Film Directing as Political Football

If movie directing is becoming a political football, it must be what we call soccer. The goal here will be to diffuse outright falsehoods being promoted. 1. The CBC has already committed to hiring women for at least fifty percent of its positions for directing TV shows. 2. If a script is submitted for funding to the Canadian Film Center or any other entity in Canada, there is an opportunity to indicate gender and visible minority. http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/entertainment/lack-of-canadian-female-directors-a-political-issue-researcher-says-1.3071157 3. In TV especially, the writers/producers have more say about the content of an episode than the guest director of an episode. So it is false to assume that power resides in the director to turn a scripted lesbian triumph over the patriarchy into a hard-edged macho cop show that condones racism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDHqDEa1ed4 4. There is a "get the job done" work ethic in Assistant Directors, and a "never miss tiara Tuesdays" crew-service perspective that is of great human value on a set but does not have any relationship toward that person directing the audience through the frame once elevated to the job of "Director." Some comedy directors I enjoy keep it simple, keeping the cast in focus while they improvise, but there isn't much room for directing as an art form, by which I don't mean "fancy shots" (a term I hate) but the most appropriate shot for each beat or transition. https://youtu.be/3FOzD4Sfgag?list=PL2w4TvBbdQ3sMABf317ExCob_v6rW2-4s 5. Even though it may be true that having a "beer with the right person" or being "the kind of person people want to have a beer with after a long shoot," may result in getting hired as a Director on a project, it is questionable whether or not that is good news for the craft. Who has time for a beer after each shoot day, and even if that means the wrap party, it is movie lore that Steven Spielberg skips the last shot and wrap party on everything since Jaws - initially out of fear the crew would prank him or get revenge for a long shoot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q4X2vDRfRk 6. The argument that a writer or director must have empathy certainly is valid, but it is more important that the material is presented in a way that engages empathy and it is nearly impossible to tell just how much "empathy" any ambitious person in the film or TV business actually has. If that refers to male empathy for the plight of women who are not employed enough as directors, that is a First World Problem anyone can identify with who does not have that job. Many women hate Woody Allen because of his personal life and the writings of Mia Farrow, but some of the best acting roles for women have his name on them. Some of us might weep in life only when watching a movie or play or reading a book but in life respect ourselves and others enough to put up layers. As the line goes at the end of The Madness of King George, "I have remembered how to seem." So an actor or director feeling something is not the same as an audience feeling it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqFd_niDWA4 7. It has been said that, "Once the script is solid and the casting is appropriate, Ninety percent of the director's job is done." As vital as those aspects are, for the sake of evaluating a movie director, I would focus only on that remaining ten percent which makes as much difference as the microscopic difference of an extra chromosome at conception makes to the grown adult that results. Coppola talks about "performance" meaning the way a director presents on the set as only half of the actual directing and the other is preparation or vision. Being a social butterfly isn't part of it. Coppola has also said that, "A dictatorial reputation comes from the fact that an experienced crew after a while can do certain things by rote" and introducing something new can meet resistance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1D2_bovy20 8. There is little difference between having no script and having no storyboards. Unless the point of excess dialogue is to eat up time and be able to claim a huge number of pages have been covered on a given shooting day. For most of us who are slowly developing projects, there is time to do what we only need time for: sketch the shots to see the movie, how to visually introduce characters, what we need to see and what is more powerful without being focused on. The argument that storyboards "imply a cut" and may cramp the style of the editor may be something to discuss when choosing an editor. Or assistant editor who can be elevated to full credit after the fact and circumvent any politics. For low budget, storyboards respect the time crunch. A look book may additionally be provided to the art department but it is secondary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egwLenvNG0E 9. Anecdote: In a system where the statistics for women in film where far worse than they are now, in the Nineteen Nineties, Ruba Nadda was publishing poetry and making shorts with her sisters using a Bollex and 16mm film and spending her wages from Ontario Hydro to send prints to festivals overseas. She made a feature on black and white 16mm, another in colour, took a producer's course at the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and cast Arsinee Khanjian in her next feature which became Sabah. Atom Egoyan became her mentor. Christine Vachon became executive