Facing The Unknown: The Organic Art Of Storytelling

This is an excerpt from a longer piece I wrote exploring my reasons for not answering particular questions I raise in many of my screenplays and why I choose to tell the stories I do in the manner I do. Perhaps some of these thoughts will resonate for others as well while on their own storytelling journeys. 

How do we react when faced with the unknown? When we don’t get the answers we want? Those feelings that stir within us in those moments and the reasons why we feel we need these answers –any answer– even if it’s not a satisfying answer, is of endless fascination to me. Films that traverse a landscape of ambiguity, those which prefer to ask questions they have no intention of answering, these films are often misunderstood but are, in my opinion, a powerfully organic form of storytelling. Perhaps the most organic form of storytelling as they, quite often, are blessed with the capacity to stir our subconscious and set in motion a meaningful journey of discovery.

Of course, there is no singular answer outside of the thoughts, concerns and fears of each audience member themselves. Yet some people will accuse films –those that choose not to answer all posed questions– of robbing the audience, of “withholding” information that they want, that they feel they deserve or need (they, of course, don’t need it at all). Some will denounce these films as cop-outs and turn to accusations of weakness and unfairness, or go so far as to claim that such films are not actually “about” anything at all; they will point fingers and turn outward. Others will embrace this unknown. They will understand that emotionally and spiritually not all stories are about their plot machinations, but the human beings effected by the mere existence of such machinations.

It is exactly the different reactions a film can elicit from its audience that makes a film and its story so powerful, so memorable, and so individually personal. Remember, we can tell all the stories we want, believe a million different things about the world, the universe, but it does not make any of them so. And while our existence is oftentimes wonderful, exciting and joyous, it can also be scary, confusing and seemingly impossible to grasp. So we react in different ways. Some constructive, many destructive. Even if the intent is good. Sometimes we do more damage to one another in reaction to the unknown than the unknown itself could ever do. This is why it is essential to certain stories that particular questions NEVER be answered. The audience MUST take that unknown out with them into the world. To answer those questions would be to betray everything these stories are about, everything they explore. It would be the true meaning of ripping the audience off, of not giving them the opportunity or credit they deserve. It may not be the experience all audience members outwardly or consciously desire, but neither are the emotions and reactions that questions regarding the nature of existence, the vastness of the universe, conjure in us. And yet here we are. We continue to seek answers, to explore both internally and externally. It is what makes us human, what keeps us moving forward, growing, learning.

It is essential.

Henry David Thoreau

I have no desire to make a film whose experience ends when the final credits roll. The film, the story, is a jumping off point, not the be-all and end-all. There’s a quote by Henry David Thoreau that sums up my feelings on this subject perfectly:

“A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.”

The same applies to film. Take the questions asked and discuss them, ponder them, come up with your own answers or decide it’s okay not to know. Look inward, be open to whatever thoughts and feelings have been triggered in you and take them out into the world.

I have always felt that a need for answers without a willingness to go on the journey of discovery results in a lack of growth, a lack of true understanding. One can be religious and not be spiritual if one takes the answers given them when they are a child and accepts them as true without asking the necessary questions required in order to understand those answers. We see this not only in religion, but in politics, in race-relations, in our social systems and interactions. It’s everywhere we look, everywhere we turn. And whether it is innate or learned, there are millions of people who simply do not have the desire or willingness to explore for themselves. It is very likely that any film that refuses to wrap itself up in a ribbon of answered questions is not going to be a film for this particular group of people. Unless it elicits a desire heretofore unrealized. However, this type of film will most immediately appeal to those already engaged in the act of exploration, both internal and external. And that is no small part of the human race, I assure you.

There is a saying that bad films are about the A-story and good films are about the B-story. What this means is that it is not the outward “plot machinations” that make a great story, but how the characters within that story are effected by such machinations. Today’s Hollywood, in my opinion, places far too much emphasis –if not all the emphasis– on plot, on the A-story. Character, metaphor and meaning take a backseat or are eliminated altogether. For me, this is the antithesis of great and effective storytelling. It is my belief that the most organic, the most genuine form of storytelling works on the subconscious.

It is a fact that every conscious creature dreams. And as humans, our dreams play the role of working out our fears and concerns, our doubts, questions, joys and desires. But they are never direct. Dreams have their own logic, their own vocabulary, their own essence. They are oftentimes abstract, surreal. They ask to be interpreted. When we don’t understand our dreams, when we can’t remember every moment, every detail, we can still “feel” them; they linger in our guts for days, weeks, years, lifetimes. And there is no single interpretation of any one dream. Yet these dreams are not delivered to us from some outside force attempting to confuse us, alienate us, dissatisfy us. No, they come from within, from our own subconscious, when we sleep, when we are most vulnerable and least-likely to resist. The movie-watching experience is very similar. In a theater, we go so far as to share in a kind of “group-dream.” At home alone, if we give ourselves over to the film, we can be transported from our couches to experience places, people and emotional stimuli as if it were as real to us in that moment as our dreams are when we are dreaming. And each person’s experience and interpretation of that story and its characters are filtered through each participant’s own personal set of experiences, needs, desires, etc. Our subconscious plays a part even when stories come from without. We take them in, internalize them, add them to our collective dream experiences.

A filmmaker’s job is never to mirror reality but to express reality. Films are not made to look real, to lure us into thinking that what we are watching is taking place in the real world, that we are looking through a window at something outside or in the next room. No, we go willingly to a world that has its own rules, its own language, ever-changing and otherworldly, no matter how much we may convince ourselves that it “feels’ real. “Feeling” real and “being” real are two very different animals. Again, dreams are proof enough of that. More times than not, the most profound, most authentic feelings are triggered by the subconscious via abstraction and/or metaphor. How infinitely and gloriously creative our dreams are. Whether one is a great storyteller or a great thinker in life or not, their inner world is as complex and as expressive as any other’s.

