"I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between."
Francois Truffaut
I was fondly reminiscing about my time in film school, most particularly, how during the production of my Junior-thesis film, STEALING SECONDS, there wasn't a student in our tight-knit classroom that could understand it or as I most feared, did not want to understand it. "What's not to get?", I thought in my own heart's mind. "That's not the point!', my practical self tried to emphasize. 'Cinema is not only a shared social experience, but a mirror into the heart and soul and into the bony depths of its creator." Not understanding a film - - unless it's at least just a portion - - is just as unfortunate as not understanding the filmmaker who served it up.
It was at the moment when the weight of my agony was too heavy to bear that I urged my professor to meet for a private screening and discuss the film in a one-on-one. As we strung up my 16-mm opus held together by hundreds of pieces of fine splicing tape (for its several hundred splices) onto a Steenbeck flatbed and proceeded to watch in all its black-and-white, avant-garde, silent glory, I got the immediate impression that I was losing my audience: lots of head scratching, barely audible grunts - - just the types of tics a filmmaker hates to witness in dailies, nevertheless in an intimate classroom where along the wall were plastered images of such legends as Chaplin, Godard, Louis Armstrong, Minnesota Fats, Errol Morris' THE THIN BLUE LINE and Bertolucci's LAST TANGO IN PARIS.
I was and have always been confident of my work and stood by my convictions and surely hoped that I would one day have my filmed poster grace his or any cinephile's wall. By the time my professor cut the moving rollers, breathed deep and paused before speaking, I must admit, my nerves were on the verge of a tingle. Thoughts of wasting mine and my parent's invested money shot through my mind - - but only for an instant. My professor, towering over me, put his hand to my leg and uttered, "this is the best damn student film I've seen in years." Never had I been more excited and relieved.
He began to rewind and fast-wind to some of his favorite moments concurring with my paid homage to Chaplin and Eisenstein; pointing out my unintentional references to Fellini and Griffith. STEALING SECONDS later came to be known in class and amongst my friends to this day as "the baseball film". Shot over a period of seven hours in one morning and another afternoon for pick-up shots and special effects, the film had the largest cast, the cheapest budget and the most cuts in our collective Film Production courses that year. I was compelled by the shooting style (every shot save for about 1/2 dozen were photographed on a tripod) and deep focus photography of early Hollywood cinema and the guerrilla and experimental techniques of Anger, Brakhage and Deren to create something utterly raw, even seemingly crude in which its silent images scream. When I was instructed to have my film play first in our end-of-the-year screening, I felt it was my professor's way of saying "good work' or 'good soul". It is, to this day, one of my proudest achievements. It's a shame he didn't feel as strongly about my Senior film the following year - - that cinematic delight is not (yet!) enclosed. In the meantime,
Enjoy ...
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