Two Good Movie Ideas

Fact: I have good ideas. Fact: I am poor at acting on these ideas. Fact: I don't really mind that my ideas don't always come to fruition.
One of my key approaches to life is that I don't feel the need to prove myself to others as long as I know I'm sure of myself. You could call this cowardice and you might have a point, but i don't see the need to actually go about proving to you that I can run a marathon if I am fully certain that I could, for instance.
While I was walking to Whole Foods' beer store on Houston last night (let me pause for a second and both trumpet this resource and shame myself for underutilization of it. You buy an empty half-gallon growler for like $3, then you pay from $7-20+ to have it filled with draft beer whenever you want. And they stock delicious beer as well, often locally produced for people who are into that sort of thing. And it's just a 20minute round-trip excursion from my apt.), something mundane got me thinking, as happens frequently. A guy dressed like a cook with longish hair tied back in a ponytail stepped across the sidewalk in front of me outside of a small restaurant, then lit a cigarette and started smoking it alone as he surveyed the street. He looked like how Robert DeNiro might have looked it 1982 if he were preparing for a role as some kind of a cook.
1. So I'm not sure why but that cook's aloneness there on the sidewalk so near to other people gave me a good idea for a movie plot. I should say, not just the cook's aloneness but the complete disengaged sense of being in a place but not of it, is what gave me the good idea. Most movies are of course about people on a basic level, sometimes about people reacting to events but more often the interesting or quality ones are just about people. Further, they are about people interacting with other people. What I mean is that a movie's plot is virtually always advanced through dialogue or some interaction with people, sometimes also with objects (the Raging Bull jail cell scene) or events (Forrest Gump, duh) or environments (Cast Away, aka the greatest movie ever made), but whatever it is specifically it's still basically just the active engagement with outside forces that drives plot.
What I'd propose is that you take an individual--a comedian would be a good subject to help show my point--and follow him not as he deals with people but just before and just after and especially those moments--like with the cook on the sidewalk--when he's amidst people but still alone. I'd go to great lengths to ensure that it wouldn't simply be a case study on loneliness or a biography of a hermit, but instead simply an examination of those times in a life when a person is only himself at his innermost. It's a variation on something I find very interesting: that a person will behave differently when alone than when in company. (Even if the person is completely self-aware and well-adjusted and unaffected by conventions or expectations, he will act differently. An example of this that I've mentioned before is that when I wake to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I will almost never wash my hands afterward, but if at work and someone else is relieving himself at the same time as me I will always do at least a cursory rinse in the sink. How a man reacts to the former tells more about him on a basic level but it's also boring because it's something mostly involuntary for the man. How a man reacts to the latter isn't interesting because it's a social constant, but the thoughtful man's response to his bending in the latter situation is extremely interesting. At least to me.)

2. The other great movie idea I'll share now is one I've had for at least five or six years now, but since I'm now 28 and unlikely ever to follow-up on it (see also Monsieur, Monsieur), I'll share it with the world. This idea is not so much a plot idea as it is a thematic visual idea that would essentially make whatever plot you put behind it simple dressing.
Just a warning now,

(There, I've left an extra space for emphasis.)

but I feel that this is one of the finest artistic-related ideas I've ever had. I always become excited when thinking about the possibilities and the utter originality* of it any time I consider it.

You position the camera lens as though it is an eyeball looking out at the world and just follow your character around. I'm not talking about a simple first-person POV here either. You'd have to semi-blur most of the screen, maybe even blacking out nebulous amounts of the edges, and focus only on the center focal area. Not only that but this central focal area would have to drift and move (and the rest of the screen in kind) as the character's eyes drift from one object to another. I'm no lens expert but I'm not sure the technology was advanced enough to do this right when I first conceived this idea. In 2009 it might be possible.
Vision, and seeing things differently under different levels of focus and sharpness, has always been fascinating to me. This is most likely because unlike most people, I haven't really ever been able to take my vision for granted. (Obviously there are blind people who would scoff at this statement. Sorry to them.) My eyes required correction, but then the correction didn't take so I to go back to glasses, which never felt natural to me. I couldn't get over the fact that I was looking through something to allow me to see, and even then the glasses would slide around or I'd be trying to see with my periphery and of course fail because the frames never seemed to wrap enough quite enough. Finally a year and a half ago I went under the knife and I'm now something close to a normal contactless seer. The only problem is that, depending on the humidity and the wind, my vision can fluctuate slightly. Not enough to ever cause a problem, but enough to recognize it.
That history out of the way, think of the effects this filming technique would produce:
1. You'd get a real point of view. Something that bugs me with traditional POV camera shots is that no human can actually see with clarity the breadth of a movie screen. So while I'm watching a movie shot that way, I'm noticing many details that the character himself can't be processing beyond the simple impressionistic level.
2. You would change the way we think of "realism." (Again, done correctly) I think this is the true elimination of the fourth way in film. It's not virtual reality as we've been exposed to it thus far, because it would still be a film and thus it's goals would still be fictive and artistic.
3. You could add a layer of thought to every second of the film. You're forcing the viewer to consider himself as he watches the film. And you could do it without any subtlety whatsoever, but in such a way that it's effect after watching for a few minutes would dissolve so effortlessly that it would fuzz over the distinction between subtle and nonexistent influences. The possibilities this could open up with storylines and themes and symbols and everything a good writer is good at would be amazing.
Ok I'm getting the feeling that I might be drifting into the realm where I'm not able to make sufficient sense of what I'm trying to say, so perhaps I should cut this short. Know that I love this idea. I love it so much that if it were presented by someone else, I'd still love it and want to write about it.

