Willard/Martin Sheen goes to the intelligence compound to get his orders. He sits down for a meal with the general, his aide-de-camp and a man in plainclothes, presumably CIA. Everyone but Willard looks directly into the camera, but they don't seem to be looking at the audience. There's an extreme sense of subjectivity that makes it seem as if they're looking at Willard. Willard looks just to the left of the camera according to film grammar conventions. In doing so he seems to avoid their eyes. His hangover his emphasized by this as well as the drifting camera. The cameraman was Italian and Coppola told him in Italian to pan the camera whenever he got bored. So the camera drifts away from the speaker mid-sentence at times. The camera comes to a rest on Willard for the last shot of the scene. He looks directly into camera. The effect isn't like the others, he's not looking back at them. He's looking right at us, as if to say, Can you believe this shit?

Folk Wisdom 012

Insights do not produce growth until they are accompanied by specific actions.

or, as my buddy Carl Gustav-Scott was fond of saying:

Willingness without action is fantasy.

Folk Wisdom 011

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt

The Master Says 048

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the
direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he
will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things
behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will
begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded,
and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the
license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws
of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor
poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your
work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under
them.

Henry David Thoreau

The Master Says 047

To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.

Isaac Newton

The Master Says 046

There's no democracy on a film set. The director has a vision of the film that he has to get into the heads of everyone involved.

Roman Polanski

Cambio

If you have this enormous talent, it's got you by the balls, it's a demon. You can't be a family man and a husband and a caring person and be that animal. Dickens wasn't that nice a guy. - Dustin Hoffman

I envy people who can just look at a sunset. I wonder how you can shoot it. There is nothing more grotesque to me than a vacation. - Dustin Hoffman

I wouldn't go so far as to call my talent enormous, but I have been on the fence about the demons of ambition and talent versus being a family man for several years. I've been leaning toward community and quiet for some time however. There have been hiccups and burps recently -- likely last ditch attempts at rebellion. Both in spite of and because of all of my actions and attitudes I continue to find my true center.
I want to look at sunsets.
Nothing is more grotesque to me than the lost souls, liars, self-important careerists and fame seekers that I regularly encounter in the film world. My recent trip to SoCal beaches and Disneyland with my wife and children was anything but grotesque.
JD Salinger inscribes one of his books to the amatuer reader with a doubt that the amateur reader still exists. I want to read for pleasure. As I want to watch and make films.
I could walk away from all of this right now. I'm not going to - not because it has me by the balls - simply because it's what I do.

Signore Dilettante

Folk Wisdom 010

To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it.

Mother Teresa

The Master Says 045

The best thing that can come with success is the knowledge that it is nothing to long for.

Liv Ullmann

The Master Works 001

The Marraige of Maria Braun
1979
Rainer Maria Fassbinder

Maria Braun is on the bed with her lover, a black American soldier, when her long lost husband Hermann walks into the room. Hermann is a former Nazi officer married to Maria during the last days of the Third Reich. Maria (Hanna Schygulla) looks up, smiles and quietly says, "Hermann." She is happy to see him, yet remains gently between the two men. She neither rejects nor embraces either. Her strength of character is something to envy - the ability to accept oneself so completely. She embraces all of herself at once - her true love and her present lover - apologizing to nor for either.
The film is part of Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy. As Maria Braun symbolized the Bundes Republik der Deutschland, this moment serves as a perfect symbol of then West Germany caught between its Nazi past and its US Armed Forces occupation.

The Master Says 044

Bus stop, wet day, she's there, I say
Please share my umbrella
Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows
Under my umbrella

All that summer we enjoyed it
Wind and rain and shine
That umbrella, we employed it
By August, she was mine

The Hollies

The Master Says 043

I do films to be behind the camera, not in front of the camera. I'm sure I say very intimate things about myself in all my films, but it's better to say it not too directly, to be hidden behind a woman.

Francois Ozon

Stepping In Three Times

Hou Tsien Tsien's Three Times played at the Whitsell Auditorium this weekend. Hou is one of my favorite filmmakers. His films are extremely challenging and breathtakingly beautiful. His camera moves slowly, revealing the details of each moment without drawing any conclusions. He connects scenes with the most sublime interstitial travelling shots.
Three Times is made up of three forty minute stories starring the same male and female leads as lovers. A Time for Love is set in the 60s. A Time for Freedom takes place in 1911 and A Time for Youth in 2005. A Time for Freedom was silent with title cards. Initially it was tedious, but I found its rhythm within five minutes or so. It was my least favorite of the three, nonetheless I was very inspired and envious of Hou's power to be so bold.
Each segment of Three Times felt at once timeless and precisely accurate historically interms of set design, costumes, language and behavior. The physical space between lovers was wonderfully articulated according to era. The drug addiction, bisexuality and aloof digital communication of the contemporary story rang painfully true. While the lovers in earlier times seemed trapped by culture, the modern lovers are trapped by themselves. These are personal observations, the filmmaker asserts nothing directly.
Film is such a young medium that remains very conventional. Thank goodness that all films don't have to satisfy Hollywood's strict 3-act formula. I'm all for a well constructed plot, but I love being absorbed by the rambling quiet and affecting moments of art films. I know so many producer and pro crew types that say art film as if they just stepped in something.
I want to step in more films like Three Times.

Rispettoso,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 042

There are only two curses in life. One is when you don't get what you wish for. The other one is when you do.

Oscar Wilde

Chinese Handcuffs

My reaction to so many things is the mechanism that keeps me handcuffed. I pull with all my might to get my fingers out of that little Chinese tube.
I'm faced with a few minor challenges this morning. I feel myself sticking my fingers into the Chinese Handcuffs.
It makes me ill to think I'll do the same thing again and again expecting different results. It makes me ill to fear that the ill feelings won't pass on their own.
What if I were to breathe? Release the tension? Give in to the stress by accepting it for what it is?
How does one avoid those little finger cuffs? Stop reacting, i.e. pulling. Relax the fingers. Move them gently toward the center. Remove fingers.
Would that be the equivalent of letting go?

Maisie Malcolm's World

Maisie Malcolm's World
Originally uploaded by Signore Direttore.

It's the earth's blood from a lightning storm all the way from outer space and all the planets. It's a long time ago in outer space. I think it is. I've never been to outer space. I think it is.
It just doesn't know that everything is everywhere. And all the planets. I don't know what it takes to put out that fire.
There's something that knows in the earth. The chlorine in the swimming pool and the salt in the ocean. I don't know what all the earth is going to do about it.
I'm just telling you about this lightning shock that communicates with your brain and I'm not kidding you. Look. Look. I'm not telling you. It's just a story form a long time ago. I don't remember when. because we've never been in a rocket ship that goes to outer space.
And this is a beautiful rock.

The Master Says 041

You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity.

Roman Polanski

Folk Wisdom 009

Knowing that you don't know something is knowledge.

