For the first time in a few Decembers, I approach the end of the year without a knot in my stomache, without a brain scrambled by the to-and-fro of this and that. This is not to say that I’m not busy, that I do not (as I type this) sit with a few plates spinning above my head. This is also not to say that I do not face an onslaught of tasks once the merriment of New Year’s Eve has ebbed.
I feel compelled these days to start putting things in perspective. Perhaps this is what happens when you turn 40 – perhaps I am being cliché. Seeking context and sketching narratives seem like writerly enough goals to aim for, but even as a writer there are a lot of things – tangents, curves, frays, tears – to reconcile within that task.
A strong influence stems from my current study of psychotherapy, which requires that I be in therapy also. You find yourself relating a story from your past – from your childhood, from your 20s – and you find yourself saying something you realize you haven’t really mentioned to anyone before. Not necessarily secrets, but impressions of events. Sometimes events themselves. It allows you to discover how unintentionally secretive we can all be.
I have been struck by as often as I have been able to dodge the things thrown at me in life. Sometimes you don’t have a choice: I think that’s one of the first things you learn, but the hardest to reconcile. That is, if you don’t want to subscribe to fatalism (which isn’t to say that everything should boil down to some atheist/libertarian screed). Ultimately, life has but one author, and if you do not have a hand on the pen there is a problem.
It is thus, in the spirit of pen holding, that I try to take some time over the next while to add to the picture of my understanding of my self, with the aim of broadening that understanding (as opposed to solipsism) so that the rest of the (human) world may not be as strange and foreboding as it can seem.
Perhaps, some day, we will see that we are all artists.
Sometimes things just line up in such a way that you can’t help feeling they were put there on purpose. Early this month, as part of a course I’m taking, I went to a weekend retreat, held at a secluded compound by the Credit River. It was a bit eerie, because many of my dreams take place in expansive compounds: wherever I go, even if it seems I’m outside, I just have to look up to see that there is a roof, or some sort of enclosure to remind me that I am not free. So, what book from our library did I take with me at the last minute? Why, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, of course. What I didn’t realize is that much of it takes place on a compound…but I’ll get back to this.
I’ve not read any books by Ishiguro – I haven’t even seen the movie adaptation of Remains of the Day. That said, I did work on Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music In The World, an adaptation of one of his short stories. I’d heard good things about Never Let Me Go, and had always meant to read it. With it being released as a film recently (I don’t think it did that well, despite the critical praise), and since I needed something to read during my time away, I thought it would be a good pick.
Never Let Me Go concerns the story of Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy. It’s told from Kathy’s perspective in the present. She is a carer, who drives from centre to centre, visiting those she looks after. Very soon we are introduced to their beginnings, as children, in a place called Hailsham. It’s an isolated educational enclave, somewhere in England, where the students live, go to school, and grow up. But there’s something a little odd about it all. Perhaps it’s the isolation from the rest of the world. Something in the way some of their guardians regard them. All too soon, their sun-dappled childhood in Hailsham becomes something which haunts them as they grow into young adults. It’s practically all Kathy can use to mark the passing of her time.
Within these reminiscences, we are introduced to Tommy and Ruth, who become the foundational friendships Kathy clings to through adolescence, regardless that Ruth oscillates from friend to enemy – a colourful rather than careful individual who becomes a voice of danger in the fog of their relationship.
The magic of this book is the skill with which Kathy’s perspective is written. There is a purpose for Hailsham, for their being there. There is a reason she is a carer. Never Let Me Go is a capital-H haunting novel, inhabited by people who are slightly cold but reaching out, never quite managing to touch a meaning they hope is there. I can’t say much more without spoiling things, not that it’s a book laden with surprises, so much as layered with subtle, sad observations. A beautiful book for a rainy day.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (ISBN: 978-0-676-97711-0) is available at an independent bookstore near you, or at various online retailers.
As a writer, even though I am not part of any sort of literati, I am still plugged into the lit scene. You need to be if you want to understand the general to-and-fro of any industry you are interested in becoming a part of (same goes for TV, music, theatre, etc..). That said, I must make an admission. I am making this admission because I think there are a lot of people like me out there who feel the same but are reticent to admit it.
Here goes: I don’t take any particular interest in the life of the artist outside of his or her art.
When I read a book, I don’t care if an author comes from the East Coast and studied journalism, had a drug problem and now lives in a shed with a mastiff. It’s not that I don’t care about this author personally, it’s that these facts shouldn’t have anything to do with the book that I am about to read. I should be able to pick up the book, knowing nothing about said author, and be able to read it, enjoy it, be fully affected by it, without substantially missing something due to a lack of familiarity with the author’s biography.