*The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a recent film that I admired quite a bit, did do something that could be considered similar to what I'm proposing. They used the camera lens to double for a human eye, and narrowed the perspective of that eye to mimic the condition of the main character. However, in that film, they use the technique as a simple way of connecting the audience to the experience of the character, rather than as narrative filmic tool in and of itself. They also didn't go the whole way of constraining the lens' focus to replicate that of an actual eye's. None of this is meant to discredit the technique in the film though. I loved it. I thought it was extremely well done.

The Post-Talent Age

On Saturday night around 2:30 I left a bar in Park Slope and since I didn't want to fall asleep during the potentially long subway ride ahead of me, I grabbed a paper from the rack near the door of the bar. It turned out to be a Village Voice from mid-December. Here I thought they spontaneously combusted after about 8 days, and the good folks in Brooklyn manage to keep them circulating for over a month. God bless. So I managed to wade into an article about a writer complaining about blogs. All too appropriately, this blogger will say the article itself wasn't very good, but that there were some wonderful quotes way at the end that nicely verbalize some of my own thoughts:

1. "The state of publishing is such that you can get all these great things, but people don't talk about the work. They talk about you. There used to be serious critics and an audience. . . . Now, the audience is also in the critic business."
2. "The Internet's returned us all to these sort of 19th century critics who are trying to judge us by our voice, who are trying to hear the way our soul comes through."

And now the big ones:

3. "We have created a sort of post-talent age."
4. "It's commercial realism as opposed to intellectual realism."

I'm not so much interested or qualified to analyze how this all specifically relates to publishing--that's just the medium the article concerned itself with--but I think it does a great job generally describing the current state of artistic creation, and the public's reception of it.
The internet lately has allowed anyone to presume himself an expert on anything. Look at me, even. What do I know about film? I took one class in college about it, but other than that my only qualifications are that I'm very interested in film and therefore that I pay close attention to certain aspects of it. But I could be a hack. Anybody writing or critiquing anything online could be a hack. And that's why if you're responsible you must question the writer/reviewer, as well as his reviews. Since this type of ad hominem argumentation necessarily can't lead to any greater insight, what we're left with is simple questions and simpler answers: a dead-end for many intellectual pursuits.
And when your intellectual pursuits lead to a dead-end, you might just easily choose to quit trying. You might aim lower, you might leave the vacuum open for lesser lights. This is how I view the comment about this being a "post-talent age."
I used to spend time thinking about the idea of post-modernism as it applies to all fields of art. I was and still am fascinated by the idea of somehow transcending time or context, or by representing something just a bit further, if you'll allow me a sloppy bit of metaphysics. I used to wonder where could anyone ever go after post-modernism? Was "post-modern" simply a catch-all to describe everything happening now? And therefore, does that mean that artistically we'd arrived at a bleak point with no room to continue to grow, or does it mean that we'd managed to rise above labels and consequently to have limitless possibilities?
Enterprising artists (remember I'm talking about all fields of art here, not just painters or sculptors or whatever your mental image of an artist defaults to) pushed the envelope so much as to distract people from what was beautiful or talented and of course brought into question just what those things were. This was all very interesting, but I think it may have ominously succeeded in removing talent from the equation.
If reality TV "stars" can be more popular than any infinite amount of fine actors, then what good is acting?
If pop stars can be more or less created and sold as images, and if people who already have an image but no musical talent can find success as "musicians," then what's the point in refining a person's musical craft?
If a writer can produce something great, only to have it ignored by the media and attacked and undermined by a faceless internet presence, while all it would take is the opinion of one person (Oprah) to guarantee success, then why strive toward something bigger and better?
If a truly innovative filmmaker toils in obscurity and can't find funding, but a 15 year old can become famous for a 3:00 YouTube clip, then why focus your energy on anything more than what will have mass appeal?