The Sandy River

He was floating down the river. He was alone. The inner tube was from a gas station off of the interstate. He was wearing cut-off jeans and high-top sneakers – Doctor Jays that were purchased during the previous school year. Later that day one of the sneakers would fill with water and sink to the bottom of the river.
There’s a bend in the Sandy River as it approaches Dodge Park. The river is shallow and rocky before it comes round the bend into the deep water under the bridge. The bridge is one section of the original Burnside Bridge in Portland.
The park sits under the bridge. A sunny riverbank looks across the river at a shady steep tree-lined bank. There’s cold running water in the parking lot. His aunt washed her hair in it one afternoon. She claimed cold water was best for washing hair. She used Beer Shampoo.
The walk to the rapids above the park is made short by the bend in the river. Across from the entrance to the park is a trail. A short walk for a long float. His mother brought him to the river that day. She had a lawn chair, Hawaiian Tropic, Harold Robbins and Tab. He had his inner tube.
There was never anyone on the beach upriver of the bridge. He floated until he hit the gentle rapids. He bounced off the rocks and spun round until he was under the bridge once more. It was sunny. The air was hot. It smelled like the trees and the cold river. He rode down, walked out of the river in the park past his mother and the other sunbathers, crossed the parking lot and the road to the path leading to the spot above the rapids. He never smiled. Or laughed.
On his last trip down the river some people were on the bank of the river above the bridge. A woman in a bikini was lying on a man. The man moved his fingers under the bikini bottom between her legs.
The boy floated past. He wanted to put his fingers in the woman’s bikini bottom. He could do it just like the man. He was ready now that he had seen the proper way to do that sort of thing. He wanted to tell somebody.
The current carried him downriver. He stayed near the beach for the rest of the afternoon. His shoe filled with water and was lost forever.

Folk Wisdom 008

All things pass... Patience attains all that it strives for.

St. Teresa of Avila

Equivocation Empathy

There are those of us that are damaged and crooked. We learn the most awful means of staying our course. We become so saturated with pain that we see everything in terms of it -- protecting ourselves or getting relief. There's nothing in between those extreme management measures because there is nothing else but pain.
We create false experiences and identities to insulate ourselves. We develop elaborate worlds in which to hide. We numb out with drugs, alcohol, relationships, sex, food, spending, media. We act out with anger, self-pity, physical abuse, masochism, sloth. We lose ourselves and in doing so disguise our true selves from the world. Most of us that go to such extremes do it out of necessity. There really have been threats to our emotional, psychological and physical selves. It's likely that we continue to seek out abusers and psyche invaders throughout our lives.
If we should happen to meet someone that sees the shiny penny of our true selves shining through; what then? Can we flip a switch and drop the armor of our defensive habits. Unfortunately, we can not do such a thing. Depending on how far we've retreated into our psychoses, we can usually muster a mask that will be attractive and congenial. The sad thing is that the mask usually doesn't match our natural shininess that caught the new friend's eye in the first place. The disparity might cause them to take a better look at us. Especially if they really like us. Thankfully most people are indifferent; we would like their attention, but we're relieved by their aloofness at the same time. But those that really focus their attention on us, even though we crave it, we don't like so much scrutiny. They threaten us.
We start creating space. We sabotage the relationship with deception, judgment, drama. We avoid the person. Then things get even more twisted. We like the positive attention of their attraction to us. But we can't trust it. We don't know how. Nor do we think we're very attractive. Not if they could really see us. Yet, in pushing them away we've gained a measure of control. The mere illusion of which empowers us and prompts us to either hold onto that person or reject them and use the temporary surge in our confidence to attract another victim.
The saddest thing of all is that we don't know we're doing this. Sometimes we really try to bring our best selves to relationships of all kinds, but something always go awry. Being real isn't sustainable. Usually because we lack the stamina to stick out the pain of exposure.
During this whole charade of intense feeling, we have been lying to others and ourselves. When we find ourselves alone again, we tell ourselves even more lies. Those that were involved with us can not see us as a whole person. We are fragmented in their minds -- a source of confusion. If they are the least bit fragile themselves, we cause them great pain. Our decepetions take their toll. Who were we? Who are they?
Nobody likes being lied to -- it's a fundamental threat to our emotional security. Worse yet, nobody likes being lied to by someone they tried to love. Perhaps worst of all, nobody likes giving love to someone who wasn't ever really there.
I've been on both sides of this equation. I'm exteremly grateful to have found my way towards my own shiny self. I'm sad to have suffered the whirligig of deception and emotional confusion from someone that I tried to love. And whose love I needed and deserved, namely that of my parents. I'm both sad and grateful to see and feel just how ugly that whirligig, to which I subjected oh so many friends, lovers and employers, can be.

Grazie.
I needed that.

viva,
signore direttore

The Density of Skin

To be an artist one must be willing to bring oneself to the work without taking criticism personally. This is especially improbable for the artist who is in process of attaining the skills necessary to work fluently.
In order to attain this proficiency, personalities and egos must be ignored as much as is possible. Though it has been my experience that my ego provides some fireworks that are hard to resist and ultimately inform my experience, however selfishly and inefficiently.
Culturally, we resist the concept of process and patient diligence. We are disposable and instant. We reinvent ourselves after the sligthest hint of failure. Failure is unacceptable. A dirty word. Like amateur. Beginner. Novice.
Wouldn't want to be called any of those ugly words.
It seems everybody has been making movies since they were small children. I haven't been. I shot a few reels of Super-8, but that wasn't especially challenging. Pop the cartridge in the camera. Aim it and pull the trigger. Send the cartridges to the lab and project them. Genius. "Ahem. Chawau. Harumph. Ah've beeeen making FFFilmszs since Ah was a young child."
Whatever. I've been around this stuff for a long time. I've been interested in movies for longer. But I haven't really been getting my hands dirty for long at all. A few years of directing. It's but a beginning.
Nobody owes me a thing.
Whatever I get out of this deal I will have to earn.
I love doing it as long as I don't expect things of myself that I am not yet capable of accomplishing. This stuff is no joke. You can't fake it. You can't think your way through it or figure it out as you go along. You have to deliver or suffer the consequences of making horrible films that won't cut together or sound and look like hell if they do.
My first film won a prize and got into several festivals. I've made money directing stuff since then, but I've yet to make another award-winning film. My first screenplay has recieved a lot of attention and even made me a little money, but it sits unmade as of yet.
I don't feel anxiety about these things. Lately I've been worried that I don't have the burning fight in me. I don't spend a lot of time on that particular concern. i just keep showing up and letting go of the results.
I'm happier and my work is better.
I've got nothing to prove.
I'm not going anywhere.
And that's just fine with me.

Viva,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 040

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Thomas Jefferson

Wit

We lived in New York during Wit's premiere run. In spite of all the praise it earned I couldn't get past the depressing poster. The emphasis on cancer and 17th century poetry did even less to prompt my attendance.
Fast-forward to Portland 2006. There's a little production of it opening tonight. I attended the preview last night. My first obligation was to see and support two of my students that are in the cast. My second obligation was too avoid paying too much for Portland theater. As I have yet to see anything that warranted the price of admission in the past two years. Entering the playhouse I had a sudden chill - What the hell am I walking into? Who are these people that think they can put this play up? Why do I continue to forget how insufferable these things prove to be again and again?
Oh well, we were there. I wanted to see Aislinn and Joey work. We had a babysitter. No turning back. In we go to a mostly empty house. And . . .

