God in Ruins

Allan King

I don't like to describe films or filmmakers as "my favorite," but if I had to I think I'd say Allan King. By favorite I guess I'm saying his films touch most deeply the things I'm most interested in: the emotional connections between people, the way people damage each other and save each other.

Unfortunately, these great films are only for sale through the filmmaker's website, allankingfilms.com, and the price is considerable. But if you're somebody who knows what it's like to really be changed by a film, King's work is worth whatever price you pay. But since you can't buy them all, I'd say buy Warrendale or A Married Couple. Either one of those documentaries are a great introduction into this body of work which could be among the most important of our time because it so deftly exposes human beings in our most naked moments.

Scandal brings me back

Paul here. It's been a while since I posted to old GIR, but I've had a hankering to return lately. A week ago, I read in the paper about a scandal with a megachurch pastor (one I've heard speak a couple times in my former life). It kind of had the phrase "god in ruins" written all over it.

If you don't know, Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals (an umbrella group representing more than 45,000 churches with 30 million members) and founding pastor of a 14,000 member megachurch in Colorado Springs, has confessed to some "immoral" conduct with a male prostitute. When I first read about it, I'll admit I was kind of excited. I'm not excited because I get to thumb my nose at a "hypocrite" or because I think the gay rights movement had a victory. I'm excited because with any relationship that's not working, even one between a man and his God, conflict is the necessary first step toward intimacy.

Confess you sins one to the other. It's a super-basic Sunday school lesson. In fact, I'd say it' s one of those lessons that 's so fundamental you shouldn't be able to check out the church van if you fail it. (To be clear, I don't think Haggard's desires qualify as "sin," but his lies do.) The lesson is so fundamental because it builds intimacy between two people. Confess your sins to me, meaning: Be vulnerable.

"Bob, I jerk off to the men on hunkwear.com. Then I clear my web browser's history and visit a bunch of christian websites to fill it back up so my wife doesn't suspect anything. Can you forgive me?"

"Yes, Jim, in fact I struggle with..."

Boom. A relationship just got stronger. Two men are now bearing the burden one man couldn't bear alone. That relationship is the fundamental element of a community. What else is a church besides a community? What other religious issues take precedent over a relationship between two people?

How has a simple teaching of Jesus gotten so complicated? Why is it a church leader admitting to something we're all tempted by (hot sex) to a congregation bears consequences similar to waking up his family in the middle of the night and saying, "Grab what you can. We're leaving and never coming back?"

I think it's because many churches today exist and grow regardless of the level of intimacy with the person sitting next to you. They exist because of peoples' paid subscription (tithe) to the message (teaching) from a celebrity (pastor). As with any celebrity, people want to be near you without requiring any intimacy. Like a rock star, you get all the girls and no commitment. A megapastor can get all the congregation and no intimacy. It's a win/win. Except for your life eventually becomes the third act of greek tragedy. Because, like the farmer who's injects his cows with hormones then is shocked when he grows breasts, a community—even one that got to be 14,000 large—can't expect to be healthy where there's been no understanding of intimacy.

2046

There was a beautiful girl who I once was in a relationship with (although this girl is now a woman living somewhere, she exists in my memory as a girl). The only chance we had to meet was when our relationship had a slim chance of working out. I was pushing to be with her. She pushed me away. We got together anyway. We always had the same fight. Was I going to ruin her life? Keep her from her ambitions? She never pictured herself with a guy like me. Then, one day, she did. She wanted to marry me. But by that point, the argument we had over and over again had left me wanting to leave. I couldn't shake it. I was through. Every few months for years afterward she would call me and ask the same question, "Why didn't we work out?"

Every time she called I tried to give her an answer that both of us knew was weak at best. The truth was I didn't know. I still don't. By the time she was ready to start a serious relationship I was finished. Bad timing.

2046 is Wong Kar Wai's latest film. It's the continuation of a story that started with In the Mood for Love. It also makes reference to his earlier film, Days of Being Wild. It's the mid 1960's, a little while after In the Mood for Love leaves off. Chow Mo Wan has not gotten over Su Li Zhen, the woman who would not give up her husband, life and reputation to be with Chow. He refers to his life in In the Mood for Love as his "previous life."  Chow is now a playboy. A poor playboy who throws various birthday parties for himself to make money. He's writing a story about a place in the future called 2046. In the future a giant train system spans the globe. Everybody wants to go to 2046, it's the place to recapture lost memories. Only one man has ever wanted to leave 2046 and he is on a train with no apparent destination.

