Back to Natural Law School for Michael Clayton

Movie theme: It is possible to be slimy and unprincipled in many little things, and still make a courageous stand for principle when your big moment comes.

Yeah..... uh, no.

This is a stylish, studio star-vehicle of the same nature of most of the projects on which (the beginning to seem really overpaid) George Clooney is building his career. It's well-acted (except for Clooney who never manages to transcend himself) with Tilda Swanson and Tom Wilinson turning in notable efforts. It's well shot and edited and has some pithy dialogue, but in the end, as my director friend noted as we tossed our empty popcorn box into the trash, "What was the point of that? What is the story that they wanted to tell?"

I think it didn't make sense to my friend, because the meaning of the character's choices in the story comes out to the theme I wrote above. And that theme is untrue. So, what was going on in my friend was a search for the movie's choices to add up to something else that would be true. And she couldn't think of anything, because she can add and the character's choices added together, only sensibly end up leading in one direction. Not heroism.

The basic story here is that a slimy lawyer who is a fixer for a huge slimy corporate law firm, gets the task of covering for one of the partners who has flipped his lid while closing a billion dollar lawsuit for a slimy chemical company. While the slimy chemical company sends its head of legal affairs (Swanson) to silence and kill anyone who is trying to blow the whistle on their poisoning of innocent mid-westerners, the lead character, Clayton, is forced to face the truth that he collaborates with people in large corporate law firms and agricultural conglomerates who are slimy. In the end, Clayton violates his attorney-client privilege for a higher good, and completely walks away from his own life and self-interest to do a heroic thing.

I wasn't sure if the subtext of the movie was to say that slimy agricultural companies shouldn't be allowed to employ defense attorneys? Or maybe it was that the attorneys of large conglomerates should just agree to be less clever and vigorous in defending said clients?

But honestly, I think this would have been a moral movie if Clooney had just shaken down the evil conglomerate, and left on a plane for the Bahamas with ten million dollars. See, then, that theme would be that "You are the sum of your choices." Spoken to me years ago by a weathered pagan entertainment attorney, "People who will screw anyone will screw everyone." She followed it up with, "Some people are cheaters. They cheat. Others aren't. They don't." I thought that was a great practical addendum to the Sermon on the Mount.

I don't think the filmmakers here were trying to spread perncious moral lies. (Except in the sense that a whole stratum of society has been forced for ten years or so argue that personal and public morality are unrelated...) I think they were just trying to be all clever and surprising. But making a silk's purse choice out of a life of sow's ear choices isn't surprising. It's impossible. Or in the Aristotelian narrative-need sense, a story in which a slimy character makes a heroic choice is not only not better than real life, it's not even as good as real life. It's less than the real.

And it is true that people can be scared straight. But, Michael Clayton never made me feel like anything that was happening to the main character was really getting to him that much. If his son had been caught in the cross-fire, I maybe would have bought his redemption. But losing his Mercedes just wasn't big enough.



There were several small missteps in the story-telling, but nothing hugely distracting. One grave narrative misstep was expecting that the lead character being gorgeous George Clooney would be enough to establish sympathy with the audience. Uh, no.

There's no point in dwelling too much on this as the audience has already passed the project by. The Academy might keep it alive for Oscar time, but while it is an anti-corporate film, I don't think it is shrill enough to make a big deal about on Oscar night in an election year. There will be much bigger anti-war fish to fry.

On the matter of the audience versus Michael Clayton I find the verdict to be, pass.

I'm Writing a Speech....

...that I will be giving soon to a Christian women's group. The title is "Living as a Disciple in the Media Age" and I have been wracking my brain to try and put some kind of new spin on this title, which has been my speaking bread and butter for the better part of eight years. Basically because I loathe and fear repetition, I've been all over this topic hundreds of different ways from hundreds of different podiums (and one covered garbage can in Baton Rouge....but I digress). But I think I am running dry because all I keep coming up with to say is, with exhaustion, "Oh, D*mnit. Just send a check here."

The folks at one recent talk asked me to prepare in advance a list of "contact information for people to complain to networks and studios." I told them I didn't have one of those lists, and that that really wasn't my message anyway. I think encouraging people to send protest messages is possibly an important message, and the r'aison d'etre of groups like this. But it isn't my message. First and foremost, because I don't think protesting is any kind of cultural strategy.

I said this at an event in Wichita this past summer, and a young woman came up to me cradling a child in her arms and kind of got in my face (with all the "You've clearly been poisoned working in Sodom, I bet you receive Communion in the hand" subtext) and said, "You don't have children, do you?" As though, the having of children would also spawn the conviction that cultural endeavors are exclusively for the damned. (I wanted to say to this young chicken something to the effect that, "Actually, at last count I have about 700," but it occurred to me that the appeal to the notion of spiritual childhood would just be way too Apostolicam Actuositatem for her.)

Just so somebody can get the wording right for my obituary, the reason I don't get behind the "Protest as Culture" parade is that it won't produce even one beautiful "Thank you!" to be sent back at the Cosmos. Which is the only reason to labor at art that makes any sense at all to me. (Actually, the wording of that was really dreadful. Please somebody, do tidy it up for my obituary.)

And if we want to get all pragmatic about "winning the culture war" (and I do think what's going on is a war, but hardly a new one... ref. the only and ever war) there is only one thing that is going to bring alternative (ie. better) product to the screens of the world. (And it isn't churches in Georgia and Minnesota turning into film production companies). We won't see alternative movies and television until we have alternative hearts and minds in Hollywood which is the center of global movie and television production.

So, we have only two real options for profoundly changing the channels (and literally changing the channels isn't one of them):

1) Create a new missionary imperative to recruit, form, support and commission for Hollywood a whole new generation of well-catechized, loving, merciful, prayerful, self-sacrificing, talented and professionally trained writers, directors, cinematographers, executives, producers, agents, attorneys, managers, publicists, editors, lighting designers, production designers, musicians, animators, and I suppose we must have some actors too.

2) Convert through prayer, sacrifice, patience and intentionality, the writers, directors, cinematographers, etc. who are already here.

Every other initiative to impact culture is ultimately straw.

And it is "straw" because it is not pleasing to God, who wants us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. And He also wants us to tell "all creation" the Good News. He just isn't that wrapped up in us making mediocre, low-budget pep-rally projects for the disciples who are cowering in caves wishing the non-believers would either go away, or at least entertain us without sex, language and violence.

Any questions? Good. So, help us out already, huh?

Does Richard Dawkins Exist?

This is hysterical. Check it out. But not while you're eating!

Celebrating Flannery

A former English professor, Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco recently gave a wonderful presentation on the great Catholic writer (and patroness with St. Paul and Emily Dickinson of this blog!), Flannery O'Connor. Major hat-tip to Whistpers in the Loggia for finding this. (They have a link on their site to the whole speech in .pdf.)

Take it away, Your Excellency:

"My days as a teacher of college English are long past, and now I am a Roman Catholic archbishop, who agreed to speak, from that viewpoint, about a woman and a writer whom I admire greatly, Flannery O'Connor. I remember, though, what Flannery O'Connor wrote after meeting Paul Hallinan, the new Archbishop of Atlanta, whom she admired. She said: "Usually I think the Church's motto is The Wrong Man for the Job; but not this time.”

That pungent little verdict suggests much of what I believe is wonderful and valuable in Flannery O'Connor: the savvy, sly wit; the dead-on honest observation; the faith, strong in spite of all; and the Christian realist's hope that this time it might be better, but not easily, and not likely for long.


Flannery O'Connor died during the Church's Second Vatican Council, while the bishops were writing anew what she had always known: that the Church is the Body of Christ, the People of God, that laypeople are its flesh and blood and that the clergy and religious orders are its servant-leaders. While Flannery O'Connor was a supreme artist in fiction, this afternoon I want to suggest how she is also a particularly valuable witness to the Catholic Church and its leaders in this country. Hers is the testimony of a watchful, honest, faith-filled, eloquent lay person, and she had much to say about the experience of living her faith within the Roman Catholic Church, especially in a society and a culture that had marginalized genuine Christian faith and practice. I invite you now to listen with me to what she said in her letters about several closely connected aspects of Roman Catholic experience: 1) the experience of being a believer, a disciple of Jesus Christ; 2) the cost of discipleship; 3) the power of grace in the experience of the believer; and, 4) the experience of the Church as the setting of that life of faith and discipleship, a setting that she saw as all too human as well as divine in origin....