It was wonderful. Excellent. The play itself was amazing. This production is best thing I've seen in Portland for years.
The leading lady was great. The doctors were a joy.
Joey was good. He'll settle into the many supporting roles he plays in the ensemble.
Aislinn. She was terrific -- pleasure to watch, having fun. Best of all, she brought herself up to the role like none of my students has up until now. I was very proud of her. (And proud to be her teacher. Though I try very hard not to take credit for my students' work whether it be good, bad or somewhere in between.)
In any case, Bravo Aislinn, Bravo!

Go see Wit.

Charmed,
Signore Direttore

Landing on My Feet

The last two months has been one of the most turbulent times in my life. I rebelled against my status quo and embraced an alternative path. As I trudged through this I kept few secrets, enjoying the reactions and input of many friends and supporters. Contrasting this with the recent articles in the press regarding isolation and loneliness in contemporary society; I feel fortunate to have so many friends, but also the willingness and courage to share so openly with them. Their advice was hardly universal -- I enjoyed strident disapproval from a few, patient compassion from others and projection of personal experience from many. Some kept me in check while others gave me permission to stumble toward getting what I thought I wanted.
I protected myself with rationalizations, numbing out, acting out and some outright dishonesty. The dishonesty was something I rationalized as protecting others; a burden I shouldered on their behalf. At the urging of friends I started to come clean and let those affected deal with the truth themselves. A funny thing happened -- everyone was better off. The whole story allowed for understanding, healing and forgiveness. Which not only cleared up the hurly burly of my rebellion but altered the status quo at which I rebelled.
The truth has made me free once again.
How can I continue to doubt its power to help me land on my feet?

All too human,
Signore Direttore

My True Calling

This morning I got up a bit earlier than usual and made my way to a coffee shop to meet all but two of my Made Crooked compadres. We went up to Forest Park to shoot some pickup scenes for the film. It was a beautiful day. Perfect.
We set up our shots, did a few run-throughs, rolled a few takes.
Bliss.
It wasn't without its challenges. A couple of the scenes required some difficult blocking. I didn't quite acheive my vision on some shots and exceeded it with others. It seems that's the way it seems to go. As I gain experience I concentrate on getting stuff that will serve the story however minimally. If the shot happens to be beuatiful, all the better, but if what I imagined requires great pains I tend to abandon my ambition in favor of getting the emotional events of the scene. Trying to get the shot just right often drains the life out if it.
It remains to be seen if I am a director of any great merit. But it's clear to me that I love doing it. The pleasure I derive from making movies is quickly becoming my primary measure of success.

Happily,
Signore Direttore

No Guarantees

A film based on David Mamet's play Edmund is being released in selected markets this weekend. It stars William H. Macy and Julia Stiles. Mamet wrote the screenplay. The director, Stuart Gordon, has won a Critic's prize at Cannes.
Even with these bankable pros attached the project struggled to obtain financing for years. Just goes to show that you can't get let your expectations get the best of you, especially in show business.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Edmund. Though I may have to get on a plane or wait for it to be released on video.

Lastima,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 039

A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.

Jean Renoir

The Ends of a String

I am looking at the end of an unraveled string, seeing its disorganization. No way to wind its threads back together and make it string again -- alack it is unwound, completely unraveled. Disorganized. There are only the ends to look at.
It's a beautiful thing, this little piece of string. Sad and tender in its whimsy. The string was but itself all along. Ordinary string wound tightly into a ball, wrapped in cello and sold for a buck or two.
I was trying to build a bridge with string. A bridge so big and so proud in my mind. Its blueprint was a visionary feat to behold. A span supported by cables as thick as your arm. Magical suspension.
Much had to be destroyed in order to begin building my vision. Tracts of land cleared of history and the quotidian to make way for its anchorage. Initially it was to be done at all costs - there were no limits.
Con/De-struction commenced. Immediately the project that initially had no limits was over budget. Bankrupt.
I stopped clearing space. I ceased digging holes. I stopped drafting the plans.
I returned to the land under the future span. Though scarred, the land and its people are safe again from my grandiose dream.
Yet I find myself unable to escape the shadows of that tall, proud bridge.
In those shadows of what isn't there, I look at the ends of the string slipping from my hands. It's not even string. It is but tangled and discarded threads. To think that I dreamed it was cable.

nc

Moments of Folly

I sat for new headshots yesterday. Not many things feel sillier to me. Twist in the chair. Look over there. Look at the camera. Don't smirk. Too intense. Tension in your mouth. Close your mouth. Open your mouth. On and on. Hours of this nonsense. And to what end?
Tomorrow's audition to play Sasquatch in a regional spot for the Oregon State Fair?
Actually it sounds like a good spot. I want it. And not for the money, because the rate is close to a day at Gearhead after the agency gets theirs.
One thing I find lame is when actors talk about a job that they haven't auditioned for yet as if it's ours for the asking. I'll be happy with a callback.

On the set of But A Dream I wrestled with the ever tangled cords from my headphones and the lanyard of my director's viewfinder. I thought of this persistent problem as I walked around the neighborhood this morning. I laughed at the ridiculous sight of me struggling to manage my tools. I was worried that buying a director's viewfinder would make look pretentious. I suppose my lack of dexterity with it kept me looking more foolish than vain.

Also in my thoughts this morning was the shooting of the final scene of London Calling around Ladd's Circle. I was so concerned with the results that I didn't let the shots breathe or give myself any options. By that point I was tired and wanted to tell everybody we were wrapped.
My arrogance has been checked by the results - I now see the need to make mistakes. To humbly accept them as part of the process, not only to learn from them but to enjoy their folly.

I am really really good at getting ahead of myself. Which is sure to provide evermore anecdotes as I stumble forward on this path toward mastery. Hah.

Viva,
Signore Direttore

Folk Wisdom 007

Every garden has weeds.

The Good Are the Enemy of the Great

How can I possibly say that with any humility? Being human can feel so mediocre - so lazy, mundane and repetitive. I am tired and bored with the resentments and fears dancing in circles between my ears. I want to grab a couple of actors and do some raw shit on film. I want to eviscerate. I want raw emotion from an actor's guts.
I had this audition recently - more of the same phony pantomime shit like my last audition for a commercial. Result direction. No callback. No desire to get better at hamming it up.
I taught class last night. Lots of evasion and ego on the part of the actors. Not completely. A couple of actors tried to stay with themsleves and managed to do so well enough. One actor opened something. I wanted to call the whole thing off - I wanted to get up and scream something like - TELL ME THE FUCKING TRUTH, PLEASE! SOMEBODY!
Later on I met an actor that is new in town. We talked. I gave him my spiel. I was true, but I doubted our compatibility. He had been referred to another acting coach on town by his agent. I thought that particular agency was giving actors my name as well. Certainly in some cases but apparently not others. I've been thinking about that a lot today. I've also heard a rather nasty rumour about me that originated out of that other studio. I am somewhat indifferent, which isn't to say neutral.
I'm reactive. I've been increasingly reactive lately. Emotionally raw. DIsturbed.
I am not happy, joyous or free.
I am at the mercy of patience - not biding my time, but staying with myself moment to moment. I've been trying to contact the moment all afternoon. Driving up the Gorge. Simple prayers. Love is greater than fear. Love is greater than fear.
I used to spend at least one twenty-four hour stretch in Atlantic City every week. I could work two hands on a $25 Blackjack table well, working the odds and the cards with patience to build a stake. Playing with house money. Though my cronies and I always reminded ourselves that once we won it was OUR MONEY. The failure of my brief career as a professional gambler was due largely to an uncanny streak of dropping a $50 chip on number 26 of the Roulette wheel and hitting it, to which I would regularly boast - Seventeen hundred and fifty mothereffin dollars! As I collected my money I was reminded to watch my mouth by pit boss after pit boss. I also rolled fours and tens on the craps table. As one denizen of Trump Taj Mahal serenaded me one early morn, You don't bet 'gainst a man that roll fo's and ten's! Someone betting against my forty-five minute turn throwing the dice and those deadly fo's and tens lost over a hundred thousand dollars while the rest of us cleaned up. Every run of luck runs out. Lack of patience burns. To be a professional gambler one has to have an ass made of leather, a will of iron and ice water in the veins. Like I said, my career was short-lived.
I didn't have the emotional endurance.
I want to be your horse, but I feel like a longshot.
That's me - not the good, certainly not one of the great ones, just a longshot on a sunny, boozy trip to the Meadowlands. So tear up your ticket and head over to one of those air-conditioned Jersey strip joints where everybody looks like an extra on the Sopranos.