I think it's great that people can now use the internet to express themselves, and that it gives a voice to just about anyone who wants one, but there are consequences.
Say you are in a room that has three microphones with 100 people, and five of those people are unquestioned geniuses. In the past, just a few of those 100 people would decide by some process who to allow to speak (assuming of course that the goal is for the smartest person to have the mic), but those few people would be largely successful in discovering those smart people. Let's say that command of the three mics would rotate amongst a group of 7-8 people, with 4 of those geniuses being accounted for, while one remains in the shadows. What you'd have is little difficulty in hearing the speakers (since there are only 3 mics to talk over each other), and relatively good representation of intelligence. Over time, those 4 geniuses would command people's attention better than the 3-4 hacks who slipped into the group of speakers but some failing on the part of the deciders.
Now let's imagine that you're in the same room with the same 100 people and five geniuses, only this time there are 50 very-slightly-quieter microphones than the original three, plus the original three. And assume that the group who decide who to let speak isn't 100% concerned with finding the smartest people. What you'd end up with is 53 people talking at once, and an almost random allocation of intelligence handling those microphones.
That might be an unnecessarily tedious analogy, but it's generally close to where we are now. It's almost as if no one knows who's worth a damn anymore. Worse, it's not entirely certain whether or not anyone cares who's worth a damn. This is where the final quote from above seems most relevant: "It's commercial realism as opposed to intellectual realism."
If you reread those four quotes at the top, maybe you will agree with me that the first two represent an advance in our culture, while the last two most definitely represent a collapse. Whether or not the two sets of quotes can exist as mutually exclusive is a bigger debate than I'm ready to tackle here. In fact, how society might go about fostering an environment that allows for #1 and 2, while keeping #3 and 4 to a minimum would be one of the more interesting artistic arguments to follow in our contemporary world. Personally, I could live without #1 and 2 if it meant the elimination of #3 and 4, though you have to admit the latter present us with some extremely interesting if unsavory scenarios.

On Arts

do you know how to start an argument? here is one way:

a big problem i have with music as an art form is that it is simply too accessible. it's too easy for any single person to grasp it and enjoy it and appreciate it. it's too simple.
of course i've never played or created music so i guess that's a disclaimer (obviously it's not easy), but i think it's not complex enough, not nuanced enough, not--dare i say--sophisticated enough.
(clearly using these words i'm setting myself up for at least criticism and more likely scorn. that's ok. this is opinion after all. and surely it should be understood that i'm not belittling what musicians do or suggesting that they do not clearly possess impressive and enviable talents.)

to me, the arts--music, film, literature, painting/sculpture, or simple performance--are interesting and enjoyable because they are unscientific; they are necessarily impossible to parse out into exact parts or meanings. i think what i like most about arts is its pure expression. not necessarily what something is or is about but just how it feels, and part of the joy of claiming that feeling is finding something in the art that is real or shared and then "getting it." the process, the necessary process of personally finding the art, is for me the most important effect of the art.
many people would surely disagree here, but this is my problem with music, or my reasoning in deriding it compared to the other forms of high art: that quite often there is no process, that the essence of the music is immediately presented for you, that it's just too easy for anyone to appreciate it.
i'd like not to be completely elitist but unfortunately that's exactly what my last point is doing. it's unfortunate but not everyone in the world possesses the same gifts of intelligent discernment, so necessarily there should be some things will be beyond the realm of understand and certainly deep appreciation for much of the populace. music doesn't do this. it's too inclusive. don't get me wrong now, because this is the greatest thing about music, something people have always and should always point to in describing it's necessary value: that it crosses all social and demographic lines: everyone can enjoy it at it's deepest levels. it's like baseball or barbecue or television or any other parts of americana, everyone can share its experiences communally and this of course gives it tremendous populist value.
however, at the same time, it completely undermines it's artistic being. i'm not trying to discredit music's status as an art, just to differentiate it from the other forms of art, to perhaps decry the mere act of discussing it as you might another form of art. to me, discussing music as art is to express mere opinion because the form itself is too accessible so as to have nothing to argue about. if you like a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich more than a grilled cheese, that's fine, but if you want to spend a lot of time telling me why a pbj is better than a grilled cheese, well that's just silly. a pbj is a pbj. they're delicious, lots of people love them, but let's not get carried away.

i'm going to pause now and acknowledge the difficulty i may be having in showing my point. likely the difference between music and film, music and sculpture, is simply a matter of my personal taste, which would make this whole essay a commentary on the value of all art as a starting point for discussion, rather than an explanation of the differences of stature within the world of artistic forms.

