On Souvenir; On encountering one’s past and being just fine, thanks

Souvenir updates from the road: Spoke with some folks in Austin, and submitted Souvenir (November 2001) to the festival. As you can discover by surfing through the Souvenir-related links at left, the film is a sytnhesis of scripted narrative and documentary language; Austin is very adamant about it’s “NO DOCUMENTARIES” requirement, which I can respect, but which I think has to be considered in a contemporary context. After talking to a couple of people in the short film selection office, they sounded persuaded; their requirements would not exclude the film. So, off it went.
I also signed up as a betatester for Withoutabox’s electronic press kit application. So far, it’s not bad, but I can’t yet feel/see the benefits. If I were a festival programmer with piles of Priority Mail packs all around me, I could see some advantage, though. We’ll see.
In the mean time, I’ve had some good breakthroughs in group (Oh, wait, that was Scott Evil.), in writing the script for Souvenir, the feature-length ensemble into which Souvenir (November 2001) will be interwoven. We’re going away soon for a solid week offline, and I expect to finish a draft then. Ideally, I’ll post it then.
One memory-related anecdote: After five years away, I visited a storage space I keep in Philadelphia. It was like running into a college-era friend, in a way; he’s changed, but you still recognize him, and (fortunately for you both) you’re not embarassed by him. Contents of this inadvertent time capsule include:

  • MBA detritus (Carefully boxed and preserved Wharton desk tchochkes, hard-earned, which seemed so precious pale in comparison to other manifestations of the experience.)
  • Early collected art (Good guess on that Brice Marden. Whod’a thought? Besides Dia, I mean.)
  • junk (five deodorants and some lotions, a bathroom cabinet hastily emptied and not restored a season later, as expected. Funny how things turn out.)
  • Surprisingly transparent evidence of who I was (brainy-yet-idealistic attempts to understand and make the future: Wittgenstein, Teilhard de Chardin; happy/goofy posse pictures from benefits, beaches and living rooms)
    It was an unexpected chance to mark-to-market (something I would’ve said with self-conscious pride then. Of course, I also wanted to name some dogs LIFO and FIFO, but with the French pronunciation, “Leefo.”), to see how who I am now measures up to who I was then (and who I expected/hoped to be). It was reassuring to know that, despite some volatility and the current trends in the market, I have no need to take huge writeoffs or restate earnings.

    • INT – AMPHITHEATER – WACO, TX

    A pair of COMMANDERS-IN-CHIEF are having problems with their PowerPoint presentations, berating an INTERN. They proceed and address the troops.

    COMMANDER
    Where is MRS Company?

    CARLA and JANE look around sheepishly and raise their hands.
    COMMANDER
    Right. You will lead the all-important Operation Human Shield. Take the Burrito Guy with you.
    Where is MBA Company?

    Several rows of MEN in polo shirts (tastefully embroidered with the logos of their companies or Burning Tree C.C.) and Tasmanian gabardine khakis raise their hands.

    COMMANDER
    Right, you are Operation Get Behind The Housewives.

    Listen to a reading of this scene (mp3 via moviesounds.com).

    A lot of weblog-related stuff.

    A lot of weblog-related stuff. I’ve been working on a website project for a Museum friend of mine, which feels good and potentially very interesting. With some new projects emerging (total=5, for those playing at home), the armchair IA in me thinks greg.org’s a bit unwieldy these days. Look for a redesign soon. Also, I’ve been exploring Movable Type (Can I write that on my Blogger Pro server?), which I set up on another server, gregallen.com.
    [There’s nothing there that isn’t here; far less, in fact. Though it was originally the main way for people to find me, greg.org has long since taken over the vanity Google searches. As a result, gregallen.com is now like some increasingly invisible sculpture in Central Park, which makes greg.org the web equivalent of the Balto statue: frequently visited, and sporting an explanatory plaque and–most importantly– a movie tie-in.]
    Serendipitous mis-click: From Evhead, I accidentally clicked on Heath Row’s weblog, and I’m glad I did. It’s called Media Diet, but Heath’s clearly eating for two. At least. One delicacy: Andy McCaskey, Sr.’s weblog, Topic. Mr. McCaskey’s 86 years old, and writes what he knows. His seems to be the case of a lived life, well worth examining. (Heath compares him to Paul Harvey or Garrison Keillor; I wouldn’t. Harvey’s authentic but annoyingly glib. Keillor’s phony and just annoying. McCaskey’s both authentic and thoughtful.)