As the next two hours unfold, Chow teases love with other women and let's them go. He's in a constant state of search. Love, he says, is not about who you find as much as when you find them. It's all about timing. People pass in and out of each other's lives, and if you love somebody who is at the point to receive it, then love can grow. But you may meet the perfect person at the wrong time and lose it altogether.

The whole timing thing is not a romantic idea. Although we live in a time where the idea of finding a soulmate is weighted heavily by the idea of finding a best friend, there is still, I think, that hope which believes there is one person out there who perfectly fits me. Wong Kar Wai's presentation of love is less of a search for the one straight path and more like wondering through a forest. It's more about chance than destiny. More about timing than romance.

I noticed that having a baby is kind of like this notion of love. A husband and wife could make love thousands of times throughout their marriage. However, a handful of times they'll make love and a baby will start to grow. It grows within the woman and then comes out. At that point, the parents discover a different kind of love for this baby. A love they never knew about and the baby keeps growing. It grows in the shadow of love from its parents. Then it finally grows into an adult who falls in love, makes love, and, someday, the cycle starts over.

And it all starts in some unforeseeable way. A one time thing out of a hundred times that two people may make love. It's chance.

It seems to me falling in love is much like that. We may connect with different people at different times throughout our lives. We meet each other in different places in our lives. A married woman meets a college boy, a busy man meets a woman in another country, an career minded girl meets a love struck boy; in every instance it may have been great in a different time and a different place. But then there is the chance encounter with somebody who is ready to receive you and who you are ready to receive, and it works out beautifully. Despite the percentages. It seems like destiny because the chances you two defied were so slim. It happens. Just not in a Wong Kar Wai film.

Spout

Alright. I'm sorry that I've been neglecting my peeps. I thought I could be a hero and manage two blogs at the same time. It's not working out like I had hoped. God in Ruins is not gone. Just posting a little more sporradically. But if you want to read me you can catch a helluva eyeful at my other place of blogging:

http://spout.com

Put it on your blogroll. Between there and here you'll catch me posting something just about every day.

Understanding Poverty

I read Ruby Payne's book A Framework for Understanding Poverty hoping that it would provide me with some compassionate understanding for people who I see everyday that are other from me (see post from 9/7/05).  Ruby Payne is an educator who married a husband from poverty and has worked in both affluent schools and impoverished schools.  Her book is an in-depth look at the invisible rules separating three cultures that exist simultaneously in America, but are unfortunately looked at as separated only by economic differences:  the poverty culture, the middle-class culture, and the affluent culture.

Payne's book popped up on my radar at the perfect time. I have neighbors who would be classified as in poverty. I want to feel compassion for them, but it's hard not to feel anything besides rage when I have to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting a kid who's parent is on the front porch sucking on a bottle of beer. But I want to understand because although it's harder to see a life in all of it's complexity, it's necessary to feel sympathy for somebody else; to see that there really is a connection between them and me.

Some points I found interesting in Payne's book (these are generalizations but help to put some structure around the intangible qualities of poverty, middle-class, and affluent cultures):

• Situational poverty or affluency is a present circumstance brought on by a change in events and is different from generational poverty or affluency, which has innate cultural rules.

• Living in poverty is quantified by living for the present moment (i.e. buying food for the day, paying only the bills that are being collected on, valuing a person who is entertaining because entertainment is relief from the struggle of the present)

• Middle-class living is often geared toward the future (i.e. buying food for the week, understanding 30 year mortgages and credit ratings, valuing a person's stability/consistency)

• Affluent living has a strong emphasis on the past (i.e. food is a process of refining tastes, family assets are to be maintained and cultivated, value on a person's lineage and status)

The point she made that I keep coming back to in my mind is that in order for a person to make the shift from one class to another, that person will need at least one of four things:

1) To be in a situation that is unbearable.
2) A gift or skill that propels them out of their class.
3) A strong belief in the promise of a better life down the road.
4) A guide/mentor to show them how to live in the new class.