At their best, films, like all great art, tap directly into that subconscious. They do this best when they are created out of the subconscious of another. This is why so many films made by committee are often so dissatisfying, so infinitely forgettable. In our deepest recesses, we are natural storytellers. And we receive stories with equal ease. Storytelling has been with us since the dawn of mankind. It is in our DNA. If we embrace the notion that there are truths within our dreams, that our minds and bodies turn naturally and organically toward storytelling, regardless of conscious intent, then we can begin to see why great works of art exist, why film is such a massively popular art form, and why our most cherished works touch us in ways that words often cannot. Music is a perfect example. Often abstract, poetic, sometimes improvisational, almost always, in its best form, deriving more from a feeling than being an intellectual exercise. Why is Salieri so profoundly moved by the works of his contemporary, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? It is not the mere mathematical perfection of the notes, but his deep sense and understanding –his feeling– that the music derives from someplace far more penetrating, more enigmatic, more organic. For Salieri, Amadeus is, quite simply, channeling God. And what Salieri felt lo those many years ago, is still being felt today by millions the world over each and every time they allow themselves to embrace and be embraced by Mozart’s works.

So it is with film.

Film can effect us on a level beyond logic. A person must have a need to share an experience with others before forming the words with which to tell it. The emotion, the desire, comes first, before articulation. Any good actor knows this.

From an early age, we seek out storytelling experiences, ask our parents to read us stories, to tell us far-off tales. We yearn for these. We do so because they effect us, they tap into us. Children’s stories are often quite abstract and rich in metaphor. L. Frank Baum’s book THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ has captured the hearts and imaginations of children –and adults– for generations. It does this long before any desire to break it down, to take apart its pieces and study its meaning and power over us, comes into play. The film version of THE WIZARD OF OZ works on the same level. What is it about that film that keeps children and adults coming back? It is rich with metaphor, it finds us through our subconscious and taps into something deeper than words alone could convey. It is, in so many ways, dreamlike.

As adults, our subconscious has no less need for such storytelling, yet we find ourselves searching for the kinds of stories that reflect our lives now, our adult fears and longings. And yet, too many films today are not willing to engage the adult subconscious from an adult perspective.

At the end of the day, for me, success as a writer and filmmaker comes from eliciting a response as a result of stirring the subconscious –before the conscious mind steps in and enacts its need to decipher, to find an articulated meaning. I see my job as the former. And I see the audience’s job as the latter. Quite simply put, as an artist, any film I make or script I write must be in the service of that experience.

Raymond Chandler & The Monkey Business of Hollywood

In March 1948, writer Raymond Chandler penned a piece in The Atlantic entitled OSCAR NIGHT IN HOLLYWOOD. Anyone who reads my blog on a semi-regular basis is already familiar with my strong opinions on the current state of Hollywood filmmaking and its own awards ceremony that never fails to shamelessly flatter itself. Mr. Chandler’s piece could have been taken directly out of my own head, though I never could have stated it anywhere near as eloquently as Mr. Chandler did so many years ago.

I am reminded of a recent “spat” I had with a reader of my blog who argued quite vehemently in favor of the artistic merits and outright “brilliance” of last year’s hit RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. I was very candid –perhaps even indelicate– in sharing my horror at the mere notion that anyone could bestow the words “intelligent” or “well-written” to such a tepid, slothful piece of filmmaking. Perhaps it was the title of my piece, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES OR THE DECENT OF AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE, that irked my reader so. You can read our exchange there in the comments section. I was, I’m embarrassed to admit, not my usual open-minded self, but somewhat brazenly repulsed by this particular reader’s insistence that APES was a bold and daring work of art. His sole argument, in addition to an overwhelming insistence that the film simply “was” brilliant beyond opinion or viewpoint, was to consistently hold up its box-office success and rather high Rotten Tomatoes score as inarguable proof of its artistic eminence. Comments like  “In what universe is this film not shot at the highest level of the art?” or “If a supermajority of critics and audience opinions means nothing to you, as well as half a billion in cash, then I’m not sure I really care what it is that means so much to you,” was the precarious ledge his argument teetered on.

And so it was that I found myself somewhat relieved and giddy to discover Mr. Chandler’s piece. He and I may well have agreed on the current state of Hollywood films. Both the self-congratulatory attitudes of those at the top who believe the hype (hell, they create the hype) that celebrates their genius for creating these financially and critically successful films, as well as those who unwittingly praise those very same films and filmmakers, all the while unaware of the slow and deliberate manipulation of their ability to recognize something that lacks the most basic ingredients for well-crafted storytelling –never mind good art– for what it actually is. Particularly when faced with unrelenting insistence by those who have drunk the same Kool-Aid, that a particular work is undeniably “brilliant.”

To understand the great capacity cinema has as an art form, what boundless arenas it has the power and complexity to explore, is to also recognize when that goal falls short, despite any proclamations and box-office numbers offered up as proof to the contrary.

“Not only is the motion picture an art, but it is the one entirely new art that has been evolved on this planet for hundreds of years. It is the only art at which we of this generation have any possible chance to greatly excel.” –Raymond Chandler

Oscar Night in Hollywood – The Atlantic.

By RAYMOND CHANDLER

I

Five or six years ago a distinguished writer-director (if I may be permitted the epithet in connection with a Hollywood personage) was co-author of a screen play nominated for an Academy Award. He was too nervous to attend the proceedings on the big night, so he was listening to a broadcast at home, pacing the floor tensely, chewing his fingers, taking long breaths, scowling and debating with himself in hoarse whispers whether to stick it out until the Oscars were announced, or turn the damned radio off and read about it in the papers the next morning. Getting a little tired of all this artistic temperament in the home, his wife suddenly came up with one of those awful remarks which achieve a wry immortality in Hollywood: “For Pete’s sake, don’t take it so seriously, darling. After all, Luise Rainer won it twice.”

To those who did not see the famous telephone scene in The Great Ziegfeld, or any of the subsequent versions of it which Miss Rainer played in other pictures, with and without telephone, this remark will lack punch. To others it will serve as well as anything to express that cynical despair with which Hollywood people regard their own highest distinction. It isn’t so much that the awards never go to fine achievements as that those fine achievements are not rewarded as such. They are rewarded as fine achievements in box-office hits. You can’t be an All-American on a losing team. Technically, they are voted, but actually they are not decided by the use of whatever artistic and critical wisdom Hollywood may happen to possess. They are ballyhooed, pushed, yelled, screamed, and in every way propagandized into the consciousness of the voters so incessantly, in the weeks before the final balloting, that everything except the golden aura of the box office is forgotten.

