Saturday, July 27, 2013

Production News


I'm thrilled to be near completion on a new short film. The title is A WELL-PROVED HELPMATE. It is about a folk preacher named Pontain Mitchell, who has an amazing ability for spontaneous religious language. But only when he disappears behind a curtain. He even has a different name behind the curtain, "Jabez." In the movie he discusses his divided self. There are now images available at the website, TropicPictures.com.

I am also in pre-production for a short film to begin principle photography in September. The title is THE MOCK DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD. It concerns a toy maker named Tommy Roach, who, like Pontain Mitchell, is cosmically inclined. But there are pronounced differences. Pontain uses poetic language as a way to invest landscape and animals with spiritual authority. Tommy, on the other hand, is fascinated by monsters.

The toys Tommy makes are strange and horrendous-looking. He is drawn in by mutation and decay. His heart flings wide open for his toys. It is his view that a spirit of hospitality toward derangement is the way that affords one the ability to look at the world with a sense of grace.

But things needn't be so serious. Both films feature comedy and delightful images. And neither pushes for a religious point of view, not even the one about the folk preacher. I was thinking about poetic language and artistic invention. Difficult to go very far in an investigation of these two modes without "otherworldly" comparisons. 




Friday, March 15, 2013

That "Other" Thing


David Abram, in the preface of his book The Spell of the Sensuous, says, "The eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears and nostrils—all are gates where our body receives the nourishment of otherness." I do not mean to misuse Abram's brilliant book, but I often turn his phrase to fit an aesthetic purpose. I believe art—the best art—nourishes our bodies with otherness. Something strange lives in beauty, makes it shimmer. Something frightening, too, which is why beauty is exhilarating.

Typically we think of beauty as making a grand entrance. A radiant face and toned body moving along a red carpet. Sudden fanfare of sunlight breaking through the clouds. A flourish of music on the radio, dissolving the drone of traffic. 

But beauty may also wish to be vague and invite close scrutiny. I remember, something like twenty years ago, seeing a handmade sign in a small town restaurant:

"Be still and no that I am God."
Home cooking cmbo platter $4.29

I'm sure you notice right off the incorrect substitution of "no" for "know." And that the reduced word "combo" has been reduced further, such that it's almost unknowable. And perhaps the Bible verse matched with a commercial message makes you a bit suspicious about the motivations of the painter and/or restaurant proprietor.

But what you can't see (because I wasn't carrying a camera with me everywhere in those days) is the spontaneous flourish the painter put on each letterform. The spins and dives on each character, and lack of space in the sign field that forced these experiments to be crammed together, made for a difficult read but a remarkable sight. Rather than creating a commercial message, the painter, intentionally or not, made a strange and fascinating piece of art that matches affordable home cooking with a feast in the beyond.

I think I've stated my appreciation for folk art in each of these posts. Strange letterforms and heartfelt but almost inscrutable messages fling my heart wide open. My short movie "When the World Was Green"  celebrates murals in Los Angeles for their otherness. The narratives in that movie are based on meditations inspired by looking at those murals. (You can see images from WtWWG on the web site www.TropicPictures.com.)

A new short movie "Other Wounds" is packed with rural images from East Texas. Lonesome farm house ruins, old church steeples, creations up on monster tires by shade tree mechanics, all these fit into three different little narratives. Like folk art pieces, the narratives almost make sense. But the message in them all, I hope, is one that gives a bit of nourishment of otherness.

"Other Wounds" is presently in post production. I hope to have images on the web site very soon.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

The "Awe" Feeling

I'm on a little roll right now with film projects that feature public art pieces as though they think and wonder, and sometimes act. Two short films are now in stages of post production. I admit, large audiences are probably not in the cards for these films. But it thrills me to invent scenarios for pieces of public art, outstanding in their own right, whether murals in Los Angeles or garden sculptures in Dallas, and cast them in myths or fantasies for adventurous groups that like to see experimental films. 

My errand with the camera is all about celebrating the "awe" feeling. It's a feeling that rewards an examined life.

I don't claim every waking hour an examined hour in my life - - not that by a long shot. But being hospitable to art, allowing it to work within me, press and pull ideas, dialogue, even, with stuff of my own invention  - - this sort of interaction is fulfilling to me.  

Generally speaking, an examined life is developed through one's critical, creative, and imaginative interaction with one's environment. In art, we recognize a union between materials and ideas. Somehow, a material object is invested with symbolic significance. Art critic Dan Siedell points out premodern cultures called this union "magic," whereas today we call it the "aesthetic."  

The term "awe" has lost much of its authority. But I know the feeling is still there, somewhere in that mysterious union that enables the self to move beyond and outside itself toward an object, whether a piece of art, an heirloom, a religious symbol, or the location of a significant event.

The art that works best in me is folk art. Art made of humble materials and visionary schemes. It keeps that magic from primitive times. It is just that stuff that inspires me as I assemble these movies.

And I hope you will find out more about my projects by visiting  www.TropicPictures.com