producer of her next few films. When people talk about influencing cinema to be more diverse, all they have to do is look at Christine Vachon's producing credits or read her books like Shooting to Kill. That's a producer with a voice and ideology that is rare. It comes from an individual and her own networking, not imposed from the top down with false expectations. https://www.facebook.com/The-Adventures-of-Porno-the-Clown-1561237830831389/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel 10. Do some Canadian productions put ideology before aesthetic? When Vincenzo Natalie submitted Cube to the Canadian Film Center Feature Film Project, it would become its biggest success but there was resistance to it because of the attitude, "This isn't the kind of thing we do." In other words, a major statement of visual invention almost didn't make the cut because it wouldn't blur together with small character pieces that pretty much all blend together. I had the pleasure of working on a CFC feature called Clutch toward the end of their shoot in 1998, and made a point to see the film when it was released. There were quirky elements, and it is the last CFC film to date I can remember finding and watching. I have tremendous respect for Norman Jewison's directing. I have And Justice For All, Moonstruck, and Fiddler on the Roof. I respect In the Heat of the Night, and got to see Jewison speak before a screening of Hurricane at the former Bloor Theater in Toronto. But even with my own politics leaning to the left (not leaning so far I topple), buzz words like story and character can ring hollow if over-shadowed by mission statements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfZYVLRoPTo

Badness

http://oitnb.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/111.jpg Finished watching Season 2 of Orange is the New Black. Every now and then what is in the zeitgeist filters into their dialogue. One example that struck me was a woman talking about her marriage being too tame or nice guys negating the “fear” of romantic or sexual engagement. She says that fear is an essential ingredient in her passion, whether it is fear of discovery or danger projected onto the male or partner. This is an idea that has been pushed aside by the blogger culture and those who might compulsively post links on Facebook. One recent post I’ve read asked men to ensure that they project a non-threatening presence when approaching or sharing an elevator with a woman, to engage her to diffuse tension, all of which sounded contradictory to me and overly self-conscious. Much is being said about something called “rape-culture.” This appears to be in bizarre tandem with compulsive use of the term “slut-shaming.” Shame in general is considered uncool, just as perhaps shyness may be considered repression. One – perhaps unrelated – line I appreciated on Orange was, “That stuff about don’t snitch was probably made up by someone who needed to be snitched on.” The concepts of loyalty are especially transparent for their contrivance in a prison setting, where loyalty to a psycho or a criminal is especially absurd and most likely one-sided at best. There are conceits in life that are exposed as false when placed into a dramatic structure. If we talk about cracking down on bullying, are we pouncing on the kid who throws a punch or the person who badgers him/her verbally leading up to that? And are social dynamics in school part of a set of trials we have to go through, or should schools micro-manage kids to make sure they have to make a show of including each other? Is it naive? Is it necessary for a child to identify his or her sexual identity as soon as possible and then be loud-and-proud of this through High School to test the system, or is it okay for kids to feel the slings and arrows of adolescence and rejection that everyone pretty much has to go through? Later in life, the reality is that many people put on whatever mask is necessary to get a job or to rent an apartment or make their way and package or market whatever goals they have. The same with marketing – instinctively – whether a girl is in control of her image or a boy is in control of his. One axiom going around is, “It’s none of your business what people think of you.” That seems like a head-in-the-sand mentality. Of course it matters. A girl might want to project a conservative image and if asked how many guys she has been with she may say skew her number lower than reality, while a guy being asked how many girls he has been with might skew his number higher than reality. This has been true for a long time, and might be the product of generations of frontier societies where a woman’s future was presumed to be either wife or prostitute. But regardless of its origin and its compatibility with modern society, people are still working the numbers that way. Thoughtful men don’t want to be jerks on-line and to be the target of lectures, so they will likely avoid playing devils advocate or offering the dissenting opinion when it comes to the assertion that equality means embracing all and pretending that we have no preference between a completely independent woman with hundreds of lovers or someone focused more on one person who may be content and less restless in a relationship. I mean if you throw out the idea of marriage or monogamy, then it is easier to be accepting of this trend. But if you don’t want a relationship based on a lie, eagerness and enjoyment of sex may not increase in a woman with the number of lovers she has nor necessarily