The Motion Picture Academy, at considerable expense and with great efficiency, runs all the nominated pictures at its own theater, showing each picture twice, once in the afternoon, once in the evening. A nominated picture is one in connection with which any kind of work is nominated for an award, not necessarily acting, directing, or writing; it may be a purely technical matter such as set-dressing or sound work. This running of pictures has the object of permitting the voters to look at films which they may happen to have missed or to have partly forgotten. It is an attempt to make them realize that pictures released early in the year, and since overlaid with several thicknesses of battered celluloid, are still in the running and that consideration of only those released a short time before the end of the year is not quite just.

The effort is largely a waste. The people with votes don’t go to these showings. They send their relatives, friends, or servants. They have had enough of looking at pictures, and the voices of destiny are by no means inaudible in the Hollywood air. They have a brassy tone, but they are more than distinct.

All this is good democracy of a sort. We elect Congressmen and Presidents in much the same way, so why not actors, cameramen, writers, and all rest of the people who have to do with the making of pictures? If we permit noise, ballyhoo, and theater to influence us in the selection of the people who are to run the country, why should we object to the same methods in the selection of meritorious achievements in the film business? If we can huckster a President into the White House, why cannot we huckster the agonized Miss Joan Crawford or the hard and beautiful Miss Olivia de Havilland into possession of one of those golden statuettes which express the motion picture industry’s frantic desire to kiss itself on the back of its neck? The only answer I can think of is that the motion picture is an art. I say this with a very small voice. It is an inconsiderable statement and has a hard time not sounding a little ludicrous. Nevertheless it is a fact, not in the least diminished by the further facts that its ethos is so far pretty low and that its techniques are dominated by some pretty awful people.

If you think most motion pictures are bad, which they are (including the foreign), find out from some initiate how they are made, and you will be astonished that any of them could be good. Making a fine motion picture is like painting “The Laughing Cavalier” in Macy’s basement, with a floorwalker to mix your colors for you. Of course most motion pictures are bad. Why wouldn’t they be? Apart from its own intrinsic handicaps of excessive cost, hypercritical bluenosed censorship, and the lack of any single-minded controlling force in the making, the motion picture is bad because 90 per cent of its source material is tripe, and the other 10 per cent is a little too virile and plain-spoken for the putty-minded clerics, the elderly ingénues of the women’s clubs, and the tender guardians of that godawful mixture of boredom and bad manners known more eloquently as the Impressionable Age.

The point is not whether there are bad motion pictures or even whether the average motion picture is bad, but whether the motion picture is an artistic medium of sufficient dignity and accomplishment to be treated with respect by the people who control its destinies. Those who deride the motion picture usually are satisfied that they have thrown the book at it by declaring it to be a form of mass entertainment. As if that meant anything. Greek drama, which is still considered quite respectable by most intellectuals, was mass entertainment to the Athenian freeman. So, within its economic and topographical limits, was the Elizabethan drama. The great cathedrals of Europe, although not exactly built to while away an afternoon, certainly had an aesthetic and spiritual effect on the ordinary man. Today, if not always, the fugues and chorales of Bach, the symphonies of Mozart, Borodin, and Brahms, the violin concertos of Vivaldi, the piano sonatas of Scarlatti, and a great deal of what was once rather recondite music are mass entertainment by virtue of radio. Not all fools love it, but not all fools love anything more literate than a comic strip. It might reasonably be said that all art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment, and that if it does not it dies and is forgotten.

The motion picture admittedly is faced with too large a mass; it must please too many people and offend too few, the second of these restrictions being infinitely more damaging to it artistically than the first. The people who sneer at the motion picture as an art form are furthermore seldom willing to consider it at its best. The insist upon judging it by the picture they saw last week or yesterday; which is even more absurd (in view of the sheer quantity of production) than to judge literature by last week’s best-sellers, or the dramatic art by even the best of the current Broadway hits. In a novel you can still say what you like, and the stage is free almost to the point of obscenity, but the motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom. If it were merely a transplanted literary or dramatic art, it certainly would not. The hucksters and the bluenoses would between them see to that.

But the motion picture is not a transplanted literary or dramatic art, any more than it is a plastic art. It has elements of all these, but in its essential structure it is much closer to music, in the sense that its finest effects can be independent of precise meaning, that its transitions can be more eloquent than its high-lit scenes, and that its dissolves and camera movements, which cannot be censored, are often far more emotionally effective than its plots, which can. Not only is the motion picture an art, but it is the one entirely new art that has been evolved on this planet for hundreds of years. It is the only art at which we of this generation have any possible chance to greatly excel.

In painting, music, and architecture we are not even second-rate by comparison with the best work of the past. In sculpture we are just funny. In prose literature we not only lack style but we lack the educational and historical background to know what style is. Our fiction and drama are adept, empty, often intriguing, and so mechanical that in another fifty years at most they will be produced by machines with rows of push buttons. We have no popular poetry in the grand style, merely delicate or witty or bitter or obscure verses. Our novels are transient propaganda when they are what is called “significant,” and bedtime reading when they are not.

But in the motion picture we possess an art medium whose glories are not all behind us. It has already produced great work, and if, comparatively and proportionately, far too little of that great work has been achieved in Hollywood, I think that is all the more reason why in its annual tribal dance of the stars and the big-shot producers Hollywood should contrive a little quiet awareness of the fact. Of course it won’t. I’m just daydreaming.

II

Show business has always been a little overnoisy, overdressed, overbrash. Actors are threatened people. Before films came along to make them rich they often had need of a desperate gaiety. Some of these qualities prolonged beyond a strict necessity have passed into the Hollywood mores and produced that very exhausting thing, the Hollywood manner,which is a chronic case of spurious excitement over absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, and for once in a lifetime, I have to admit that Academy Awards night is a good show and quite funny in spots, although I’ll admire you if you can laugh at all of it.

If you can go past those awful idiot faces on the bleachers outside the theater without a sense of the collapse of the human intelligence; if you can stand the hailstorm of flash bulbs popping at the poor patient actors who, like kings and queens, have never the right to look bored; if you can glance out over this gathered assemblage of what is supposed to be the elite of Hollywood and say to yourself without a sinking feeling, “In these hands lie the destinies of the only original art the modern world has conceived “; if you can laugh, and you probably will, at the cast-off jokes from the comedians on the stage, stuff that wasn’t good enough to use on their radio shows; if you can stand the fake sentimentality and the platitudes of the officials and the mincing elocution of the glamour queens (you ought to hear them with four martinis down the hatch); if you can do all these things with grace and pleasure, and not have a wild and forsaken horror at the thought that most of these people actually take this shoddy performance seriously; and if you can then go out into the night to see half the police force of Los Angeles gathered to protect the golden ones from the mob in the free seats but not from that awful moaning sound they give out, like destiny whistling through a hollow shell; if you can do all these things and still feel next morning that the picture business is worth the attention of one single intelligent, artistic mind, then in the picture business you certainly belong, because this sort of vulgarity is part of its inevitable price.