Why is one of those things necessary to make a cultural shift? Because, as a concentration camp survivor once said, humans are capable of getting used to anything. So, even if I grow up in a home with an alcoholic, non-existent father and a mother working two jobs who dresses me in dirty clothes and leaves me to be abused by my cousins, it is the world I know. To leave the world I know and live a middle-class life centered around stability means that, for a year or two, this new life will feel awkward and uncomfortable.

I don't think the four things one needs to switch classes is exclusive to social class. In my experience, I needed two of those things (promise of a better life and a mentor) to make the break from a dysfunctional family into building healthy relationships with my wife and child (an ongoing process). Although it seems to defy logic, for somebody who grew up in chaos, stability and order feel wrong. My wife can testify that I've found myself in phases of stability trying to beat that stability with a bat because it feels wrong and strange.

I've met artists with similar talents, but wildly different abilities to cope with life. Some handle the lean and plenty lifestyle like they were made for it and others flog themselves throught the lean times. I wonder if the difference is a mentor. In my experience, a mentor is not one of those things adopted to suit our lifestyle, like eating organic or taking up yoga, but a mentor is a guide that leads me out of just surviving into a life that is worth living.

Soderbergh and the Cuban

(Also posted on SpoutBlog)

  So a lot of folks are feeling the sting of change with the upcoming release of Steven Soderbergh's new film Bubble, his first of six features he'll be making as part of Mark Cuban's plan for disrupting the movie industry. I think some of the outcry around releasing Bubble simultaneously in theaters, on DVD, and on the Internet is perfectly understandable. Change is always painful. Just ask those studio moguls who thought "Talkies" would never take off.

Soderbergh is quoted as saying, "Everything changes and evolves and we've got to get with it, embrace it and find a way to make it work."

Richard Johnson at Page 6 published an article yesterday to make the point that Soderbergh's track record of films that have not made money nullify him from being able to comment on the industry. The Reeler has justly rushed to the defense of those numbers to prove that Soderbergh has made more money than Page 6 claims, but I think an important point in this argument has been overlooked.

Soderbergh is an artist who knows that in order to make a film in the system that gives him the freedom to experiment (see Full Frontal), he has to do it on the cheap. Johnson throws out all of these big budgets that didn't make their weight back in the box-office to prove that Soderbergh doesn't have a mind for business. I would say he's got a mind for the business, but more importantly he has a mind for the art of making film.

  Conventional wisdom would say that a large budget for a film equals a happier director, but I think Soderbergh has learned that, in fact, less money often equals more freedom. A huge budget, for an artist, can make him feel like the Grinch's little pooch with an antler strapped to his head trying in vain to haul a sleigh overloaded with toys up the mountain, and all the while the Grinch is cracking a whip across his furry tail.

The numbers quoted in the Page 6 article just go to show me that Soderbergh is familiar with the sting of the lash and he is looking for the next evolution. The evolution when the war between business and art returns to a more healthy balance and frees him up to be less business executive and more artist.

Spout

This has been one busy week for this guy and I apologize for the lack of sharing on my part. For those of you who are curious about the elusive company I work for and what we've been working on, we've got a blog up so we can start chatting with the public. Take a gander: http://spoutblog.com

Time to Review

Karina Longworth has a review for Thumbsucker (opening tonight) on cinematical.com. She describes it has a thoroughly humorous, revealing, and an all around satisfying experience. I haven't seen the film, but just the first two paragraphs of her review got my thinking. She compares two recent independent films dealing with the frequently explored subject matter of suburban teenagers coming of age:

"[Mysterious Skin] was the story of suburban teenagers trying to figure out how to be sexual beings whilst hiding dark, terrible secrets; [Thumbsucker] is the story of suburban teenagers trying to figure out how to be sexual beings, when their desires alone feel like dark, terrible, secrets. It's not hard to turn tragedy into comedy; a stroke of the mundane is all it takes."

Isn't it great to see a few words bring such clarity to something so true? When was the last time you talked about junior high? Were you laughing or crying? Were you laughing so hard you were crying? Maybe you were crying so hard you had to laugh? Tragedy and comedy make love in strange positions.

