Beltane Early Growth Moon
Saw Shane Carruth’s second movie, Upstream Color, tonight at the Walker. He made Primer, a film about time traveling geeks who become paranoid in the course of their travels. It was a huge hit, cost $7,000 to make and got Shane noticed by Hollywood and film buffs. It won the grand prize at Sundance when it premiered there.
Upstream Color is another dense, need to see it again and perhaps again movie. According to Shane, who was at the screening tonight and answered questions afterward, this movie began with the idea of a woman stripped of all those things that make her her–house, money, job, self-respect and then follows her as she tries to rebuild herself. And this movie is about that.
But it gets there through magic worms, pigs in Circe like relationship to a group of human beings, a thief and orchid harvesters. It also gets there in a circular narrative that has no apparent center, no apparent antagonist and finishes with an ambiguous ending.
Shane is a direct, humble, honest representative of his work. And when I say his work, both films are his work to an extraordinary degree. He writes and directs them. He also composes the score and has a lead role. He has also taken on the role of distributor, describing in answer to one question a film industry equivalent to the disaggregation of publishing I learned about it in my marketing seminar with Scott Edelstein.
This movie was at Sundance in January and now it’s here in Minneapolis in spite of a limited release distribution schedule. It was fun to see it so soon after the Festival and to hear Shane talk about his work.
I realized I really enjoy being part of the Walker crowd, seeing and hearing things early in their arc, discovering artists as the world discovers them. In the same train of thought I realized I’m really having fun translating Ovid, sort of the opposite aesthetic experience, one rooted in the deep classical past. Then it occurred to me that I must really be enjoying life.
But. Over the last two or three weeks I’ve been feeling, if not melancholy, at least morose. Triggered by the back pain and Kona’s vet visits, yes, but still, odd for one who’s enjoying so many aspects of his life. Including writing the novel. I guess all this means is that we are not one, but many and some of me has a happy life and part of me has a blue life right now. At the same time.