Glancing over the program of the Awards before the show starts, one is apt to forget that this is really an actors’, directors’, and big-shot producers’ rodeo. It is for the people who make pictures (they think), not just for the people who work on them. But these gaudy characters are a kindly bunch at heart; they know that a lot of small-fry characters in minor technical jobs, such as cameramen, musicians, cutters, writers, soundmen, and the inventors of new equipment, have to be given something to amuse them and make them feel mildly elated. So the performance was formerly divided into two parts, with an intermission. On the occasion I attended, however, one of the Masters of Ceremony (I forget which—there was a steady stream of them, like bus passengers) announced that there would be no intermission this year and that they would proceed immediately to the important part of the program.

Let me repeat, the important part of the program.

Perverse fellow that I am, I found myself intrigued by the unimportant part of the program also. I found my sympathies engaged by the lesser ingredients of picture-making, some of which have been enumerated above. I was intrigued by the efficiently quick on-and-off that was given to these minnows of the picture business; by their nervous attempts via the microphone to give most of the credit for their work to some stuffed shirt in a corner office; by the fact that technical developments which may mean many millions of dollars to the industry, and may on occasion influence the whole procedure of picture-making, are just not worth explaining to the audience at all; by the casual, cavalier treatment given to film-editing and to camera work, two of the essential arts of film-making, almost and sometimes quite equal to direction, and much more important than all but the very best acting; intrigued most of all perhaps by the formal tribute which is invariably made to the importance of the writer, without whom, my dear, dear friends, nothing could be done at all, but who is for all that merely the climax of the unimportant part of the program.

III

I am also intrigued by the voting. It was formerly done by all the members of all the various guilds, including the extras and bit players. Then it was realized that this gave too much voting power to rather unimportant groups, so the voting on various classes of awards was restricted to the guilds which were presumed to have some critical intelligence on the subject. Evidently this did not work either, and the next change was to have the nominating done by the specialist guilds, and the voting only by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

It doesn’t really seem to make much difference how the voting is done. The quality of the work is still only recognized in the context of success. A superb job in a flop picture would get you nothing, a routine job in a winner will be voted in. It is against this background of success-worship that the voting is done, with the incidental music supplied by a stream of advertising in the trade papers (which even intelligent people read in Hollywood) designed to put all other pictures than those advertised out of your head at balloting time. The psychological effect is very great on minds conditioned to thinking of merit solely in terms of box office and ballyhoo. The members of the Academy live in this atmosphere, and they are enormously suggestible people, as are all workers in Hollywood. If they are contracted to studios, they are made to feel that it is a matter of group patriotism to vote for the products of their own lot. They are informally advised not to waste their votes, not to plump for something that can’t win, especially something made on another lot.

I do not feel any profound conviction, for example, as to whether The Best Years of Our Lives was even the best Hollywood motion picture of 1946. It depends on what you mean by best. It had a first-class director, some fine actors, and the most appealing sympathy gag in years. It probably had as much all-around distinction as Hollywood is presently capable of. That it had the kind of class and simple art possessed byOpen City or the stalwart and magnificent impact of Henry V only an idiot would claim. In a sense it did not have art at all. It had that kind of sentimentality which is almost but not quite humanity, and that kind of adeptness which is almost but not quite style. And it had them in large doses, which always helps.

The governing board of the Academy is at great pains to protect the honesty and the secrecy of the voting. It is done by anonymous numbered ballots, and the ballots are sent, not to any agency of the motion picture industry, but to a well-known firm of public accountants. The results, in sealed envelopes, are borne by an emissary of the firm right onto the stage of the theater where the Awards be made, and there for the first time, one at a time, they are made known. Surely precaution would go no further. No one could possibly have known in advance any of these results, not even in Hollywood where every agent learns the closely guarded secrets of the studios with no apparent trouble. If there are secrets in Hollywood, which I sometimes doubt, this voting ought to be one of them.

IV

As for a deeper kind of honesty, I think it is about time for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to use a little of it up by declaring in a forthright manner that foreign pictures are outside competition and will remain so until they face the same economic situation and the same strangling censorship that Hollywood faces. It is all very well to say how clever and artistic the French are, how true to life, what subtle actors they have, what an honest sense of the earth, what forthrightness in dealing the bawdy side of life. The French can afford these things, we cannot. To the Italians they are permitted, to us they are denied. Even the English possess a freedom we lack. How much did Brief Encounter cost? It would have cost at least a million and a half in Hollywood; in order to get that money back, and the distribution costs on top of the negative costs, it would have had to contain innumerable crowd-pleasing ingredients, the very lack of which is what makes it a good picture.

Since the Academy is not an international tribunal of film art it should stop pretending to be one. If foreign pictures have no practical chance whatsoever of winning a major award they should not be nominated. At the very beginning of the performance in 1947 a special Oscar was awarded to Laurence Olivier for Henry V, although it was among those nominated as best picture of the year. There could be no more obvious way of saying it was not going to win. A couple of minor technical awards and a couple of minor writing awards were also given to foreign pictures, but nothing that ran into important coin, just side meat. Whether these awards were deserved is beside the point, which is that they were minor awards and were intended to be minor awards, and that there was no possibility whatsoever of any foreign-made picture winning a major award.

To outsiders it might appear that something devious went on here. To those who know Hollywood, all that went on was the secure knowledge and awareness that the Oscars exist for and by Hollywood, their purpose is to maintain the supremacy of Hollywood, their standards and problems are the standards and problems of Hollywood, and their phoniness is the phoniness of Hollywood. But the Academy cannot, without appearing ridiculous, maintain a pose of internationalism by tossing a few minor baubles to the foreigners while carefully keeping all the top-drawer jewelry for itself. As a writer I resent that writing awards should be among these baubles, and as a member of the Motion Picture Academy I resent its trying to put itself in a position which its annual performance before the public shows it quite unfit to occupy.

