Busy

I ran into a very old friend this morning on my way to the j-o-b. I saw him several weeks ago at the J&M cafe - a spot where many of my old loves and cronies tend to brunch it seems. He in his Range Rover looking over the $900 pickup I was driving today. He passed me his card - something to do with wine. He apologized for not having called - Busy, he said, while his eyes darted over the truck.

In high school I palled around with both the high and the low. The stoners, the merit scholars, the Deadheads, the Punks - I was a populist. I was interested in all of them and I preferred doing drugs and drinking to being in class. So while those bound for the Ivies, Cal and Stanford were in classes I was often getting high with the rabble. One morning I recieved an invitation to take bong hits in the new car of a knucklehead. With us was a merit scholar with a penchant for Leary and The Dead. There were quite a few kids that seemed able to mix drugs and scholarship - it was an either/or thing for me. So these three unlikely chums - the knucklehead jock, the hippie genius and the populist soc - went off to smoke pot in the knucklehead's new Firebird. He asked what we thought of the new car. I laughed - I drove a VW Rabbit and was strictly into Euro cars at the time. (Probably why my friend this morning couldn't get over seeing me in the old F-150) The hippie proclaimed, An automobile is simply an extension of one's over-inflated ego. Totally dude, replied the jock.

I like cars and I stay pretty busy. I fall prey to seeing cars as status symbols. It's weak, I know - I'm trying to break the chains. I bought a mini-van and a $900 pickup in the last year for chrissakes.
But being busy as a status symbol, or even as an excuse, is silly. I abhor people telling me that they're too busy. If it were a pissing match, I might certainly win. But I'm not talking about that. I thought I would leave that I'm busy crap behind in NY. But it's here in little old Portland as well.

So next time you hear yourself claim to be busy, stop for a sec and see if it's true. If it is, ask yourself if what is keeping you busy is that important. If it isn't, dump it and look at the sky for a few minutes or really listen to a friend.
It's so much better than BUSY.
And if you are busy, try expressing it in a different way, especially to those you love.
Sorry for the soapbox if you came to hear about the pursuit of filmmaking mastery -- I'm in a reconstrucion of my psyche phase.

What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?
nc

p.s. It's been a hell of a week - holding down ye olde grippe shoppe, moving house, teaching, producing Nick's film, etc. I didn't have time to read books, write or contact old friends, but I found some time for my family and friends, I watched some baseball and I squeezed in a little time each day for the development of my inner life.

9 - 5

For the past several years I've avoided a day job for the purpose of devoting time to filmmaking. There were periods during which I enjoyed substantial income from freelance work and other endeavors, but I've consistently been the type of grandiose fool that presumes the highest weeks' income to be the average. I never dealt in seven figures, but I was hanging in the sixes and I completely understand how millionaires go bankrupt. I have avoided bankruptcy, but I am penniless.
While the wine flowed and the roses bloomed I invented a path for myself that was a shotgun approach to building a career as a filmmaker. I was all over the place. I thought directing commercials translated into features. i thought writing prose was no different than writing for the screen and the screen no different than for the stage. I thought directing actors and coaching actors was the same thing. In my best estimate I would say I spent a third of the time inventing and reinventing the path, a second third of the time agonizing about things not happening fast enough and comparing myself to others and the final third of the time was divided between creating and shameless self-promotion.
I'm mentoring someone presently that insists on making the same mistakes. Often I let myself wallow in the pity that no one showed me the way. My experience with this apprentice teaches me that perhaps I neither sought out the input nor listened to it when I heard it.
There's an old refrain that none of us likes to hear - Don't quit your day job. I never had one to quit until now. Funny that. I thought that once I got to this place - optioned screenplay, packaging deal - it would be all aboard the gravy train. It's only getting more difficult.
The 9-5 is helping.
So, based on experience, I would echo that old refrain. Until the contracts are signed and the check is on your hand, don't quit your day job. And if you don't have one, think about getting one.
I want to be cautious here so as to not project my woes onto unsuspecting and perhaps undeserving others. First of all, I want it both ways. To be an artist and to live in luxury. I put the cart before the horse over and over again. I throw money at things and plan later. I seek the easier, softer way of doing things. Worst of all, I've done a lot of work for the purpose of seeking recognition.
Currently I make less in a month than I once did in a week or even a day. Yet I can pay my bills. And I know what it takes to conceive, manage and complete a film. It's far more simple and far more difficult than I ever imagined.
Having a day job eliminates the need to expend energy plotting and scheming the way that I did while I was looking for the quick score. I don't have any extra money to throw at half-baked projects, so I have to have a plan. Since I don't have time to do it all myself I have to hire a producer to manage the project, something I should have done from day one. As for the recognition seeking, I know that if I do my best work and put it out there, it will be recognized or it won't. That part is really out of my hands.