In contrast, a giant color photograph covering Tuesday's Life Section of USA Today depicted Gwyneth Paltrow and Hope Davis striking a "sister, sister" pose. The article revolves around the film Proof, which also opens tonight. But what is the article about? Hope Davis and Gwyneth having a girl moment in the make-up room. Yesterday, my friend Dave showed me an article about how Hollywood movies premier in New York because the Press in NY turns out for the red carpet showcase and then, basically, they go home. The showing of the film is irrelevant.

Apparently, the thing to do now is show up in the make-up room before the celebs step onto the red carpet. That's where the scoop is. And what's the scoop? Two gorgeous women who seem to really like each other. They swap mom advice and how to feed babies a macrobiotic diet. In fact, they like each other so much it's as if they're really sisters, like they are in this film called Proof which is about something or other that is basically really deep.

I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but that actually is the gist of this article. Hope Davis is the seasoned, talented (truly talented: About Schmidt, The Secret Lives of Dentists) and Paltrow is the check-out aisle tabloid fixture who can put a baby product company into the black by pushing around their stroller. And these two are now friends. Top story.

Both articles are about a high profile art house film. They are just film reviews. But one took me somewhere genuine and one left me with the mental after-taste of a piece of Bubbilicious. I think they reveal to me the power of an individual voice and, in the case of Cinematical, the potential of blogging to set those voices free.

Some days it feels like even a film review is in desperate need of freedom.

Sentimental Sufjan

I went to see Sufjan Stevens play last night.  He is on his Come On Feel the Illinoise tour for his recent album, Illinois, an album devoted to the state of Illinois.  I left telling myself  I wouldn't write a post about it because it feels cliche to see a concert and blog about it right afterward.  Plus, most of what I took away from that concert I haven't really been able to put into words yet.  I got this intangible feeling that seemed to come from the clarity of sound emanating from the stage.  Yeah, that's the best description I've got right now.

I wouldn't be writing anything about this concert if it weren't for the Cassavetes book I've been nibbling on.  When we left last night's show my wife mentioned something about how our country feels ready for an album like Sufjan's.  She couldn't put it into words, but I think she wanted to say what John Cassavetes once said,

I wish we weren't so hard-boiled.  The human spirit is really at a dangerously low ebb.  We need to pump adrenaline into our sentimental values, which have become so badly depleted.

I love that phrase, "sentimental values."  It's not talking about patriotism, it's not about good deeds or shopping at Sears.  It says to me, "We may not be the coolest people in the world, but we have some genuine feelings and if a feeling is genuine, it has value.  Whether it's sentimental or not."

I think that by celebrating the state of Illinois and its people, Sufjan has done something to free us up.  He has allowed our sentimentality for country and one another to no longer feel like the geek in our soul standing by the punch-bowl, wanting badly to need to pee so he can leave the dance floor.  My sentimental geek can bust an ass-clenchingly sweet move on the dance floor if he wants to.

Head in my ass.

Looking back, I suspect I may have had my head up my own ass in that last post.  In a dark moment, I wondered in my last post if I am making a difference.  Of course I'm making a difference!  Geez, I'm so ridiculous.

Every once in a while I meet a young person, usually a filmmaker, who's aspirations go beyond making film into "changing the world."  Quite often as I dig a little deeper in conversation, I start to realize that this person is completely wrapped up in changing the world, but has done next to nothing when it comes to changing his or her self.  I am suddenly reminded of a description about a guy I met from one of our mutual acquaintances, "he loves revolution, but not relationships."

I have come to believe that setting out to change the world is signing up for disappointment.  The world is vast and its systems have evolved over millions of years of humans interacting with it.  I don't go out and just "change the world."  But in changing myself, I can not help but change those I interact with.  It's like yanking on a chain link fence.  I may only have the ability to grab one link, but when I yank on it the whole fence reverberates.  In changing myself, in pushing toward a life filled with vitality, I change the world.

In fact, I'm constantly changing the world.  To think that nothing I do makes a difference is one of the most deceitful illusions I can fall victim to.  I am always effecting the world around me for better or for worse.  One of the most selfish things I can do is get caught up spinning around in my own mind wondering if I make a difference or not, and thus rob the people around me of myself.  I get so stuck on revoltuion I forget that all I have are relationships.

What got me thinking about this?  None other than old Kieslowski.  Watch the end of episode 7 of The Decalogue and you will see a much better illustration of what I'm talking about than I can write here.