The Waif and the Limo

Following up on "Perverse Corroboration":

I cobbled it all together into a short film that's a meditation on quality. How it gets in, how it's recognized, and whether there's any objectivity. All the interesting questions! It's very poorly shot, recorded, and edited. It's tediously repetitive, lacks any discernible structure, and never quite states its theme. And yet, it has magic to it.

I was describing some strange phenomena, but neglected to deal, head-on, with some strangeness of my own. Mainly: Why did I let it be so crappy? And why would I so blithely concede it's crappiness?

That's not how you're supposed to do it! You're supposed to cover over the worst flaws, maintaining a cocky assurance that you're a great filmmaker who deliberately evoked crude, homespun flavor. "I meant it that way!"

So why freely confess my limited skills? Why even make such a film? Who deliberately sets out to make a sloppy film?

To me, it's obvious: I had no desire to impress anyone with my filmmaking skills. I wasn't trying to be a filmmaker. I just wanted to make a film.

Isn't everyone just trying to make a film (or whatever it is that they make)?

No. At least not as a straight shot. Most filmmakers make films not to make films, but to be filmmakers. The drive is much more about identity and status than authentic creative drive. As I recently noted:

Few can resist a snapshot with their face appearing within a hole in a board painted to assume the persona of a super hero, medieval knight, etc. "Hey, look! I'm a farmer! It's me doing that thing!"

"It's me doing that thing!" is what the world is about. That's the core presumption, distilled to its essence.

I wasn't grabbing a snapshot of myself as a thing-doer as I did the thing. I just did the thing. And this undermined the process, from the perspective of those who go the other way. My guileless sincerity - I was 100% invested in the cookie guy, capturing his truth, and shedding light on one of the most slippery mysteries—gave the result an elemental magic. A child's magic.

I hoped to capture lightning, but not so I could be The Lightning Capturer. Just for its own sake! Who cares about me and my terrible skills? That's irrelevant. I have something I sincerely want to show, which might coax a useful reframing (though I don't need to be The Reframing Coaxer, either)! I was taking a straight shot. Doing a thing with no regard for being a Thing-Doer (see previous postings tagged 'Karma Yoga')

Les Blank was a brilliant maverick filmmaker, one of my all-time favorites and remarkably unpretentious. Yet, even for him, everything about this felt infuriating.

When a singer-who-sings-because-she-wanted-to-be-a-singer encounters pure-hearted singing—perhaps through the window of her limo as a street waif warbles a tremulous "Old MacDonald Had a Farm"—she is not touched. She does not slip money in the waif's pocket. She will most likely be oddly miffed. And if you were to ask for an explanation, she'd criticize the tremulousness...with incongruous agitation.


How does this apply to the story of David Liebman, the sax player?

It doesn't. As a musician, I was no tremulous waif. I had copious training and solid technique. So that one represented some other ju-ju.🤷