    On Robert Evans and how you want to drive around with him in 70-minute spurts

    Even though a friend at Vanity Fair is so sick of hearing about him she puts her hands over her ears and starts screaming “la la la la la la” when I mention his name, I’ve been listening to Robert Evans read his book, The Kid Stays in the Picture. It’s a grating riot. And I will see the movie, which I think will be overkill, but I’ve seen clips where they have done some interesting-concept animation of still photos. That’s something I’ve been kicking around with for a few years. Never mind. You can listen to a brief excerpt of the audiobook here. Buy it if you wish. (But if you’re on Wes Anderson’s Christmas list, you already got it; it briefly replaced muffin baskets and surfwax as the Hollywood Christmas Gift of Choice in 2000.)

    How, to no one’s surprise, an old Mercedes proves to be cooler than an old Volvo

    Driving around DC this morning: When we bought our car, (a 1985 Mercedes 300CD coupe, like people’s moms used to drive to the club), it was a tossup between that one and the Volvo 240 wagon (also from the late 80’s). Dodged the bullet on that one. What do I mean? Listening to NPR while driving a Volvo and listening to NPR while driving a Volvo ironically look pretty much the same from here.

    On only seeing in retrospect the obvious influence of Agnes Varda on my short film

    Writing and music rights: Agnes Varda’s Gleaners and I is on Sundance again. [It’s been released on DVD now, too.] While I’ve mentioned the, video-to-film transfer pleasure aspect of seeing it on TV, it’s weird to see how similar some of shots in Souvenir November 2001 are to her movie. I’d been influenced even more than I knew.
    Attribute some similarity to shooting in roughly the same places: overcast and rainy French autoroutes, rural side roads, fallow fields, smalltown streets. Her success in “gleaning” people (on the street, in a field) became our solution when we lost all the actors we’d lined up; we started meeting and interviewing people wherever we could find them. And I no doubt took on one of her themes as well, if unconsciously: like The Gleaners, Souvenir is a road movie, a search, but one whose target isn’t clear at first. The New Yorker in Souvenir only begins to recognize what he’s actually looking for after he’s engrossed in the search. And as Varda makes poignantly clear, the search is what’s important. Unlike Varda, however, I do not write and perform my own rap voiceover. Of course, if it costs too much to clear our music clips, I may have to…

    On Scripted vs Ad-libbed or Improvised in re Full Frontal and the President of the United States

    This weekend, after seeing Full Frontal, we discussed the dialogue at length. My (grew-up-on-the-stage) wife spotted a lot of weak improv, or weakly directed improv–actors left to figure it out for themselves and, more often than not, not pulling it off. Besotted Soderbergher that I am (nothing like three DVD commentaries in the last two weeks to make you feel like you know the director.), I’d argued that surely Soderbergh knew what’s up; he’s shooting a script that’s written to sound like this. It’s all artificial, after all. Get it?
    Rather than address the fact that I was just wrong [Fine. I’ll address it. Nerve.com has an excerpt of the script which differs notably from the scene in the movie. The actors seem to have recreated and expanded on the type of conversation written in the script. A FoxNews interview with Blair Underwood settles on “workshop” as the best way to describe the film.], I’d rather deflect the whole issue toward something “serious.” Here’s Joel Klein in a New Yorker column about Hilary Clinton’s strong showing at that Democratic meeting in NYC last week:

    But political deftness and ease of delivery were not the most impressive things about the Senator’s turn: Clinton was the only speaker who didn’t make an advance text available to the press. Apparently, she winged it. A day later, in response to a call to the Senator’s office requesting a copy of the speech, a press aide said, “Sorry, but it’s still being transcribed.”

    Don’t contrast this with the seemingly adlibbed (and immediate Moment of Zen) George Bush comment I mentioned yesterday. Contrast it with the most distracting thing about listening to Bush read his speeches, the way he always pauses at what seem to be linebreaks on his index cards. It’s almost like listening to Christopher Reeves on a respirator or to a lighthouse keeper who’s conditioned to pause every five seconds, whether the foghorn’s on or not. I mentioned this several months ago to a friend with very close ties to the Bush speechwriters, but I haven’t been detained yet. All the same, I couldn’t find any articles online talking about this Cageian Bushism. Am I the only one who hears this bomb’s tic?

