Archive for October, 2010

Quiet on the set.

October 27, 2010

Please be quiet on the set, please. I’m watching “The American” here.


Some friends took me to see “The American” for my birthday. We thought we were going to a fast paced star-laced shoot’em up featuring  George Clooney.

I’m a big fan of action/adventure; love the fast chase, gun play, hand to hand, martial arts, parkour – all of it. I also love dialogue; banter, snappy repartee, long mysterious monologues, and lots of talk. “The American” as it turns out is a very, very slow moving story with very, very little dialogue.

We weren’t far into it when I thought “Well, I don’t’ know if I’m going to like this.” Then I thought “What’s this movie about anyway?” Then “Hmm, I wonder if this movie is about anything.” Finally  I reminded myself that twelve hours earlier, at the start of my birthday day I’d made a decision to go with the “Life is good, I have all the time in the world.” motto as opposed to the “Oh my god, time’s fast running out, and what the hell am I doing with my life?” motto, and decided to quiet down and just watch and see.

The filmmaker,  Anton Corbjin is better known for his still photography work so with that in mind I decided to watch the movie though eyes I normally reserve for looking at pictures on gallery walls. Once I quieted down with my still image eyes at the helm I was happy to sit in the back row of the multiplex enjoying my birthday popcorn watching the film go by. The landscape of “The American” is as much made of the internal life of Jack, Clooney’s character, as the external world of Abruzzo, where Jack is hiding out.  Both are quietly and even magically compelling in their own special way.

There’s not much dialogue, hardly any in fact, though in this case hardly any might actually be too much. Words and dialogue fast become superfluous with Corbjin and his composer Herbert Grönemeyer, shepherding us through the story like angels shepherding souls off to a some new mysterious dimension. I found myself wishing  he’d cut every bit of the dialogue.

I’ve never gotten the whole silent film thing, but watching “The American” I was starting to. It’s not clear that George Clooney has the chops for silent film, but Corbjin and Herbert Grönemeyer definitely do. Grönemeyer’s soundtrack is sublime – the perfect companion to Corbjin’s vision and perfectly framed imagery.

The thriller storyline is a little thin, though just about near enough to carry it. And there are some problems with the characters –  the kind that stop an already slow story dead in its tracks, particularly with the female characters.

The film asks us to believe that Jack is such a skilled  lover that after a couple sessions with him, Clara, the lovely local prostitute, quits the biz. The sex scenes are sexy it’s true, and despite the character’s denial he is obviously good with his hands, but without casting any shadows on George Clooney’s manly ways it’s time to let that one go.

“The American” is  flawed. But isn’t that the point? Isn’t it the flaw, the chink in the armor, that’s lets us  in? Isn’t Jack, a tired saddened solitary hit-man, in a far away land, lost and looking for the way out, looking for the way out precisely because out is the only way in to the place where meaning lives?

So accept the flaws, float along with the story, and Watching “The American” becomes a near transcendent place to be.

 

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I heard that.

October 20, 2010

I don’t know about you but I listen in on other people’s conversations. Not overtly, but cautiously and respectfully. I can because I’m a writer on the lookout for material.

You would think I’d be in luck what with all the constant cell phone use these days – but no. Interesting details are not the same thing as boring inanities. As far as eavesdropping for material goes, the age of information has turned out to mostly be the age of too much information.

“I’m five blocks away, four and half now.” Big deal, who needs or wants to hear that? Leaves me empty. Though if I had a nickel for every time I overheard that particular cell phone conversation I could, I don’t know – buy some really good material.

Then there’s “I’ll be home in five minutes.” Come on, you can’t wait five minutes to say “Honey, I’m home” in person?  I suppose it is possible that having to give the person you live with a warning every time you’re about to arrive home could suggest something interesting. I don’t know what exactly, but something along the lines of a backdoor man, or a sad secret desperate hope for a surprise party – a  little character window that could be interesting. But that’s me making up material and the point however is to find material – not have to actually make it up.

Fortunately people aren’t quite as insipidly boring when they’re face to face so if you steer clear of the solo cell phone acts there’s still the chance to hear something good walking down the street.

Walking downtown on lower Broadway I heard “Oh  right, I forgot you’ve got that Jolly Roger thing.” Now we’re talking!  I kept walking as if I hadn’t heard anything at all, and when I got a ways away I repeated it to myself to see if was a good as I thought; if it hooked me in.  It was and it did.

The next thing I know I’m chanting (lowly to myself) “Oh right I forgot you’ve got that Jolly Roger thing. Oh right, that Jolly Roger thing.” What Jolly Roger thing? What in the world could that possibly mean? Who knows, but whatever it is is there any chance it’s not at least a little bit perverse? No, right?  It might be the thing that makes you place that advance call to home. “ I’ll be home in five minutes, and there better not be any signs of your Jolly Roger thing when I get there.”

“I told him if you want the Wildcats you’re gonna have to through me first.” Heard that one from a thirty-something fellow on 6th Avenue in midtown. That’s a perfect  B movie moment in the middle of Manhattan. Who says something like that except a honor-defender of the hometown cheerleading squad? And who or what else calls themselves The Wildcats besides cheerleaders and bikers. A hipster dodge ball team maybe? Okay, so it’s not great, but see how it works to get the imagination going a little?

“Their perfect bodies were shaped like pens.” I heard that while riding the LIRR.  The reason it caught my ear was that it came from a ten year old explaining something or other to a seven year old.  I couldn’t’ for the life of me hear what he was talking about but he said it using his ‘I’m the older brother I know things you don’t know kid’ voice.  The unfortunate bad luck of  being shaped like a pen (I’m picturing something like a Mont Blanc knock-off) coupled with that protective tone nearly broke my heart. I could only hope they wer headed  toward redemption.

“I have nothing to do but await Perez’s call.” Heard that in a painting gallery at MoMA. My very first thought was “Yeah, and let me tell you when Perez is calling you better be answering.”  Buster. Or else. Perez? Trust me if you chant  “Perez is calling” in a low voice a half dozen times as your walking past the Rothko’s you’ll hear the intrigue. It’s one part romance one part danger. Perez,  no doubt is one smart and cunning dude. Or maybe not. Maybe he’s like that man with one black shoe, or….maybe… Perez is the man the other black shoe.

To me, that’s material. Like St. Elmo’s fire in the way it sparks the imagination. My only problem is that I get so attached to all the implied possibilities that I can’t bring myself to actually use any of them. They’re like those gifts I bought for someone else and then decide to keep for myself.

So I’m keeping my ears peeled, but not pinning my hopes on the cellular moment. Though… I’m working on a new play and  wondering if one of the characters doesn’t have a Jolly Roger thing. He easily might. And it is possible one character could be  five blocks away, then  four, then three,  but only if at two blocks she meets that damned mysterious Perez.

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