Washed Up and Wrung Out,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 038

You make films to give people something, to transport them somewhere else, and it doesn't matter if you transport them to a world of intuition or a world of intellect...A lot of people don't understand the direction in which I'm going. They think...I've betrayed my way of looking at the world...I absolutely don't feel I've betrayed any of my opinions or my attitude to life. The realm of superstitions, fortune-telling, presentiments, intuition, dreams, all this is the inner life of a human being, and all this is the hardest thing to film...I've been trying to get there from the beginning. I'm somebody who doesn't know, somebody who's searching.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

Resonance

Walking home from a film last night, a friend asked me what are the moments in films that not only stick with me, but hit me with comparable force each time I see them anew. Excellent question. My immediate response -- The Godfather. More followed. What about Fellini? he asked. Oh. Yes. Fellini. Fellini films don't have moments that resonate so much as interweave as a continuum into the fabric of eternity. Lofty praise, I know. Believe.
In terms of story I think of Keislowski. I added that the story of Made Crooked is one that continues to reveal itself to me, its profundity resonates. Whether we got that shooting is another story. Perhaps we did, I simply have no way of knowing until we're much further into editing.
My friend said he was asking himself that question in order to examine how he might tell better stories. I like that. I'm glad to have a filmmaker friend that is not simply into making it big or "wouldn't it be cool" arbitrary shots. What's more, this particular friend believes in my filmmaking abilities more than I do. He's the one person reminding me to stay on track as I trudge through the rest of my present situation.
As I let go of my more grandiose goals, it's sometimes difficult to remember that my humble goals are not only worth pursuing, but truly the most worthy of my energy. It is likely that from this departure point more moments in my films will have a chance to resonate.
But when? Patience. Patience sucks.
Oh. Big sigh. As always, I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

A River Dertch,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 037

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.

Martin Heidegger

The Critic

The critic is a nihilist. While those that claim that nothing matters may be closer to the truth that there is no Truth, they aren't much closer to their humanity. It's not quite the opposite side of the same coin, but it's an extreme reaction.

F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed to be a nihilist, but he sure paid close attention to the details of individual and cultural behavior for someone who doesn't think anything matters very much. I don't want to present a critical analysis of FSF. I am not qualified to say much beyond the fact that I loved This Side of Paradise when in high school - it spoke to me about my inability to will certain changes in myself, particularly regarding conformity and conventional achievement. His alcoholism and despair frightened me, perhaps because I related very closely in that regard as well. Oh how I loved Amory Blaine's kissing games -- the way he would pursue a kiss for the sake of the kiss. Even when he felt nothing for the girl melancholy would overwhelm him were he denied.

I've heard it said that nobody ever raised a statue to a critic.
When I criticize I cut off my authentic self and seek to apply standards and judgments. Standards and judgments that I have learned and that prevent me from doing my own work for fear of failing to meet the selfsame restrictive criteria. If you go out into the wilderness there are no comprehensive guidelines. You can never bring enough gear to handle every potential challenge.
I am going through a very tough thing right now, something that I thought I would never have to do. I am doing my best, but I am doing some things very poorly. As I started to judge myself yesterday, I reminded myself that I don't want to be good or get good at this particular thing. I just want to do my very best to be present and as honest as I can be. That's probably not going to be one hundred percent. I am not pure. I am human. One of the herd grazing on the fringes.

Moo,
Signore Direttore

Tranquilizer Darts in my Psyche

I am a lover of language learning to hate my lover. She is my muse as well as my oppressor. You're really going have to have to deal with more of this as I dig ever deeper into Nietzsche. He says the wise learn to love their enemies and hate their friends. Language is my bosom bud and I am learning also to despise its tyranny of personal pronouns, polemics and its proclivity toward cultural memes.

For instance, right about now a funk soul brother is feeling light and free and doesn't care about making sense to others or about being comprehensive. Joyful. And you know what? I'm afraid to appear excited. I fear labels of manic and euphoric as they seem to indicate a lack of perspective. Good! I don't want too much god damn perspective. Which has been conflated to mean MENTALLY ILL. Doesn't perspective refer to the point of view of the herd? Doesn't it chastise and shame the invididual for being other? Doesn't it call us crazy when we don't conform?

Ugh. Fuck off, herd. Everytime I get up close to the other animals it feels gross - it stinks with rot and corruption. I'd rather hang out over here and enjoy my own aromas and get comfortable with the fact that I am not moral or upright. My shit stinks, but it is necessary to my existence. Keep your various perfumes.
Only that without history can be defined, says Freidrich. I have a history. I definitely have a past - a really sordid one full of selfishness, fear, dishonesty, crime, drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological trauma, irresponsibility, recklessness, pain, pleasure and unbelievable opportunity. Not least of which is my will to survive through self-reinvention and exploration. Will to power. The herd don't like that will to power mojo.

I am not definable for I am ever changing. This isn't a new idea. Darwin, baby. Read that shit. My species: artist. I have my eyes and my heart open. I am evolving. My mobility defies definition.
I'm tired of apologizing for that. I'm tired of hiding my joy and my excitement. I am tired of apologizing for my suffering. You gotta suffer, darlin. It's part of the deal.
Furthermore…
I'm tired of being a critic -- Disgust with cynicism is being experienced.

Your,
Signore Direttore, Goddammit.

The Master Says 036

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Friedrich Nietzsche

What A Bunch of Amateurs

Word History: When Mrs. T.W. Atkinson remarked in her 1863 Recollections of the Tartar Steppes and their Inhabitants, “I am no amateur of these melons,” she used amateur in a sense unfamiliar to us. That sense, “a lover, an admirer,” is, however, clearly descended from the senses of the word's ultimate Latin source, amtor, “lover, devoted friend, devotee, enthusiastic pursuer of an objective,” and from its Latin-derived French source, amateur, with a similar range of meanings. First recorded in English in 1784 with the sense in which Mrs. Atkinson used it, amateur is found in 1786 with a meaning more familiar to us, “a person who engages in an art, for example, as a pastime rather than as a profession,” a sense that had already developed in French. Given the limitations of doing something as an amateur, it is not surprising that the word is soon after recorded in the disparaging sense we still use to refer to someone who lacks professional skill or ease in performance.

