WRITE 298: The Memoir
The Mise-en-Scene of Dreams:
A Memoir on Passion and Film
“In 1966 Andy Dufrense escaped from Shawshank Prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and a rock hammer damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man 600 years to tunnel through the wall with it, Ol’ Andy did it in less than twenty. … Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine, or maybe I just don’t want to. 500 yards. That’s the length of 5 football fields, just shy of half a mile.” (The Shawshank Redemption, Frank Darabont, 1994)
I watched intently, my eyes powerfully fixed to screen, sitting on the edge of my seat. Never before had I been so engrossed by story. My heart was beating with anticipation as I watched Tim Robbins, as Andy Dufrense, pick clumsily at a cell wall. I just knew he would make it out someday. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and playing on my living room TV was the film The Shawshank Redemption. I was 11 years old when I first saw it, I haven’t looked at movies the same way since. It was the first movie of that kind – that is to say, something from genre of drama – that I’d watched in its entirety and enjoyed. I would be lying if I said I understood it all back then. Maybe I was too young to understand it all, but I understood enough. It was a gripping tale of perseverance and justice told beautifully with pictures and sound.
Following Shawshank, every Saturday, without fail I would go down to the local movie store and rent at least one movie. This weekend ritual would happen for quite sometime. Following my Saturday evening rentals, on Sunday there would always be at least one movie on some channel that I could watch. It was like a perpetual two for one special that I cashed in on every weekend. On each one of those Sunday afternoons the sun shone so brightly. It streamed in though the windows and left its fingerprints on the floor. The spots that had been drenched in sun became warm. And just like a lazy cat or a tired dog I would find those spots and occupy them, one by one, soaking up the warmth while I contently watched movies.
What was important about The Shawshank Redemption wasn’t the story it told – though, undoubtedly, there is a lesson to be learned in there – rather it was the love of film that it left me with. Though my full appreciation for film wouldn’t be realized until much later on in my life the feeling was there. In other words, I felt the heat of my mind’s fire yet did not understand from where the heat came. It was heat with no light.
So, for years I saw the world in Panavision and dreamt in Technicolor. I would daydream about being my favorite characters. There were many hours spent at my desk in math class where I imagined myself to be the Dread Pirate Roberts. Countless others spent in the Jungle with Bagera or amongst the stars with Luke Skywalker. There were times when I even dreamed about being an actor making a great movie. It was a fantasy within a fantasy. Ha! To be that young and that self-reflexive about filmmaking! Let me tell you, the irony is not lost on me – but I digress. This daydreaming would continue for years. About the time that I began immersing myself in film my best friend, sometimes only friend, moved away to China. Being an only child made the move quite difficult on me. So, like I had done before I turned to films to fill the void. And though my friend would return in a few years as I entered high school academic pressures began to weigh on my shoulders. My parents pushed me hard into the International Baccalaureate program in, too hard in fact. I felt pressed, most if not all of the time, to live a life that wasn’t my own. By all this I do not mean to say my parents were ogres - though I may have called them such at the time – I still care and respect them quite dearly. However, my social life did suffer because of their unrelenting drive to succeed. So, the many nights spent at home with schoolwork were punctuated only by movies or my fantasies thereof. It was easy to turn to Hollywood when times got tough. Hollywood painted the world with beautiful innocence. No matter how dire or complicated a situation became there was always some action, some fantastic series of events that would bring you to the end. All that was right would prevail. That was a comforting idea to me then, and it still is now.
Jump ahead a few years. I took my first Film and Media Studies class – now known just as Film Studies – in January of this year. Really a long time coming if you ask me. Sitting in the tiny lecture for the first time, in the third row from the front, was like sitting in a theatre eagerly waiting for movie to start. I half expected the words “feature presentation” to appear on the whiteboard. Every time I picked up the textbook I flipped through the pages furiously, and scoured over every last detail being sure to mark to memory every last word and screenshot. I remember reading the textbook cover-to-cover marking the names of all the directors and movies I’d never seen before but would surely have to watch. My textbook still its on my shelf, dog eared with barely legible scribbles in the margins. A well read book, indeed. And that was just the class.
The film screenings for class were every Wednesday evening at 6:30pm. They were held in the Humanities Center Lecture Hall #1. It looked like an old Greek amphitheatre with seating in a semi-circle reaching almost 3 stories high. There was no popcorn, no reclining high-backed seats, and no surround sound so it wasn’t your ideal moviegoer’s experience. However, what it lacked in amenities it more than made up in atmosphere. The walls were warm with their wood paneling and combined with the strangely orange seats it was all almost inviting. Of course, there was also the audience. Over 100 FMS (Film and Media Studies) students, myself included, turned up every Wednesday to watch timeless classics. Together there was a synergetic enjoyment in watching those movies knowing, of course, that everyone was there for the same reason. My excitement bled from my very being. You could have waved your hands in the air around me and felt my excitement make the air thicker. The first time I ever saw Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) was at my FMS lab. I knew then and there that it was the start of a beautiful friendship.
