Scraps

of a Patchwork

December 18th 2011

Charlie Kaufman: Screenwriters Lecture

“Say who you are, really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won’t be born for 500 years. Your writing will be a record of your time. It can’t help but be that. But more importantly, if you’re honest about who you are, you’ll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognize him or herself in you and that will give them hope. It’s done so for me and I have to keep rediscovering it, and its profound importance in my life. Give that to the world, rather than selling something to the world. Don’t allow yourself to be tricked into thinking that the way things are is the way the world must work and that in the end selling is what everyone must do. Try not to.”

“This is from E. E. Cummings: ‘To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.’ The world needs you. It doesn’t need at you at a party having read a book about how to appear smart at parties. These books exist. And they’re tempting. But resist falling into that trap. The world needs you at the party, starting real conversations, saying, I don’t know. Being kind.”

“It isn’t easy but it’s essential. It’s not easy because there’s a lot in the way. In many cases a major obstacle is your deeply-seated belief that you are not interesting. And since convincing yourself that you are interesting is probably not going to happen, just take it off the table. Think, ‘Perhaps I’m not interesting but I am the only thing I have to offer, and I want to offer something. And by offering myself in a true way I am doing a great service to the world, because it is rare and it will help.’”

—Charlie Kaufman, in his Screenwriters Lecture. I can highly recommend it. 

Posted at 9:55pm and tagged with: Charlie Kaufman, screenwriter, lecture, film,.

April 9th 2010

Norman Mailer, Rodin, and Mussolini

I finally saw Vincere - the onscreen story of Isa Dalser, who was Mussolini’s secret lover and first wife. She bore his first son, Benito, and sold everything she had in order to fund Il Popolo d’Italia, the newspaper launched Mussolini’s political career. In return Dalser expected Mussolini’s loyalty and everlasting love, but he abandoned her soon after Benito’s birth and married a more reasonable woman, Rachele, for much of the same of reason that he abandoned his ardent socialist stance and embraced fascism: it better suited his ascent to power.

Dalser’s fiery admiration for Mussolini never waned, though it did precipitate a lot of anguish and disillusion. She fought stubbornly for his attention, only to be caged in madhouses, severed from her son, and swept quietly into the sea of history. Just recently has her story surfaced, and Director Marco Bellochio weaves it together with actual newsreel footage, wartime slogans, propaganda, and other visual elements to illuminate a rather unique perspective of the man Mussolini. 

How was Vincere? Cinematically: powerful. Emotionally: disturbing. So much that I walked straight out of the theatre to the park. Despite the 5437 pollen count, I needed to walk and process.

While walking, I thought repeatedly of Camille Claudel, a French film I saw years ago. Claudel was the lover of Auguste Rodin. The two met when Claudel arrived in Rodin’s sculpting class with a self-taught talent that moved him deeply. She became not only his pupil, but the inspiration for his art and the great passion of his life. Although their 16 year affair was mutually amorous, Rodin began to distance himself, which, naturally, turned Claudel into an emotional wreck. Her complex emotions eventually drove Rodin away, though he’d always claimed to love her ability to feel and “to live from her heart.” Rodin lived the remainder of his days in a quiet domesticity with an unremarkable wife, but it was evident in his work that Claudel remained his muse.  

Camille Claudel’s story isn’t all that unique, and neither is Isa Dalser’s to be honest. Many women, including myself, can relate all too well to their experiences. What makes their stories so exceptional are the men whom they knew and loved. Men who influenced the course of history and culture in huge ways, but who were themselves so influenced by the very intimate passion expressed through two lovers.

In fact, just six hours before I saw Vincere, I read a book review for A Ticket to the Circus, the memoir of Norman Mailer’s last wife. Though I only read an excerpt of the book, I can already tell that her story reveals not only an entirely different view of Mailer than anyone has ever known before, but also a greater understanding of his work. His novels make more sense now. Just as Claudel’s story enlightens Rodin’s work. And as Dalser’s fate enlightens Mussolini’s oppression of Italia.

Maybe it was too late, but these women finally found their voices, offering new ways of seeing people like Mussolini, Rodin, and Mailer. It’s like viewing history through an entirely new lens, and it’s something that has become very interesting to me. Not really sure what else to say about it at this point, still thinking… 

Posted at 6:11pm and tagged with: two column, film, art, love, history,.

April 5th 2010

the tragedy of it all

Director Claude Berri’s most notable works, Jean de Florette and Manon Des Sources, were filmed together in the countryside of France. The story seems rather pleasant and beautiful at first, with Jean’s family traipsing peacefully through the painted hills of rustic France. But the narrative quickly evolves into something more tragic and, dare I say, something more true to the human experience. Jean’s neighbor, César, is a landowner with only one remaining relative: Ugolin Soubeyran. Wanting the Soubeyran genealogy to continue, César pressures Ugolin to marry and propagate. But Ugalin is more concerned about growing a carnation farm. All of his energy is spent trying to attain their neighbor’s land because there is a spring on it. His carnations need the water in order to survive.

The two men become a conniving duo who precipitate the death of Marias, and then clog up the spring so that that Jean’s family cannot survive, ultimately leading to Jean’s death as well. Jean (Gerard Depardieu) happens to be the son of Florette, a former lover of Césear’s. From early on in the story, it is clear that Césear harbors some secret about Florette. Turns out, he hates her. When he’d been deported to Africa, she moved to Crespin and married another man. This was something he never could find a way to forgive her for. César’s bitterness fuels his injustice toward Jean’s family, only to learn a decade later that Florette had tried reaching him in Africa before moving to Crespin, and that Jean was actually his own son. The Soubeyran line would continue after all, through the family he’d worked so hard to ruin.

The interplay of creation and destruction is very conventional of Greek tragedy. César wants Ugalin to create life, and Ugalin wants to create a carnation farm. But in order to do this, Ugalin must destroy Manon’s father so that he can use the land, while César sees Jean’s destruction as a way for Ugalin to use Manon’s body for genetic survival. The man whom César destroys is the same man he has created.

Moreover, all good Greek tragedies (i.e.The Aeneid orThe Oresteia) operate within a cycle of revenge, where family blood is spilled and re-spilled over and over again in an attempt to avenge the past. But there is never enough blood. The retributive cycle perpetuates until someone is willing to break it. In Manon des sources, it is Manon who returns as a grown woman to avenge the death of her father. Emmanuelle Béart plays this Manon, whose blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale, perfect complexion cannot derail from the darkness and wildness that emanate from her character. She swings into trees and scurries through the hills of France like an animal, screeching out noises to her goats and bathing nakedly in springs. Moreover, her actions are as merciless as César’s and Ugalin’s had been.

To complicate matters even more, Ugalin falls in love with Manon. Here again is the twisted irony that is so true of tragedy, not to mention that Ugalin’s intense, obsessive love for Manon drives him to sew a ribbon into this chest. He says in his suicide letter that the ribbon burned in his chest… just like his carnation field is burned… just like Jean was burned by the dynamite… just like the priest tells his congregation that they are burning in God’s punishment for a crime. Yet even the priest compares the situation to a Greek tragedy. After all, let’s not forget that the God who will save some will also, in an attempt to avenge transgression, send many to burn in hell. If God can’t even break the cycle, who can? 

Posted at 7:57pm and tagged with: french, film, analysis, claude berri,.