Nothing I have done in the arts for money has been as rewarding as the projects to which I've done from my heart. Perhaps one day the twain shall meet, but more experienced friends tell me that tis rare indeed.

Devoted Friend of the Cinema and Actors,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 035

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

Walt Whitman

The Days Seem Like Weeks

Suppose it has been but a few days since my last write, though in emotional years it feels much longer. I'm going through it. That's all I can say publicly.
That's another reason for my silence on ye olde blog -- I feel censored by my current need to respect my privacy and of those that are close to me.
I have a lot to say, yet can't say it. I've been writing in my analog journal for the first time in months, something I did nearly daily since 1991 prior to Finding Fellini.

I saw Prairie Home Companion. I liked it. A lot. I felt sad afterwards.

The summer production season is upon us and I'm crazy at Gearhead. Overtime. Ch-ching. Bling bling. Don't be hatin. Or perpetratin.

Henry finished kindergarten today. I had the profoundly mundane realization that that will only happen once.

Michael Cassidy is in town and came over for waffles with me and the kids.

Nicola is in Hawaii, working. Henry calls it Hawati.

I nearly cut off the tip f my finger this morning at work. Typing is out of synch.

My desk is a mess. I have work to do, but I can barely keep from falling face down on my desk. Even reading the baseball scores is too much.

Macbeth in the park opens this weekend. I am looking forward to going, though I think it won't be until its second weekend.

Andrew Dickson is in town shilling for the man. Always good to see him.

I want to buy a Jeep and go camping. I could probably just go camping, but the Jeep has become part of it.

Send your money to my buy a Jeep to go camping fund when you get round to it.

Cheers,
Signore Direttore

Folk Wisdom 006

If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.

The Master Says 034

It isn't easy to accept that suffering can also be beautiful... it's difficult. It's something you can only understand if you dig deeply into yourself.

Rainer W. Fassbinder

The Master Says 033

The reasonable man encounters circumstances and adapts himself to them. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt circumstances to himself. All progress depends upon the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw

Euphoria

After the weekend of Made Crooked I experienced a heightened sense of myself, a dizzy euphoria. I felt in my body and beautiful. As it was a sensation that I had not felt without the aid of LSD or Ecstasy for a long, long time, I was very eager for those positive feelings to continue. It would be easy and tempting to beleive that the events of the weekend were responsible for this ecstasy. In fact, despite my cognitive awareness of the fallacy of that opinion it has had a grip on me.
I made some serious decisions to alter how I live my day to day life in order to allow myself to continue feeling beautiful. In fact I have forgotten what I did to prepare for the weekend. I was meditating regularly on allowing myself to experience my center and to heal emotionally - to become less congested emotionally and physically. I was eating well. I was focusing my energy on acceptance and tolerance. The idea that whatever happened at all would happen as it should was resonant. I was meeting calamity with serenity. Not only was I not experiencing the fallout of negative emotion, the positive acceptance I was practicing elated me.
In retrospect, I immediately started to engage in some old habits to hold onto this new way of experiencing the here and now. I am pleased that by being open and honest with the incredible supporting freinds in my life that clarity is possible. I don't know all the answers to the things I have set in motion. There is clearly more to be revealed.
Euphoria is a byproduct of sexual love or being in love with someone. Loving someone is more difficult to acheive. It can not be impetuous or frenzied. Still waters run deep.
Shooting a film in a weekend was like having a torrid affair with the muse.
Editing the film shot so rapturously is learning to love once the honeymoon is over.
Perhaps the waters of editing are too deep for an immature fool like me - the broiling brook of being on set steals my attention away from deeper waters.

Going Deep,
Signore Direttore

Advice on Memorizing Lines

Don't.

I read some actor's blog where he counts the number of lines after he's highlighted his then divides them by the number of days before he is to be off book.
I almost got mad when I read it, it is so wrong-headed.
Actors memorize lines because they don't know how to do text analysis. If you learn what the given circumstances are to you and the writing is good, you will say exactly what needs to be said less from memory than from structure.
Learning to work with the paper in your hand is a good idea. Why rush to get off book? So you can memorize the emotion of your scene along with the lines?
Not for me, amici.

¡viva!
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 032

Cinema isn't like chemistry where you can predict that ten grams of one substance, when combined with five grams of another, will give a particular result. With cinema, I do as I please.

Roman Polanski

Hearts and Minds

It's pretty much a bona fide historical joke that LBJ wanted to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese.
I can't seem to reconcile my own heart and mind. In trying to follow my heart, my head tells me I'm a fool.
What's that crap I try to remember?
Life is a mystery to be lived not a problem to be solved.

Ciao,
Signore Direttore

Notes on Future Films

I am always thinking about my next films. Currently I am attempting to focus my attention on cutting, but that is not a simple transition for me. Particularly now, as I am very distracted by some things in my personal life.
For some films I see a density of information in the frame and for others I see space. Original Glory is wide open - lots of sky and loneliness. Depth and separation of characters from one another and the landscape - emphasizing their inability to connect to the here and now. Perhaps an articulated coming closer as LBJ, the protagonist, is capable of more of a relationship with himself. Made Crooked was in-your-face doc style coverage, punctuated with longer shots that seemed to spy or reveal characters individually or in sub-groups. The density of the frame often depended on random impulses of actors and camera operators. Pendleton will use wider shots to include the landscape of Eastern Oregon and the emotional terrain of its characters. I like the idea of long lenses and wide vistas to flatten the space and emphasize familiarity of scale - father is taller than son, even though son is an adult. Smashing the characters into the land, rooting them there whether they like it or not. That's where they're from. I also like the idea of hanging the characters on a closeline in the distance, not literally but by flattening perspective. Hanging them out to dry.
My grandmother told me a story of how her father used to cut wood in South Dakota when she was a girl. (Aha! I used to stare at maps of South Dakota with longing - but never made the connection that my grandmotehr is from there.) He would jack the car up, remove one of the rear wheels and attach a belt to the axle that would power a saw. I want to rig something similiar in Pendleton for Zach/Clay to cut the wood for the picket fence he builds for his grandmother. But it sounds really fucking dangerous.
I want to experiment with longer interior shots and more intentionally dense frames in our next Actor's Retreat movie, which is tentatively planned for the Fall. I'm thinking of two families living in the same house or going to the same weekend house at different times. I don't know if their experiences are parallel or contradictory, but I like the idea of playing out different characters and their stories in the same space from the same perspective. I am going to rewatch Hou Hsien Hsien's Goodbye South Goodbye for inspiration. It is one of my favorite films. I recommended it to someone a few years ago. When they commented on the ending I was at a loss, for even though I had seen it a dozen times I didn't really care about the plot. I love the way it looks and feels - the story is incidental. Somewhat like Last Days- more of a psycho-spiritual journey than an entertainment.
I saw The Proposition. Ray Winstone was brilliant as always. Danny Huston is the guy that has stayed with me. He has such courage. At least his character did. I'm of the mind that the depth of personal courage that he showed can't be played or acted.
I'm also wondering if Emilio Estevez can act or if he's doomed to wooden characterizations that bank on the familiarity of sharing his infinitely more talented father's voice and demeanor.

Muesli,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 031

To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.

Virginia Woolf

The Master Says 030

A film is born three times -- in the writing of the script, in the shooting and in the editing.