Flannery O'Connor said of herself as a writer: "I feel that if I were not a Catholic I would have no reason to write, no reason to see, no reason ever to feel horrified or even to enjoy anything" (p.114). The Church, she claimed, was "... the only thing that is going to make the terrible world we are coming to endurable" (p. 90). Why? Quite simply because the Church taught as its central doctrine the Incarnation, the belief that God became human and creaturely, with us, in Jesus Christ. Flannery O'Connor believed that teaching, and, for her, its truth transformed everything in life: She said: "... the ultimate reality is the Incarnation, the present reality is the Incarnation, and nobody believes in the Incarnation; that is nobody in your audience. My audience are the people who think God is dead. At least these are the people I am conscious of writing for" (p.92). Thus there follows the clash of consciousness between O’Connor and her audience, the clash between the believers and the non-believers, between contradictory sets of assumptions about human experience.

She claimed the Incarnation as the principle of her spirituality: "... if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it" (p.90). But beyond shaping her personal spirituality, Incarnation directed her strategy as a writer. She asserted that, "... the writer has to succeed in making the divinity of Christ seem consistent with the structure of all reality. This has to be got across implicitly in spite of a world that doesn't feel it, in spite of characters who don't live it" (p.290). Incarnation even helps explain an aspect of O'Connor's writing which is particularly challenging for many readers: The grotesque. She said: "The Incarnation makes us see the grotesque as grotesque" (p.227)....

[W]hen her novel, Wise Blood was re-issued, she wrote in an introductory Author's Note: "Wise Blood was written by an author congenitally innocent of theory, but one with certain preoccupations. That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence."


O'Connor said that some writers had even enshrined this lack of faith as a prerequisite for the artist's vision: "It is popular to believe that in order to see clearly one must believe nothing" (p. 147). As a young student, Flannery O'Connor's antidote to that false assumption was what she called "Christian skepticism," and she recommended it to others: "Learn what you can but cultivate Christian skepticism. It will keep you free - not free to do anything you please, but free to be formed by something larger than your own intellect or the intellects of those around you" (p. 478). Also, "What kept me a skeptic in college was precisely my Christian faith. It always said: wait, don't bite on this, get a wider picture, continue to read" (p. 476).

On another occasion, Flannery O'Connor dealt with this conflict between faith and unbelief, and its effect on the writer who is a believer: "I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else, and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of our times. It's hard to believe always but more so in the world we live in now. There are some of us who have to pay for our faith every step of the way and who have to work out dramatically what it would be like without it and if being without it would be ultimately possible or not."

So the believer needs patience and passion. According to Flannery O'Connor, faith naturally waxes and wanes, and we must not panic or jump to conclusions because of that. She wrote: "...let me tell you this: faith comes and goes. It rises and falls like the tides of an invisible ocean. If it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay with you forever, it is just as presumptuous to think that unbelief will" (p. 451). She was especially fond of the prayer addressed to Christ in the gospel: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief' (p.92). She wrote: "It is the most natural and most human and most agonizing prayer in the gospel, and I think it is the foundation prayer of faith" (p. 476).

The Christian must yearn for and seek out faith, not just grudgingly take delivery of it if God sends it along: "Faith is a gift, but the will has a great deal to do with it. The loss of it is basically a failure of appetite, assisted by sterile intellect" (p. 451). But Christian faith cannot remain in the intellect; it must be lived for, with, and in Christ. Flannery O'Connor declared: "What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe" (p. 354). This cost of believing, of discipleship is crucial to an understanding of genuine Christian faith, as opposed to the casual, superficial, cultural Christianity that she so deplored. Genuine Christian faith transforms the meaning and value of everything; cosmetic Christianity merely brightens Sunday morning and highlights the tiny compartment of life labeled "religion."...

In one letter Flannery O’Connor observes that “Human nature is so faulty that it can resist any amount of grace and most of the time it does. The Church does well to hold its own; you are asking that she show a profit. When she shows a profit, you have a saint, and not necessarily a canonized one.”

Looking for Orthodox Catholic Theologians in L.A.

It's unbelievable really. Here I am living in a metropolitan area of around ten million people, and I am pulling my hair out trying to find guest speakers for our Hollywood RCIA program. Honestly, the Church in Los Angeles is in an incredibly sorry state. Where do you go in L.A. to find people who can reliably and authoritatively deliver the Church's theological line on any of a variety of topics without grumbling, dissenting, scoffing or just plain old distorting?

One of our students this year took RCIA at a prominent L.A. parish two years ago. He is taking RCIA over with us, because, as he expressed it last week, "I didn't learn anything the last time." Good grief.

Anyway, we need happy, brilliant (okay, we'll also take really smart) Catholics who will combine good presentation skills and strong theological content for our very smart group of eleven candidates. We do not want to go into the strange and wonderful world of ecclesial polarization with this program, but are rather looking tom communicate the deposit of faith according to the Mind of the Church. I don't believe in encouraging controversy where there is insufficient context.

So, if anybody out there knows anybody here in Southern California who might fit the bill, please do send me a heads-up at brnicolosi@aol.com .

Gaudium et spes.

YESSSSS! Thank You, Cleveland!

Hahahahahahaha! [Galumphing evil chortle.... It's time to make obeisance, David....]



















Of course, you noble Tribe too will soon have to die having fulfilled your purpose of eliminating the pinstriped infection. But thanks from a grateful nation.

Emily Monday

1453

A Counterfeit -- a Plated Person --
I would not be --

Whatever strata of Iniquity
My Nature underlie --

Truth is good Health -- and Safety, and the Sky.

How meagre, what an Exile -- is a Lie,
And Vocal -- when we die --

Dear Barbara Letters

Periodically, I like to share queries from my email bag, as well as my responses to the same in the hope that it will be generally instructive for those who are about to send me - or some other citizen of Hollywood - a similar query. I promise that each of what follows are prototypical of scores of inquiries I get every year. (And especially this week, as EWTN is airing a show I taped at Franciscan University this past spring.)

I added a little to my replies here just because I got in the groove...

----------------------------------------------------


Dear Barbara,

I heard you on the radio with Teresa Tomeo doing movie reviews.
You talked about the need for Good people in Hollywood, in media.

I am not a writer, but I have a great idea for a story and I have been praying for help to get it out.

[INSERT THE STORY HERE.]

I don't know where to begin.
I felt led to write you.

Sincerely,
K. in Illinois

Dear K. -

Thanks for your message and for telling me a little about your grandmother's story.

I am not sure what kind of help I could give you. Perhaps you could find someone who is a writer to tell the story, possibly in a format for a magazine article. Then, see what happens.

There isn't any easy structure set up for a person who is a non-writer to get their story to print or to the screen. If you are willing to put some money into it, you could hire a writer to co-write a book with you, or write a screenplay for you. However, then, you would have to be willing to shop the book around to publishers or agents, or the screenplay to production companies.

People are always approaching me with "great ideas" for movies, and I never know what to say to them. Most of the ideas are not really "great" by real narrative standards. A story is more than just a cool thing that happened to somebody in your family. Still, if I ever really do hear what sounds like a great idea, I never know if I should say, "Cool, that is a great idea. Mind if I just take it and run from here?" Few people are really willing to just see their idea launched without getting some kind of money or credit. And the truth is, trying to keep someone attached who knows nothing about the process is rarely worth the trouble.

But anyway, maybe your grandmother's story is mainly for you to tell your children and then for them to tell theirs. And you should, as it is part of your family's "salvation history." Not everything needs to be for the mass audience.

Thanks again for sharing it with me. God bless -

Barbara R. Nicolosi

P.S. If this advice has been helpful to you - or I suppose even if it hasn't but just because I tried - please send a donation to Act One. It was founded so that you would have somebody here to give this kind of advice, and it could really use the support just now.


The follow-up email....


Dear Barbara,

I thought YOU were a writer.

Sincerely,

K. in Illinois


The follow-up response....


Dear K.,

I am a writer. You need to find one who wants to do this job.