And yet, when you are culturally plugged-in (and by this I mean, you check out industry blogs, trade mags, etc.) there is so much white noise about the artists themselves that it seems divergent from what it is they are supposed to be doing: their work. We can talk about Picasso’s passions, but 100 years from now there will probably only be discussion of his work – your work is the only thing left after you and everyone who knew you has died. And if people are still talking more about you than your work after this point, then I would think the quality of your work was overstated.
Would knowing that Stephen King battled drug addiction offer an insight into some of his writing? Yes. But, my point is that if that insight is necessary in order to fully appreciate a piece of work then there is a problem. The work doesn’t work if you need a biographical cheat sheet to inject context into the material.
I think Bryan Ferry is an fantastic vocalist – and I don’t want to know anything more than that. Nor the details outside a director’s films, nor what inspired the playwright to write her play. I’ve got my own shit going on, thanks very much.
Ephemera is for journalists, fanzines, and those working on their Ph.D. The general public should not feel inadequate if they pick a DVD or book off a shelf, sit down in a theatre, or load a song without being prepared with supplemental information not contained within the medium which contains the work. The work inevitably has to stand up for itself. I write this for two reasons: first, with the likes of the AV Club and traditional print/TV media clamouring to add as much web-based context as possible to every article, there’s a growing sense that – for the everyman – if you aren’t savvy to the smallest details of each artist’s passings and goings, you are nothing but a tourist. Secondly, embracing social media to a claustrophobic degree, we can now read endless commentating on authors reading their work for a live audience!…something no one really asked for outside the publishing companies themselves and perhaps the authors’ parents. Let’s face it: most authors can’t read aloud to save their lives – it’s not their specialty.
There are reasons for digging deeper, but that’s up to the individual. It was interesting to learn more about HP Lovecraft when I reviewed Michel Houellebecq’s quasi-biography of him and his work. What’s funny, however – using that same example – is that when I proceeded to read the two works by Lovecraft contained in that same book, I don’t recall thinking to myself “Ahh – this is where his uncomfortable relationship with women takes shape!”. That’s because the stories were two of his masterpieces, and when you witness a masterpiece, peripheral biographical information is going to gunk-up your enjoyment.
The medium may be the message, but the work contains the words. Outside of this we are left with cultural “bonus features”. Nice to have, but not necessary.
I have this ticket stub (above) from a one-man-show – Spalding Gray at Massey Hall. It was good. I don’t know how to describe his “show” in practical terms: he didn’t sing, he didn’t dance, he didn’t perform in the traditional sense. He talked. About himself. He was a monologuist. And his stories would encapsulate, in ever widening circles of narrative, the great many wonderful and (more often) terrifying things going on with his life.
He was an actor/playwright whose home was primarily New York. I’m not sure if New York makes people like Gray anymore. These performances were not “actor/playwright” shows – these shows were, in retrospect, a form of therapy. Gray talked about the things – worries, revelations, lost epiphanies – which affected him as a regular human being; the things which happen around the things we do with our lives.
His best-known performance, captured on film by Jonathan Demme, is Swimming To Cambodia. In it, with a desk, chair, and glass of water he discusses the events which surrounded the time he played a small role in the critically-acclaimed film, The Killing Fields. He talks of his research for the role in the film, of what actually happened during the reign of terror in Cambodia during the early-to-mid 70s.
Gray was a man given to self-exploration, perhaps painfully so. His mother committed suicide while he was in his 20s, and he exhibited symptoms of bipolar depression himself. Her death held an eerie fascination for him. In subsequent performances (also made into films), Monster in a Box (about writing a novel) and Gray’s Anatomy (about his fear that he was going blind), he explored his neuroses and anxieties and how they filtered through his relationships with those close to him.
The key to Gray is that he was funny as hell, which turned all of his painfully honest accounts, his public descriptions of private contortions all the more enlightening for the viewer, as opposed to merely sympathetic. Gray was neurotic, but he wasn’t looking for sympathy from the audience, and I think this is the second key to understanding him (as a performer, at least). When I saw him at Massey Hall in November of 1996, I don’t remember a lot of details (it was his It’s a Slippery Slope tour), with the exception of his description of sitting outside, trying to have a soulful discussion with his distant father while a fog horn sounds in the distance. I remember this because I was laugh-crying throughout most of it.