F**K

August Wilson died at 60.
That pisses me off and makes me sad.
And, as when anyone dies under the age of 70, it scares the bejesus out of me.

I love Fences and Two Trains Running.
He was a tireless writer and a great contributer to the American Theater.
May the man rest in peace.

¡viva!
nc

The Master Says 003

One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind. To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking. I have only touched it, just touched it.
-- Dorothea Lange

The Master Says 002

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.
-- Albert Einstein

Wabi

The origin of the term refers to the separation and isolation from society of the hermit or monk.
Indeed, wabi is literally poverty, but it came to refer not to the absence of material possessions but to the non-dependence upon material possessions. The material world is that which is interpreted and conceived of by the intellect (largely ego in my opinion). The intellect serves mainly to abstract information or to interpret information that has already been abstracted. Wabi is a divestment of the material that surpasses material wealth. Wabi is simplicity that has shaken off the material in order to relate directly with nature and reality. This absence of dependence also frees itself from indulgence, ornateness, and pomposity. Wabi is quiet contentment with simple things.
Nothing lasts. Nothing is finished. Nothing is perfect.
All of the beauty and knowing in life is not "out there" to be discovered, but instead is right here in this moment - right before our eyes. In the book Wabi Sabi Simple, Richard Powell shares that “wabi sabi is a way of life that appreciates and accepts complexity while at the same time values simplicity.”
Powell concludes, "To accept these realities is to accept contentment as the maturation of happiness, and to acknowledge that clarity and grace can be found in unvarnished existence."
This all reeks of Pragmatism. Cassavetes was a big fan of William James and Pragmatism. The only problem with studying philosophy is its innate dependence on abstraction and intellect. Great for the Ivory Tower, not so for the stage.
So give me a stage where this bull here can rage …

Also looked at a lot of Dorothea Lange photographs today. So beautiful. Talk about being devoid of material. Nobody got no shoes!

A river dertchee,
nc

Bated Breath

Last night in my scene study class, two students were in the later stages of working on a scene from Suburbia. It was wonderful. They were talking to one another. They were alive head to toe, reacting to one in another in the simplest of ways - sliding over on a bench to invite a sit-down, subtle but fully alive furtive glances, bumping shoulders. It's always a good sign that after seeing various students work on a particular scene over the years, I wait with bated breath to hear what they might say next.
It's especially encouraging to watch fine young actors let go of their bags of tricks and patiently discover new ways of playing a particular set of given circumstances. In doing so, I believe each found tremendous subtlety and dimension.
I look forward to seeing what they do next. A swell place, too, as I appraoch one of those months when half of my regular students are not going to be in class for various reasons. With a small studio like mine, that means I pay the rent and earn less than a clerk at 7-11.
So thanks to those that are open and growing for bating my breath.

And thanks to the boys at Gearhead for gainful employment, further easing the sting of reduced studio revenue.

Ciao,
nc

The Writing is on the Wall

Public schools in Georgia are closing for two days next week to save gas. I suppose when education results in complete dependence on fossil fuels, it makes absolute sense to shut the schools down.
Our supreme leader truly is crude.