God bless -

Barbara

_________________________________________________________


Dear Ms. Nicolosi,

A group of us here in [INSERT NAME OF TOWN INCREDIBLY FAR OFF SUNSET BLVD] are working on making a movie based on [INSERT NAME OF INCREDIBLY ESOTERIC CHRISTIAN NOVEL]. We already have the script, the director, the cast, the crew. We’re seeking funding, but we do have a lead on that in an investor who is interested. But he does not believe it can be made for the budget we are proposing. He wants us to look into getting a real producer, a professional who has been involved in movie production before, to either advise or even takeover the production chores. It’s a low budget movie, so it has to be a low-budget producer.

Any suggestions?

D. in Town Incredibly Far Off Sunset


Dear D. -

Well, you asked....

I have very strong feelings on this question, as I have watched too many good people waste too much money and time in ill-conceived efforts in movie-making. In the end, the process breaks up friendships (I've even seen it lead former friends into court), and generally results in eminently forgettable, unwatchable projects. The subtext of what follows is that movie-making is a highly complex, demanding art-form that takes years to master, and then requires the cooperation of some people in Hollywood who control theater and television screens for the world. Making a movie is like building a building. You better know what you are doing or it will be condemned...

Your investor is asking all the right questions. Have him call me if you want me to say any version of what follows so as to prevent loss of his investment.

I don't understand how you can not have a producer. A producer is the one who launches the whole enterprise of making a movie. The producer picks up the script and attaches the director. Technically, you don't find a producer. A producer finds everyone else. So maybe what you mean is that you need to find a line-producer? A line-producer is responsible to do the budget breakdown and to hire all the below the line talent.

I don't know what you mean by a "low-budget" producer. Do you mean someone who will not be fairly compensated for their work? Because making a movie is always an all-consuming, demanding task whether it is an indie project or a studio tent-pole. I am always leery of projects that are going off for much lower than the minimums established by the industry guilds. Go to the PGA website to find out what the guild minimums are for a producer.

The matter of budget can be related to how many people you want to eventually see the movie. Unless you hit a jackpot of unlikely eventualities, but I don't recommend a business plan built around the miraculous. A movie is meant to be consumed by the masses - or, at least, people in the tens and hundreds of thousands. Why else go to all the trouble? Many Christians seem to go about the process as though they were bringing together a wall mural meant to be seen by a few hundred people. Forgive me for being direct, but guerilla filmmaking that ignores all the normal expenses and procedures of the business ends up generally making movies not fit to be viewed by guerillas.

Budget for a movie is not principally determined by how much money you have in hand or can presumably collect, as in, "Hey, let's make a movie. How much money does everybody have in their pockets. I've got a quarter." The first question you ask is "How much money will be needed to serve the needs of this story as outlined in the screenplay?" It's not, "How can we make this story smaller to serve what we can afford?"

If you pay for professional talent (cinematography, directing, production design, editing, etc.), the product will be better and you will have the chance of setting yourself apart from the other 3000 indie films whose whole distribution plan is to win the lottery and be picked up at a festival. If you bring in a name actor or director, you will have a better chance of minimally getting your project pulled out of the stack at a festival or distribution office, and possibly get coverage in the broader press which will contribute to your marketing efforts further down the road. If you have a distribution partner before you start (because you want to have your movie play in actual movie theaters some day, you would be shopping the script around first to production companies who have some kind of deal or contacts at studios).

Regarding the first-timeness of the director/writer... Exactly how "first-time" is he? Has he worked in the industry as an AD or a cinematographer, or even an editor? Does he have a nice, rich reel of shorts that show that he really has the chops? Does he have real talent that stands out among other young filmmakers? Movie-making is like any other art form. Everybody's first everything is bad. Michelangelo took nine years of practice before he sold a statue.... A "first time" writer/director usually refers to somebody who has been working in the business for years in a variety of capacities. He has made a whole bunch of short projects and has written five to ten screenplays. He has been AD on several projects and so has been mentored by other more experienced directors for years. IT DOESN'T MEAN that somebody right out of film school (or, God forbid, somebody who never went to film school!) convinces you to let them get some more education learning by having you pay them to make a feature.

Here's what you should do.... Submit the screenplay to a professional script-analyst who can tell you if it is ready to go. I have no doubt that the script doctor will give you notes that will make the project better. (A good one who is also a Christian is Vicki Peterson: viktim7174@yahoo.com) Have the script rewritten until the analyst gives you a thumbs up. Then, shop the script to some production companies being sure to tell them how large an investment you already have attached. I can help you at that point. (Of course, if the investment is under a milion dollars, you basically are saying that you aren't making a real movie to be seen by the masses, but rather this is an expensive hobby thing.)

There it is for what its worth. Good luck to you. God bless -

Barbara Nicolosi

P.S. If this advice has been helpful to you - or I suppose even if it hasn't but just because I tried - please send a donation to Act One. It was founded so that you would have somebody here to give this kind of advice, and it could really use the support just now.

____________________________________________________

Dear Barbara,

Your name was given to me today as one who might know a Performing Arts School that also promotes Christianity. Our 16 year old daughter is passionate about theater and movies. We would like to help her pursue this dream to see if it is her destiny and have begun looking into performing arts schools but have not found one that we feel will support her belief system. Do you have the name of those schools that will train her in her craft and also support her in the moral life style she is choosing for herself? We appreciate any help you might be able to offer.

Blessings,

B. in Texas

Dear B. -

Thanks for your message.

There are several Christian schools with strong theater and cinema departments. Azusa Pacific University out here in Azusa is a good one. I am an adjunct there and the people there are great. Another option to check out would be Pepperdine University. Regent University in VA has a good cinema department, I don't know about their theater department. Notre Dame has made it a priority to have a state of the art media department. Catholic University has a good theater school. There must be more on the theater side, but I really don't know much in that area.

Do encourage your daughter, however, to take some strong Liberal Arts classes during her undergrad years. She should absolutely plan on going to grad school for theater, so she should see the Liberal Arts as making her a more interesting person who will one day be a storyteller. In addition to art history classes, she should take lots of literature and history classes and maybe some psychology as all of these will help her as a storyteller. Tell her to get her spiritual act together so that she can attend one of the top secular schools for grad school. We need good kids to go through the top programs so that they can compete well in this demanding business.

You could also have your daughter check out the Act One program at www.actoneprogram.com and Hollywood Connect at www.hollywoodconnect.com. These are both programs for Christians starting out in the arts.

God bless -

Barbara R. Nicolosi

P.S. If this advice has been helpful to you - or I suppose even if it hasn't but just because I tried - please send a donation to Act One. It was founded so that you would have somebody here to give this kind of advice, and it could really use the support just now.

Upcoming Event

REEL SPIRITUALITY PRESENTS

The TV Summit of the Fall Season

Saturday, October 27, from 8:30am to 2pm
at the Director’s Guild of America in Hollywood.

Is it “JUST TV?” or is it something more?

Join celebrated showrunners like Larry Wilmore
(The Bernie Mac Show, ‘Senior Black Correspondent’
on The Daily Show, ‘Mr. Brown’ on The Office) and
Nancy Miller (The Closer and TNT’s new drama, Saving Grace, starring
Holly Hunter) as we consider television’s potential
to initiate social change. We’ll also interact with
producers from Battlestar Galactica, The X-Files,
and The Invisible Man as they project
today’s topical issues into the future.

Amongst the all-star panelists guiding the discussion will
be Dr. Diane Winston, the Knight Chair in Media and Religion
at USC and Dr. Thom Parham from Azusa Pacific University.

Special guests include producer Michael Taylor from Battlestar
Galactica and Star Trek: Voyager, Valerie Mayhew from The X-Files and
Charmed, Matt Greenberg, creator of the Sci-Fi Channel’s
The Invisible Man and screenwriter of The Screwtape Letters,
Dean Batali from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and That 70s Show,
and Leilani Downer from A Different World and Growing Pains.
“JUST TV?” will be hosted by Craig Detweiler, co-director of Reel Spirituality.

Continental breakfast and lunch are included in the $60 registration
(half price for students). Sign up now before this TV event sells out at:
www.reelspirituality.org.


JUST TV is presented in connection with the 14th City of the Angels Film Festival

See Barb in Orlando

I will be giving a speech in Orlando on October 17, 2007 that is opened to the public. It is being hosted by a group called Una Fides and will take place at the social hall adjacent to St. James Cathedral.

