Some moments in your life can be described as watching a car accident happen: you know it's going to be gruesome and horrible, but you can't look away.
My afternoon was kind of like this.
Today the entire film seminar class got together so that some students (the prepared ones -- which did not include me) could do a presentation on what they were working on and get some feedback. I wonder if this is the kind of thing studio executives have to sit through all the time.
One of the great things about De Anza is that anyone there -- absolutely anyone who signs up for a film class and pays the lady behind the green-glowing terminal -- can make a movie. One of the great weaknesses of De Anza is that not everyone can make a movie, but they can still get their hands on the equipment.
I thought I wouldn't mention any of the ideas, because no matter how awful I think they are, these are their creators' pet projects and I'd hate it if someone did that to me. But this one I have to give the pitchline for. It's The Wizard Of Oz meets Shakespeare's The Tempest with a political message. See, it's all about the bonds of servitude and deflowering Dorothy. There's more --
-- I won't go on. I can't go on with it.
What was the absolute worst thing about this was not the idea. No, ideas can be badly expressed but still be wonderful or successful or what have you. And I'm not the best judger of what a good idea is -- after all, if Robert Zemeckis had come to me and said, "I have this great idea about doing a movie about this idiot who travels through American history..." I'd be kicking myself today because I wouldn't have given him a dime.
No, the horrible part was the attitude of the creator. When someone pointed out that it's tough to do Shakespeare on film because Shakespeare is too goddamn talky, the creator said that the beauty of Shakespeare is the language. End of debate. He didn't even consider that the student might have a point. Oh no. He was of the school I. Will. Brook. No. Objections. To. My. Genius.
I asked how long he planned the finished film to be. Twenty minutes, he said. Twenty minutes? Is he kidding? (For one thing, if he's going to do it on film, that's $20,000 easy, counting costumes, scenery, and makeup...and if he's going to get well-trained actors, as he'd have to if they're going to be spouting the Bard, he's going to have to pay them too. Amateur Shakespeare can be painful.) He's going to do a political polemic in 20 minutes?
Oh, well, he's put on Shakespeare plays on the stage. No problem.
I kept trying to come up with a way of saying that this was pretentious artistic crap and he's trying to do too much with too many disparate elements that don't sound like they're jelling together well, but I couldn't do it.
(The thing that really pissed me off too -- and I could almost call this when he was up there trying to explain how Caliban is the Cowardly Lion -- is that he left during the break. He'd done his presentation, he had better things to do than return the fucking courtesy shown to him during his spiel. I keep running into these types during these film classes. They don't get the acclaim they expect after presenting their idea, they walk. They've taken care of their business, they walk. It bugs the hell out of me.)
I am, after all, one to talk about pretentious artistic crap, as I am so familiar with it. Yesterday I finished my entry in here with a flourish, thinking I would go off and write some fiction. Ha. I went home, cruised the Web, ate a Pop-Tart, watched TV, started resdesigning my web pages, and read newsgroups. It wasn't pretty. Or productive either.
This evening I have writing group...or not (have to go check my mail). I have to return messages from all the people I have heard from recently (lee1, I cannot get a message through to you, I'm sorry, but I give up). And I have to take a Valium and calm down from being so righteous about what constitutes art and proper conduct.
I did say I would write about art at some point, didn't I? Yesterday, in fact. Well, I don't think this counts, but I'm keeping it in mind.