-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 6. LETTER FROM CAMP BETAVILLE There's more to say, always has been, but it's like fat people trying to get out the door at once, it's been like that for years, they never get out the door. I suppose it's like that for anyone, when it's about what really mattered once, nothing special about me, no that was not the reason I did what I did, not vanity. But I won't let those fat things lie down and mope, no, I'll start a fire, that's what; they won't sleep through that. But for starters, let's get a few facts straight: It's way past midnight, I've been drinking, I'm going to drink again. But not for peace, not like Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, no, it's fuel for the fire, you see. Paragraph. I may not always know whether I've said a thing out loud before, but I always know what's mine what I heard from somebody else. There's something you must understand about Betaville ... (there they are, stuck in the door again). But you must understand what Betaville was not: it was not about me wanting money and stuff and all the trappings of H- wood -- I can't even say the word, I loathe the very word. So what did I want? To discover comic timing through the juxtaposition of image and sound, that's what. And when we went into production -- big surprise. I discovered I liked the work. My talents for time management and still photography applied. But I'd never been in theater or anything, so I figured I'd have a tough time working with actors, but no! I think Bette Davis had it figured out when she said -- actors may be vain, but they have no ego, they pour themselves into the ego of their characters. And if they come to me about the background of their characters, well I'll talk all day. Because I'm the one with the big ego. But .... I'm a total introvert. Like the Rodney Dangerfield joke, you open the dictionary for "introvert" and there's my picture. So I was really cut out for this job. The psychological compliment to an actor and with a sense for time management. Most people don't understand what this means. They think we're sad and lonely when we're not. For an extrovert, to be alone is a strain, but the introvert gains strength from solitude. Like Antaeus, who wrestled Hercules. Paragraph. You know, there's lots of movies, like Betaville, that somehow got made and go nowhere. (Man of the Century, Miracle Mile, 2 films I greatly admire). They go to a film market, maybe, and they don't sell, nobody says a word about them in print, and all these mountains of "expertise", and of the "culture" of film "fans" don't help a bit. And the poor slobs who put all their "money" into it (that would be me), but really their dreams ("H&D", as we say in the Industry) end up with only self-knowledge. Which is a lot better than having nothing. For films like ours, if there is anything of which it could be said, "this is the way it should be done", then that is the way we will not do it. And let that be our motto. What we know is that even if a movie cost plenty to make and sells lots of tickets and gets advertised on the sides of buses, it can still be so devoid of nutrition -- empty calories -- that the time you spend with it is less than a dream. Like not even being alive. Paragraph. Betaville was and always will be, a living thing. I know, I was there, it's full of life, it breaths and sweats. Paragraph. Well this is what I'm trying to get to, is there a way that I could do it again? Another "movie"? The more I think about it, yes there is a way. Two questions immediately arise: Q#1: Why would I want to? A: You can't take it with you. So much for question #1. Question #2: How? A: ... All these movie festivals, you know what they make the entrants do? Convert to celluloid. So festival goers can sit in a theater, and watch like at a "regular movie", their cat's noses turned up, feeling superior to that which, at great sacrifice, is laid before them. And indulging in the presumption that they are giving all those young, aspiring filmmakers (there's no such thing as an old aspiring filmmaker) a helping hand. Well, you know what it costs to convert video tape to film? And get real -- the prospects for a theatrical release are zilch -- nothing. And no money no other way either. The proposition that Americans want or need entertainment in this day and age is preposterous. Americans are coated with a filthy glue, and fed it, which is the residue of the $10,000 per second "entertainment" that clogs their senses and dulls their mind, and the music they hear in stores, and television. No, they do not need more "entertainment". What they need, what they deserve, is to be cleansed. And in some tiny, tiny, but not insignificant way, this is what I would hope to accomplish. But in a movie theater? Impossible. On a web site? Perhaps. --tps 10 25 2007. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 5. It's the loneliness I find most pleasant about the Internet these days. After all, a person can only be lonely in the sense that there are other persons whose presence would releive the discomfort. We take that for granted, because we can't even imagine what being truly alone would mean. Did you ever read "Robinson Crusoe?" It's one of the countless 19th century novels that were so popular in their day, and are so boring to us now ... the only people who would read it now are slaves -- I mean students. Sorry. I mis-spoke there. Anyway, this guy shipwrecked on an island wasn't lonely until he saw the footprint of another man. Before then, he was simply pleased with his accomplishments. And that's what I was saying about the Internet these days, that one can write this utterly frivolus drivel, like I'm doing here, and be quite sure that no one is ever going to read a word of it. Which is not the same thing as talking aloud to yourself in a dark room (dark the better to imagine there is someone listening.) Which is all by way of introduction to my walking into a Blockbuster the other day and having a kind of epiphany ("epiphany" although it had been coming on for years and just crystalized then.) And I wish you could have been there, dear non-existant reader, beside me so I could have told you at that moment, "Hey, it's all the same!" You know, like that Far Side cartoon where the cow raises its head in a pasture and says, "Hey, this is grass ... we've been eating grass!" You see, I had been looking at Baroque art, recently prior to the epiphany; ornate silver to be specific. You know the type, all curves and little details -- I don't even know whether to call it carved or cast -- all florid and lovely. Candlesticks, but also everything for the table, and all manner of objects for the homes of the well-to-do. And for all the variety and beauty (I am not being sarcastic, it is beautiful. And take it from me, when I decide to be sarcastic, I leave little room for doubt), it's all the same. It's all baroque silverware. You got your flowers here, your fish there, you got your swirls and and your motifs ... and no matter how important all of this differentiation was to the men and women who first made these objects, to the salesmen in that store two centuries ago, and to the lady (her husband loitering about) who selected it, to us, it's all stylistically very narrow. And today, if anybody says, "Baroque Silverware", you get the picture. You don't need a college education. Well that's what "Hollywood Movies" are and have been for some time. But of course, I don't mean just American studio films, I mean the whole contemporary scene -- foreign films (usually state-sponsored), "independent films" produced by subsidiaries of the major studios, the kind of films I call "television writ large", children's sugar-garbage films, and basically all the top-selling, market-segment mentality titles one would find in a typical Blockbuster store. (Except not the old films, not the films before 1950, stereotypical though they might be, they had sincerity. Or something, je ne sai quoi). And this is what hit me, my epiphany, and I realized that, Betaville or no Betaville, I had become an "Independent Filmmaker" at last. For what it's worth. --T.S. 19 May 07 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 4. The "true" Betaville story, which was never written, is this: On Earth, international politics is such a mess that the world's leaders send their children to the same summer camp in hopes that the next generation will be able to solve things. This part of the story is sincere -- I think it might really work. The farce begins on Planet Z, who have reached the same conclusion. They have their own "Betaville" up there, and all the actors and actesses have double roles. Disney did their remake of "The Parent Trap" about the time I did my movie, and if you look at the opening sequence, wow! That's what a movie about arriving at summer camp is supposed to look like. Lindsay Lohan was brilliant in the title role but of course they made the same mistake they made with Haley Mills in 1961: When the separated twins discover each other, and that their parents divorced and concealed this secret, the children have no anger for their the parents. And from that point on, both movies are lifeless, because the movie is a lie. And I think there are things about this buisness that I really do understand. Who cares? I figured once, studio pictures cost $10,000 every second. So if you're going to make a little picture, I think there has to be this thing going on between you and the audience, to the effect that: we both know this is cheap, but there's a reason for it, and there's something here you can't buy for any amount of money. --T.S. 11 16 06. