Sunday, February 8th, 2009
Day 30
Almost a month into The Great Joblessness Experiment of 2009.
Productive day was had yesterday with my writing partner O on the TV pilot we’re working on. For several hours, during a caffeine-fueled meeting at Swinger’s, we broke down the background and social dynamics of our world, figured out who these various characters we’d been spitballing were, and settled on the main storylines for the pilot as well as some twist and turns we could take them through during a first season. These are some FUCKED UP people that inhabit this one, but I can’t help loving them all just the same. This week we’ll be beat-sheeting (not to be confused with the reddish toilet bowl one confronts after beet salad), then on to pages by next week.
I may feel differently after we’ve gotten into the thick of it, but TV right now just seems so much more natural to write than features. Maybe it’s the rigid structure, or the momentum and economy of it that appeal to me, but I’m excited to play in this particular sandbox.
This project also gets my inner John Hughes engaged, and that has been quiet for far too long.
My computer going into the shop earlier this week initially seemed to be a wrench in the works (HEY GOD!), but ultimately the whole incident was a good headkick. I’d been lagging behind the script-a-month schedule I’d set for myself without realizing it (writing began two weeks after leaving The Gig) and though I’ve made progress, I know myself well enough to realize I will have to demonstrate Kryptonian effort to turn out a draft by Valentine’s day.
I started to toe near a familiar spot, actually; almost done with the outline after several days of momentum, I’d jump into edit mode before finishing, and then would second-guess the whole thing. The same box step that derailed several ideas over the last couple years. The great thing about being able to work consistently every day, however, is that it is a lot easier to notice these things as they happen, and putting in a placeholder is much easier because you know you’ll be back into the material the next day.
As a side note, my girlfriend B and I caught The Reader yesterday afternoon. Perhaps I’m missing something, but I don’t see the reason for all the love. A fine film, no doubt, but why the celebration for Kate WInslet’s performance in this picture vs. Revolutionary Road? I found RR to be a much more compelling film — one that had something specific to say, with well-drawn characters — where I found myself struggling to piece together just why people were doing certain things in The Reader.
On top of that, there is a long discussion to be had about how recent films (such as The Reader and The Pianist) are featuring sympathetic portrayals of Germans that participated in Nazi atrocities. Personally, I find this approach infinitely more compelling than the cartoon mustache-twirling seen in films before then (Schindler’s List, et al). I’ve always found that taking the most horrible things people can do, and caricaturing the acts as Pure Evil vs. seeking a greater understanding of what caused these acts to transpire in the first place (see Bush, George W., and Terror, War On) only inhibits our ability to prevent such acts from occurring again. It may simply be an instance of distance from tragedy (cue Alan Alda in Crimes & Misdemeanors that’s caused the shift in film on this subject, but I’d be curious to hear if anybody thinks there are any broader cultural movements in play in parallel with this.
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Now, I know you think that churches are worthless institutions, but mine had a charity thing on Valentine’s with live auctions, and Matt and I successfully bid on a week in a donated timeshare in Hawaii for $600. I am in the best mood possible.
So…I think your parents reallly need to see you at the end of April. ;)
Oh, and I really want to weigh in on your discussion of “The Reader” and sympathy for the Germans, but I haven’t seen “The Reader” yet. I kind of want to, so that I can say I’ve seen the best picture noms, but everything I’ve heard about it makes it sound mediocre. I read “The Reader” in German back in college, and for some reason, in my German classes, we commonly read books about older women seducing younger boys. So I didn’t think it was terribly impressive.
A friend of mine pointed out that she would have condemned the Germans as a people far more before the Bush administration. We have lived through an era where there was common knowledge that our government was doing terrible things, and a real sense of powerlessness, except where the election of ‘08 was concerned. I like to think of myself as a good person, but I wasn’t putting myself out there to be arrested in war protests that never really happened anyway.
On the other hand, not even Bush systematically put millions of people in concentration camps and gas chambers, so the Holocaust is a little unique with regard to collective guilt.
I like to think that even in the most tyrannical regimes, the common man, woman, and child has very little to do with the workings of the government, which is why it’s such a tragedy that the common man, woman and child suffers most in any war.
I agree with you, though, that in portraying evil, it’s important to emphasize that evil is something that anyone of any race or any religion is capable of doing. Evil is a part of us all, not some select group of Europeans with their sausage and beer.
Slate had a really good article about The Reader. Ron Rosenbaum kind of loses his shit over it. I can see where the idea of illiteracy being presented as “an excuse” for being a death camp guard would be offense. The question is, is it really presented as an excuse?