WRITER / DIRECTOR
Seven Fallen Objects
A painter becomes possessed by his imagination at a dinner party and dies unexpectedly.
At the time of this early project I was obsessed with Luis Buñuel's film THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISE and equally enamored with THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL.
Film is inherently a collaborative medium but SEVEN FALLEN OBJECTS took collaboration to a whole new level.
It started out as an art project where poets across the world were commissioned to respond to television clips recorded daily for an entire year. 365 clips in total, hence the name The 365 Project. All clips were non-fiction, mostly local and national news with a sprinkling of reality TV — a news story about a decapitated head found in the trunk of a car, war footage in the Middle East, a woman drinking donkey ejaculate on Fear Factor.
Individually, the clips ranged from the weird to shocking to bizarre. Collectively, they painted a portrait of living in America. The poets were instructed to choose a handful of clips that inspired them as a departure point to artistically respond to.
Once we had the poems, I selected seven and commissioned experimental filmmakers to adapt each poem into a short film. Of course, each filmmaker was selected not just based on their talent, but curated to represent different filmmaking styles — from stop-motion to digital to one filmmaker who literally scratched up old film negatives. Individually, the films were very experimental and amazing in their own way. Collectively, they had zero continuity and when played together created a visual cacophony that made no sense.
So the next step was the "glue". My main project collaborator, Greg Boyd, and I co-wrote a script that would function as the narrative glue for all the short films. The story revolved around George, a middle-aged fledging painter who is dragged to a dinner party by his wife. Unfortunately, things don't work out for George. The dinner guests kill him, but it's not intentional. Their indifference to his work is what kills him.
I think society's indifference to art and beauty kills artists everyday. It's a death by a million cuts, so it's not really noticed or talked about, but it's happening all the time, everywhere.
Next time you're watching TV news or some reality show, put the phone down and pay close attention to what you're being served. Listen to the words filling your head. Of course, this project was conceived over twenty years ago, before social media.
Today, the noise washing over us is turned up to a very high volume. Our indifference to everything - good and bad - might be stronger than it's ever been. The trick is to not let indifference win. To pay attention and don't let the signal get lost in the noise.
Art is always the signal.
Find your signal. And celebrate it.