Stories are brilliant, I think. And I’m not just talking about the brilliant ones. Out of the bubbly swirl of thoughts and needs and immediacy, some people draw out a mostly coherent beam of reality.
I think it’s that sense of awe that I have for the written novel that prevents me from embarking on such a great task on my own. I hold up a book like The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy and think, wow, there was a lot more going on in Adams’s mind than what to have for breakfast, who he needs to call by 8 p.m., what jeans can he get a good price on at the sale this weekend. Consciously and then some, in his mind, full blown histories were unfolding in multiple directions at any given time. How can I aspire to learn how to set off the Big Bang, to let something truly organic flow out through my fingers and still be alive when it’s stampled on a page, how can I muster that from a life of scheduling and timing and budgeting woes?
Film is easy. Film is all about cheating. Bad actor? Film the scene a thousand times and piece together a brilliant performance in the editing room. Ugly actress? Blast her with eight lights covered with twenty or so gels and suddenly, she’s the girl who makes teenage boys realize how lonely they are. It’s sleight of hand, visual trickery, layers upon layers of sugary deception.
It’s only art when it’s made alive, when some deviant with a purpose makes love with his own mind and gives birth to a beastly child that only ever cries for more and more attention, far beyond the point when you have fed it your time and money, your morals and anything else you ever held sacred. You think self-sacrifice is noble, and thenyou realize you have to make others sacrifice just as much, and be happy about it.
And this all sounds ridiculous, but it’s not really — you give away two, three years of your life, maybe, but you give birth to something immortal. The ridiculous amount of work that goes into the most minute film production, just to throw a lot of light into someone’s eyes… but this light, this light burns a lot further than the retinas.
Maybe that’s why then? I’m just being a bad father.
October 31st, 2005 at 31-10-2005 @ 7:02 AM
yesss! he posts! welcome back charlie. make movies.
-c.