CANNES 2005
Sometimes the superficiality of our industry distresses me and I wonder if like the men in GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS I am trapped in a cycle I can’t escape from because of the passion it breeds in me. The spectacle of the people on the outside that can’t get in. I am in and yet I feel like a stranger. I feel like a stranger in my own living room or should is say room. Maybe it’s just Cannes. Maybe I am growing up. Maybe it’s the turbulence on the plane as I jot down these thoughts. The meeting with Alex was at once sobering, exciting and yet not fulfilling. A feeling of wanting to chat more but the constraints of time, place making it impossible. The festival welcomes you and spits you out once it’s done with you. Who are you? Nothing. Yet within that frustration your accomplishments stand out. People are proud of your achievements. I can’t stop myself from speaking in the third person. The burden for me is always the desire to better myself. To not get too close to the sun for fear that the max might melt on my wings and I would fall hard to the ground. What if that is an illusion. The fear that this isn’t all going to last. Sembene Ousman to Clint Eastwood are making their best films now. I am going to be thirty one. They are forty years older than I am. There are no shortcuts to that forty years. I have to walk that road and discover new things.
It’s the discovery and the possibilities of the journey that excite me. Everything I learn an addition to my suitcase, everything I forget, an omission in my judgement. I have to go back and get it. The people on the way, the smiles, the laughter, the discussions. And all I am armed with are my beliefs. To be honest, to represent the truth, to be honest to myself. To make peace with myself. Also to be a better person. My greatest fear is that I become a member of the crowd. A disgruntled filmmaker. I am sure I not heading down that course but who ever is? Rudolph, the producer of DRUM asked. “How long are you going to be around?”
Long.
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