First Person finds a friend
I don’t like to admit it, but I’m pretty much a hater by nature. I can always find a reason why something–anything–isnt good enough, doesnt go far enough, or doesn’t sit right with me and my, shall we say, particular sensibilities.
This is especially true for documentaries dealing in one way or another with “inner city life.” As soon as I see that establishing shot of the housing projects with the people screaming and the sirens blaring and the lost souls & stray cats wandering aimlessly around, I’ve already pretty much written off the next two hours of my life. Of course, I’ll sit through them, if for nothing else than to fuel my self-righteousness. As a certified hater, nothing provides me with motivation quite like having a nemesis, real or imagined, out there.
But sometimes, very occasionally, I’ll watch something that just feels right. That grabs my heart. That resonates with my understanding of how people actually operate in the world. That forces me to walk in the shoes of someone whose life is seemingly unlike my own–and then knocks me over the head with realizations about myself. That I genuinely enjoy.
Four years ago, when I was trying to determine if First Person was going to be a feasible project to undertake and trying to figure just what the hell I wanted to do, I saw Love and Diane and had the chance to participate in a seminar led by director Jennifer Dworkin. Its an unbelievable movie, very powerful in how it lets a set of very difficult external circumstances unfold entirely through the perspectives of the film’s subjects, and then builds on that by letting Diane and Love reveal their extremely rich internal lives through voiceover narration and incredible verite scenes. When I saw it then, I knew that in many ways, that was what I wanted to do, that was the kind of movie I wanted to try to make.
At the time, I was also very much inspired by Dworkin, who was a firsttime filmmaker who had clearly made the film not for the money (certainly), and not to win awards, and not to build her reputation as a filmmaker, but because her heart wouldnt let her do anything else. Just the fact of her doing what she did, how she did it, was motivation that I very much needed.
I watched Love and Diane again last night. I was a bit nervous that I wasnt going to like it as much after the four years I’ve gone through trying to pull First Person together, that it wouldnt still resonate with my sensibility. Turned out there was no need to worry. I was totally sucked in almost immediately. There’s just so much that feels immediately relevant to First Person–the scale of the film, the way people and places are established, the use of voiceover, the blending of disparate types of footage. I think that First Person will ultimately employ a very different visual style and pacing and will trace some very different emotional arcs, but anyone wanting to get a sense for how First Person is striving to communicate the lives and internal worlds of our six kids should check this movie out.
Just recently, I came across a message from Dworkin on a listserv and took the shot of emailing her. She’s been very kind and indulgent in responding thoughtfully to my many questions–everything from preparing scene selects for ITVS submission to knowing when to draw the line with how much of the director’s own intervention is appropriate for inclusion in the film. Its really difficult to express how valuable this type of information and advice is when you are getting it from someone whose sensibility you trust. Knowing someone is out there who has created a standard I want to live up to is a much stronger motivator than the self-righteousness that usually pushes me along. And it comes at good time.