Went to a performance of Portland Taiko last night. I didn't like it. I thought it devoid of what Lorca called duende, roughly translated as feeling. Arbitrary banging. Arbitrary banging of simple rhythms by smiling white folks getting cultural. Some sort of reverse minstrel show. A Left Coast version of Stomp. About half of the performers were of Asian descent, many Japanese. Obo Addy and several Ghanians came out for the final number. It was only then that I felt anything anyplace other than my ears. The Africans were the real deal and I couldn't help but think that the Taiko folks were blessed and cursed to be sharing the stage with them. Of course there was a standing ovation. As our babysitter pointed out when we got home, put a person of color on the stage, the darker the better, and the crowd will stand and cheer in Portland.
Of course they'll ask them to live in blighted areas until they get around to gentrification, pushing them out of the way until they need cheap housing or to be entertained.

It's a crazy world. Which is no news at all. The writing has been on the wall all along.

Con amore per umanita,
Signore Direttore

This Side of Paradise

The title of the first of F. Scott Fitzgerald's few complete novels, much more minor than Gatsby, but closer to home for me as I devoured the books of The Lost Generation in my teens. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, looked up at the spires of Princeton assuring himself that he would surely do better in school next year, but knew deep inside of himself that he would not. And in fact, did not.
Was he being honest with himself that some things are not meant to be? Or simply rationalizing his lack of effort?

I've had a few students argue about objectives lately, claiming that a character doesn't know he or she won't succeed as they pursue his or her objectives. In short, that they are always in it to win it. Maybe I'm just a fearful doubting Thomas, but I think desire is almost always plagued by a measure of doubt. If not, where would the tension come from? Surely not the other person. My battles within have always been more epic than those without.
I find it far more involved and nuanced to witness a character check his or her own doubts about his or her objective against the other/s/ in a scene.

Just got the phone call I've been waiting for since Tuesday. I'm the new manager at Gearhead Grip and Lighting. I start Monday. A set schedule. A paycheck. Healthcare benefits. Paid holidays and vacation. Things I've never experienced. I'm excited.

My theory is I'm surrending to win. I'll keep you posted.

Fono ai noi,
nc

The Dispassionate Gardener

Saw The Constant Gardener yesterday for my Monday matinee. Having forgotten to wear my watch, I checked the time on my cell phone around an hour into it and every ten minutes thereafter. I was bored and anxious for its anticlimactic denoument to come so I could go.
The exhaustion of my patience with the film coincided with the end of the jump in time segments, which ultimately I found very arbitrary and therefore tedious -- just as the director settled into telling the story it was too late. I suppose the jumps in time were thought necessary to fill in all the backstory. I may have known it was adapted from a John LeCarre novel prior to seeing it, I'm not certain. I did say to myself while watching it, Oh this story is intriguing, but I'd rather read about it in a john LeCarre novel. (If I ever read those types of books.) I just didn't find the backstory all that necessary. The wife of a quiet, well-peered diplomat is very active politically. She spends a lot of time with a native Kenyan doctor helping the poor. A pharmacuetical company is up to no good with the help of the British government. Shadow agents eliminate the bleeding heart wife when she gets too active in her discovery of evil doing.
That's a good set-up. I don't need to know she has always asked too many questions going back to meeting her husband at university. I can see that in the way she handles herself with the poor, the Kenyan doctor, her husband and at a diplomatic social function. I don't need to see them fall in love in a flashback. I'm not so cynical as to believe they might well have been in love to have gotten married in the first place. For all the the first hour's attention to backstory, it makes the sudden introduction of the wealthy cousin in the third act feel more like movieland than reality. Though I liked the jump in time juxtaposition of his eulogy and the gardener's final earthly moments.
For a film that does a good turn in showing the shanty towns and the suffering of the African poor as well as offering some truthful though often, dare I say, too understated performances, it shrinks from allowing reality to unfold before us with any patience. Think of the power of the long take in such dire living conditions. The fast cutting really worked in the director's film, City of God, precisely because the world it was depicting depended on fleet-footed survival. We were given the chance to sneak a peek into a world that doesn't allow Peeping Toms.
A note on the preformances: Rachel Weisz was great. She had conviction and compassion and showed great courage. All of the supporting roles were well played, though F. Murray Abraham suffered a sliding dialect and the manner in which the Kenyan doctor's eyes lighted on the heroine was exactly that -- mannered. I found Ralph Fiennes far too understated. He hit some wonderful notes of realization that reflected his inner life and his character's temperment and class at key moments. However, if the film hoped to show a man awaken to a less distanced relationship to the world, I think the actor failed. Though he may have failed, he is not to blame. As always the buck stops with he or she at the helm. In this case, the director didn't give his leading man and his audience a chance to watch the gardener's garden grow.
All that said, I appreciate that the film was about human beings. Unfotunately, the view of humanity was obfuscated by frantic cuts, desaturated images and too much backstory and exposition. I never groaned, I just got a little bored at times as the story went in one eye and out the other all too self-conciously.