My talk will be titled "Living as a Disciple in a Media Age" which should just about cover every possible rant in my head. I think it costs $15, but that includes lunch which would be a bargain even without adding a rant.

If that's your thing, go to here for more information.

Heroes in Storytelling

I gave a talk this weekend to the San Diego Christian Writers Guild. The talk was on heroes in storytelling and in society - why we need them and what they should look like. Lots of people asked me for my notes, and as I only had my computer with me, I told them I would post the notes here. Sorry if what is here is too sketchy. It may be that this was one of those talks where you had to be there.


I. Intro


II. Some signs of the times

a) Last year for the first time, American high school students listed as their #1 Hero "no-one." (and I don’t think they are being too cynical. Because really, who should be a hero today?) And Is it good or bad that kids have no heroes?

b) An interview with one of the hoards of fans on the news the night of Paris Hilton’s release from prison. “Paris Hilton is my hero – she’s so glamorous and famous.” (Hmmmm... in the words of The Princess Bride, "I don't think you know what that word means.")

c) Where twenty-somethings in the 1940's found a hero in Rick (Humphrey Bogart) in Casablanca, today's coming of agers are more likely to want to be Napoleon Dynamite – where the new heroism is just to be able to look the world in the eye and spit. It’s some version of be true to yourself… But what if “yourself” is really screwed up? Would you want your kids to be true to themselves if they were nuts?

III. Why should we care if there are no heroes?

a) What does a kid (and by extension, a society) look like who has heroes? Idealistic, hopeful, imitative, open, eager to please, reverent, grateful

“A boy doesn't have to go to war to be a hero; he can say he doesn't like pie when he sees there isn't enough to go around.”
Edgar Watson Howe

b) What does a kid look like who has no heroes? Cynical, haughty, suspicious, jaded, irreverent, entitled, self-absorbed.

“Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.” Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

c) As a child, a hero provides a teaching example of a life worth living. In fact, the “no greater life” of one who gives his life for his friends.

d) As an adult, heroes should engage us in a holy rivalry; to shame us into being more generous and tireless in doing good. Mother Teresa shamed me into facing what a schlep I am. In some ways, because she could pick a maggot ridden poor person out of a gutter, I was able to be kinder to the annoying guy in the next office.

e) In a society where the family has broken down, the need for heroes becomes even stronger. (Can I please just appeal to the Baby Boomers out there to try and make the last years of your lives heroic. Just heard the other day fromone of my students how her 53 year old father just walked out on the family – two teens at home and an eight year old – and moved in with his 26 year old receptionist. He told his daughter he was bored and feeling unfulfilled. Enough of this nonsense! We don’t want to hear about your need to be having fun anymore! We need you to be brave as you face your elderly years – you will be wrinkled and sickly and forgetful – and your heroism will be to be uncomplaining, and wise and solicitous and serene for the rest of us! “ heard on the radio the other day, “70 is the new 30!”

"One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being." May Sarton


e) But it is also true that not all stories need to be hero stories, and that adult should be able to handle a lot more ambiguity. At the end of The Brothers Karamazov, Alyosha makes a huge inward step, by shedding his protective idealism and accepting the complexity of life. “Hurrah for Karamazov!” I get that reading Harry Potter/fantasy is diverting and on some level edifying, but if all the grown ups are reading about Harry fighting dragons, who is left to be reading Crime and Punishment?

IV. What is a hero?

a) A story will be illustrative here.... (I found this on the Internet somewhere, but there wasn't a writer credited, so to whomever write the following, thank you!)

The time is about four in the afternoon of January 13, 1982. The place: Washington’s National Airport, blanketed in snow and ice. After several delays, Air Florida’s Flight 90 had finally received clearance to take off and was roaring down the runway. Like his fellow passengers, Arland Williams, a forty-six-year-old senior examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, was just getting settled in for the flight when something went wrong. After a dramatic shudder, the Boeing 737 smashed into the Fourteenth Street Bridge and fell into the icy Potomac.

Once the initial shock passed, onlookers could see a piece of the plane ís broken-off tail section afloat in the river, with four people clinging to it. Then a fifth person bobbed up to water’s surface and was pulled to the tail section. Given the freezing conditions and their distance from shore, survival was uncertain at best.

At 4:20, a U.S. Park Police helicopter arrived on the scene. Hovering over the floating debris, they lowered a line to Bert Hamilton, one of the five. Hamilton grabbed the line with all his strength and was soon being lifted out of the water and whisked through the wintry air to safety on shore.

The helicopter returned and dropped its line to Arland Williams, who quickly passed it to Kelly Duncan, a flight attendant. Duncan was carried safely ashore. The helicopter returned and dropped the line once more to Williams. This time he passed it to Joe Stiley, a severely injured passenger. By now, all the victims were suffering badly from the icy exposure, and it was vital to get them ashore as soon as possible. Stiley grabbed another passenger, Priscilla Tirado. A second line was dropped this time, and it was passed to Patricia Felch.

As the helicopter again lifted higher in the air, it became evident that too much had been attempted in one trip. Both Tirado and Felch fell back into the water during transport. When the helicopter rushed back to rescue Tirado, she was too weak to take the line. At this point, an onlooker standing on the shore, Lenny Skutnik, leaped into the icy water and swam out to get her. The helicopter then proceeded to where Felch had fallen, and Rescue Officer Gene Windsor dropped into the water to attach a line to her.

Four lives had been saved. Now, thirty minutes after the crash, the helicopter returned to the floating tail section for Arland Williams, who had repeatedly passed the life-saving line to others. Williams was gone. His heroism had cost him his life. Gene Windsor wept as he described what Williams had done that day in the middle of a freezing river: "He could have gone on the first trip, but he put everyone else ahead of himself. Everyone."

b) (from Heroes.com) What sets heroes aside from the rest of humanity is the willingness to assume a personal responsibility for public problems. As I will use the word, responsibility is assumed, not assigned, undertaken rather than imposed. I am interested in responsibility as a function of declaration rather than duty. This book is about people who take on responsibility where no one else would regard them as responsible.

c) So in a story, a character to be a hero must assume responsibility for something that is not theirs by assignment. But it falls to them in their mind.

d) And it seems clear that heroism always has to involve someone dying so others can live. Now, there are many kinds of death.

1. Luke Skywalker has to die to his sense of being in control. He also has to risk his physical life.

2. In Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddel has to die to his ego and his plans for the future by being willing to lose the Olympics and not run in the race on Sunday.

3. In The Fugitive, Dr. Shepard risks his life and freedom to save a child he happens to meet while he is on his quest at the hospital.

4. In Casablanca, Rick needs to lose the woman he loves.

5. CLIP from One Against the Wind

e) And because a story needs to be better than the real, the stakes of a character have to be higher. The risks to himself must be bigger. The good for the world more urgent.

V. The kind of heroes Hollywood too often provides are not doing the job that the audience needs in its longing for heroes. Too often, these are the kinds of things we see set up as the lead character/the one in the movie to whom we are supposed to relate:

a) People who are purely about self-survival. Napoleon Dynamite.

b) People who are in the service of a false good. Million Dollar Baby or ER Christmas episode in which people euthanize other people. Like it is ever a heroic idea to murder someone!

c) People who aspire to nothing outside of their own pleasures. Knocked Up and Superbad.

d) People who become worse than their rivals. Kill Bill. The Brave One.

e) Comic book heroes. Which are perfectly appropriate for kids, but weird and ultimately unsatisfying for grown-ups.

f) People with disordered souls. Craving some evils in some quarters. The Departed. Or the doctors on ER who in the later seasons have become self-absorbed, whining narcissists. It's the Bill Clinton problem in which we are asked to believe that you can be a lie and cheat on a small scale, but that it won't effect the decisions you make on a big scale. As my pagan Hollywood agent told me once, "People who will screw anyone will screw everyone. Cheaters cheat."

g) Hollywood creatives are very often jaded. Because most don’t have the example of the Crucified Jesus, they are very suspicious about the idea that people can really do selfless things. They are also bloated with false goods, so that they can’t be sure anymore if it is better thing to save a stranger because who can say whose life is more valuable? But I think the real reason we so many schleppy heroes on the screen these days has to do with the being shamed by the good thing I mentioned before.