If the actors and actresses like the silly show, and I’m not sure at all the best of them do, they at least know how to look elegant in a strong light, and how to make with the wide-eyed and oh, so humble little speeches as if they believed them. If the big producers like it, and I’m quite sure they do because it contains the only ingredients they really understand—promotion values and the additional grosses that go with them—the producers at least know what they are fighting for. But if the quiet, earnest, and slightly cynical people who really make motion pictures like it, and I’m quite sure they don’t, well, after all, it comes only once a year, and it’s no worse than a lot of the sleazy vaudeville they have to push out of the way to get their work done.

Of course that’s not quite the point either. The head of a large studio once said privately that in his candid opinion the motion picture business was 25 per cent honest business and the other 75 per cent pure conniving. He didn’t say anything about art, although he may have heard of it. But that is the real point, isn’t it?—whether these annual Awards, regardless of the grotesque ritual which accompanies them, really represent anything at all of artistic importance to the motion picture medium, anything clear and honest that remains after the lights are dimmed, the minks are put away, and the aspirin is swallowed? I don’t think they do. I think they are just theater and not even good theater. As for the personal prestige that goes with winning an Oscar, it may with luck last long enough for your agent to get your contract rewritten and your price jacked up another notch. But over the years and in the hearts of men of good will? I hardly think so.

Once upon a time a once very successful Hollywood lady decided (or was forced) to sell her lovely furnishings at auction, together with her lovely home. On the day before she moved out she was showing a party of her friends through the house for a private view. One of them noticed that the lady was using her two golden Oscars as doorstops. It seemed they were just about the right weight, and she had sort of forgotten they were gold.

Hollywood And The Golden Arches Of Mediocrity

As a writer and filmmaker, I have, for as long as I can remember, felt strongly about storytelling. I was also lucky enough to have grown into adulthood during the second golden age of cinema (the 1970′s). Therefore, my most cherished form of storytelling has been through movies. It is the medium that most speaks to me, the language I most thoroughly embrace that best articulates, for me, what it means to be human. So it seems I take the current state of cinema far more seriously than do certain others for whom films are a mere distraction or, at best, a simple pleasure.

Which leads my desire to draw your attention to an interesting article by Mark Harris in GQ magazine. It’s called THE DAY THE MOVIES DIED and it’s about Hollywood today and the state of films and filmmaking. I think Mark makes some terrific points and observations and they are in keeping with my feelings about the industry and the art form. That said, I think there are areas that are even more complex than Mr. Harris spells them out to be. Though he does an excellent job of offering some very appealing conversation starters. I would also state, as a criticism, that I wish Mr. Harris had offered up some more detailed information regarding his sources as they would have added even more credibility to his stories and insights (e.g. his stated industry reaction to INCEPTION). But all in all, it’s an article worth reading and it paints a picture that, in my opinion, has more truth to it than not. Which saddens me.

I would also turn attention to a book by Columbia professor Tim Wu titled THE MASTER SWITCH: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. Here, too, you will find answers to why we are where we are, why the film industry is what it is, and where we might be heading. The book will also place those questions, answers and concepts onto a much larger stage. It’ll certainly equip you to handle just about any conversation on the subject that might arise and then some.

Here is David Siegfried’s Booklist review of MASTER SWITCH:

A veteran of Silicon Valley and professor at Columbia University, Wu is an author and policy advocate best known for coining the term net neutrality. Although the Internet has created a world of openness and access unprecedented in human history, Wu is quick to point out that the early phases of telephony, film, and radio offered similar opportunities for the hobbyist, inventor, and creative individual, only to be centralized and controlled by corporate interests, monopolized, broken into smaller entities, and then reconsolidated. Wu calls this the Cycle, and nowhere is it more exemplary than in the telecommunications industry. The question Wu raises is whether the Internet is different, or whether we are merely in the early open phase of a technology that is to be usurped and controlled by profiteering interests. Central in the power struggle is the difference between the way Apple Computer and Google treat content, with Apple attempting to control the user experience with slick products while Google endeavors to democratize content, giving the user choice and openness. This is an essential look at the directions that personal computing could be headed depending on which policies and worldviews come to dominate control over the Internet.

Bear with me now as I take you down a seemingly random path that, I assure you, will lead back to the overriding themes at hand. I once knew a man for whom the idea of eating food was nothing more than a means of attaining nourishment and proteins. So much so that after a workout, he would take a beautiful prime cut of beef and toss it headlong into a microwave. The fate of that particular portion of cow was to become a grey, rubbery slab of flavorless meat, with not so much as a sprinkle of pepper or salt to provide some modicum of dignity to the poor deceased beast.

As one who genuinely loves and appreciates a great meal, watching this nightly parade of food abomination was distressing to me, to say the least. So, if you’re like me and you truly love a great meal, imagine what your food world would look like if most available meals were manufactured by McDonalds. Sure, the occasional restaurant might pop up here and there offering something lovingly concocted by a real chef, someone with a deep love of food and food preparation, but that establishment wouldn’t last long enough to build up much of a customer base. No, I’m afraid most of your dining options would be, well, off the McD’s menu. Now, by comparison, an occasional meal at the Olive Garden would suddenly seem downright luxurious, downright masterful in both its preparation and combination of flavors. Olive Garden might even become the Holy Grail of good cooking in the hearts and minds of many. But in truth, we’d be salivating over a plate of supreme mediocrity. To me, Hollywood is the McDonald’s of filmmaking. And occasionally something comes out of the system (usually as a result of a big favor owed) that wows people. And that, my friends, is a meal at the Olive Garden. If you were a chef, you would not want to ply your craft at either McD’s or “The Garden.” They are not designed for you to do what it is you love. And the people who would most appreciate your work, your passion, your gift, would not frequent these places looking for what you have to offer. Anyone who knew what a good Italian meal was –or a good burger, for that matter– would mourn the loss of something exquisite, something great. They would shake their heads in collective misery at the loss of such an elegant art, the loss of that cherished human capacity to create and recognize something that embodies both complex and simple flavors, something which excites the taste buds and satisfies in such a gloriously primal way.

And so we return to my feelings about the current American film industry.