Things became much clearer as the class went on. Films became more than films,; they had become compositions. Lighting, continuity, angles, shots, takes, acting, directing, these things were what films were made of. These things I understood. In fact, I could do it myself, and I could be damn good at it, too. When that last bit occurred to me I’m not too sure. It could have been in class one day, it could have been at home while I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean (Gore Verbinski, 2003). There was a new invested interest in going to class. It was more than just an enjoyable way to get good grades. With the lessons were the secrets and the tools I needed to make my own movie. It was light to accompany the heat; this was my mind’s fire.
The semester, unfortunately, passed quickly and with its quick passing brought with it term papers and finals. I had a strong semester averaging a grade of A and with continued effort my final grade would be the same. However, I had grown arrogant in my newfound scholastic success. For my term paper I decided that it was in the best interests to be experimental with the topic, to go my own route, if you will. My whimsical interpretations earned me a C+. For some this would have been somewhat of a wake up call, a warning sign to straighten up and fly right. For me, it was an excuse to skip the remaining classes. After all, what did my professor know anyway? I was an A student, well, maybe not after that paper but you could bet the farm that I was going to be after the final. There was no need for me to show up, I picked up what was being put down, I was a natural. The final was quick on the heels of the term paper, I walked into it totally unprepared. Arrogance is a fickle mistress, and left unchecked it leads to hubris. Hubris, for those who don’t know, is the fatal cousin of arrogance. I didn’t do well on the final, needless to say. But I was lucky though, my early diligence in the class had allowed me to claw away with a final mark of B.
That was the end of my third year, my University career was drawing to a close and I had to begin to choose where I was going to go with my education. For a while there I thought that maybe, just maybe, film was my true calling. However, getting only a B in FMS left me with seeds of doubt. In mere moments doubt can grow giant and loom over that which you hold to be true and dear. Do I really have what it takes to be a filmmaker? Do I care enough about making movies to make this my life’s goal? Everyone knows that being an artist, regardless of medium, isn’t the most lucrative occupation. What’s more I don’t really think that anyone really wants to be a waiter at their local Earl’s for the majority of their adult life. So, all together, on top of the dark and ominous “B” in my FMS class I have to be willing to sacrifice a comfortable future to follow this ambition. Somehow, deciding to go to film school had become a very hard pill to swallow. The alternatives? I could handle pulling up my bootstraps and getting into the Faculty of Law, that would be great. Or, I’ve always thought it would be cool to be one of those inspirational high school teachers, too. Maybe, just maybe, I might get together with some friends and open up a nice restaurant and bar. There are a myriad of much more practical things that I could see myself doing. All of which, I would enjoy very much.
What was I to do? This summer, I made up my mind. I am going to film school. Wow. How do you tell yourself something like that? How do you explain to your own common sense and reason that you may, in fact, be condemning yourself to financial destitution and possible failure? There isn’t much to say, really. I have dream, I want to do it, I am going to do it. That’s the gist of it. Don’t get me wrong, I still wonder what the future holds for me. Finding the money to go to film school still remains a mystery. Winning the lottery is still Dream Plan A, of course. Have I lost any sleep over the decision I’ve made, yet? The answer to that question, actually, is no.
In Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) there is a line that resonates with me. When the character Mr. Parvulesco, a famous novelist, is asked, “What is your life’s greatest ambition?” After a momentary pause he looks directly into the camera and replies, “To become immortal, and then die.” Through time and space that image, that actor, those words reached out and branded me. To understand the art of film making, to become a part of it, that is what I strive for. My life’s passion will be fully realized when after I am gone people remember what I’ve done as part of cinematic institution. In other words, dear reader, my passion in life is to become immortal and then die. As I finish this memoir and look ahead I feel it appropriate to end as I began. The character Red, at the end of The Shawshank Redemption, spoke the following words:
“I’m so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the kind of excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. … I hope the pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.”
He said those words as he set of into the unknown looking for his friend and new life. His was a journey not unlike my own, the only difference is that my ocean is made of actors, and cameras, and lighting. But hey, if I ever make it out to the Pacific I’ll be sure to let you know what color it is. I might even just put it in a movie.