I predict Phil Hoffman will be accepting a gold statuette from the Academy next Spring based on the trailer for Capote. Wow.

Pasta and Bagels,
Signore Direttore

Kentucky Windage

There are three ways to hit a target with a rifle - blind luck, Kentucky windage and zero the sights.
Blind luck is a wily devil, betraying its beneficiary sooner or later, especially if it coincides with beginner's luck. Blind luck is particularly troubling when one has a run of it and believes it an indication of a talent that requires no further training.
Kentucky windage involves firing a shot and adjusting to the sight's inaccuracy until "a little to the left and a squirrel tail lower" hits the mark. Of course this method must be adjusted any time the distance to the target moves. Sure to be the case in a live action scenario.
Zeroing the sights takes a little longer. Set the front and rear sights to mechanical zero. Fire at a target at 25m and first adjust the front sight for elevation and then the rear sight for windage and elevation until all rounds strike within 4cm of the target center. The weapon will be set at battlesight zero for up to 300m. For longer range shooting, a second zero can be set and marked as necessary.
What I'm trying to draw is a parallel to preparation for the actor. I find that most actors tend to rely on blind luck and Kentucky windage. When we practice contacting ourselves and opening our instruments, setting ourselves to mechanical zero, rather than rush into practicing for performance, we stand a better chance of having more accurate use of ourselves.

A River Dertchee,
Il comandante

Corragio

There is very little I feel compelled to report this week.
Classes were great -- new faces and new energies. There is a certain desperation that emanates from many aspiring actors. One of my tasks as a coach is to interpret and react to it accordingly. Becoming an actor of any measure requires a great deal of courage. Like talent, I find that courage is an innate attribute. It comes out with diligent exercise, but can not be taught. I run into problems when I make assumptions or sweeping assesments about the level of courage in the studio in any given class. Even with small classes, I often find it difficult to adjust to and encompass six to ten hearts. I suppose the best thing I can do is speak from my own heart and experience, thus being as courageous as I am capable.
Much like staying close to oneself as an actor -- if it is yours and in the moment, it is always the best you can do.
Oh, to practice what one preaches.

Ciao,
nc

Nella terra dei ceichi …

… the one-eyed man is king.
The winner of the Best Actor Award for the 2005 Filmerica Challenge is yours truly.

How about them apples?

Buona sera,
Signore Attore ahem Direttore

Second Guessing

To say my first encounter with second guessing occured within the last decade would surely be false. Just as we sometimes hear something many times, there comes a point when we really understand it. Perhaps when our receptors are ready or when the strength of the transmission signal is irrepressible.
Such was the case with second guessing. I had just started studying with Cay Patten in New York. I felt immediately at ease with her during our interview. She was not the touchy-feely, new age teacher I had when younger. She was a New York intellectual. And a fat Greek lady, just like my mother. Anyway the interview went well and she admitted me to intermediate scene study. I was happy not to start in the beginning class, yet nervous. Especially when I saw a couple people in the lobby wearing national tour jackets from shows.
One of the show vets was an actor called Steven. In one of my first classes Steven was making a salad in his scene. Or he was going through the motions of making a salad. Every question Cay asked him about the salad, Steven answered with a defense of his choice, citing his (mis-)interpretation of Cay's input rather than an answer to her simple questions. Finally she had enough and told him she was finished with him. Not just for the day, but forever. She told him he was never going to be a good actor if he second guessed clear, simple direction.
I thought, Yes!, she's absolutely right. I further deduced that good actors don't second guess impulses. Just like people don't second guess the sunlight of the spirit, except when our neuroses get in our way, of course.