When I heard in 2004 that Spalding Gray was missing, that it was suspected he had jumped off a ferry into the East River, I was not shocked. Suicide – as an objective event, as a subjective idea – was something he had discussed since Swimming to Cambodia. Add to this that he had been in a terrible car accident a few years earlier which had left his right leg partially disabled (not to mention having a fractured skull), and you could see (in retrospect, of course) how, given his frame of mind, it might have pushed those dark thoughts further toward the limelight of contemplation.
I am trying (desperately) to avoid a “boy, it’s been a wacky ride these last few months!” post. It certainly isn’t for lack of things to talk about, news to update you with, opinions to confess/shout.
Thing is, I don’t know who you are. Sure, I know there are some of you who are semi-regular visitors. There are others who happen upon this place by accident (via Blogger or StumbleUpon). There are also those who come here via Google searches, either via my name or – most likely – a book review (which admittedly I haven’t done in, oh, a year or so *). And no, this isn’t going to be a “Matt wittily evading accusations of being a lazy bastard by turning the camera on the reader” post.
I’ve been posting artsy stuff, writerly stuff, industry opinion stuff. I don’t mind the randomness, so long as there’s no fluff. I do mind the lack of output. I wish, for one, that I could post more photographs (which is to say, I wish I had a better selection of photos to post **).
It comes down to the fact that I’ve been working like a dog since May (note: this happens every year that I’m working on a SAW film). When I come out of these periods, I feel like Rip van Winkle: a little dazed, slow on the up-take. Whereas last year this time I started teaching, this time this year I am a student (part-time) †. I have a small (but good) feature and a small (but good and potentially controversial) TV show on my plate from now till February. If funds allow, I also hope to have an editor working with me on my novel, with an eye to approaching a publisher or self-publishing if that doesn’t seem feasible ††. I’m collaborating on a musical.
My plate is full.
– – –
* which isn’t to say that I’m not reading or that I don’t want to do any more book reviews. I’m reading a lot of non-fiction, thank you. Much of it either out of professional or academic interest. However, if only to improve my Google ranking, here’s a quick book review of Antwerp by Roberto Bolaño: What the fuck was that? (ISBN-13: 978-0811217170)
** another casualty of working so much is my photography. I still have the same roll of film in my camera that I’d loaded in June. I think I’ve only taken 4 exposures since then. Of course, my cellphone camera gets all the fun these days, unfortunately.
† I will be continuing teaching, but for only two terms this year as opposed to three (which was exhausting and… exhausting)
†† It needs a new name, for one thing. And I know this is going to drive me up the wall more than any changes to the actual content of the book.
This is one of those moments where I find myself on the inside of a phenomena which (increasingly) arouses strong opinions from members of the public. In this case, stereoscopic filmmaking – or 3D, for short (even though it’s not really 3D and tramples on a term which is used in animation for both stereoscopic and non-stereoscopic work).
I’m currently working on a 3D film in an age (or, more precisely, over the course of a year, starting with James Cameron’s Avatar) where 3D technology is being pushed as the next in-thing. And yet there are many detractors, some of whom have some good ammunition for their opinions.
As someone who has been intimately involved with a 3D production, from beginning to end (well, almost – we’ll be in theatres in October) I find myself more and more a spokesperson for the technology, if not for the studios who currently are trying to cram every release into a 3D format, whether or not they were meant to be that way.
Let me begin by saying that I enjoy the notoriety of being the resident expert on 3D technology at parties and barbecues whenever the subject arises. Now that I have that out of the way, allow me to bitch…
Everyone keeps asking me: is 3D here to stay? The answer is a conditional “yes”. The condition being that film studios understand two things: First, that you can’t take a 2D movie and make it 3D using brain-dead rotoscoping software and expect it to be a success; second, that you can’t continue charging more for 3D films and not deliver a product that is both a good example of 3D and a relatively good film to boot.
To elaborate:
1) Since the release of Avatar, there seem to be just as many films released in theatres boasting 3D which were never shot in 3D, nor even envisioned in 3D prior to production. Some examples would be Tim Burton’sAlice in Wonderland and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. These films were taken by the studios after completion and put through a 2D-to-3D conversion process, using software to rotoscope the 3D effect, frame-by-frame, a process unsupervised by the director.
