The Landscape Conundrum

I love landscapes almost as much as I love the close up. Though the two exist at such opposite ends of the compositional spectrum, they both hold the potential to express intense beauty and undeniable power. In filmmaking, we have the opportunity to experiment with their succession and juxtaposition. Paintings have a terribly difficult time portraying both without losing the power of either. My most favorite landscapes are landscapes just. Simply composed, looking out into the world, searching for what it holds. Albrecht Altdorfer's Danube Landscape performs this task beautifully. 

Never had I seen this painting before, but when I did, it struck me so, I could not tear my eyes from it. It whispered softly to stay. To dance in the river Danube. To reach up and pick a little bit of cloud from the sky, hold it close, and never let it go.

Its forest, a mishmash of greens, leap forth from the canvas, each tree sort of muddled and indistinct, a little part of the greater whole. Each one painstakingly reaching for the sky, trying to hold on. 

The sky stands high above looking down at the world. It reaches down to the trees for companionship. Outstretching its soft clouds to lightly graze the foliage's tip. The sun peaks through just to say farewell, to wish all the world a goodnight full of wonder and warmth. It slowly falls behind the far off mountains. Rays reach out to the castle at the mountains' base to caress it, to hold it and keep it well as it listens to the river rush past, down down down to the little lake below.

All this beauty. All these things. They sit simply, softly, smoothly between two great trees who've watched this valley grow from the very smallest shrub and the very tiniest stream. To now.

The Terrible Tale of The Terrible Three

Due to my terrible deficiency in drawing ability, I must say that any story board, sketch or other form of hand-painted or drawn art would most likely be difficult to understand, interpret, or even discern. Here's an example of the best drawing I think I've ever done.

It required a caption so that everybody would know what it was.

As a result of said deficiency, I've written a screenplay. The story of a boy downtrodden who stands up to the terrible forces of evil that roam the playground and threaten to destroy its sanctity. A sort of modern day David and Goliath, if you will.

Here it is.

                 EXT. PLAYGROUND - DAY

                 A jungle gym rises from a rubber desert. Children play

                 all about. Some swing high into the air. Others run and

                 chase each other about. All is well.

                                         MICHAEL (V.O.)

                           Today is the day I died.

                 OVER BY A LARGE TREE

                 a group of particularly tough looking seven year-olds,

                 JIMMY, SAMMY and LENNY, lean leisurely against the tree

                 nearby. A beehive hangs on one of its upper branches.  

                                         MICHAEL (V.O.) (CONT'D)

                           These three boys made it happen. 

                 The boys watch over their domain.

                 OVER BY THE SWING SET

                 MICHAEL, a little seven year old, swings contentedly,

                 laughing and joyous. 

                                         MICHAEL (V.O.) (CONT'D)

                           That's me. How naive I was. Not a

                           care in the world. Little did I

                           know, this would be a day that

                           would live in infamy.

                 BACK BY THE BIG TREE

                 the three boys (henceforth, THE TERRIBLE THREE), swagger

                 away. As they pass by a sandbox, Jimmy takes a littler

                 kid's bucket, fills it with sand and pours it all over

                 the little kid's head.

                 The rest of the children look at Jimmy. He grins

                 threateningly.

                 The children scatter. The little boy left lying in the

                 sand. Defeated.

                 The Terrible Three continue to 

                 THE SWING SET

                 where Michael continues to swing. The Terrible Three

                 walk on over to him. There are two vacant swings left

                 on the swing set. Jimmy sits in one, Lenny on another.

                 But Sammy walks to Michael.

                                         SAMMY

                           Hey. Give me that swing.

                 Michael continues to swing.

                                         MICHAEL

                           But I'm not finished yet.

                                         SAMMY

                           So? Get off.

                 Sammy pulls on one of the chains holding up Michael's

                 swing. Sending Michael twisting away.

                                         MICHAEL

                           Hey!

                 Jimmy and Lenny laugh. Sammy doesn't respond.

                                         SAMMY

                           Get off of that swing!

                 Michael stops swinging and steadies himself.

                                         MICHAEL

                           No!

                 He starts swinging again. Sammy walks up behind him and

                 pushes him off of the swing and into the sand below.

                                         SAMMY

                           What'd you say to me?