I optioned Original Glory to a producer with limited experience and we went through a long phase of development during which the script improved in some ways and died in others. I've always had a hard time pitching the script. It is not a high concept script for one. But the plot covers a lot of ground. To get from A to Z, I've had to leap over certain plot developments, expecting the audience to jump with me.
It seems that readers in Hollywood all stumble at those junctures. They say things like, I don't feel you earn the murder of the father. Or, He makes a phone call for help and then he's thirty days sober.
My response is usually something along the lines of, I don't really want the audience to be concentrating on the details of the plot, I want them to go on the journey with the characters.
Those with money need plot points. They need structure. They need a package that they feel is marketable. In the past, I've second guessed this. Resisted it. Judged it.
I've been seeing it differently of late. It's giving me a lot of freedom. I realize that what people are objecting to is the structure of the script. They love the stories and the characters and the physical world that I've created. But I've packed too much into its 100 pages. I've spoiled them. If I rewrite it using only the first act, they'll miss the ending or something in the second act. I've created this smorgasboord that incites gluttony.
I realized this after hearing the same feedback for years on this project. The first producer I worked with belabored the details, when I should have gone back and simplified the structure. Recently, I watched a few films that are similar to Original Glory with a careful eye toward plot development. If I were to shoot my film and expect it to come in around ninety minutes, it would be a ruthless whirlwind. While I want it pack a wallop, I want the story to be able to breathe. Think of spaghetti westerns -- three or four gunfights and a lot of quiet space between them.
In developing the script a couple of years ago I killed a lot of darlings in order to make room for more plot devices that still aren't working entirely. No more second guessing Hollywood.

I read Mark Medoff's great play, When You Comin Back, Red Ryder? Teddy, the outlaw, is ruthless, raw and honest. Every moment counts. It's like Shakespeare -- no need for stage directions. Reading it, I recalled the rawness of the characters in my script before all the second guessing under the guise of polishing.

I spoke to Michael Cassidy about this with some trepidation a couple of days back. He had just watched Peckinpah's The Getaway and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
Once again, we were on the same page.

In the past, I've always been anxious to do the rewriting on Original Glory. Seemed there was always a deadline, real or imagined. I'm sitting back on this one. Gonna let it simmer. Gonna figure on where I want to start and where I want to finish. Then I'm gong to write a logline. Then I'm going to work up an outline. I'm going to let it come to me.
I'm not going to second guess it.

¡Viva!
signore direttore

Almodovar

As far back as I can remember, I've been self-concious. As I have tried to move away from self-obsession, the culture has increasingly embraced it. Not all of the independents have been co-opted. Pedro certainly has, yet he continues to stay true to his original vision.
I recall seeing films by Scorcese, Almodovar and Jarmusch in the 70s and 80s having no idea who the filmmaker was. By the early 90s, just after Resevoir Dogs came out, I saw a poster of Tarantino in the window of Django's, his name emblazoned across the bottom.
(Nostalgia can be a slippery slope, I'm experiencing a flood of sense memories regarding Django's.)
The fare in those early days of independent cinema was meager in between the feasts. One of those feasts -- a double bill of She's Gotta Have It and Down by Law at the Clinton Street -- still offers a bit of nourishment. Another film, largely forgotten, that I loved: Patti Rocks. Mamet's House of Games was another favorite. Oh, how I loved Almodovar -- the colors, the quirky stories, the awkward and twisted sex. So rich. The themes and situations at once totally alien and yet all too close to me. I lived in Europe from 1985 to 87, ages 17 - 19, experiencing many more situations out of the films of Almodovar and Jarmusch than of Hollywood's.
I suppose I'm blurring the lines between indie, small studio and foreign films in terms of financing, but the heart and soul of the films are akin.
It was while living in Germany, West Germany in those days, that I discovered Fellini. A friend gave me a VHS copy of Amarcord for my 19th birthday. Mike Gallo, a former high school English teacher and writer for a small-town paper in upstate New York, was my sidekick and mentor in those days. It's a long story how he ended up in the Army, but thank goodness he did. He saved me from the philistines. The last time I saw him he was in graduate school in Sacramento. I showed up at his door at 7am in a stolen convertible, drunk and eager to add fuel to my fire. He indulged my escapades in a dive bar, bought me lunch and sent me on my way with a copy of The Ginger Man. Yikes.
Gallo and I were very unpopular at the armed forces movie theaters. We loudly mocked sentimental tripe like The Color Purple and Platoon. Eventually we were 86d after getting caught drinking beer during one of the latter Rockys.
I found a link to Almodovar's site, where he keeps on online journal. I'm so glad he's exalted and appreciated. His films are just as good, if not better than they were when nobody knew who I was talking about as I blathered on about his genius.