A Memoir on Passion and Film
“In 1966 Andy Dufrense escaped from Shawshank Prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and a rock hammer damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man 600 years to tunnel through the wall with it, Ol’ Andy did it in less than twenty. … Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine, or maybe I just don’t want to. 500 yards. That’s the length of 5 football fields, just shy of half a mile.” (The Shawshank Redemption, Frank Darabont, 1994)
I watched intently, my eyes powerfully fixed to screen, sitting on the edge of my seat. Never before had I been so engrossed by story. My heart was beating with anticipation as I watched Tim Robbins, as Andy Dufrense, pick clumsily at a cell wall. I just knew he would make it out someday. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and playing on my living room TV was the film The Shawshank Redemption. I was 11 years old when I first saw it, I haven’t looked at movies the same way since. It was the first movie of that kind – that is to say, something from genre of drama – that I’d watched in its entirety and enjoyed. I would be lying if I said I understood it all back then. Maybe I was too young to understand it all, but I understood enough. It was a gripping tale of perseverance and justice told beautifully with pictures and sound.
Following Shawshank, every Saturday, without fail I would go down to the local movie store and rent at least one movie. This weekend ritual would happen for quite sometime. Following my Saturday evening rentals, on Sunday there would always be at least one movie on some channel that I could watch. It was like a perpetual two for one special that I cashed in on every weekend. On each one of those Sunday afternoons the sun shone so brightly. It streamed in though the windows and left its fingerprints on the floor. The spots that had been drenched in sun became warm. And just like a lazy cat or a tired dog I would find those spots and occupy them, one by one, soaking up the warmth while I contently watched movies.
What was important about The Shawshank Redemption wasn’t the story it told – though, undoubtedly, there is a lesson to be learned in there – rather it was the love of film that it left me with. Though my full appreciation for film wouldn’t be realized until much later on in my life the feeling was there. In other words, I felt the heat of my mind’s fire yet did not understand from where the heat came. It was heat with no light.
So, for years I saw the world in Panavision and dreamt in Technicolor. I would daydream about being my favorite characters. There were many hours spent at my desk in math class where I imagined myself to be the Dread Pirate Roberts. Countless others spent in the Jungle with Bagera or amongst the stars with Luke Skywalker. There were times when I even dreamed about being an actor making a great movie. It was a fantasy within a fantasy. Ha! To be that young and that self-reflexive about filmmaking! Let me tell you, the irony is not lost on me – but I digress. This daydreaming would continue for years. About the time that I began immersing myself in film my best friend, sometimes only friend, moved away to China. Being an only child made the move quite difficult on me. So, like I had done before I turned to films to fill the void. And though my friend would return in a few years as I entered high school academic pressures began to weigh on my shoulders. My parents pushed me hard into the International Baccalaureate program in, too hard in fact. I felt pressed, most if not all of the time, to live a life that wasn’t my own. By all this I do not mean to say my parents were ogres - though I may have called them such at the time – I still care and respect them quite dearly. However, my social life did suffer because of their unrelenting drive to succeed. So, the many nights spent at home with schoolwork were punctuated only by movies or my fantasies thereof. It was easy to turn to Hollywood when times got tough. Hollywood painted the world with beautiful innocence. No matter how dire or complicated a situation became there was always some action, some fantastic series of events that would bring you to the end. All that was right would prevail. That was a comforting idea to me then, and it still is now.
Jump ahead a few years. I took my first Film and Media Studies class – now known just as Film Studies – in January of this year. Really a long time coming if you ask me. Sitting in the tiny lecture for the first time, in the third row from the front, was like sitting in a theatre eagerly waiting for movie to start. I half expected the words “feature presentation” to appear on the whiteboard. Every time I picked up the textbook I flipped through the pages furiously, and scoured over every last detail being sure to mark to memory every last word and screenshot. I remember reading the textbook cover-to-cover marking the names of all the directors and movies I’d never seen before but would surely have to watch. My textbook still its on my shelf, dog eared with barely legible scribbles in the margins. A well read book, indeed. And that was just the class.
The film screenings for class were every Wednesday evening at 6:30pm. They were held in the Humanities Center Lecture Hall #1. It looked like an old Greek amphitheatre with seating in a semi-circle reaching almost 3 stories high. There was no popcorn, no reclining high-backed seats, and no surround sound so it wasn’t your ideal moviegoer’s experience. However, what it lacked in amenities it more than made up in atmosphere. The walls were warm with their wood paneling and combined with the strangely orange seats it was all almost inviting. Of course, there was also the audience. Over 100 FMS (Film and Media Studies) students, myself included, turned up every Wednesday to watch timeless classics. Together there was a synergetic enjoyment in watching those movies knowing, of course, that everyone was there for the same reason. My excitement bled from my very being. You could have waved your hands in the air around me and felt my excitement make the air thicker. The first time I ever saw Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) was at my FMS lab. I knew then and there that it was the start of a beautiful friendship.
