My Summer of Rejection

This has been a wasted summer and I’m very happy it’s going to be over in a couple of days. Even though I intended to accomplish many goals I set forth, I took several wrong turns and have accomplished nothing.


I think that as a result of getting rejected by the major screenwriting competitions I became a bit paralyzed (defeat has had that effect on me before) and I took solace in the entertaining arms of a screenwriter’s board. I have to say most of the people there are wacky, deluded and kind of sad. Desperation is rampant on that board. To most of them, it’s all about writing that one tentpole that will sell to the studios. Except for a handful of professionals, most of them have sold nothing or gotten any assignments. Some of them flaunt that they are represented and/or have placed in contests. Still, they are nowhere. They spend their time on that board giving each other inane advice about writing and the business and analyzing Box Office results, while praising Hollywood dribble (Salt, Inception). And most of them don’t know who Antonioni, Bergman or Herzog are. Even though this may work for them, I still feel bad that their dreams are in the hands of other people. I can shoot a film whenever I want. Doing what I love is in my hands.

In Nostalghia, Domenico stations himself on the scaffolding of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius; he proclaims the need to return to that point in history where we took the wrong path, and to begin again. But Domenico preaches to a mad world, and he takes his own life with a can of gasoline and a lighter to the strains of Beethoven and Schiller’s Ode to Joy (Freedom). At the same time, Andrei fulfills Domenico’s wish and bears the flame—the lit candle for St Catherine—across the emptied sulfur baths. Heartsick, Andrei collapses and dies in the steaming pool of the spa. I suppose right now I’m in the process of my own symbolic burning; and, when it’s over, I will take care of my own lit candle. I cannot afford to let it be extinguished again.

It took visits to the John Baldessari and Ingmar Bergman exhibits to set me straight and hopefully on the right path again. I remembered who I am as an artist and I feel revitalized. I will write what I want and I will make the films I want. And that’s a promise to myself.

"When I'm told that our films are painful, I think, oh God, I know real pain. We soften our pictures so tremendously. We make them almost romantic fantasies, and just barely touch on these things in a more idealistic way than other people do." J.C.

A poet with a Polaroid camera.

A few days ago I told someone I was the least spiritual person in the world. I just remembered that’s not entirely true. All it takes is the mere sight of this word to make me believe in humanity, in nature, sometimes even in myself:


Tarkovsky

I wrote that essay as part of my application to the Telluride Film Festival Student Symposium.* The question was: If you could only take one film with you to the future, which one would you choose and why? (I got in and, so far, my participation in the Symposium has been the highlight of my film career. If you have been to the Telluride Film Festival, you probably understand why.)

These photos, taken at home and in Italy, bear witness to the same way of seeing and visual world as the great films. A selection from these photos was first published in Italy in 2006, and recently a Russian photo blog digitized all the pictures. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

“An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn’t exist, for the artist doesn’t live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect.”

“My purpose is to make films that will help people to live, even if they sometimes cause unhappiness.”

“So much, after all, remains in our thoughts and hearts as unrealized suggestion.”

“I think in fact that unless there is an organic link between the subjective impressions of the author and his objective representation of reality, he will not achieve even superficial credibility, let alone authenticity and inner truth.”

"We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyze the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it's a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it. "

“My encounter with another world and another culture and the beginnings of an attachment to them had set up an irritation, barely perceptible but incurable-rather like unrequited love, like a symptom of the hopelessness of trying to grasp what is boundless, or unite what cannot be joined; a reminder of how finite, how curtailed, our experience on earth must be.”

* Interesting side note: Joe Swanberg of Mumblecore fame, was one of my condo roommates. He showed us a video he did of his brother and his friends skateboarding.