    On flashbacks and the As-yet Unannounced Animated Musical Feature

    Did a few walkthroughs this weekend on the story & structure of this project. It’s a crime story (whether it’s a “based on a true story” story or “any similarity to real persons is entirely coincidental” story depends on how we proceed with the rights. I’ll discuss this subject in some detail later, as I did with Lolita: The foreword Nabokov appended to his novel nominally sets Humbert Humbert up as an unreliable (and hence, seemingly unsympathetic) narrator. here is an article about various similarities between Nabokov’s and Alfred Hitchcock’s use of unreliable narrators and other devices attributed to the influence of 19th century literature.

  • The Princess Bride: a slightly post-modern version (it was the 80’s, after all) of the classic “once upon a time” storytelling frame, with Peter Falk. William Goldman actually wrote The Princess Bride as if he had remembered his own grandfather reading “just the good parts” of an otherwise unremarkable tale to him. Check out SMorgenstern.com, a fan site named after the fictitious “original” author.
  • Interview with the Vampire: Interview-driven flashbacks. Christian Slater’s journalist provides a skeptical-yet-vulnerable entree to Louis’ story. Works well when your characters don’t age. Ever.
  • Cannibal! The Musical: This is a courtroom musical drama comedy, where an enterprising young reporter sweet-talks Alferd Packer/Trey Parker to tell his tale. Voted “Movie Most Like A Mormon Roadshow” by me. [A brief article about roadshows. A representative roadshow script.]

    • On a well-placed friend’s unusual emails, including that Leonard Nimoy/Bilbo Baggins video

    John must have his comment settings at +5 or something, because his mass emails are rare-yet-always-awesome. Since he works for the media giant that made both LOTR II and Austin Powers, he was vague/suspicious of Leonard Nimoy’s Hobbit “music video”. I dug around online (well, I just Googled “‘leonard nimoy’ and hobbit”, really). The first result is “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” on this site. [note: site appears to be in Elvish.]

    On giddy, embarassing glee derived from movie log lines

    On the plane this week, I made myself laugh (and my wife nervous) by coming up with the pitch way too quickly and unabashedly for a half-rewritten script I’m…rewriting: It’s like Monster’s Ball meets Memento. It pales in comparison to “Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate” and “Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman,” though. (Too many of these log lines, and I’ll screw my movie/director index up.)

    Praise for Artforum.com and blurbs re Richard Serra

    Let me offer unqualified praise for the editorial acuity of Artforum’s links recommendations.
    Two quotes from Calvin Tomkins’ good Richard Serra article in the New Yorker:

    According to Richard Serra:
    Abstraction gives you something different (from figuration). It puts the spectator in a different relationship to his emotions. I think abstraction has been able to deliver an aspect of human experience that figuration has not–and it’s still in its infancy. Abstract art has been going on for a century, which is nothing.
    About Richard Serra’s usually high degree of professionalism and realistic approach to commission negotiations (from his longtime European dealer, Alexander von Berswordt): When he calls someone a motherf***er, that doesn’t help, of course. But he rarely does that without a reason.

    From Adrian Searle on Documenta

    From Adrian Searle’s article on Documenta 11 in the Guardian:

    Iranian photo-journalist and cameraman Seifollah Samadian pointed his video camera out of his Tehran window and filmed a woman in a black chador struggling with an umbrella in a vicious snowstorm while waiting for a bus. There is only the blizzard, and waiting, her silhouette and the cawing of crows, bare trees and a menacing, barbed-wire-topped wall beyond. Nothing happens, except more of the same, more waiting. It is one of the current Documenta’s unforgettable moments, of which there are many… [Not coincidentally, Samadian was the cinematographer on Abbas Kiarostami’s ABC Africa.]
    There are those who find the present Documenta patronising, or complain that it is like some horror National Geographic tour of a collapsing world. It is nothing of the sort. It is news from elsewhere, and news from home. We are all in it together, however impossible it is to deal with everything. Uneven, at times annoying, upsetting and even uplifting, Documenta 11 isn’t a perfect show. It isn’t a perfect world.

    AIRPORT GIFT SHOP – MORNING

    AIRPORT GIFT SHOP – MORNING
    A CASHIER at the counter. She does not appear wildly over-qualified for her job. A YOUNG ITALIAN TOURIST COUPLE approach quietly with some postcards. The ITALIAN WOMAN wore her backpack on her stomach, as wary Italians are wont to do.
    CASHIER (exclaiming loudly and with glee, but not to anyone in particular): That’s just like Mini-Me!! HAH!!
    ITALIAN WOMAN (fright in her eyes, she looks at her husband): ……
    CASHIER: You got Mini-Me in there?? HAH!!
    The Italians drop the postcards on the counter and rush out of the store without saying a word.