will her confidence; a boy or man’s confidence will increase with the number of women he has had sex with, however, and this confidence does have more value to a woman than a man’s genteel or shy or repressed virginal image. Even his full dedication and devotion to her will not be ultimately what keeps the fire burning. This brings us back to the line in Orange about fear and now the nice guy or the tame husband routine is not going to hold her interest. There is an axiom that goes or may as well go, “Talking about sex is like dancing about architecture.” I’m seeing links to a lot of talk about what must be done to regulate “rape culture” and to get rid of the word “slut” while still making use of the neo-feminist-blog term “slut-shaming.” This all ends up in a context where every guy from Marc Lepine in 1989 to Elliot Rodgers who have done something horrible gets knighted as the poster boy for the ostensibly heterosexual male population. While I acknowledge that everyone has an opinion, I don’t respect every damn one in the sense of admiration. So I won’t throw around the word respect. There may be well-meaning bloggers and fans of these but most of what I see is just self-serving propaganda, and not even ideas to be contemplated and weighted but matter-of-fact-sounding babble that makes me nostalgic for Andrew Dice Clay being accused of isms and phobias. The culture is so used to being placated, for marketing or seduction purposes, that a person looks ten times colder and meaner by offering a dissenting opinion. Speech or conversation is inherently political. We make choices, either off the cuff or carefully considered. Therefore, what we say can be judged. What people feel, as instinctive reaction or attraction or repulsion, is not a choice and can’t reasonably be judged. But here’s where it gets mechanical and our flesh and blood humanity is turned into data and digitized and categorized until mere admission of taste calls for punishment or shunning. I’ve seen it too often, the artificial camps that pop up. Someone jabs two fingers at your eyes and if your reflexes are healthy you evade impact, and then your tormentor punches you twice in the shoulder, “Two for flinching.” There are many forced-answer questions out there, opinions or platforms we are supposed to pay lip service to, many of which are nicey-nice lies. In one’s forties, a conversation about whether high school girls call each other slut is exasperating. In my old Catholic high school, the girls pretty much did what they did. People are going to want to prop up their own stock market value. Whatever they have, that’s what you need in order to be cool. Pretty basic. But that is at the heart of bullying – status. If someone asks a guy at any age whether he finds a set of attributes or characteristics attractive, it is academic what the truth is. A woman might prefer a man with confidence, and might not care that some of it comes from his “score” with women; after all, it is part in parcel. She might find power attractive or his status, so if she ends up dating her boss maybe it’s not coercion or harassment but just mutual attraction. I’ve seen some exciting women with much older guys and appearing to be happy. Men are not especially attracted to the power or status of a woman. Those things are incidental and may even pose a challenge to his own ego and how he is perceived with her. As for external beauty, there is an expectation that a woman will lose appeal to a younger lover when she ages. If a man finds success later in life, in his forties or beyond, he might not be seeking out someone who merely remembers the same era of music videos but someone who has a physical draw and someone he expects to maintain interest in as a monogamous mate for decades ahead. He could compromise and lie to himself and to whoever he is with, because that is the politically correct thing to do. Imagine living to satisfy TMZ or the local gossip with who you are marrying, since they are not the people who have to sleep with her and wake with her. The opinion of the community therefore is useless. It may read as cruel to point out what should be obvious. What we know is there under the surface. I struggle with weight, so I don’t expect petite angels to fall at my feet. But I don’t want to register for any kind of dating service either and write in my weight when I know how it reads to me and when I historically feel no obligation to play couple with someone merely because we have the same size waistline. When that bubble bursts it will be a mess. I don’t feel the driving need enough to have someone fill the position of girlfriend for me to “learn to love” someone I might only have empathy for. But again all of that is noise, brain chatter that is like the pentagon shape of thought coming to terms with unpleasant reality – the finger turning in a circular motion beside your head indicating crazy. There is the effort to make the world better, even the will to do your part, and openness to ideas, but also against the tide of your own identity. We observe our own personal reactions and this can be much like observing characteristics of others and yet it will be judged if only because it has been perverted into language because words are often choices – truth can be rude or unkind. Maybe those of us who would rather talk about movies or sport statistics know more than they are being credited. Sometimes there is no point in openly pulling something apart until it shapes into the right comforting lie or over-simplification.