The state of Hollywood today is not good for films, filmmakers or audiences. And it hasn’t been for a long time. We’ve been in a steady decline for many years. And that’s more than just sour grapes or being a curmudgeon. Film is an art, a language, a beautiful and complex animal that mirrors the human condition. But Hollywood today is far from being a place to nourish such desires or, worse, to even dream of them. Perhaps with the way technology has changed, there will be no need for Hollywood anymore. Or maybe there will be a resurgence of filmmakers who truly love film and want to push the boundaries of the medium once again. To explore, to grow, to seek, to touch. But for every one of those, there are still thousands of others whose final destination is Hollywood. And that will yield nothing but mediocrity at its best. I wish it were otherwise. But in a town inundated with accountants and frat boys at the helm, we must look elsewhere for the fruits of the medium. But all of this is in keeping sync with the state of the union, not just the state of Hollywood. The Tea-Party, hard-core conservatism, rabid anti-intellectualism, money over people. It’s why Netflix is becoming the new Blockbuster and corporate interests override human/customer interest or loyalty. It’s why universal health care is demonized and Workers Unions the enemy. All of these things are reflected in one another. Reagan fueled the fire and it’s been snowballing ever since. Not just in politics or the economy, but in every corner of our collective consciousness. Our own Capitalist sensibilities have turned around and bitten us square in the ass and we’re only now starting to comprehend that those are our own teeth embedded there.

Nothing reflects the moods and tone of a nation better than its art. Our priorities as a nation and our ability to fight to accept as little as possible has been a deepening, festering wound. We will either heal it or die from it. I’m rooting for the former myself. But in the meantime, one of the repercussions is that our artists must look elsewhere to create their art, while businessmen and women parade around as filmmakers. And as caring politicians. All of whom would very much like you to try that bold new Angus Burger at McDonalds. Really, you’ll love it.

“How Dare You Edit Your Own Film,” And Other Creative Alienations

Why is it that so many people have such rigid definitions of what constitutes art or the artistic process? To me, it seems to defy the very definition. My experience working as a filmmaker in Hollywood has brought me face to face with folks who are striving to say something, and others who place little value on artistic self-expression. But what’s most difficult to navigate for me, is the artist who appears to have given in to the notion that there is a right way and a wrong way to make a film.

I recently had a conversation with two friends about film editing. They are both extremely intelligent, extremely creative people. One of them has directed a feature that got taken away from him in post, the other is about to embark on his directorial debut. Both suggested that it was not in the best interest of the film or the story for the director to edit his/her own movie.

“You have no perspective,” was the reasoning.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I do not believe every director should edit his/her own movie. Quite the contrary. Editing is an art form all its own. It is also a skill that is developed. And there are some extraordinary director/editor relationships that are downright biblical (Scorcese/Schoonmaker, Coppola/Murch, Tarantino/Menke).  These artists have found a creative connection that inspires; they each feel that they are better together than separate. It has become an integral part of their creative process. And, of course, this extends to writer/director relationships (Powell/Pressburger, Ivory/Jhabvala, Lee/Schamus), director/cinematographer relationships (Bergman/Nykvist, Mann/Alton, Bertolucci/Storaro), and director/actor relationships (Scorsese/DeNiro, Allen/Keaton, von Sternberg/Dietrich). I doubt there are many people out there who would rather these relationships didn’t exist. But just because these teamings are successful, does that mean writers should not direct? Directors should not shoot? Actors should not direct? Or in the case of this discussion, directors should not edit?

There are no rules to the creative process. Every artist must approach their art in the way they believe leads to the end goal. And to do so, one needs to have an end goal in mind. That goal can be something concrete, or it can be something amorphous, more a feeling, a tone, something instinctual. I love the collaborative creative process. And I love the solitary creative process. As a writer, I remain solitary. Until I feel that I can go no further without the creative input of those I trust and admire. Some folks prefer having a writing partner. I’ve done both and, currently, I prefer the former. I have found it to be more creatively freeing and inspiring. For me.

There is not a one-size-fits-all roadmap to making art. To storytelling. To self-expression. To filmmaking.

Woody Allen claims that one should never try and write a script without knowing exactly where it’s going; that if one attempts to write that script otherwise, they will hit a wall around page 60 and have no idea where to go from there. I am a life-long admirer of Allen’s work. I think he is a brilliant, insightful writer/director. However, his take on writing is true for him. And, I am certain, for many, many others. It is not, however, the approach I have found works best for me in achieving what I want from a script. I prefer to work stream-of-consciousness. I have learned to trust my subconscious to create things in the moment that reveal themselves to me later. It is that very same experience I want to take with me onto the set AND into the editing room. As the writer/director/editor of a film, I am fully engaged in the writing process which, for me, not only continues through editing, but finally arrives at editing. It does not cease simply because I have moved beyond the script. I am telling a story. Hopefully, with a unique voice. The writing of that story, in film terms, is not complete until the picture is locked. So until that happens, my subconscious is allowed to run free.

After writing and directing my first feature, I lost that film in post-production to the powers-that-be and the film was re-edited from scratch without my participation. The result was a story and film that showed virtually nothing of who I was as an artist, filmmaker, director, writer or human being. During our editing conversation the other night, my friend suggested that there are only so many ways an editor can change what you’ve shot.

There are very few things in this world I disagree with more.

There are infinite possibilities for how a film can be put together based on the footage shot. Tone, style, pacing, meaning, even the very story itself, can all be different from what was initially intended. All via the editing process. Performances can be dramatically altered. Even main characters can be turned into secondary characters. Unless, of course, one is editing an Alfred Hitchcock film. Hitch, to maintain creative control, would edit his films, essentially, in-camera so that there was only one way to put the images together. He found a way to be the editor on his own films without entering the editing room.

Barring that approach, anything is possible in the editing room. There are thousands of ways to edit together a single scene. Millions to edit together an entire film. One has to truly understand this in order to comprehend the enormous power and potential of film editing. It has been my experience that most people do not.

When I sat down to create my own cut of the film that the studio took away (something I was told I could not do, but did anyway), I learned something I never knew before: I loved editing more than any other phase in the filmmaking process. I experienced a level of intimacy with the story, performances and footage that turned this part of the journey into one of the single most satisfying creative undertakings of my entire life. I was connected to the film in a way that transcended where I had been. And believe me, after 8 years of fighting to get the film made and living through the all-encompassing experience of directing it, I was already pretty damned immersed in the world of my story. But this was far more intense and personal than the seven weeks I spent working with an editor before the film was taken away and re-cut by the studio.