John Peirson's book, Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes is a good read on the history of independent film in that era.

As I recall those films, the details of the theaters and my companions all spring to life in my memory, shutting out the pain, confusion and hurlyburly of the rest of my life at the time. Many of us have these things that chrystalize our memories so -- my friend Dan Eccles has it with music. He recalls at once the melody and the record jacket or concert. It is in his bones. His fingers move as if on frets and his the lyrics start in the back of his neck.

I leave you with a roll call:
Matt Van Vlack, Clinton Street Theater, Cinema 21, Bleecker St Theater, Spike Lee, Please baby baby please, Sarah Posey, Ara Vallaster, The Red Vic, David Lynch, Koin Cinemas, The Fifth Avenue, Siesta, Matador, Mamet, Sujata Kakar, Mala Noche, The Castro, Drugstore Cowboy, Slackers, Hollywood Shuffle, Tampopo, Sex, lies and videotape, Laws of Gravity, Adam Trese, Roger & me, The Thin Blue Line, Carl Scott, Din Johnson, and many more…

ciao,
nc

The Greeks called it Hubris

There are three cases of arrogance on my mind today.

The most immediate is of the naive variety. Just sat through the beautiful afternoon indoors for a casting session for Nick Peterson's film Yellow, a musical. Actors came in and sang along with a recording and then read sides. Two were well prepared and two were not. One of the ill prepared was a student of mine. A student on partial scholarship. A student I passionately recommended to Nick. I wonder what the point of showing up to an audition unprepared might be. Could it be that the actor thinks of it as an opportunity to meet and greet the filmmaker or casting director? Or that by simply showing up they'll be cast based on their good looks and winning ways? My student will be called back. Unfortunately, in my opinion. He sings well and he is a good actor, his talent certainly came through. Though not nearly as well had he put an hour into preparing for the audition I set up for him more than a week ago.
My money is on the other two guys. Both of whom are non-actors, by the way. It helps that they are musicians, most particularly for this film, but it's their charisma combined with their preparation that's winning them near the kiss.

The second instance of hubris I experienced this weekend is of the harumph variety. I suffered through Ridley Scott's commentary on the Thelma & Louise DVD. Clearly he's a man of considerable talent and accomplishment. Knighted by the Queen. A member of both the American and British film academies. Indeed.
"My genius is caah-sting, you see. When the actors are well caahst, they know what to do and I can concentrate on things like this shot." A night travelling shot of Louise's T-bird passing a truck on the highway. A shot that tells us nothing. Totally arbitrary.
I quite wish he would have let us experience a shot of Geena Davis's face when she's about to get raped. That way we would have felt what she felt as it was happening, instead of seeing insert shots of her panties getting pulled down. (Which leans more toward eroticism than violence if you ask me.) Had we experienced the imminent threat of violation with her in the parking lot, the moment that Thelma stops Louise from second-guessing herself later in the movie and reminds her "He was hurting me." would have had much more of an impact.