Robert Bresson

Storytelling

Where the writer's work ends the director's begins.
Where the director's work ends the actor's begins.
Where the actor's work ends the audience's begins.

That's the deal in the theatre.
In the film world there's an adjustment to be made:
Where the collaborative work of director-actor-photographer ends the editor's begins.

I've had a very difficult relationship with editing for the past few years. It has a lot to do with the expectations I've put on myself and my films. As soon as they have revealed themselves to be anything less than my vision, I've abandoned them to a purgatory of unfinished projects.
Things are changing. First off, I'm willing to learn from the work that I've done up to now and accept its flaws. Secondly, I am willing to embrace the discovery of happy accidents in the editing phase of filmmaking.

It's going to happen slowly. That's how writing used to be for me. My directing preparation process once required weeks for even a short film.
In the seventh grade I watched the lunch time basketball games from outside the cage. The next year I was the best player on the court. That happened because I had a basketball in my hands at every waking moment. So much so that years later my mom told me that whenever she heard a ball bouncing she still thought it was me coming home from the park or gym.

I miss those early mornings in Alberta Park circa 1979. All by myself shooting jumpers, running drills.
From U-C-L- AAAAAA- A! Neal, Neal, Neal Corl, Corl, C-orl,orl,orl!
And countless buzzer shots. 3-2-1! Corl hits it! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The crowd goes crazy.

I have a Super 8 movie I made of my best friend Jeffrey Maxwell and I playing basketball in the park back then. I have a big bouncy white boy fro. When I dribble, I hang my off hand real low and loose like some sort of pubescent blacksploitation pimp. I slink more than I run. I look absolutely ridiculous. But I felt like the baddest white boy in the hood.

¡viva!
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 029

Since I'm not a second Marx or Freud who can offer people alternatives, I have to let them keep their own wrong feelings.

Rainer W. Fassbinder

I Want I Want I Want I Want

I want more time to devote to writing and filmmaking. I want to be doing less running around. It seems I always have several errands to do - things that are contigent upon still more niggling tasks. This morning I need to take my bicycle down to Bike Gallery and get the pedals and cleats on my shoes fixed. I have been doing that task for six weeks or more.
After dinner last night I went for a walk with Maisie, our three year old. It was a treat to be sure. "Do you like flowery plants, Daddy? They are so beautiful!" We went to the farmer's market near our house. She was thrilled by the baby pears. Looking across Hawthorne, I noticed the windows on the top floor of our building need painting. I've been putting that off since 1993. It's going to take about two hours per window. Even at a rate of two windows a week I could manage the South Side by mid-June. By the way, the two hour schedule only applies to a good job. Stripping the windows down to bare wood and restoring them to their original 1928 glory will require at least another thirteen years.
When I say I Want - I want it now and all at once.
That clearly doesn't work. I've been waiting for the big three weeks with nothing else to do but paint those windows for thirteen years.

I often wonder what I could possibly excise from my schedule. I have a sneaking suspicion that patient integration is the key to my sanity.

¡viva!
Signore Direttore

Head In the Clouds, Feet On the Ground

There's no As If about it - something profound shifted in many of us last weekend. Whether or not things shift back to previous conditions isn't really at issue. They may or may not recede to the status quo. It doesn't matter what happens in the future. Paying attention to the here and now is, as always, paramount. There are a few of us that are doing exactly that. I'm proud that we could engage in an artistic expirment that affected us spiritually and emotionally. It tells me we were on to something - that the process allowed a revelation of our inner lives that was previously inaccesible. Isn't that the point?
What did we do that facilitated such discovery? First off, we let go of getting it right. We adhered to a structure of dramatic storytelling wherein we had to keep moving from scene to scene, much like live theater, yet without any need to give fair trade to the people in the seats. We were interdependent, completely, absolutely. No one could work by himself. No one was superfluous. Not a one of us could stand around and drain the energy as happens on many film sets. There was no time to wander off literally or figuratively. Nearly everything was intentional, even our meals and rest. Another boon - no cell service. I did notice a couple of people going into town at night to check their messages or doing so from the house phone. Not me. I wanted nothing to do with the outside world or my regular life.
That's why movie stars have personal assitants - so they can devote themselves to the world of the work at hand. I'm sure that there are the corrupt actors that go in for the status and ego, but the intention is to allow the actor to get every molecule into their work, disregarding phone calls, dry cleaning, driving, etc.
There's a saying that urges us to walk with our feet on the ground and our heads in the clouds.
I feel as if I can do that after last weekend. I am humbled by the experience. The humility offered a lot of joy. The moments that I tensed up and got urgent sucked. Focusing on preserving harmony and openness minimized the sucky moments the few times they started to raise their ugly heads.
I am no longer afraid to let go of control.
I am good enough to let go.
I trust.

¡Viva!
Signroe Direttore

Made Crooked

http://madecrooked.blogspot.com/

By the by

Meditation works.

I just bought a bunch of that editing equipment and software online from B&H that I've been fretting over. Five grand.
That didn't make me feel better.

But a woo-woo chick whispering in my ears for fifteen minutes about emotional healing has me feeling alive head to toe.

I'll have to try it again when I get my American Express bill.

¡Viva!
Signore Direttore

Tears

I'm up very early this morning. Not feeling one hundred percent physically. And a bit anxious for the weekend. So many things to do. Yesterday I was hoping to get out of work after lunch and get some rest, but the preparation for the retreat went on until 9pm.
Lately I've been trying to adjust my attitudes and actions toward others in life and filmmaking. I've written at lenght about it here, at least it seems to me that I have. We're shooting this retreat this weekend. It's an expiremental exercise. I really don't know what the results are going to be. I've been very excited about aiming for the best work we can do collectively and viewing the results as evidence of our abilities. When I share my excitement with others, it seems there are more lessons to be learned. One actor sees it as my thing and he doesn't want to commit to it or acting at all anymore. The DP from my last film thinks I have written that project off. My boss reacts to the work we're doing to get ready for the weekend with some sort of sadness that I'm thinking might be that he's feeling left out.
It seems that however hard I try to be right-sized about this, I'm still a big dumb bull in a china shop.

I wrote the following to the DP of But A Dream this morning:

Greg

It seems like I've been sending some mixed signals about the short film we
did together.
I'm sorry about that. Sometimes I wish I was one of those guys that falls
in love with his own work and thinks he's the baddest mofo in town --
Next stop Hollywood!
I'm more of the tortured type that suffers over every project trying to
figure out how to get better as an artist and a communicator to my
collaborators and supporters.

I want to be clear about a few things. But A Dream is the best film I
have ever made. You are the best DP I have ever worked with. It's
beautiful. It sounds good. The acting is good. I don't want to say more
until it is cut, but I'm proud of what we accomplished together. Whenever
I show the footage to people they say, "Oh my god, who shot this?"

Telling you that it's the best film I have ever made scares me a bit. I
fear that you think it was kind of a hack job and if I admit it was my
best work, you'll think I'm a phony wannabe. So when i talk to you about
it, I downplay it all a bit to protect myself. To try to be one of the
cool kids.

