I was watching Chaplin the other day, Robert Downey Jr.'s most celebrated role, and I had forgotten "Big Smile, big smile" was from that as he prepares for The Great Dictator improvising snippets of faux German while watching Hitler footage. I had thought the line was from Lethal Weapon 2.
I'm thinking "smile and the world smiles with you," trying to get some perspective. Yet another summer is no longer ahead of me. The days aren't getting any longer. Not getting as much shooting done as intended. Getting specific actors together can be a feat. Ensuring that they have all read the script is another hurdle.
Meanwhile my job is undergoing a transition, so a predictable pattern is no longer going to be there. Moving on to re-adjust at another site which may or may not last. But at the end of life I won't be thinking about a job, only a career that will either happen in film or won't. I may have to take a big risk and be unemployed a while, just for the time to focus on updating my writing and storyboarding and actual shooting.
It's not like I've been distracted by being a husband or a parent. I live in a town where anything can happen, and yet I wait and gain weight. I once wrote poems, plays and short stories always with the expectation that they would circulate. What's missing now is a certain anger, an agression, willingness to wage war to get things done. I mentally spin my wheels and know I have to get some traction and move forward. I look at a script and think how many Harry Potter movies have come out since I wrote this or that?
The relaxed or sedated mindset I have - an unearned happiness or false peace - feels like a chemical thing. Something is off. Or is it from watching too many DVDs? What may save me is the edge and anger I reclaim thanks to some of the idiots I have to deal with.
No comments:
Post a Comment