Call it a Night

-“They are most happy, who have no story to tell.”-Anthony Trollope
Sometimes I wonder if I have a story to tell. Notice that this is different from an imagination. Imagination I think is what brings us a certain sense of release from the malady of the quotidian. Having a story to tell takes to a different place, in which a world has to be created in order to tell the story. Yet I find myself disillusioned by the stories people seek in our times. I was out in Old Town yesterday and saw a huge line at the UA. Looking to the marquee, the most recent film to have been added was Torque. Eye candy, perhaps. How deep can an octane packed film really be, let alone acting and story.
It’s a sad world, in which sheer escapism is the drug of the masses-a thread of imagination. A story, in which each line works to the plot points and act breaks and not to prove that life is more than, but rather to subdue it and overcome it in two hour blocks of revving engines.
I’ve always been inclined to think of Cinema as an art, contrary to the modern practice of cinema as commerce. My original belief was, “all art leads unto itself and itself is truth.” What truth do we find from being told stories straight out of comic books, in which the CGI subjugates all other story elements?
I think of the stories I want to write and wonder if I would have an audience, anyone willing to entertain the world I’ll create.
I returned home and was happy to have seen a small victory, I think, for the independent spirit, Laemmle’s now has fifteen screens in Pasadena, having taken over the old AMC. It’s usually AMC, Pacific, Edwards, that sell us the lowest of all the low-art cinema. Uninspired, non-risk taking and worst of all cluttered with formula.
In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait for my story. The greatest hope, is that it will over come the above pitfalls and make us all feel human. Isn’t that the goal? The reason why we tell stories, to feel human and not alone in our shortcomings, or in this world, not simply to spend two hours of our lives and call it a night.