When I talk about moving on to new projects I am really talking about
geting more time on set as a director. I think lack of experience on my
part was the cause of some of the poor communication between us on set.
Rather than play the blame game, which I tried for a couple of days as you
know, I think I would like to take what I have learned and put it to use
as soon as possible. I'm sorry if that came across as flippant disregard
for the work we did. Not at all my intention.

Before making that short together I wanted you and the other guys to think
I was some great director. That attitude put a lot of unnecessary
pressure on me. It took a lot of the fun of making films away. I did
that to myself. If I ever become a great director, it probably won't be
the result of trying so hard.
More and more, I'm ready for you guys to think I'm some indie guy that
makes freebie stuff you guys might not want anything to do with
professionally. I'll just go play with some gear from the shop and have
fun making movies. That's not a booby prize, it's actually really
exciting me. I've let go of letting that one project that's with Gersh
rule my life and my filmmaking ambitions. I've been writing new stuff
that I could make for no/low budgets and just going with it.
Letting go of the results. Making mistakes. Trying to stop
apologizing or making excuses about where I am at as a filmmaker.

Being part of Gearhead makes that even easier. Thanks for bringing me
into your company. And thanks again for letting me use your camera.

I'm sure we'll work together as director and dp again someday. When we
do, I want it to be a choice on both of our parts. I don't want it to be
about me trying to prove to you I've grown since our last experience nor
do I want you to do it simply as a favor to me. If that opportunity never
comes, it won't be because of a lack of respect or fondness for you, Greg.

Warm Regards,
Neal


Rereading it brings tears to my eyes. Hurts to admit that ego stuff. I'm not sure if reprinting it here is respectful to me or the recipient.
I don't know. Seems to be the thought of the day so far. And it's only 6am.
Rather than feeling hopeless about not knowing, I am going to try to embrace it.
Seems a good plan for retreating.

Like a big pizza pie,
Signore Direttore

Folk Wisdom 005

No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back.

Turkish proverb

Powerless

Researching some editing system equipment. It gives me a headache. Gear. Gear. Gear.
I realy just want to tell stories as a writer and director. Editing is a huge part of filmmaking and I've done a fair bit of it. What I'm always left with it the urge to reshoot or come up with a new project.
I worked as part of team that cut a feature called Evergreen. The film had its moments as well as its problems. It made it to into the Sundance Competition and had a limited release. Anyway the editor, our leader and teacher, was Meg Reticker. She's cut some good stuff, Heavy, Wet Hot American Summer, Decade Under the Influence, and is a really awesome person. After working with me for six weeks, she discouraged my further pursuit of editing as a career. Not for reasons of incompetence, but more because of temperament. (Which was pretty arrogant and ugly in retrospect) You're a director, she said.
Several unfinished projects later - I'm left with facing the editing phase of filmmaking. Melissa Henderson is on deck to cut But A Dream. Originally we were to go to Downstream and do an offline on the Avid. That was going to cost $500 for two eight hour sessions. She has agreed to cut on my system provided I am patient with her adapting to Final Cut Pro. I'm not as proficient on FCP as I once was, but I'm sure between the two of us we'll be fine.
As for FCP. I started cutting on it when it first came out and crashed every two or three minutes. Boy that was fun. Still it was awesome to have the tools to learn how to cut movies in a spare bedroom. I've never purchased a copy of FCP through it's several versions. I started on 1.2.5, switched to 2 then 3. We cut Evergreen on 3. 4 came out, but I was deep into the rewriting of Original Glory as well as trying to figure out how to write a good short script. I got 4.5 last year from someone and 5 just recently. FCP 5 burn that I got doens't have hte supporting discs and therefore is not loading. I ditched FCP 4.5 HD before trying to load 5. I am now void of Final Cut Pro on my machine for the first time in six years.
I'm thinking it might be time to actually buy it. It's the right thing to do. But somehow I feel like a fool.
Then there's the whole RAID, SATA, Firewire question. TetraGiga - ugh.
And Capture Cards.
And HD.
I spent hours on the net this am looking up reviews and user group info on this crap.
What I would rather do is write the scene I've been researching. And direct it.
After I direct it, I will want to direct another. I get that taste. Sitting in front of the editing station makes me want to get back on set.
Meg was right.
However, I am going to have to start finishing films.
Is there a 12 step group for this?
Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over our films that had been shot and that our reels had become unmanagable.

Debolemente,
Signore Direttore

Bravo

Watched Close to Home last night. Guest star Zach Sherman played a pivotal witness in a murder case with more twists than a bag of pretzels. TV is ridiculous. Anyway. Zach did a very nice job. He was very present and alive. He looked great. Physical life was good - very odd walk to the witness stand. His voice quivered, but that seemed part of the characterization. (I have heard this phlegmy quiver many times in him and have wondered how strong his voice is. We all need voice work that's for certain.)

I haven't seen Zach in a year. So it was odd seeing him on the tele. Looking forward to seeing him in person this week. Rumor has it he'll not only be in town, but will be attending class.

Thanks for making us proud, Zach.

Ciao,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 028

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.

Jack Kerouac

Letting Glue

Today was another long day. I didn't work as hard at the hard work I accomplished.

I have some good folks in my life.

Grazie,
Signore Direttore

Unglued

So many things coming at me. Overwhelmed. All day long. People call me and email me with demands, questions. When not standing to that barrage, there's the face to face stuff. My three children. My boss. Employees. Students. Collaborators. Contractors. Tenants. Last but not least - Spouse.
Tuesdays are hellish. Too long of a day.

I'm working on this duet. I've mentioned it before. We played it by ear the other day. Then I got the chord structure from a friend. Last night I met with my partner. He dug right in and played. I was not feeling it. Reluctantly I suggested taking it one time through. It sucked. I was trying to let it suck, but I could not even manage a coherent lack of connection. I experienced something that I have when singing karaoke - it's hard to be really good and it's hard ot be really bad. Mostly I land in this beige-gray middle. H suggested making it my own. Actually, he said he tries to make it his own when he's playing a cover, which he's been doing a great job of with Sister Morphine. Admittedly, I was trying to channel Mick Jagger. Somewhat unlikely. We tried it again. This time I listened more closely. And I made an effort to sing the notes from the page. I let go of my intellectual idea of what A minor or D sounds like and sang a A minors and D as I heard them. Doing that helped me not only hear the notes H was playing, it made it a lot easier to come in on the note. Most importantly, it allowed me to make it my own. I had tears in my eyes by the time we were through. Not weepy ones. Just leaks of bottled up ick from trudging through one hell of a day and putting it into some work. Revealing myself as Cassavetes urges.

Michael Caine is sounding in my ears. If you're working too hard, you're not doing it right.
I'm going to try not to work so hard today.

Viva,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 027

The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to. As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail. You must be willing to risk everything to really express it all.

John Cassavetes

TeleBizshun

Zach Sherman will be guest starring Friday night at 9pm on Close to Home - whatever network that's on.

Zach is a very talented collaborator, friend and former student.

it is no small tragedy that his great comedic genius continues to go unrecognized by casting agents.

A River Dertchee,
Signore DIrettore

Good News

I emailed Cam Archer to let him know how much I loved Wild Tigers I Have Known.
He responded, letting me know it will be released this fall.