The other case of excessive confidence that comes to mind is David Walker's film reviews in the last two issues of WW. The exact position of film critic for an alt-weekly is in question. Certainly we expect a little sardonic zest, wit and hipness in such a rag. Though, is not the job really about letting us know -- in a hip, witty and zesty sardonic fashion, of course -- if the film is worth a sawbuck and two hours of our time? Surely we do not expect Film Comment nor Cahiers du cinema. A little film crit is welcome for the cinephiles, sure, but let's serve the common WW reader. Well lately DW has erred not in the over-erudition of his criticism, but in subsuming the reader's knowledge and going straight for the kill. (Or in the case of a local film on which he toiled as associate producer, straight for the fluff job.)
First the fluff. Eight paragraphs or so qualifying his review of the film, two paragraphs of plot summary and a paragraph excusing the poor craftsmanship of the filmmakers. He claimed that the film showed the promise of digital video. I thought promise requires more than getting some people together to make a movie with no thought toward composition, lighting, sound or story development. Dear David, I would have appreciated a heads up that the film stinks and it's not worth my time, let alone my money.
Then the kill. "John Singleton is a no talent hack." Though DW loves Hustle & Flow, as do I, which wouldn't have gotten made had not John Singleton put up his own money to produce it. DW's review of H&F is a good example of why he is gainfully employed as a film critic, by the way. "Someone should pay Rob Schneider to go fuck himself." Does Deuce Bigleow European Gigolo really incite such vitriol? Sky High: "Super-stupid family-friendly comedy that…" DW doesn't have a family and doesn't have to endure family films. But I do and after seeing the super-stupid moron-friendly film DW fluffed earlier in the day, Sky High seemed like the Wizard of Oz later in the evening. Dear David, Sky High was well worth our $12 and the two-hour roundtrip out to Newberg to see it at the 99W drive-in.

I would write a letter to DW c/o WW, but I'm practicing restraint of tongue and pen. Lest I wind up fodder for an arrogance posting in some blog.

Ariverdertcheeee,
Signore Direttore

A Movie I'd Like to See Remade

I'm not a fan of remakes normally. But I am a fan of auteurs. And of good stories. So when I read and, or see a good story poorly told I like to think of ways it could have been improved.
I've been watching and reading road movies this week. Last night's film was Thelma and Louise. Ridley Scott was the wrong director for that film. It's hopelessly slick and lifeless. Since it can't be remade in the past by any of my heroes of the 70s, it will have to be remade in the future.
There was an article in the NYT this week about the studios admitting better movies need to be made. Michael Bay's The Island didn't make any money -- boo hoo. This is good news for auteurs -- since the studio biggies are failing to bust blocks this summer, movies by Miranda July, Jim Jarmusch and Craig Brewer are all tracking long theatrical runs.
At times the acting in Thelma and Louise was a commentary on the themes and plot of the film. I blame the director for that. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis both did a great job as far they were allowed to take it. Brad Pitt, Mike Madsen and Harvey Keitel were all very good as well. However, if the camera isn't there to record the inner life of the actor, there isn't much an actor can do about it. The objectivity of the camera work in Me and You and Everyone Else We Know would serve the tale of the ladies from Arkansas very well.
Gus Van Sant likes to remake films. The quiet lurking of his recent films would set a wonderful tone for Thelma & Louise.
I don't really care who helms the remake as long as it's gritty and human and the humor comes from our collective difficulties with sexism and chauvinism instead of the one-note spin and visual cliches under Scott's direction.

Buona sera,
Signore Direttore

Cento metro di Federico

A friend told me today that I'm a hundred yards from the finish line, and like on any tough terrain, it's the hardest part of the journey. Well thank you, friend, for the comforting words. I'm not sure that I buy it, but I see the wisdom in his analogy and I am comforted by it.
It is the journey and not the destination that interests me, I'm nearly always pleased to recall.
There is a tendency at times like this that I'm tempted to look only forward and back, ignoring the present.
A friend is going through chemo, my aunt is moving back to the awful small town in Ohio that she spent the last five years trying to get away from to try to get her cheating husband back and poor W is suffering a 36% approval rating.
Meanwhile, my wife is beautifully pregnant, my children are healthy and happy and I just returned from a bicycle ride on a beautiful summer evening.
Repeat after me:
Slow and steady wins the race.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Slow and …