Things became much clearer as the class went on. Films became more than films,; they had become compositions. Lighting, continuity, angles, shots, takes, acting, directing, these things were what films were made of. These things I understood. In fact, I could do it myself, and I could be damn good at it, too. When that last bit occurred to me I’m not too sure. It could have been in class one day, it could have been at home while I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean (Gore Verbinski, 2003). There was a new invested interest in going to class. It was more than just an enjoyable way to get good grades. With the lessons were the secrets and the tools I needed to make my own movie. It was light to accompany the heat; this was my mind’s fire.
The semester, unfortunately, passed quickly and with its quick passing brought with it term papers and finals. I had a strong semester averaging a grade of A and with continued effort my final grade would be the same. However, I had grown arrogant in my newfound scholastic success. For my term paper I decided that it was in the best interests to be experimental with the topic, to go my own route, if you will. My whimsical interpretations earned me a C+. For some this would have been somewhat of a wake up call, a warning sign to straighten up and fly right. For me, it was an excuse to skip the remaining classes. After all, what did my professor know anyway? I was an A student, well, maybe not after that paper but you could bet the farm that I was going to be after the final. There was no need for me to show up, I picked up what was being put down, I was a natural. The final was quick on the heels of the term paper, I walked into it totally unprepared. Arrogance is a fickle mistress, and left unchecked it leads to hubris. Hubris, for those who don’t know, is the fatal cousin of arrogance. I didn’t do well on the final, needless to say. But I was lucky though, my early diligence in the class had allowed me to claw away with a final mark of B.
That was the end of my third year, my University career was drawing to a close and I had to begin to choose where I was going to go with my education. For a while there I thought that maybe, just maybe, film was my true calling. However, getting only a B in FMS left me with seeds of doubt. In mere moments doubt can grow giant and loom over that which you hold to be true and dear. Do I really have what it takes to be a filmmaker? Do I care enough about making movies to make this my life’s goal? Everyone knows that being an artist, regardless of medium, isn’t the most lucrative occupation. What’s more I don’t really think that anyone really wants to be a waiter at their local Earl’s for the majority of their adult life. So, all together, on top of the dark and ominous “B” in my FMS class I have to be willing to sacrifice a comfortable future to follow this ambition. Somehow, deciding to go to film school had become a very hard pill to swallow. The alternatives? I could handle pulling up my bootstraps and getting into the Faculty of Law, that would be great. Or, I’ve always thought it would be cool to be one of those inspirational high school teachers, too. Maybe, just maybe, I might get together with some friends and open up a nice restaurant and bar. There are a myriad of much more practical things that I could see myself doing. All of which, I would enjoy very much.
What was I to do? This summer, I made up my mind. I am going to film school. Wow. How do you tell yourself something like that? How do you explain to your own common sense and reason that you may, in fact, be condemning yourself to financial destitution and possible failure? There isn’t much to say, really. I have dream, I want to do it, I am going to do it. That’s the gist of it. Don’t get me wrong, I still wonder what the future holds for me. Finding the money to go to film school still remains a mystery. Winning the lottery is still Dream Plan A, of course. Have I lost any sleep over the decision I’ve made, yet? The answer to that question, actually, is no.
In Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) there is a line that resonates with me. When the character Mr. Parvulesco, a famous novelist, is asked, “What is your life’s greatest ambition?” After a momentary pause he looks directly into the camera and replies, “To become immortal, and then die.” Through time and space that image, that actor, those words reached out and branded me. To understand the art of film making, to become a part of it, that is what I strive for. My life’s passion will be fully realized when after I am gone people remember what I’ve done as part of cinematic institution. In other words, dear reader, my passion in life is to become immortal and then die. As I finish this memoir and look ahead I feel it appropriate to end as I began. The character Red, at the end of The Shawshank Redemption, spoke the following words:
“I’m so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the kind of excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. … I hope the pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.”
He said those words as he set of into the unknown looking for his friend and new life. His was a journey not unlike my own, the only difference is that my ocean is made of actors, and cameras, and lighting. But hey, if I ever make it out to the Pacific I’ll be sure to let you know what color it is. I might even just put it in a movie.
posted by claver at 11:34 a.m.
2 comments