                 Jimmy and Lenny stop swinging and hurry over to Sammy.

                                         MICHAEL

                           It's my swing!

                                         SAMMY

                           Your swing?

                 He chuckles.

                                         SAMMY (CONT'D)

                           This is our playground, friend.

                           We're the ones that say what's

                           what. And I say that this ain't

                           your swing.

                 Michael spits in Sammy's face.

                                         MICHAEL

                           Poop on you!

                 Sammy pushes Michael into the sand. A Little Girl holding

                 a ball watches nearby. Lenny notices her.

                                         LENNY

                           What are you lookin' at?

                 She runs away.

                                         SAMMY

                           You think you're some kind of a

                           tough guy, huh?

                 Michael tries to get his face out of the sand but Sammy

                 holds him down.

                                         SAMMY (CONT'D)

                           Come on boys.

                 He motions to Lenny and Jimmy.

                 The Terrible Three drag Michael behind

                 THE BIG TREE

                 and start to beat him up. 

                                         SAMMY (CONT'D)

                           You two keep watch.

                 Sammy punches Michael in the stomach. Michael tries to

                 fight back, but Sammy is too much for him. Muffled,

                 Michael cries out:

                                         MICHAEL

                           Help!

                 But his words fall to the ground, too weak to find any

                 ear to climb into. Michael submits. He's lost.

                 When Sammy finishes the beating, he pushes Michael to the

                 ground. 

                                         SAMMY

                           See ya later alligator.

                 The Terrible Three laugh maniacally and begin to walk

                 away.

                 Michael rolls over onto his back. He sees the beehive

                 dangling above The Terrible Three. 

                 With all his might, Michael finds a small rock near his

                 hand, takes it and throws it up to the hive.

                 The rock his it slightly. The nest begins to rock back

                 and forth. Bees hurry from it to see what the commotion

                 could be.

                 They spot The Terrible Three and dive right for them. It

                 is a horrific sight. 

                 The Terrible Three run away, frightened and in pain,

                 crying. 

                 Michael still lies on the ground, unable to move.

                 The little girl with the ball from before walks up to

                 him. She kneels down beside him and touches his forehead. 

                 The rest of the children from around the playground

                 scurry up to them and form a circle around Michael. 

                 They all lift him up with extreme care. The mass walks

                 back around the tree with Michael on their shoulders, 

 weakened. 

                 His eyes open carefully.

                                         MICHAEL (V.O.)

                           So there you have it. The day that

                           I died. 

                 A pause.

                                         MICHAEL (V.O.) (CONT'D)

                           Well. Almost.

                 Michael smiles.

                                                                 FADE OUT.

Self Portraits Made Easy

Think about a face. Any face. Is it your mother? Your brother? A man you've never met? A woman too old to move? Too fat? A tiny insect? A happy dog? A chimp?

Now think about a woman. Any woman. One with hands made of silk. Or one who dances and sings with joy. One that loves without reason. One that reaches for something just out of reach, every muscle working toward that desirable thing. But leave her face blank. Empty.

Now take whichever face you made at the beginning and place it upon the body of the woman you imagined. Meld her, grow her, change her so that her face and her body are connected, as one.

Imagine her soul. Can you see it in her face? Does she let you in or shut you out? Is she dark and terrible? Do you want to know her, to see her every day? Is she a friend? An enemy?

My woman dances. She moves her body intensely. Her eyes grow from an old man's. They stare with the wonder of the past and the astonishment of falling in love. Her cheeks are smooth but know well they will someday fall to wrinkles. She's a lover. Her soul slips through her eyes, but her face holds it in. There's something lost in her. Something she'll always search to find.

In looking at Judith in Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes I learn to see. The intense indefinable expression upon her face beckons to search for understanding. To find what is beneath. Her head sits so detached from the rest of her body, as if suddenly thrust into the situation. Her body has had time to adjust, but her face just had time to react. This moment is the perfect reflection of her disjointedness. Her imagination jumps instantly to something else. Searching for just what it wants. It looks elsewhere for the answer, leaving the room, her body continuing on without her. She doesn't understand. How did she get here?

Common Midterm Place

Places of organized worship are very odd to me. What makes any place more important than any other to a society. Especially when it has no tangible survival value. Although a person or a group of people may regard a certain plot of land as holy, what authority is there that declares it to be such for all society. 