(hmmmm. now that i've about it a moment, perhaps the problem i'm encountering in being fair has something to do with the nature of our consumption of the musical art form, or the relative lack of breadth thereof. if i were to compare film to "music" then i could say sure many films are enjoyed by all and certainly wholly accessible to all, but you'd surely agree if i were to claim that many richer and (better) films are not really appreciated or gotten by the mass of the population. film like anything has a spectrum ranging from the highest exhaltant complex form down to the basest least-common-denominator unoriginal crap. with film, this whole spectrum of quality is often discussed publicly in the media. with music, the only types we ever hear about, therefore the only types we ever talk about on an individual level, is the baser, simpler, more easily accessible forms. there is a whole vast world of classical and extremely complex and difficult to ascertain music. this is not the type that is ever really seen or discussed outside a tiny sliver of aficionados. consider: citizen kane, widely thought to be the finest film ever made, was released to a national audience; the godfather films--surely not lagging far behind citizen kane on quality--are some of the most popular movies ever and we're subject to massive populist scrutiny even while being publicly judged for their quality (at the academy awards). what i'm saying is that the public discourse on film spans the entire spectrum of the form, while the discourse on music is constrained to the lower portion of it's breadth. what this means, if my thinking is consistent here, is that in the first several paragraphs of this essay, as i was having trouble condemning music without being hypocritical, what i was actually doing was condemning some music, which in light of what i've described about the film/music public distinction, is i believe more than fair.)

so, in the way we operate within the world, i find it somewhat silly, indeed impossible, therefore useless, to effectively carry on intelligent discussions about "music." and what i was saying at the top about not liking "music" because it's too accessible and not complex enough still stands because now i've figured out that there exists a distinction between music (everything) and "music" (the segment of music that we actually digest).

so i guess what we learn from this enterprise is that it indeed is an easy way to start an argument, so easy that i've just conducted one with myself.

i've got a noland bull's-eye on my phone. i'd have rothko too but the light wasn't right cause it's just a cell phone after all, and his orange turned out kinda brown. damn shame messing up orange.
i've almost weaned myself off of the wetting eye drops. 6 weeks since the surgery. that's good healin.
mother i don't think you've ever read this before thank goodness but if you are now, please hide your eyes. i was as high as i've ever been last night. maybe it was the 4.5 hours of tap budweiser that preceded it but lordy those two bowls i shared set me dizzy. dave and i were literally crying laughing walking in the cold talking about hamster wheels. don't even ask me about the show at the knitting factory. i got the paranoid jumpy jitters for a while and had trouble focusing on anyone who dared talk to me. i made an epiphanic and amorous exclamation to someone late friday night and the recipient was at the show and was adorably concerned about me. made me smile (an actual smile not just a cannabic smile). if that doesn't say all you need to know about my lot in life, i don't know what does.
i realize that van gogh is pretty famous and starry night is too but that painting had easily the largest crowd around it of anything in moma last friday. seemed odd. i was able to walk right up 6 inches from both the aforementioned rothko and noland and stand there for 3 or 4 solid minutes without bothering anyone behind me waiting for a view. warhol's soup cans were similarly dismissed. a huge pollock and a huger monet were probably the 2nd and 3rd most popular pieces in the museum. i will say that the monet--something like "clouds reflecting on a pond"--produced the finest effect of anything on me: after a couple minutes of staring from a normal distance away from the probably 30-foot wide painting, the clouds really started to seem as though they were drifting and floating across the painting. it was surreal, and positively sublime. a similar, if much more frenetic, effect was produced by a mondrian called "broadway boogie woogie."
the previously number-one-ranked football team of my alma mater was defeated tragically close to the end of the season on saturday. i'm supposed to be pretty upset by this, but i'm not. my favorite pro team very nearly lost to a rival on sunday as well but that wasn't really causing me any distress either. i think i'm getting too old to stress out about sports. i enjoy them, but throughout their duration i am fully aware that the outcome really doesn't matter much to me.
if someone were watching a videotape of my weekend he or she would be hard-pressed not to say "sheesh this guy drinks too much." it seems like i share the same feeling at the front end of many weeks. not this one though. 27 is a good age to be in new york city. 28 will be a good age too, but probably slightly less so. 29, 30, 31.........you understand the pattern. it doesn't really get better, presumably. the time of your life. is it ok to know it's the time of your life while it's happening, and not merely much after the fact. can you forsake the warmth of nostalgia by superheating the glory of the act itself? i am molten. now.
the whole point of my stated and reinforced claim to willingly leave this earth after just 60 years is that you don't need all those later years if you live yourself out before you get there. out loud out front outside out of bounds out out out out. my 81st year is living vicariously through my 27th right now, sensing and savoring and experiencing and remebering my 27th year all at once. i want to get to 60 and just be too exhausted to have any desire to continue. i want for the world to be too exhausted to let me continue. do not begrudge me.