“The presence of the just one is obnoxious to us. He reproaches us with our laziness and failures to live up to our training.” Isaiah

h) So, btw, if you are in a committed relationship to evil, I suspect you will lose the ability to write a selfless character. In the same way that if you smoke pot on the side, it is really hard to tell your teenager not to. (As long as you hate your sin you might be able to do it. But there is no voice of authority like purity. Ref. Lancelot in Camelot.)

i) There is a positive side to Holywood's desire to create heroes with a dark side. It is coming from a rejection of melodrama and sentimentalism. SENTIMENTALISM IS THE PROBLEM FOR US CHRISTIANS. We want to show that God is basically in charge of the world so everything is really okay. We want to give God the benefit of the doubt.

j) Facing the Giants is anti-heroic because it costs the hero nothing. The Christianity depicted in the movie is a rejection of the cross and presents a fantasy religion in which believing in Jesus means no suffering. “Give me some of that Jesus stuff!” The truth is Christianity promises that we will suffer without despair...and probably we will suffer more than others!

k) Flannery: “Sentimentalism is the one inexcusable defect for the Christian storyteller because it is an overemphasis on innocence.” We know that there must always be original sin in the story. No human person is perfect and immune from temptation.

VI. So here is the paradox: The world needs heroes from us as writers. It needs examples of people to model our lives after. But we have to tell the truth for adults and show that heroes are also human beings with failings.

a) Here’s the trick: your story hero can and must have weaknesses, but the character must be consistent in the conviction that leads him to his heroic act. As Aristotle says, in the Poetics, we don’t need unity of character in a story – that is, a story in which all of a characters problems are resolved – but to be a hero, a character has to have an almost supernatural understanding and commitment to the value that will allow him to embark on his mission in the story.

b) You have to figure out in your story, what is the characters’s dawning, and defining conviction. Then, you have to make sure that he/she is consistent IN THAT CONVICTION. She may be, as in One Against the Wind, snippy and proud, but she is absolutely unconfused about the fact that we are to save each other from being killed.

c) This kind of conviction can not be contradicted by his defects or you undermine the hero and make his choices seem random.

d) So, in Million Dollar Baby, the character of the coach is anti-heroic, because his one vision was as a coach “You never give up!” And he had already given up on his daughter before and now he had a new daughter. So when he euthanises her, it shows he never really got the one lesson of his life. (Now, the movie suggests that letting go of his coachly convictions was a growth for him, but that is twisted and bad writing. It was his one understanding to give to the world.)

e) In The Departed, the character is lying and cheating with another man’s fiancée. Well, why is it worse for the mob to be lying and cheating then? Who is he to try and stop them? And the suggestion that he would have the moral energy to do risk his life to stop some men from doing what he himself is doing on the sly is absurd.


VII. Things That Are Not Heroic:

a) To have an illness. To be a victim. To have a bad hand dealt to you. HEROISM is in still serving others with an illness or bad thing.

b) To survive your own iniquity. (In the Bill Clinton sense. I heard a lady on TV say that she admired Clinton because he was "a survivor." Well, by that standard, you could admire roaches.) HEROISM for a person in habits of iniquity would be in full repentance, and in heading back into the sewer you once created to repair it.

c) It isn’t heroic to have a great talent or skill. To be able to run fast or sing well. It might be heroic to develop that talent to your utmost and at great price – as long as it is in response to the cosmos and not for your own glory.

d) It is not heroic to fight for the wrong thing. To build a business or buy a house or paint a fence or go on a trip or make a million dollars or win an award.

e) It is not heroic to fight using disproportionate means. Someone attacks your son, and you nuke their country. The whole vengeance thing is essentially anti-heroic.
f) It is not heroic to do an evil to achieve a good: Torturing someone to save the U.S.

VIII. The world needs from us:

a) The conviction that there is something worth dying for. That suffering is not the worst thing that can happen to us.

b) The conviction that some things that people are dying for are the wrong things! (Money or fame or to be a size zero...)

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold. Kahlil Gibran


c) Another conviction the hero brings is that there is good and evil in the world. The hero story is a direct attack on moral relativism which, Pope Benedict recently said was the wrong idea that is at the heart of the decay of Western civilization. The only thing that explains Ahmadinijad at Columbia is that there is no more good and evil in the world. If everything is relative, then we can listen to a man in a suit share his ideas about how the Holocaust didn't happen, because who are we to judge the fact that he has murdered hundreds of American soldiers, and has imprisoned scores of Iranian journalists and dissenters, and that he has killed and tortured so many homosexuals that they no longer exist in Iran? I mean who are we to judge him, right? Just because we find those behaviors repugnant might be our problem – like the way we don’t really eat eel here. Right? See, we aren’t going to be able to hold off the conviction of Islamo-fascism with yawning relativism.

d) The mystery of immortality.

“A man of courage is also full of faith.” Cicero

e) That being a hero is not a unique call, but a universal one.

f) Being a hero doesn’t come out of nowhere. That you can’t be a hero in big things if you are unheroic in little things. You will not be up to the big moments unless you have made virtuous habits, and have cultivated a broad respect for others. And most of us are schleppy and lazy in our normal moments...

“We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.” Will Rogers

“It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny.” Jean Nidetch

“A man must indeed be a hero to appear such in the eyes of his valet.” Thomas Carlyle


VIII. Let’s create a hero story. From your own life. What is there that you have stumbled over that made you say to yourself, " Somebody ought to do something about that?"

a) What would be a heroic choice/task for you to take on?

"The cowards think of what they can lose, the heroes of what they can win." J. M. Charlier

b) What scares you about it? (Or, why don’t you do it today?…”Well, I have kids.” Well, I have a job.” “Well, I have a pain in my foot.” “Well, I’m not rich.” “Well,…”)

"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared." Eddie Rickenbacker

"Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway." John Wayne


"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear." Mark Twain


c) What miracle would have to come about to allow you to achieve this goal? What are the obstacles that will have to be overcome? If it doesn’t require a miracle, it isn’t big enough.
“People will never stop doing THAT.”
“That is a problem that will never go away.”

d) What good will you have to see killed to do your goal?

“Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

e) Has to be something good for the world, not just for yourself or your own. There has to be an aspect in which the good that is coming back to you is unknown.

f) Can’t be something that relies on other people doing it for you. It has to be obvious to you that you just have to do this thing, regardless of whether you are fitted for it, because somebody has to do it and it is in front of you.

g) Can’t be something that just needs somebody to write a check or getting a law passed. Those don’t require you to get down into the depths of yourself. Don’t require you to have to die.

IX. Test example: Yesterday, I saw that story about the little child who had been filmed being molested. And the bell went off in my head for the umpteenth time. “Pornography. Her molester was making his own pornography.”

a) I used to have an office opposite the teen canteen….”Somebody ought to do something to help those kids.
b) Task: To end the porn industry in the San Fernando valley.

c) What scares me: To be around that level of sin and degradation. To get killed by the people who make $$$$$ in this business. To be laughed at and even hated for trying to take away people’s rights to their “first amendment freedoms” (As though, by the way, the first amendment covers allowing you to exploit other people for your own self-expression.)

d) Obstacle: It’s too big. It’s in the shadows.

e) Action plan: To gradually create a climate in which porn is unacceptable - to associate it to women’s rights… To stop shows like “The Girls Next Door.”….. To pressure Madison Avenue to stop the pornification of women and children in ads… To make it a felony to ship obscenity overseas and inter-state…To address the addiction… To buy out the producers… To regulate the industry severely… To make the guilds shun people who moonlight in porn…. To give the actors other work… To save some of the actors, and then send them as missionaries back to those trapped in the industry…

f) So, what is your heroism? Write that story.

X. A Poem by Leigh/Darion.... Is this too hokey for us today? What's wrong with us?

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To be better by far than you are
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless,
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know, if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world would be better for this
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

YES!!!

HA HA, New York! Thou dost sucketh.

See Barb in San Diego

I'll be here this weekend. It's always a wonderful conference and they have an amazing track record of succesful writers coming out of their programs and small groups. It's an honor to me that they keep having me back year after year, and I always value the opportunity to try out on the assembly whatever new idea is starting to come together in my brain.