It was thru editing that I was able to complete the story, in my own voice, and impart an experience on to others that matched, not only what I had envisioned, but what I had felt. By that, I don’t mean to suggest that I put the film together exactly as I had storyboarded it. Or even exactly as I had shot it. There is no point in the creative process when I want to close myself off to inspiration. Editing was more creative and instinctual a process for me than the actual writing itself. It was a crucial extension of the storytelling journey and the final piece of the puzzle I was looking for. And I am certainly not the first filmmaker to feel this way.

“I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit.” –Stanley Kubrick

When asked which area of filmmaking he most looked forward to, filmmaker John Sayles replied:

“It’s editing, actually. So often when I write a movie I have no idea if I’m going to get to make it — or make it in the next decade. It’s taken us so long to get some of our movies made, and I’ve had to do other lower-budget things first, that you can feel like a real sap when you sit down and write. I like a lot about directing, but it’s really stressful because there is always disaster looming with each new shot. The sun may go away, or you might have an actor who starts a new film tomorrow and you still have five scenes to shoot with him. So many things are totally out of your control. It’s a bit like trying to write something very serious with a taxi meter next to you. You just see the money ticking off every second you’re thinking. When you get to the editing, you’re still making the film, you’re still working with the actors, their performances, the rhythm of the film. You’re still rewriting, but there’s not that pressure. It doesn’t matter if the sun is shining or not. I know, at that point, I’m gonna make the movie. I know it’s not going to fall apart and the money isn’t going to disappear from the bank if we get it that far. It’s one of the reasons I continue to edit. It’s more fun.”

From what I was able to gather, my friends felt as if, in denying the editing of the film to be done through fresh eyes, I was not taking advantage of all of the opportunities offered in the filmmaking process, hence not putting the film first, but my ego instead. I suppose the same could be said of a writer who does not allow another director to take over and interpret the script through fresh eyes. Or a director who does not allow someone else to shoot and light the film. Or a director who does not allow someone else to star in the film.

I will repeat: there are no rules in art.

There is no question that a healthy, creative relationship with an editor can and will yield amazing results and unpredictable discoveries. But it is not the only valid approach to making a film. The filmmaker’s storytelling palette, if it extends to editing, may bring something of equal or greater value. It works both ways. To suggest that the filmmaking process is dependent on hiring someone else to edit is to limit the creative process of the individual. It is just as valid to edit the film oneself as it is to have an editor. But one must want to go on a solitary editing journey. And have the skills to do so. And they must have a strong vision and be open to discovery. And trust their instincts. And their subconscious. All approaches will yield something different. All are equally creative. But to limit that process to one way and not another is, well, in my opinion, a misguided lesson to impart to future filmmakers. Were everyone to believe that a director should never edit his/her films, then the filmmaking world would be missing some of the great works by the Coen Brothers, John Sayles, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Soderbergh… All filmmakers who edit their own films. Some, like Soderbergh and Rodriguez, even shoot their own films. Are they not artists who serve their stories?

Yes, film is almost always a collaborative effort. But what portions are collaborative are up to the artist, assuming one has control. Does the writer have to have a writing partner, or is it equally valid to write the script oneself? By dictating an artist’s palette, we risk destroying the very creative process itself.

From Sean Smith’s dismal, misguided Newsweek article “Career Intervention.”

“When someone is given total artistic freedom,” says one blockbuster producer, “the result is usually bad.”

Yes, there are producers who feel directors should never have creative control. Does that make it so? This is undoubtedly true for that particular producer’s approach to making a film, but if it were to be accepted as the way to make a film…

In an excerpt from that same article, one indie exec comments on the negative repercussions of filmmakers (like Stanley Kubrick) who choose to live and work outside of Hollywood:

“The smaller you make your world, the less of an artist you can really be.”

As if there were only one true way to be an artist. As if Hollywood were the center of the universe. In a town where people are told how things are done and what can and can’t be done, there are many who fall into the trap of believing what they’re told without actually finding out for themselves. “No one gets final cut.” If you’re a filmmaker in Hollywood, you’re going to hear that line uttered more than any other. It is not true. But I’ve heard it repeated by filmmakers themselves, regurgitating what they have been lead to believe. Yet, there are directors who get final cut. Yes, even some first-time directors. So what happens when the facts outweigh the statement, but the statement is perpetuated? What is the psychology behind this? If having final cut is not important to someone, then it is a non-issue. However, if maintaining creative control is important to you, then it can be done. It is every day.

If, as a filmmaker, you look forward to working with an editor, if that excites you, inspires you, then that is what you should do. But to dictate that approach to all other filmmakers is creatively restrictive. Every filmmaker has a different reason for making their film. Every filmmaker envisions a different outcome, enjoys a different process. We all find what works best for us as individual artists. As individual creators. As individual storytellers. Even in a town where the word “individual” is dirty and creative alienation is the soup of the day.

For more thoughts on film editing, check out my post: “The Art Of Film Editing & The Plague Of Ego.”

Quotes By Artists About Their Art: Bruce Springsteen

From Robert Hilburn’s terrific book CORNFLAKES WITH JOHN LENNON: AND OTHER TALES FROM A ROCK ‘N’ ROLL LIFE:

“The mistake a lot of musicians make, is they imagine an audience and then try and make a piece of music to fit it. “They get caught up in the race, and it can be dangerous to your creativity, and probably your sanity. What you have to do is start with a piece of music and then search out the audience for it, and if this is the audience for the new album, that’s fine. That’s where I should be right now.”

Of course, this quote applies to all artistic fields. While prepping my film THE PLAGUE, it was agreed and understood that we were making a film that did not fit snugly into any one genre and therefore it would be best to do the festival circuit in search of the film’s audience instead of seeking out a domestic distributor with a marketing department that had pre-conceived notions of what the film’s audience should be. Unfortunately for us, and the film, the powers-that-be, despite having verbally agreed to not seek out a domestic distributor until after a festival run, sold the distribution rights to Sony Screen Gems before we ever shot a frame.

The film was then taken over by the producers and marketing department in post-production and re-cut from scratch in an attempt to appeal to Clive Barker’s horror audience, an audience the film, in any incarnation, would never have appealed to. As a result, the film was both a commercial and artistic failure.

