Modern Romance, Albert Brooks, 1981

Me, Myself and I represented by Albert Brooks, Bruno Kirby, and James L. Brooks

I have not seen many films about film editors and the act of editing, but this scene in Albert Brooks' Modern Romance is brilliant, although not quite as hilarious as the "look at all my friends" scene later in the film.

I've spent my summer shooting and editing (video), more recently the latter. Hours of solitude, intense, fabulous solitude making the film work. However, with so much creative - and deceptively 'liberating' - control one starts to conjure the old conversation with "Me, Myself and I". It seems to go down like this: Me and Myself nod in agreement, then I steps in. I doesn't think it works, so you go back to the original cut, knowing it works better the way Me and Myself did it. Then back to second, third, fourth etc versions. Its like 'hauling that log into your living room and start chipping away at it with your pocket knife'. (as Kelly Reichardt said about editing her own work at last years TIFF). And chipping away is exactly that, even though Me and Myself insist "Your going to tip it!" but I asserts "I love that line! I love that line!".

Fall II, Amsterdam, Bas Jan Ader, 16mm, 19 sec, 1970

Fall II

"Here is always somewhere else" -  Bas Jan Ader.

David Holzman's Diary, Jim McBride, 1967

"This deal is a reason, that's the reason".

In this scene, David Holzman, agitated and in a fully familiar creative funk, laments his frustration to the camera, (his diary), blaming it for 'making me do things' and that 'it doesn't show me the right things'. From this excellent scene (and there are plenty in the film), David goes on to have a mini-melt down with tinges of painful erotic disappointment about his film/diary, and blames his inertia on the hard goods, camera, recorder, only to calm down and apologize affectionately to them, like pets, which calls by name "Eclair" (16mm camera) and "Nag" (Nagra, sound recorder).

From this scene, I gleaned a few choice lines:

"Its Friday...I don’t know what you’re wait’n for, I got nothing to say, unless you want to talk about Vincent Minnelli . This is not coming out the way I thought it would, um, I thought this would be a film, I thought this would be a film about things, about the mystery of things....

"You [pointing to the camera] don’t tell me the right things, you don’t show me the right things... Why not? What do you want? I have, uh, you have made me do things!"

Moments later, in deep reflection, he comes to this conclusion:

"Its a deal. I made this deal, its a deal. There's no reason, this deal is a reason, that's the reason".

And that is the reason. It is a deal. Working as a filmmaker and artist is a fucked-up commitment to oneself, and if you know what this means, then you know what 'the deal' is. Its about being persuaded by light, colour and dark things to make them illuminated and preserved in motion. It means being totally consumed by the way something should work and never understanding why it didn't, until perhaps many weeks, months, or even years have passed. It means having to be constantly reflecting, deflecting, but always moving forward, in the constant momentum of wanting it, wanting it without ever being able to really explain why.


Over this past year, I've had the opportunity to go back to graduate school. I've been preparing for my "thesis film shoot" since September, but in fact the ideas germinated over four years ago. So imagine my anxiety when it recently came time to actually make the film and my complete unease in which it all went down: working with an excellent hard working crew as opposed to by myself, trying to translate to a fine young actor my desire for minimalism, and why I wanted repeated shots of various different empty and low lit spaces.

Even more anxiety surfaced upon seeing the final rushes and then like any intense relationship that you've worked and loved for so long, you need time apart -  The "It's not you, its me" line would suffice here. And like David's rant to the camera, making films, just being an artist, one always has a relationship with ones own work. In fact, recently a good friend of mine told me that "Me and Art are not on speaking terms right now". I know that feeling, and I also know the delight and transforming experience of having great epic conversations with "Art": the aloof, fleeting, painful, thing that it is.

For now, I don't know why it didn't tell me the right things, didn't show me the right things and I don't know what it wants. I'm going to wait it out for a while longer before engaging with it again in the edit suite. And tonight, I'm going to cook a fine meal and lay low in the cool den of my apartment, then fall asleep dreaming of how its going to cut together, how its going to taunt me, challenge me. Because there is no reason, this deal is the reason, that's the reason.

And if you ever want to talk about Vincent Minnelli, The Bad and Beautiful (1952) would be a great starting point.