This year, my keynote will be on the paradox of writers who are Christians trying to create heroes. The problem comes in with figuring out how to make somebody bigger and more virtuous in order to be inspiring, and yet not slipping into sentimentalism, which as Flannery said is inexcusable for a Christian as an over-emphasis on innocence.

I am going to talk about why having heroes is important, especially in children, and how our heroes should evolve as adults. Also, what makes someone/a character truly heroic? Then, we're going to talk about how many of the lead characters in our post-Sexual Revolution cynicism movies aren't complex or tragic heroes (ie. people oriented toward the good but with a fatal flaw), but anti-heroes (people confused about the good).

I really don't know where it is going to resolve, but I do have some good clips and quotes to share, so it will minimally be fun for the writers.

The War Bogs Down

My comments here are going to seem too strident mostly because of Let Down Syndrome. For months, I have been eagerly anticipating Ken Burns' new doc on WWII, The War. I was thrilling that the experience of watching the piece would bring me back to the really perspective changing wonder that I experienced in Burns' classic The Civil War.

The first two episodes of The War had a huge audience of other people like me who were hoping and longing for something great again from Burns.

But what a disappointment.

In The War, Burns has made the mystifying mistake of trying to make the problems of four little people (in this case, four little American towns) matter more than a hill of beans in the face of the century-defining struggle unfolding in Europe and in the Pacific. The cool thing about The Civil War was how wonderfully educational it was about the War. (The "smart" factor as Jan "The Maven" would say.) The series was made charming by the personalities of the historians, and the characters they were channeling in their anecdotes. In this new piece, The War I'm not learning anything historical. Burns missed the lesson of the first season of The West Wing which was that the audience only gives a hoot about the offices in the West Wing because of their proximity to the Oval Office. Somebody over at Liberty Film Festival agrees with me, so I must be right!

We’re 21 months into the war and I don’t think General Omar Bradley’s been mentioned even once. What made Burns’ Civil War doc so compelling were the personalities of the players: Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, Lee, and McClellean. Normal people are just that: Normal. Normal isn’t interesting. Where are the historians? Where’s The War’s Shelby Foote?

All the drama and personality of WWII is being ignored for the dit-dit of those who stayed home, dealt with rationing, went to the movies, and got jobs as welders? It’s like watching Burns doc on Baseball but it’s all about the people in the bleachers. I may not make the whole 15 hours.

I don't think I will either. Rats. And the new Bionic Woman is lame too. So I guess I'll have more time to read this Fall.

Valerie's in a Show

Valerie Nicolosi stars in The Italian Lesson
A one woman opera by Lee Hoiby
Produced by Opera Providence
Conducted by Timothy Steele
Directer By Peter Sampieri

Friday October 26, 2007 8pm
Sunday October 28, 2007 3pm

At the Columbus Theater
270 Broadway / Providence, RI

http://www.operaprovidence.org/

Hoiby’s "The Italian Lesson" turns one of the most popular of Ruth Draper's character sketches into a one woman operatic monologue and feat of vocal and theatrical brilliance. It offers a brief window into the hectic life of a New York society matron. Written in 1925, when Draper was 40 and at the height of her creative abilities, the monologue was originally referred to in letters as "The Busy Mother." "Busy" is something of an understatement. While studying The Inferno, the matron, among much else and with the assistance of a long line of servants, plans a dinner menu, gossips with friends, quells disturbances by her passel of troublesome children, arranges for riding lessons, dentist's appointments, dancing classes and gymnasium visits for said troublesome children, greets a new puppy, sends her husband's golf clubs and clothes to meet him at the train station, arranges a care package for the injured son of the night watchman, reviews appointment schedules with her secretary, finds guests for a box at the opera, instructs a painter in changes to a child's portrait, gives away concert tickets, tells a schoolteacher to drop mathematics from her son's curriculum, flirts with her lover, orders a new lampshade cover and has a manicure. The matron notes that Dante, like Shakespeare, "seemed to know the things that always would be true." So did Draper, and like the work of those writers, her monologues are "filled with quotations and great general truths."


Valerie Nicolosi, who will be portraying The Busy Mother/Ruth Draper, began her music and acting studies at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, MA. She received her Bachelor’s in Vocal Performance from the Eastman School of Music, and her Masters in Vocal Performance from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN. Mezzo Soprano Valerie Nicolosi has enjoyed a dynamic operatic career around the country and the globe. She has received critical acclaim for leading operatic roles with a variety of regional opera companies around the country including Lake George Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Shreveport Opera, Ashlawn Opera, St. Petersburg Opera, Raylynmore Opera, Commonwealth Opera, Augusta Opera, Cape Cod Opera and Opera Theater of Connecticut. In September 2002, Miss Nicolosi debuted in the title role of Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Opera Providence. A favorite for pants roles, she has sung the role of Cherubino in Le Nozze Di Figaro with Abilene Opera, Knoxville Opera, and Dayton Opera. She continues to sing leading and supporting roles with various opera companies around the United States. Roles include Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tutte, Rosina in Barber of Seville, Angelina in La Cenerentola, Hermia and Oberon in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, Olga in Eugene Onegin, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Suzuki in Madame Butterfly, Stephano in Roméo et Juliette, La Ciesca and Zita in Gianni Schicchi, and Cupid in Orpheus and the Underworld. This past Fall Miss Nicolosi sang the title role in Gustav Holst’s Savitri with Lexington Symphony. Miss Nicolosi is a Liederkranz Competition finalist and prize winner, and was awarded the Richard F. Gold Career Grant for Young Singers. She has appeared as a soloist with the Indian Hill Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Chattanooga Symphony, Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra, Hartford Festival Orchestra, St. Alban's Symphonia, and the Boston Ballet. She is also well-known for her inventive song recital programs which make the classical song repertoire more accessible to contemporary audiences and are popular on a wide variety of venues around the United States


Visit ArtTix at
www.ArtTixRI.com
or call 401-621-6123

Performances at the Columbus Theatre
270 Broadway, Providence, RI


2007-08 Season Prices

Subscription packages - 10% discount:
Golden Circle Premium Seating in orchestra or mezzanine: $162.00
Orchestra front sides or middle: $94.50
Orchestra rear or general mezzanine: $54.00
on sale as of Thursday, July 12th

Single Tickets:
Golden Circle Premium Seating in orchestra or mezzanine: $60.00
Orchestra front sides or middle: $35.00
Orchestra rear or general mezzanine: $20.00
on sale as of Monday Oct 1st, 2007

Student Rush tickets: 50% off 1/2 hour before curtain
Senior: 10% off single tickets
Groups: 20% off groups of 10 or more

Jesse James Scores a Bulls Eye

This is a really great film. And the more you know about cinematic storytelling the greater you will think it is. From the aspect of craft, Assassination is beautiful in all of the aspects that matter: writing, direction, performance, score, cinematography, production design, sound design. (That is, each of its parts its whole, harmonious and radiant (ie. communicative), and then the amalgamation of the parts is harmonious.) And then from the aspect of world-view, the film radiates a powerful and universal truth. Even more rare, the film manages to integrate theme into the method of storytelling, most notably in the style of dialogue and cinematography. And it has lyrical imagery! And it even uses ambient sound to highlight the theme! Watching this film, my critic cup ranneth over.

The subtextual title of the film could be: "Living in Sin." The film illustrates the destruction wreaked in human lives from habitually living in a state of spiritual rebellion....in a really funny way sometimes. My friend and I were laughing very loud at times at the absurdity that becomes the life of the person who, as St. Bernadette says, "loves their sin." But way beyond just showing the banality of living in a committed relationship to evil, Assassination does a cool thing in making the point - particularly through the style of dialogue - that human beings trying to live out the Genesis lie "you shall be like God," end up as transparent and ridiculous phonies. It was really cool. BTW, the film is based the book of the same name written by the very smart and committed Catholic writer, Ron Hansen. Of course, I came home and ordered the book immediately as I'm sure one out of every two viewers will too.

Where to start? Okay, how about the cinematography....





Beautiful frames all the way through. The pallet is frequently colorless...just like the fruits of sin. And then, several times, they did this really cool thing of showing landscapes through a narrowed lens that was clear in the middle but fuzzy all around. It seemed to me that living in sin similarly distorts a person's moral, spiritual and even intellectual vision.