It was living through this experience, and in understanding that it is a common experience, that allowed me to complete my cut of the film despite warnings by my lawyers and agent at the time. It was and is the best thing I’ve ever done. Even though very few have seen my version. An artistic work, be it great or small, needs to be completed. If only for the artist him/herself. And there will always be an audience. Especially if one trusts the work.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Favorite Quotes: Joni Mitchell

“I heard someone from the music business saying they are no longer looking for talent, they want people with a certain look and a willingness to cooperate. I thought, that’s interesting, because I believe a total unwillingness to cooperate is what is necessary to be an artist — not for perverse reasons, but to protect your vision. The considerations of a corporation, especially now, have nothing to do with art or music. That’s why I spend my time now painting.”

From Robert Hillburn’s 2004 article on Joni Mitchell, AN ART BORN OF PAIN, AN ARTIST IN HAPPY EXILE.

Luckily for us, Mitchell did return to music. On her own terms.

The film industry is no different. In 2006, I was informed by a film exec at Fox that I would be termed “difficult” if I expressed my opinions. The exec then went on to tell me how and why they chose the current director for their new multi-million dollar comic-book action film:

“He doesn’t have any opinions of his own. Or if he does, he keeps them to himself. He does exactly what we tell him.”

That’s verbatim.

Hollywood Studios: More Afraid Than Ever?

For what seems an eternity, I have mourned the loss of the days when Hollywood studios managed to mix films that were simply meant to have mass appeal, with films that focused on a more demanding audience. But those days are long gone and seem, for the moment, to be drifting farther and farther away. Even many of the studio’s more sophisticated arms like Warner Independent Pictures and Paramount Vantage have seen their doors close. Quite possibly forever.

Whether it’s the state of the economy or the fact that studios simply don’t tend to hire people who truly love film (more than the film business), the quality of American cinema has continued to nosedive.

Take Steven Soderbergh’s latest almost-film, MONEYBALL. Based on Michael Lewis’ nonfiction baseball story and set to star Brad Pitt, the plug was pulled by Sony Pictures just days before shooting was scheduled to begin. The reason given for such a rare and surprising last minute decision? According to the New York Times:

…accounts from more than a dozen people involved with the film, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid damaging professional relationships, described a process in which the heady rush toward production was halted by a studio suddenly confronted by plans for something artier and more complex than bargained for.

It seems a new version of the script was rewritten by Soderbergh himself. Now without having read the script myself, it’s hard to say if this decision was made because a film with a $57 million price tag simply needs to appeal to as many people as possible, or because the execs at the top simply don’t, themselves, appreciate more demanding films. I mean, let’s face it, Sony used to be the studio that made films like REMAINS OF THE DAY. What was the last film to come from that studio (or any other) that approached the quality of that one? Also from the Times:

The swift mothballing of “Moneyball” may also increase doubts that Hollywood can still deliver tricky but appealing pictures like “Michael Clayton,” “Good Night, and Good Luck” or “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

While films like REMAINS OF THE DAY haven’t had a place at the studios for quite some time, it’s truly sad to consider that films like the above-mentioned might also not be able to find a home at our once beloved studios.

And maybe that’s why I rarely see films produced and developed by a studio unless I happen to be in the mood for something, well, mindless. And they are good at that. And that has its place.

But I still miss the films that inspire and move me, the ones that allow me to think, that challenge me, that remind me that I am a human being, with complexities, questions, thoughts, ideas, curiosities, a sense of adventure, a desire for something poetic, profound, daring… something that can reach deep inside me and move me with the sheer energy of its cinematic storytelling…

But alas… I guess, for the time being, I will have to depend on the rest of the world to supply those. And to the handful of American independent filmmakers out there who are making films more for themselves, and less for that much-coveted directing slot at their favorite studio of choice… I am depending on you.

Addendum: it looks like MONEYBALL is back in the game, but Soderbergh is not. Sony has brought in SPORTS NIGHT creator Aaron Sorkin to do a polish on an earlier, more commercially-minded version of the script written by Steve Zaillian. Pitt is still attached.

Francis Coppola, PATTON, & The Art Of Filmmaking

Francis Ford Coppola is and has been a great influence on me as a filmmaker as well as a source of my deepest admiration. Both via the films he’s made as well as in his approach to filmmaking. Yes, even some of the films that were difficult and painful experiences for him, those films which he didn’t feel reflected him fully as an artist, have had a lasting impact on me.

Through my ongoing journey to understand my desire to make films and tell stories, my many youthful fantasies of making those films in that once magical place known as Hollywood, and in watching and listening to great artists like Francis Coppola share their insights, experiences and wisdom, I have managed to not feel completely alone in my conclusion that Hollywood may, in fact, not be the best place for me to be making films. This is a subject I have written about before and return to often as I find myself in a transition period in my life and art. While still a resident of Los Angeles and Hollywood, and still surrounded by many “industry” friends and acquaintances, I have both mentally and artistically distanced myself from the very world I had once strived to be a part of. Through my experiences as a writer working with name producers, to my experiences making THE PLAGUE, my first feature as director, I have learned to trust less in the business of filmmaking and trust more in my own gut as both a filmmaker and a lover of film.

It is therefore that I am thankful and inspired when I stumble across great filmmakers whose experiences in the field, far greater than my own, seem to confirm my desire to follow my gut and my heart, even while so many around me–agents, lawyers, industry peers–seem to suggest my desired path lies somewhere between pipe dream and career suicide. But the more steps I take away from filmmaking as it is defined by the town and industry I physically inhabit, and move toward a place more centered around the artistry and love I have of films and filmmaking and my joy of working with people I admire, respect and whose company I enjoy, the more empowered I feel, the more inspiration I seem to find, the more excited I become.

And so I want to thank Mr. Coppola for sharing his thoughts and experiences in his introduction to the Blu-ray release of PATTON, a film for which he won the Academy Award for screenwriting, and let him know that there are filmmakers out there like myself who are not just listening to what he is saying, but actually hearing and finding inspiration in his words; the inspiration to follow a path dismissed by many, attained by few, but cherished by those lucky enough to trust their hearts.

Thanks.

McCain Poo Art

Venice, California artist Greg Beauchamp had this to say about his newest art project:

“While I was putting flags in poo around Venice, people stopped, and smiled, and took photos and chatted and overall, became happy. Maybe it was the message, or maybe it was the act, but what I found was that as I moved, they moved. And it felt good. Good enough to share.”

To see more photos of Greg’s art, go to: 

http://laist.com/2008/10/16/mini_mccain_pooh_art_in_venice.php?gallery15218Pic=1#gallery