And The...

I find it interesting the way we deal with things. I suppose when I say we, I really mean me. But for as long as I can remember, movies and music have had the ability to deeply affect me. I know that sounds really stupid and art house-y, but it’s true for me.
I watch films and do one of three things. I watch and see the horrible acting and how much I don’t believe Timmy Blowjobber playing Karl Kumswap, then I sit there and bitch about it. Or all I see is how the director made horrible use of the lighting/set/scoring/editing process/plot devices, then I sit there and bitch about it. In those moments, I feel the need to take a step back and remind myself that this is Martin Scorsese working with Robert DeNiro and I’m just some fat kid sitting on a couch at 3 in the morning with Cheeto dust ground into my yellowing white T and he MIGHT have a little better feel for the craft than I.
The third thing I do is to not have that shit bother me and instead focus on the story and get drawn into it. (Plus I’ve learned to tolerate one bad actor in a cast telling a solid story.) I take the story and digest it. Allow it to pass over me. How does it make me feel? What evoked the greatest emotion? The story, the character’s relationships or just the ability of Adam Acadamy to make me believe that he really was Oscar Statue. Things like the restaurant scene in the Godfather stick with me. I remember the immediate reaction I had to the guy laid up in the bed who sat up in Se7en and it freaking me the fuck out. Even moreso is Michael coming out of the bathroom with more than his dick in his hand, then dropping the gun to his side on the walk out. I look at shit differently in my life that I used to did. I walk into a restaurant and wonder if it screams, romantic dinner or mob hit. That’s also usually a good metric to determine how a date is going to end…
Music is the same for me. I hear a song and think about the words in it. Don’t get it twisted I still love my jazz and jam bands. But I need words, though not all of them. I hear something like ‘Superstar’ by the Carpenters and think not of a guy on one knee proposing in some sappy love story. Not me. I think of the climax of a story wherein a couple has their ups and downs. And JUST as they’ve put the ills and poisons of the world behind them, she’s coming home after a long day of Christmas shopping for the kids, that song plays on the radio and that content smile crosses her lips, twinkle in her eye. Yet when she gets to her home, the cops are there. She knows immediately. Perry Provider was killed in a car accident.
Maybe none of what I’m saying makes any sense. Maybe it does. It does to me. At least I think it does. I say that because I’ve been agonizing over this or that the last few days. And I just watched a film that I hadn’t seen in years. I didn’t know when I sat down if it would be cathartic or if it would remind me of those agonies. After all, the most minute tidbits have been setting me off. But this…it put me at ease. Validated certain notions I’ve been carrying with me. I suppose I could have saved the both of us some time in just saying, ‘Yo I seen some shit and it opened my eyes, yo…’
Alas, ‘tis not my way. But it is the reason I write these scripts. The reason I point that camera at any number of actors who’ll allow me to film them. The reason why I get up in front of a camera and play Dylan Edgar or whoever else these directors want me to be. I’ve been told that emotion should play no part in what it is that I do up there on stage or in front of the camera. I get it. At the same time, I can’t run from it. I’m emotional. Always have been. I try to mix the emotions with the craft. And when I find the right balance……’I’d like to thank the Academy...’