There were several breathtaking images - the bucket (of iniquity) running over, the fades to the blackest of darkness, the Darkened doorways - but my favorite was "the wheat and the tares." I say no more! Just love it when you see it.




Everything they are saying about Casey Affleck stealing this movie from Brad Pitt is true. ("Wow," I thought, "Someone in the Affleck family has genuine talent." It's so nice when something in the hype of contemporary life turns out to be authentic.) Casey is great in this movie. I was wondering if being in the shadow of the lesser talented big brother Ben contributed to Casey so ably fleshing out a resentful man in another man's shadow. But anyway, he perfectly inhabits the idol-worshipper who alternately is facinated by and hates his idol. It's delightful to watch him because he is so good.

Brad too is great here, spot on in fleshing out a person who has chosen to begin his hell on earth. He is paranoid, perpetually exhausted, emotionally unstable, and frighteningly unpredictable in his rages and cruelty. He is definitely a human being though, who yearns to love and be loved, but he is a human being caught on the underside of a large snowball rolling down a mountain. He can't stop the momentum of his own evil choices.

The supporting players are also wonderful, most notably the guy who plays Liddel. He was fabulous as the mysogynist who rolls out pretentious dialogue.

But a discussion of casting and supporting players leads to one of the two missteps in the film, this one being a huge misstep. Did I say huge? Because I meant HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Who had the unbelievably inappropriate idea to cast fire-breathing Democratic partisan James Carville as the Governor of Missouri? As my friend said, "They just demolished the fourth wall with a nuclear weapon." Terrible, stupid, distracting call. In a tableau of wonderful performances, Carville was stiff and weird, regurgitating lines that sounded like they were being read off a tele-prompter. And this was particularly egregious because the governor's character has a key line in the film that underscores the narrative's essential theme. I think "casting James Carville" is going to replace "jumping the shark" as a new euphemism for doing a stupid thing just because you can.

The other misstep in the film had to do in almost everything in the movie after Jesse James gets killed. They were rushing around trying to do to much and ended up splashing the subtext all over the page. The filmmakers needed to lose about fifteen minutes of this film, and it should have been all the moments in which they made Robert Ford have to tell us how he felt about killing Jesse. It was so much better in the rest of the film in which we could wonderously find the clues and put them together.



But overall, this is an Academy Award worthy piece in many categories - acting, directing, cinematography and writing minimally. It's the first really Oscar-worthy project I've seen this year.

(But I'm wondering why we aren't seeing more raves about it everywhere. And I haven't seen one TV ad. It can't be that because next year is an election year, the attention and the Oscars just have to go to the crop of anti-war propaganda films, can it? I hope not, because that would be an injustice to this piece that deserves plaudits.)

Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford is a must see for movie-loving grown ups. (The violence here is harsh without being voyeuristic. There really isn't a lot of it, but it might be too much for kids. There is no sex, but there is some lewd talk appropriate to the theme.)

P.S. Go here for a much more thorough review of the technical elements of the film.

A Severe Mercy - The Movie Website

Origin Entertainment has just launched an official web site for our feature project of A Severe Mercy. It has lots of neat pictures of Van and Davy, and also the settings of the story that give a sense of the what the look of the movie will be - (from the web site:)

"A Severe Mercy is the kind of project entertainment executives dream of. Based on an international bestseller, it also carries the tremendous name-recognition of C.S. Lewis, who plays a major role in the story. It is an epic love story and highly cinematic, taking the audience from the rolling hills of Virginia to the attack on Pearl Harbor, to the blue waters of the Caribbean, to the ivy-covered arches of post-War Oxford."

If you have read the book, you know that the most compelling thing about the story is not the visual arenas in which it unfolds, but the interior world of the love stories between Van and Davy and then, each of them with the Christian God. (A treat for those who have read the book....that picture on the top left is Davy's "sin picture".)

We are off to the East coast this weekend to tell people who can help about our hopes for this project. Please do keep us in your prayers.

A Severe Mercy Nights in DC and Philly

This coming week, Origin Entertainment will be holding two informational nights about our plans for the development of the feature adaptation of Sheldon Van Auken's A Severe Mercy.

The nights will be in:

Saturday, September 15 - McLean, VA

Monday, September 17 - Philadelphia, PA

The evenings will be about 90 minutes long, and will feature two parts. The first part will deal with general information about the process of financing, developing and distributing a feature film in Hollywood. The second part will be about Origin Entertainment and A Severe Mercy.

If you would like to attend either evening, please send an email to Jennifer@originentertainment.com

Announcing: Hollywood RCIA

We are in the process of organizing our annual RCIA (that's Rite of Christian Initiation, but the bulk of our attendees are already Christians and are on their way to becoming Catholics) program for entertainment industry people, and we need help to make the program known to anyone you might know in the business whom God might be calling into the Catholic Church.

We start October 6th at Family Theater and will continue meeting on Saturday mornings until Pentecost. The program is specially geared to people in the business. We are trying to fill a gap that exists in current parish programs, by creating a program that constantly references the discipleship demands of being an artist and professional in Hollywood. (If candidates decide to become Catholic at the conclusion of the program, we work with their local parish to have them formally enter the Church.) The program, styled as more seminar/discussion than lecture, utilizes the Catechism of the Catholic Church and ecclesial documents, but also literary works like Brideshead Revisited, The Power and the Glory, and Silence (Shushaka Endo). We already have five candidates for the Fall, but would like three or four more so we have a good discussion group.

Who is right for the program? Basically, the first part of the program (from October to February) would be enriching for anyone with some spiritual curiosity and desire to deepen their understanding of theology. We find that many folks from non-Catholic Christian backgrounds, while knowing parts of Scripture very well, have not really studied any theology, so this first part of the program fills a void for them. From February to Pentecost, we focus more explicitly on the sacraments, liturgy and specifics of the Catholic theology and culture.

So, the ideal person to invite would be anyone who is seeking a spiritual home and a deeper understanding of Christianity and the Church. Others would be people in the business who are in the process of marrying - or, well, falling in love - with a Catholic. Also, we always have Catholic observers in the class who benefit from attending the classes as a refresher (or introduction...sigh...) for their faith.

Here's what we need from you:

1) Pray about your circle of contacts, gulp deeply, and then mention the program to whomever has been kind of asking you questions about God for the last few years. Give them my email: brnicolosi@aol.com and we'll take it from there.

2) Forward this on to other Catholics in the business.

3) We need some financial help for the program. Those of you who have attended the program in the past know that we take the class on retreat every year at Serra in Malibu. We provide them Bibles, catechisms, some other texts and prayerbooks. The program requires quite a bit of coordination, and we would like to offer some one of our helpers a small stipend for their service. We need about three thousand dollars basically. If you would like to help with the expenses, send a donation to Family Theater, with "For Hollywood RCIA" in the memo line:

Family Theater Productions
Attn: Hollywood RCIA Program
7201 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046

4) Our wonderfully generous Clayton Emmer, who has been coordinating the program for several years, is having to step down this year. If any of you would like to help us out - fulfilling many spiritual works of mercy! - please do send me a message.

5) Please take a moment right now to pray for everyone receiving this message, and for those who will be part of our RCIA program this year.

Thanks so much. God bless you, and all your works for the Kingdom.

Act One in Grand Rapids

--------------- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ---------------

ROAD TO HOLLYWOOD STARTS IN GRAND RAPIDS, MI –
SCREENWRITERS’ WORKSHOP PLANNED

Each year, hundreds of aspiring screenwriters flock to Hollywood with scripts in their hands and stars in their eyes. This year, Hollywood is coming to them. Next stop? Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Act One, Inc., a Los Angeles-based training program for writers and other film industry professionals, is partnering with Compass Film Academy of Grand Rapids to present the Act One Screenwriting Weekend, a conference for professional and aspiring screenwriters. The workshop, slated for October 19-20, 2007 at Trinity Christian Reformed Church, is an intense, practical overview of screenwriting basics, the current film market, and the Christian’s responsibility to engage popular culture.

Participants will study the craft of screenwriting – from story development and structure to character, dialogue and screenplay format – with a group of accomplished Hollywood professionals, including screenwriter, producer, and Azusa Pacific University Associate Professor Dr. Thomas Parham (JAG, Touched By An Angel), and screenwriter/author Chris Riley (After The Truth, The Hollywood Standard).