Ciao amici,
Signore Direttore

Between a diamond and a sapphire: luxury problems part uno

Today's my birthday.
I met with the storyboard artist first thing this morning. So very nice to see images of the ideas that have been kicking around in my head for so long. I would love to board the entire film, but there's a lack of funds available for such work at present. That meeting was interupted by a phone call from 323. The secretary - Neal, I have x on the phone.
X is an old friend that I got in touch with to go over what I am doing with The Gersh Agency. She's extremely busy these days developing a bunch of tv stuff for one of the networks. She and her company have been all over the trades the past couple of weeks. I am grateful she took the time to return my call. Unfortunately she told me the same old thing that I've been hearing for years -- don't try to direct this film, get out of the way. Don't do anything, just wait for them to come round.
Meanwhile, I'm looking around my house for things we can sell. I'm considering jobs as a custodian. Maybe moving the family into a one bedroom apartment. I got number three on the way. I've been working toward this for years. I'm not holding out to direct because I think it will be cool. I'm ready to do the work of a director. If David Fincher or Sofia Coppola wants to direct this, I'll step aside, all too gladly. But I'm not going to get out of the way for somebody that flatlined some lame picture nobody has ever heard of.
At the same time, I'm talking to someone making fifteen-k a week to play Playstation in a trailer on the set of a studio movie who is complaining about how lousy that is and how he can't wait to make this film with me. He's telling me to hang in, that I'm his only hope.
I'm not whining about this. And truthfully, there's really nothing I can do. There's no offer on the table to give the film up to another director. There's nothing except regular news that the script is slowly working its way up the food chain. Nobody is saying, here's the deal. I'm might ask Gersh if there's some re-writing work or some such thing available to hold me over. But I'm not sure if that's even appropriate.
I am grateful to be in such a difficult place. They may well be nice problems to have, but that don't make 'em easy to solve.

Pasta and bagels,
Signore Direttore

Storyboards

Had my first session with a storyboard artist this morning. It was very exciting to think about the film in visual terms from shot to shot. I discovered that I have developed a fluency of cinematic language. That I have strong ideas about where to put the camera and why. It's very exciting.
There are varying opinions on the use of storyboards. Roman Polanski feels they stiffen actors. I don't agree. As an actor I like to know the director has thought carefully about the placement of the camera. It helps me feel supported in order to go deeper with my work. It's my opinion that actors play better to a camera carefully placed rather than letting an actor go and trying to catch it. I suppose in comedy that's the way to go, but with drama I'm all for detailed mise en scene.
Seems the Italians are some of the most fluid when it comes to actor-camera symbiosis. Think Bertolucci, Leone, Fellini, Rosselini. Last Tango in Paris is a great example of intense inner lives of actors in a film with complex actor as well as camera blocking. I'm sure the source is the Italian cultural legacy of commedia del'arte and opera.
The storyboard artist said Original Glory reminded him of The Last Picture Show. I liked that movie, but I felt it was very distant and cold emotionally. The black and white photography was beautiful, of course, but it certainly contributed to the muted emotional tone of the film. The acting was very good, I could only hope for a cast so great.
I think where storyboards can pose potential problems is when directors are determined to shoot specific shots in spite of what might be evolving out of the story and the contributions of the cinematographer and the actors, not to mention the production designer. I have used them a bit in my last couple of short films and I think the films have been better because of it. As I've studied film over the years there have been theories, like Polanski's denouncement of storyboards, that have appealed to me, but I find that in practice I'm forced to abandon them. I used to want to be the next Cassavetes or Scorcese, but now I just want to be the first Neal A. Corl. To do that I have to find my own way, taking and leaving from those that have mastered the craft through trial and error. Trial and error on my own dime, when it comes to seven figure budgets, there's a very reasonable expectation on the part of the investors to have a solid idea regarding the vision for the film.
Ultimately, as a first-timer, it would be foolish for me to not do everything I can to show potential producers what my vision is for this film.

Ciao,
signorre direttore