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 3. As we prepared and filmed it, I continued rewritting Betaville, except now I was taking things out, because I needed a script to match what we were actually able to produce. The main concern of myself and the people I worked closely with was whether we would end up with anything at all. It's from this perspective that Betaville can be seen as something really rather special. I always tell the story about the tank. In the early draft, the hostilities of their parents emerge in the children after they are abandoned. (Like Lord of the Flies.) The deserting army has left their stuff behind, so the two rival factions of youth each take a tank and do battle. (Like Patton) Well we didn't have 2 tanks, we had one tank. Terminator 3, this ain't. And our tank was supposed to have rubber treads, making it suitable for civic parades, etc, but they were worn away. That means that if we drive it down the road past the cabins, the road surface will have to be replaced. It's about 50 yards of road so I say, "How much?" But not so fast: when resurfaced, the law would require the concrete underpad to be altered also, for the bicycle/wheelchair paths. My problem is to make it look like the tank is actually in the camp. So we film it going by on a truck and put it up on tires when we park it and do the rest in the aircraft hangar. So the audience sees this and wonders what the heck is a tank doing in the middle of all this? Well the film-school idea was that the tank battle was analogous to WW2 and the missle attack was WW3. By the way, I still like the part in the missle attack where the guys in the silo and the kid on the ground actually see each other. It was so complicated to explain, but it's perfectly simple to see. Well everybody gave me what they could and more. I guess that part's not unusual. The trouble with my film was that I somehow got the idea in my head I was supposed to entertain people. Well, I don't know much about the rest of the world, but here in America, the idea of entertaining people is -- preposterous. They don't need more "entertainment", execpt maybe in the sense of a drunk needing another drink. No, what they need -- what they want even if they don't know it, is to somehow be made clean: catharsis. All this entertainment -- television, radio, billboards, speakers jammed into their ears -- it's all very baroque, is it not? As in the 18th century, when every spot on the wall, every object you had around, there was the need that it be decorated, precious, ornamental. Except now, we do that with time. People are afraid to have 10 seconds pass without something in them. To please as many of their senses as possible, or even only one. Like taste, like chewing gum at work. Well the years go by and then you're diabetic, this much is known. But what about your mind? Do you think the garbage you put into that matters less than what you put down your throat? One wonders, doing a blog like this, to whom one is speaking. If there are the independent film school types in attendance, let me just say that I read all the books and there is nothing in them like what I went through on the set. The traditions of film-making must descend from the 1920's. And they work beautifully. Perhaps the most surprising thing to me was the ability to actually improvise, changing things as you go along. It was great! I would love to try it again. I'll never be sorry I did it. But of course, the actors understand the characters better than the writer! They should have whole scenes, made up on the spot. It would cost more, but you could work that way if you had the time. When videotape makes film obsolete, whatever we will have gained, we will have lost something precious -- the rhythm of working in takes. I miss the silent era. --T.S. 11 15 06. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 2. So what's with Betaville? Well, you can talk and talk about a thing, but that's not the same as doing it. Do you know how to play like a child? It's not a competition. It is, I think, a way of perceiving a world that makes little sense. This builds the mental equipment you're going to need to be happy later on. Which only sometimes coincides with "success". Actually, I wanted Betaville to be far stranger than it became. Photography tends to make things look ordinary (I knew that). But music makes a world behind appearances. It's the combination that fascinated me. That and comic timing. I figured, you don't need a big budget to make comic timing. Those vadueville guys, almost a hundred years ago .... they had little audiences to try things out for. I would have liked that. As for my next film, it will all take place at night. The thing is, if you have the ability to fool other people (to create illusion, that is), then you have the ability to fool yourself. The whole point of being sad is to learn. Those poor people who are happy all the time, they miss so much in life. So now I'm going to have to move on.. -- T.S. 7 29 05. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 1. To blog or not to blog, that is the wet chicken. Look, you write grocery lists, don't you? There's nothing wrong with thinking out loud, at least when you're alone in the room. So the question is not why I write something, let alone whether I do. The question is, why are you reading it? -- T.S. 4 25 2005.