“Grand Rapids has a rich history as a center of Christian art and thought,” says Conference Coordinator Lauri Evans Deason. “And we’re thrilled to join the Compass Film Academy in providing new inspiration for local writers who share our common goals of artistry, professionalism, and spirituality.”

The seminar begins at 1:00 p.m. Friday with a session for registered participants, and continues all day Saturday. Friday evening features the Hollywood Insiders Event, a keynote address and panel discussion with the faculty, open to anyone interested in film and its influence on popular culture. The registration fee, which includes study materials and lunch on Saturday, is $175 for anyone registering before October 1, 2007. After October 1, the cost to attend is $195. Discounts are available for students and groups of ten or more. Tickets for the Hollywood Insiders Event (which begins Friday at 7:00 p.m.) are $10.

Further information and online registration is available through the Act One website at HYPERLINK "http://www.actoneprogram.com" www.actoneprogram.com or by calling 323-464-0815. Space is limited, and early registration is encouraged.

Act One, Inc. is a non-profit, interdenominational training and mentorship program designed to train people of faith for careers in mainstream film and television. The organization is endorsed by the Catholic Communications Commission, Catholics In Media Associates, Premise, The Hollywood Prayer Network, MasterMedia International, and several colleges and universities.




MEDIA REQUESTS AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

lauri@actoneprogram.com
323-464-0815 x14

Renewing the Dialogue Between the Church and the Arts

Here was a basic outline for a talk I gave tonight in Cincinnati...

---------------------

In his Letter to Artists (2000) Pope John Paul II called for “a renewal of that fruitful dialogue that used to exist between the Church and the Arts.”

Clearly, you cannot have dialogue without a forum, a message, and without a speaker. Our investments in Hollywood as Catholics should be geared to establishing and fostering all three of these.

A “forum” – The Church in Hollywood needs a place from which it could host ongoing dialogues with the creative people who set the global entertainment and media agenda. We need a site around which Catholics in the industry could gather to network, pray together and support each other. We need a chapel for the arts. We need a theater in which to host premieres of good work. We need a think-tank which could provide media with commentary on cultural topics. We need a training ground for artists and filmmakers to learn to integrate their life as believers wiuth their work as professionals.

A “message” – In order to have a dialogue, we need to have something relevant and valuable to say to Hollywood. The Church needs to commission her scholars, philosophers and ethicists to brood over the whole arena of art, storytelling and entertainment, so as to translate theological and Scriptural principles into useful guidelines for Hollywood creatives.

A “speaker” – We need to prepare apostles for Hollywood who can bring the presence of God into the entertainment industry. We need to provide spiritual and ethical formation to those Christians who are currently in the industry. We need to raise up articulate spokesman who can question and challenge Hollywood from within, in the network, study and agency sets and offices.

Here's a little blip from this week's Daily Variety. Amy Snow, the writer here, is an Act One alumna. Kudos Amy!
_____________________________________


Paramount nabs 'Kept Men'
Spec comedy penned by Fellowship scribe
By MICHAEL FLEMING

Paramount Pictures has acquired the spec comedy "Kept Men," by Amy Snow, for Double Features partners Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher.

Pic revolves around three down-and-out pals looking for a shortcut to riches, who flaunt their youthful assets at a charity auction in hopes of becoming kept men.

Shamberg and Sher will produce, and Steve Crawford and Matt Luber of Nine Yard will be exec producers.

Snow came out of the Disney Fellowship writers program.

She's repped by Endeavor and Nine Yards.

"A Severe Mercy" Night in Philadelphia

On September 17th in Philadelphia, Origin Entertainment, will be hosting an informational evening about "Christians Investing in Culture" and also to introduce our recent feature project acquisition, A Severe Mercy.



We have created this night - which we plan to replicate in several cities around the country - to help inform potential investors about the process of mounting a feature film project, and to give them some good questions to ask the filmmakers who are looking to spend their money.

Some topics that we will cover include:

- What does Origin mean by "transformative entertainment" and how does it tend toward an overall goal of cultural renewal?

- How can some innocuous projects foster clout for Christian filmmakers, and why clout is a more strategic goal than a strategy geared to investment on a project-by-project basis.

- What is the Development Process and why is it so expensive? What are talent attachment fees, Guild minimums and how do you create a buzz? Why are stars worth the money they cost?

- How does a movie's budget get set? How does movie financing come together?

- What to look for in a production company team, BESIDES the fact that they believe in Jesus? Which parts of the team probably need to be believers, and which roles in the process can be considered doorways for evangelization?

- Why a coherent strategy for distribution needs to be a contingency of investment.

Then, Part II...

- Who is Origin Entertainment, and what is our thing among Hollywood production companies?

- Why are we so excited about A Severe Mercy and what makes us think it could be like A Chariots of Fire for this generation?

- How can people be part of bringing projects like A Severe Mercy to the screen?

The evening will take place at 7pm at the International Institute for Culture in Philadelphia. Representing Origin Entertainment will be our Founding partner and CEO, James Volk, our Corporate Consultant, Dick Lyles, PhD, and myself.

If you would like to find out how to attend this meeting or a future one in Chicago, Washington, Detroit, Boston or Los Angeles, please send an email to Jennifer@originentertainment.com.

Please do keep Origin, and A Severe Mercy in your prayers.

See Barb in Providence?

I will be back home in CT for a few weeks starting August 15th. If anybody wants to mount some kind of forum, I am probably available.

Send an email to barbara@originentertainment.com

Something to do in Cincinnnati?

I have a speech in Cincinnati on the evening of August 14th. But I fly in the night before and, except for a fifteen minute radio interview, I have nothing to do all day on the 14th. If anybody wants to pull together some kind of impromptu lunch or coffee for that day, I am up for it... as of this moment.

Send me an email if you want to make a plan: barbara@originentertainment.com

Live Free Plays Well

I am off to a conference in Wichita today, but I wanted to register a thumbs up for the latest Die Hard sequel now in theaters. Live Free or Die Hard is great fun with fleshy, funny characters and a great national crisis plot. It felt all too real that terrorists might disrupt our whole societal infrastructure just clicking away on computers. The film is a fun rush - losts of visual thrills, great stunts, and good fun traveling yet another punishing heroic adventure with Bruce Willis' great character, John McClane.

Wicked Reprise

Thanks to Karen Hall's obsession, I got to see Wicked again tonight and I got even more out of it the second time. I find it very clever and layered, although Karen and I were fighting in the inter-mission over how many of the sub-plots and characters have a deeper symbolism. (I want to know what the animals being silenced ultimately means, and Karen basically responds to that question, "Oh, will you shut up?" I guess that makes me the silenced animal? Is it too late to be a gazelle?)

I'm not sure exactly what the ultimate theme of the play is, but I do know that there is a strong theme about how it is in holding of our differences in tension that allows us to grow. This is true between individuals, and in a broader way in society. If you bring in the idea of good and evil, it's a reworking of the tares and wheat growing up together parable. It is certainly true in drama that you need the darkness to probe the light. Friendship, in Wicked is two very different people accepting each other without having to remake each other in their own image. That dynamic of acceptance allows both friends to become better versions of themselves.

There is a lovely song in the play that comes near the end and is all about this. It is a haunting moment because it is lilting music and a great paradox.

"For Good"
(from Wicked, music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz))

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn

And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you:

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend:

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you:
Because I knew you:
I have been changed for good

And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for
But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share
And none of it seems to matter anymore

Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun.
Like a stream the meets a boulder halfway through the wood.
Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea.
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood.

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better?

And because I knew you:
Because I knew you:
Because I knew you:
I have been changed for good.

Both times the song had me musing on the friends in my life who have changed me for the better, and for whom I am very grateful. (Listening R268? God love ya -) The play doesn't show the point of friendship as being remaking our friends. It isn't us being tactfully corrective that is the grace here. It's the power in sheer delight. Being delighted in propels you into being better. In a paradoxical way, being embraced as you are gives you the power to be able to change, as in grow.

Anyway, I liked Wicked again. It isn't the deepest play I've ever seen - I think Phantom has a more coherent symbolism and theme - but it definitely has a thing to it.