Ciao,
Signore Direttore

It Didn't Kill Me

Saw Cam Archer's Wild Tigers I Have Known at the PDX Fest last night. It blew me away. I was tired and certainly had some fidgets, but what a mindblower. I liked it so much. I found so much emotional truth in it. So many memories. Nick Peterson was there and I ran down to chat as soon as the lights came up. Though it was more stylized than Nick might usually go for, I had the feeling he would share my love for the film . I was right -- he loved it as much as I. Nick said the film made him feel as if his films were but technical exercises. He mentioned relating to the exact things I did, one of which was the phone calls. I'm not going to say more, you should find a way to see theis film. An unexpected turn was the body graffiti IT DIDN'T KILL ME.
So so so much in that.
This morning I rehearsed a song with someone. We're preparing a duet of Sister Morphine as a lark. I am not a singer. Nor am I a guitar player. My partner is and it was immediately obvious he thought I was bringing more to the table than I am. He was patient as we found a way to strum chords and alternate lines, coming together as we felt it. So cool. I let myself use what limited skills I have. I trusted it would be good enough. Of course it was. It was not good in a way that I'm thinking of charging admission. But I can tell you this:
It didn't kill me.

Only one thing will and that's not for me to determine.

Viva,
Signore Direttore

Full Circle

Another Spring and another script from the author of High Desert Psalmist. The synopsis he handed to me a week ago didn't grab me. Someone told me the script was worth a read. I found out what the writer wanted from me prior to reading it. I sensed he had learned some things since our last attempt to work together, so I agreed to read his latest.
If your eyes move side to side as you scan the page as they do when reading a book - it's no good. A screenplay is not a novel. Its non-prose format is not arbitrary. The form serves the medium as a blueprint for film construction. The beats are articulated in a certain manner. Dialogue is concentrated. The white of the page offers the subtext its unwritten place on the page. Visualization occurs as the eyes fly down the center of the page. Turning page after page, scene after scene. One flowing into the next.
I can get through a well written script of 120 pages in 45 minutes. I spent an hour and a half on this 111 pager and didn't make it to the third act. The second act started on page three. Its dozens of pages went on and on, going only to places I've seen before. Places that weren't that interesting the first time around. Situations to which I do not connect. Stories that I do not want to tell.
I really like this guy. I would love to work with him, both for the experience and to give him the opportunity to see his words come to life. But for me, the words have to come off the page. If ain't on the page, it ain't gonna be on the screen. Liking someone or wanting to be part of a film getting made doesn't a good screenplay make.
I'm going to have to pass on this one.
Oh well.

Lastima,
Signore Direttore

Practice

I've been practicing the following:

Thinking about film and seeing films critically without being a critic. Rather I am seeking to advance my own understanding of the art form as well as my own process.

Allowing myself to dislike films without indicting the filmmaker.

Trusting the generosity of audiences without judgment.

Allowing whatever happens to inform my experience of the here and now.

Being gentle.

Asking for help.

Accepting help.

Admitting that I am wrong.

Believing stones can float.

Letting go.

Gratitude.

Buona Sera,
Signore Direttore

Matt's Manifesto

"This is not the entertainment industry," it reads, but "folk art for a high tech society" that represents "a small victory over the monopoly that Hollywood and the corporate media have on our culture. . . THIS IS THE INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC UNDERGROUND."

Matt McCormick

You Are My Sunshine

There's a magic thing that happens when people get together. I mean really get together. I've been hanging around all kinds of people in all kinds of places for many years and remained very alone.
Suppose I was protecting myself. In some cases I was protecting others from me. Over time, more so recently, I've been letting the armor fall away bit by bit. It certainly is a vulnerable thing. I scare others. Especially when I myself am scared. Which I am when I strip away the things I have relied upon for protection.
I am intense. My mind moves very fast. Way way way ahead of my mouth. My mouth tries to keep up. Frustration. Don't yell, keep talking. It will come out. This will take practice. People tell me that though they trust I won't be violent, they feel as if they're in danger of being hit.
For many years I did exactly that - lashed out verbally and physically. Worse yet, I ran away or rejected. I was often like an animal.
Raw. Intense. Unpredictable.
It drew people to me. It scared them away. It excited people. It hurt people.
Though I keep my hands to myself and my voice moderate more often than not, this thing is still present.
This came up with a friend yesterday morning. I tried to own my behavior while acknowleding the progress I've made.
Last night one of my students said this to me, "You're our teacher. We look up to you for your wisdom and your experience. We don't understand that you might suffer from any self-doubt or inadequacy when we put ourselves in your hands. I've seen you struggle. I've wondered if we were on the same side at times. But I've trusted and we've always come through in ways that have been intensely rewarding and exciting."
I asked him if it that type of intensity is not present in any project that's worthwhile.
He simply said, "No, not really."
That really went to my core. I refrained from judging the merits of the many projects on his resume. Something I would have done in the past to protect myself. Instead I accepted what he said almost as simply as he said "No, not really."
"You remember when you said to me, and you were joking, but as with all jests there's truth in it - This thing is going to go a lot better if you can read my mind." I recall saying it in an attempt to make light of the tendency I have to get ahead of myself. To assume others are with me. Or even ahead of me. I don't give myself credit. I'm waiting for someone to call me an idiot at every turn. I feel like I'm playing catch up. Getting left behind. I rush to keep pace, leaving others in my wake. In trying to catch up, I pass them by.
This kind of stuff is tough to admit. Tough to face. It would be nice to ignore it. To excuse my intensity as an artist's temperament. To point fingers. To avoid. To go to extremes. Rash judgments. Move to Mexico.
Speaking of the land so far from God and so close to the United States: I ran into an an old friend last night. He told me the letter I sent to him from Mexico in 1995 broke his heart. I didn't remember the letter. He said, "You don't remember. Do you remember living in Mexico?" Of course I remember living in Mexico. What do you think? That I'm some kind of idiot? (Oh, by the way - Here we go again.) Apparently the letter I wrote informed him I wasn't coming back, that I was going in a new direction. That I wished him the best in finding a new mentor. "It ripped my heart out. You had the light in you and you turned it out."
You know, the turn I took in Mexico was very selfish. Extremely so. Me, me, me. Yo, yo, yo.
I'm coming around to the light. I am showing up in places where I meet my old friend Mark. People who knew me when. I'm listening when H reminds me to allow others into my process. To be gentle. I'm listening when D tells me my authoritative presence is overwhelming. That I've changed but I'm not in the clear.
There's no place to run. No place to hide.
Might as well come out into the sunshine.

Grazie,
Signore Direttore

Stracco

I'm seventy or so hours of work into this week and Friday is just getting started. I'm working Saturday morning as well. That's about fifty Gearhead hours so far, five teaching acting, two in meetings, three in screenings, eight writing and two coaching tee ball.
I'm feeling restless, irritable and discontent.
My brow is knit. My back is hunched.
I saw this woman on the set of a music video this morning that I used to spend a lot of time with in NYC circa 1997. I really hope she is up from LA for this thing and not living in town working in the same sphere as I.
I'm looking for a day to take off from Gearhead next week. I've been riding my bike(s) this week. The retreat is coming up. And a family trip to Bend to see Beck and stay in a condo up at Mt. Bachelor for the long holiday weekend.
I'm reading Sometimes a Great Notion. I'm happy about that.
What it really comes down to is that I'm very tired. I need some rest. Until I can manage that, I'll have to take it easy on myself and others.

Ciao,
Signore Direttore