Perhaps it is some innate sense of being that drives us to immortalize a certain spot. An instinct of sorts. Could such a thing be just as vital to the survival of our species as the instincts of the hunt? Or could it be that this is a byproduct of our consciousness, our humanness.

Whatever the reason, it is a fact that as a society, certain places, namely places of worship, are immortalized, decorated and otherwise set apart from other architectural structures. They often prescribe to a different set of creative tools. 

I visited the Memorial Reformed Church on Banner and Hollyrood. 

The architecture of red brick and white trim is classically American in nature. It expresses the south, its home. Unlike the First Baptist Church downtown, this church is not overly ornate. It blends outright decadence, mediocre artwork and simplistic design. A little of something for everyone. 

Somehow, stained glass has become a staple of western religious sites. Even my little temple back home, when it was only a couple of portables put together, had several stained glass windows. How did this come to be? In fact, churches from even the 4th and 5th centuries have windows made of colored glass and stone. Thus, stained glass has an inherent religious connotation

The most interesting part of the church was a simple corner off to the side. However strange that may sound, it's true. The corner was delicately framed between two terrible similar, modestly sized stained glass windows. Unlike many of the other stained glass windows, these two were not of some biblical scene, nor did they, due to their position, provide an enormous amount of light. Also unlike many of the other stained glass windows, these were in an area that saw just slightly less foot traffic than the rest of the church. They stood there awkwardly, somewhat forgotten.

Their design expressed no ornate desire to please, just a simple augmentation of the surrounding place. A simple blue trim that meandered up into a crown of sorts. Picturing a window within a window. They lived so that the church as a whole could be beautifully balanced. 

 

These are the windows.

The vertical lines that hold the glass present a sense of bars. What could they be keeping out? Or holding in? Perhaps they serve to protect the holy congregates from the unholy evil outside the walls of the church. Or perhaps they remind parishioners that there are many prison-like vices of the world, and that they must be controlled. 

But then there is a symbol above the "bars." Each of which hold something of significance. The left holds a crown. Perhaps to signify that god ("the king") exists above these vices or gates. He is everything and everywhere. The right holds the tablets of the ten commandments. Perhaps signifying that these holy words are higher than the vices or gates. These symbols may be ways to escape earthly pettiness and find a true peace within a higher being. After all, we need our places of worship.

This is not for the commonplace book

This is not for the Commonplace book. I just thought it was funny.

You're the top.

Listen while you read.

I've always considered Michelangelo to be one of the greatest artists. To me, great art is about humanity. It is about the expression of being human. Michelangelo does this not only through his technique, but also the emotion that comes as a result. His figures have weight. Their muscles contract and relax as a real person's would. Their faces contort into human expressions.  But it is not the exactness of craft that yields greatness. It is the soul that is created behind the craft. 

When I look at his Moses, there is not a stone man sitting with a stone blanket. There is a warm bodied person sitting there before me, draped in some kind of fabric. He stares. His eyes find interest somewhere off in the distance. He runs his finger through his beard nervously. He contemplates the future of his people; of himself. Perhaps he's worried. His mind wanders through the myriad "what ifs" of his situation. Can he be all that he must? Has he done all he can? Is it worth it? Why did God choose him?

Leonardo DaVinci: Prankster at heart

I thought I'd get truly ridiculous with this one.

Leonardo daVinci was walking in the park one day when he saw his friend, Jim, sitting on a bench down the path.

straight chillin

Leonardo happened to have brought along a recent creation of his (an artist's rendition is pictured below).

Rock Gator

Being the trickiest fellow on the block, Leonardo thought he might play a trick on poor old Jim.

Oh no!

So he walked on over to Jim and waved "Hello."

What up.

Jim replied with a friendly hello and then asked Leonardo what he was holding behind his back.

What's behind your back?

Leonardo removed the Rock Lizard from behind his back. A sight Jim did not expect. He asked what it was.

Dude, what the hell is that?

Leonardo, disregarding Jim's question, threw the lizard at him, which flew

I can fly, too.

and landed on Jim's head.

GET OFF OF MY HEAD!

And Jim died.

I cried for Jim. Did you?

Poor Jim.