This process, while handy for converting short bits from 2D to 3D for films which originate in 3D, ignores a very large consideration for those producers and filmmakers who shoot in 3D from the outset: you have to plan to shoot in 3D from the start. You cannot take a script or a shot list for a 2D film and superimpose it onto a 3D film: your set design, your camera lenses, your blocking, your picture editing…so many things change as a result of switching from 2D to 3D. When you simply take a 2D show and auto-render it in faked-out 3D you get something which most viewers – critics and plebes alike – will say isn’t necessary. At worst, you get Clash Of The Titans – the current poster child for anyone with an axe to grind about 3D in general and post-converted 3D specifically. Not only was it a weak remake of the original (from what I hear), but the 3D post-conversion was done in two weeks. Two weeks. From what I hear, the subsequent “3D” is ridiculous to view.
2) Considering that theatres charge a premium for 3D films (about $3 more than usual depending upon where you go – sometimes more), when a poorly rendered post-converted 3D film is released it damages the viability of an already vulnerable new technology. It’s one thing if a film is bad, but when it’s bad in two dimensions, bad in a crappily-rendered pseudo-third dimension, followed by the sucker punch of having to pay MORE to see it…you get my point. I hope. Movie audiences can be forgiving, but there comes a point of revolt which I can see happening if there aren’t enough 3D films released which originate on 3D. Furthermore, the studios do no service to themselves if they don’t make a point of clarifying this to audiences: why can’t they say when a film is originally shot in 3D? Isn’t that a selling point? Likewise, why not be honest and say when a film has been post-converted? If it’s a case that no one wants it to be known that their film was post-converted…then why post-convert to 3D in the first place? There’s certainly no audience I know that is clamouring for blocky cut-out shapes which look like they were poorly separated from the background using Photoshop. To summarize this point, content is king: the quality of content, not the volume of illegitimate content.
Up until Avatar (and god knows how I long for the day when another film takes its place as the “gold standard”), the greatest accomplishment in 3D technology was the few seconds of the guy in House of Wax, standing outside a theatre with a ping-pong mallet, knocking the ball directly toward the camera. You could imagine people ducking for cover at the time. That was 1953. From that point onward, 3D technology didn’t change, largely due to the format never winning over audiences: the films were oft-times gimmicky and there were never enough 3D films at any given time to make it feel as if the aesthetic was going anywhere. With the recent advent of digital cinematography, 3D is much easier (logistically and technically) to achieve. And while I would love someone to make “art” (are you reading this, Wong Kar Wai?), I’m happy if, for the time being, the format stakes its territory in the ghetto where its strengths have always been: action/sci-fi/fantasy – hey, if it works, why not? I don’t hear anyone clamouring for a 3D Terms of Endearment…
Technicians and filmmakers are doing their part: they are taking a risk and trying to push forward innovatively with something daunting and new. Is 3D here to stay? Again, a conditional “yes”. What we need are studios and theatre chains to be honest with the audience and not do irreparable damage to the very thing they are hoping to profit from.
In 2008/9, I worked on the indie feature, SUCK. It’s a rock-and-roll vampire road-movie comedy directed by Toronto’s Rob Stefaniuk and produced by Capri Films’ Robin Crumley. For a low-budget feature (and I realize that’s not the best way to preface a compliment) SUCK is well-written, well-cast, funny, and in places very funny.
However, despite being well received at both the Toronto International and South-By-Southwest Film Festivals, it was denied any interest in a theatrical release by Canadian distributors. The longer I waited for someone to pick it up, the more I wondered what the problem was. Sure, you could argue that vampire films have saturated the market lately, but that’s seeing things from the late-summer of 2010 (SUCK was completed over a year ago). It was a no-brainer, even for a limited release: who wouldn’t like a rock vampire comedy w/ cameos by Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, and Alex Lifeson (among others)? It’s the sort of smart-but-not-overly-self-conscious effort which seems perfectly balanced for a theatrical audience.
Nothing happened. Well, actually, less-than-nothing happened: a lot of crap was released in Canadian theatres instead. Crap like the widely-released and quickly forgotten Gunless, which begged the question: if nobody is interested in seeing Westerns in theatres, what could possibly have been the selling point of a comedy-romance-Western with (as you might have guessed) no gunfighting? The answer is that it doesn’t matter: this is Canada, and film distributors prefer to release crap like Gunless and GravyTrain than anything which could hold an audience’s sustained interest. Evidently, the point of film distribution in Canada is to go through the motions.
