VIDEO: Austin Powers "Whoopty Do, What does it all mean?"
I have this running joke where I'll ask existential questions to people close to me who have no clue or couldn't care less. It's usually targeted to the dog or my little sister, it's often during reality TV. "What are we doing?", "What does it all mean?" said in the most pained manner. It's futile and pretty irritating which is why I think it's funny.
I busted a gut when I found this note in my Christmas card from my little sister:
To my darling older brother,
I know what the answer is,
Life is being an idiot and doing whatever you want,
keep it up you have been doing it for 32 years...
She gave me $100 and the hits kept coming with this knowing proviso
VIDEO: Richard Linklater - Searchlab Lecture (Part 2)
RICHARD LINKLATER: (17m 30s) Sometimes it connects and sometimes it doesn't but you have to make your peace. If you're not doing it for that reason anyway you can look at it philosophically if it doesn't... I made it for a $100, 000. I had a good experience and I want it to be a hit too. Your reward is the work, you've got to make peace with your movie. The last time you watch it on your own... inevitably you'll be with your whole film alone. That's your best screening. Right then, right there. Make your peace with it before anyone else sees it. Know what you think about it. This is what I got out of it. This is what I learnt, here's I'm a better person for this. I met so many great people. I articulated this story I've been thinking about for 10 years, 20 years or 3 months or whatever. This is a gift... Just be thankful that you gotta to do it and if it hooks up with the public, you can move forward and incorporate it in your life. If it made a lot of money it doesn't make it a better movie, and if it doesn't make money its doesn't make it a worse movie. But Hollywood will always judge it that way, at least for a three year period I've found.
I've made movies that tank and I've noticed people treating it like it was a success years later. That's good, that just means they liked it or that its real life has emerged. That it was quality or there was something that people ultimately responded to...
SYLVESTER STALLONE: (4m 22s) Wouldn't it be interesting to catch a man's moment, a man's life at the quintessential, seminal moment... I thought wouldn't it be interesting, the first thing Rocky says when she [love interest, Adrian] comes into the ring is "Where's your hat?". I mean he's so into her and the way she looks that he doesn't care that he's eyes are swollen shut, he's hands are smashed and he's done the greatest thing in his life. He doesn't say "look at me"...
The visuals are working, the sound is working the body movement is coming together at this absolute peak and right there when I embrace her... we froze right at the single frame where he is looking elated and has her in his arms. There's this look of ecstasy and the next frame it just deflated. There it is from that moment on its all downhill, how we all hit this absolute maximum of elation and celebration and it can only be sustained for an infinitesimal moment in time. And if you can just imagine how great it would be to freeze that moment...
Sylvester Stallone is unfairly maligned as an oaf. Betrayed by his beefcake appearance and slurred speech, he's overlooked as the artist he truly is. Which only makes 'Rocky', the film he wrote and starred in, 'Rocky' (1976) all the more poetic as it mirrors his own underdog life.
'Rocky' (1979): Leading Actor and Writer, Sylvester Stallone. Directed by John G. Avildsen
In this talking heads special feature found in the Rocky Box set, Sly talks about the pinnacle of life, the moments of glory that forever define us and our future potential.
As a movie buff and someone who revels in imagination, I'm an advocate for viewing life through the prism of Movies or Video Games. I've related travel feelings through Movie Tropes and have often used Cinema as a measuring stick for my life. Joseph Campbell articulated this best but its worth noting that we've been bombarded by more engrossing media since his time.
VIDEO: Joseph Campbell - Myth As the Mirror for the Ego
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well the ego can't reflect upon itself unless it has a mirror against which to read itself and that mirror would be the Mythological schedule that lets it know where it is...
Australian Comedians Jack Druce and Michael Hing touch on the idea of 'Life as a Movie' and the issue of Reality Inversion.
The Druce and Hing Podcast: 54 - Wolf The Movie 3D!
MICHAEL HING: (1h 3m) Presumably a lot of screenwriters and stuff are themselves dorky writer nerds who are writing stories about themselves as we all would. And in the film of the life that they're writing of course they get the girl. And so you grow up thinking that people will find this thing charming... the thing is that's not how life works. Because if that was how life worked then that movie would be very boring and their would be no element of interest or intrigue to it.
It'd just be like "Here's 90 minutes that have been directly captured from how things happen" as opposed to "This is an actual Million Dollar fantasy, not only could we not find this anywhere in the world. We had to hire actors and pay people to write this story where this series of events happened because it would never happen in real life. And now you will pay money to experience this because you know it would never happen as well"
JACK DRUCE: (55m 50s) People in movies they're just doing stuff, you don't know what they're thinking. So when you're doing stuff you're thinking "this sucks I'm really bad at this". You don't know if people in movies are thinking like that or not. They could be. You don't know if that's in stories, you don't know whats in their heads at that time so you think you're doing it wrong. Because well I'm doing this thing and I'm in my head thinking it sucks and that's not how culture and stories have told me how people do stuff.