Well, it’s too late for Canada. While SUCK secured a limited theatrical distribution in the U.S., it’s out on DVD here (the US DVD release is September 28th). This means it will only be screened here through niche film festivals. While that’s not a bad thing, it pisses me off that a funny, well-produced film (rare creature that is) should be all but abandoned after a successful festival run. This situation is certainly not helped by SUCK‘s (pardon the pun) anemic website: it makes no mention of any upcoming film screenings, DVD release dates, or even contact information. Who the hell is the site for? This is what happens when you don’t have a distributor to help with publicity. Not even the local indie journals can help: NOW Magazine completely omits any mention of it, as a film or DVD release. How’s that for hometown support? Thankfully, The Toronto Star’s Peter Howell is the only mainstream film critic to put the DVD release of SUCKon public record (in glowing terms no less…and slagging Gunless ).
I want people to see this film. Not because I worked on it, not because I want to punish producers who keep banking on dead-brained populist Paul Gross vehicles, but because this is a worthy film. It’s not Sophie’s Choice, it’s not going to change your life. But you’ll laugh. I just wish it had been allowed the opportunity of a theatrical run, which it so clearly deserved. It works better in a theatre than on DVD: with a pumped-up audience rather than in the controlled confines of your livingroom. That said, I will be pleased if, by my writing about it, one more person will see this movie than if I hadn’t.
When I rented a car and went to Brantford/Onondaga to do some reminiscing and photo-taking, I knew that Hamilton was also, ultimately, on my to-do list.
The aim of these trips is not preconceived. This makes it doubly hard to explain to others (friends, strangers, and loved ones) what exactly the hell I’m planning to do. “Taking pictures and stuff.” I’ll say – that’s certainly no lie, but of course there’s more to it. The thing about Zen is this: the second you begin to describe it, it disappears. And so – Art & Zen being the same – there’s always a scaffolding I build around my explanation for these trips. It’s the same scaffolding I use when I go out writing, or to take photos locally: a vague (yet not untrue) reason which allows me to unspoil the inspiration (which itself needs to be vague) while preventing others from thinking I’ve lost my mind. I’m not uncomplicated.
Hamilton, being a place of the past for me, exists in patches of haze – this isn’t to say I did a lot of drinking or drugs when it was a destination, and yet it seems that way: murky. Of course, a good chunk of that time is best forgotten now. The downtown seems more hollowed-out than it did before, with the exception of Gore Park which to this day reminds me what a good idea it is to have spacious downtown promenades.
It was a precursory destination. First, with an ill-fated relationship which spawned a series of bad decisions which I owe to naivety. I am not alone in stating that I owe many mistakes in my 20s to naivety. It all culminated in a brief tenancy at an old apartment building north of St. Joseph’s hospital. In so many ways, it was one of the more excruciating periods in my life – I think the haze I mentioned previously is partially there to protect me from looking too closely at things like this.
The second identity Hamilton had for me happened a few years later when, staying with relatives in Burlington while I studied at college, it became a “big city” to escape to. Toronto was bigger, of course, but it was too far to drive to just to have kicks. Hamilton was perfect and in the early 90s had a great nighttime scene in and around Hess Village. My hang-out was the Bauhaus Café, which sadly (though not surprisingly) no longer exists.
Walking around there now, it seems as if parts of it just gave up. People don’t even want to advertise on billboards. To be fair, I shouldn’t make any judgments without going there again, but on a Friday night – I’m afraid however that these judgments will only skew worse if I do.
Perhaps I have a better understanding of the haze now: it’s there to protect my feelings, it’s there to protect the city from the cold light of an unsympathetic audience.
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Imagine walking into an empty room.
There is a baseball bat on the ground. Sitting above it is a lead crystal vase atop a waist-height pedestal. Written in large letters on the vase are the words: HIT ME.
(This is what enters my mind when I encounter self-righteousness.)
A continuous problem I have throughout the social media spectrum, the main culprits being Facebook and Twitter, is that – once you get to the point where you have your sister’s husband as your “friend”, once the guy you barely talked to in high-school is “following” you – you are no longer able to be, well, honest anymore. You cannot post as a status update “Gary is an asshole” without, ultimately, answering to Gary (or his pot-smoking live-in partner, or your co-workers who are largely idiots). You can’t even be vague: “Some guy I know is being an asshole.”. People will know who you’re talking about – context leaves clues people can find. Gary will get mad and want answers.
Oh, you can be honest, alright. You can lay it on the table all you want, but with the inevitable consequence of offending people and getting in trouble for it. In other words, there’s nowhere to hide online. This is why I wish there were Bizarro social media sites like, say, Facebook After Dark and Undercover Twitter. Places where you can say the things you really want to say about the people you’re “friends” with, the people you “follow”, without fear of recrimination. I think we would all be happier as a result.
You reading this, Gary?
(P.S. There is no “Gary”, in case anyone is wondering. I don’t really have co-workers either) – ed
