I will walk many times with friends down the street and they’ll say, “Hey Weegee, here’s a drunk or two drunks laying in the gutter.” I take one quick look at them and say, “They lack character.” So even a drunk must be a masterpiece.
—Weegee, BOMB 20/Summer 1987
In this time we are living in artists continue to play a special role in society by virtue of their patience alone. In the face of marketing machines that co-opt and disseminate the aesthetic production of creative producers more rapidly than ever before, patience is the distinguishing quality between art and advertising.
—Madeline Hunt-Ehrlich, BOMBlog 2011
David Seidner Don’t you think an enormous problem with the American entertainment industry today is that nothing is left to the imagination and the people involved feel compelled to answer all the questions?
Joan Tewkesbury Oh all the questions! And not only to answer them…but show and tell them.
DS How do you as an idealist function within that system?
JT I’m not doing real well, obviously. I just spent two weeks of my life on a project with people who want every step nailed down, sealed down, how can we get the tear to come here…
DS Laugh tracks.
JT Yes…maybe not laugh tracks, but certain issues that are so closed that you don’t give an actor an opening in the structure to work in. You give him this signed, sealed, delivered container. And they must open the container a certain way, get into the container a certain way, and get out of the container a certain way. It’s not the way to work.
DS Painted footsteps in dance class.
JT Precisely. Or pictures that you paint by number.
“America is such a strange culture. It has all this wildness in it. And yet the heart is so dead.” — James Purdy, BOMB 5/Spring 1983
I am an aesthete; that is the one “sin” I confess to. If I do have a public message, it is that aesthetic facts—beauty, style and elegance, grace and connectedness—are crucial to life.
—Alexander Nehamas, BOMB 65/Fall 1998
The emotional life of a character I’m playing leaks into my life, and sometimes changes the way I see things. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. It draws my attention to a certain part of my life that mattered a great deal to my character that maybe I would normally have overlooked.
—Maria Duval, BOMB 5/Spring 1983
Inner Resources
It feels good to love our country.
We must not say so. I’m divided by a love
of our millions of brilliant inventions
and how I’ll dumbly sniff and rub each one
until I’ve figured out how I can use it for that
other thing. Just like a brilliant inventor I too
have a body so I know everything’s invented
to pleasure a body. I was born to this country
and all of it was entranced by my tiny fingers
and then I learned where I could put them.
Before I was born there was sniffing and rubbing
and it formed a tiny unity. Already it was getting
too big to call by one name. It was becoming
a collection of purposes. Which is like calling the sky
a collection of purposes because stars exist.
This is why I write little notes to myself
reminding myself to take all the notes out
of my pockets before sleep. The notes say look
at the sky and when I remember to do it I feel
very American. I feel American when I want
to be able to rub up against what I’m pretty sure
is that planet. Planets exist. They hold the names
we gave them inside them like a breath. I need
to remember to look up the names of the planets
I’m seeing. I’m fairly certain of what I’m seeing.
It’s too bright to be anything else.
This edition of BOMBlog’s Word Choice brought to you by poet Laura Eve Engel and artist Coke O’Neal.
Willem Dafoe Sometimes in drama you feel like you gotta beat yourself up a little bit. It must be nice to have your Minnesota cop who plugs along without too much trouble.
Frances McDormand Oh, definitely. It’s also great from a feminist perspective to be able to play somebody like that. I don’t think all the characters I’ve played have been victims, but there’s been a certain requirement of vulnerability to tell the story of whatever lead character I’m supporting. And usually the character I’m supporting is a man. But in Fargo, the only story I was telling was Marge’s. The audience feels really connected to her, and emotionally involved with her, but she never has to bring them into that by showing her own emotional vulnerability. That was really exciting.
WD She’s also not defined by her relationship to a man.
FM The men in her life are defined by her. And in a very kind of, seemingly conventional marriage, they’re both doing exactly what they want to do, and taking care of what needs to be done. There’s an equality there.
Todd Haynes A lot of directors who are trying to fend for themselves might feel that they have to make a likeable character, in which to defend themselves. Instead, you chose to resist all the little traditional ways to make characters likeable or to make the audience comfortable with the central character. That’s incredibly brave and strong on your part.
Kelly Reichardt To me, it gives the audience a break, especially if you’re a woman—to see a woman in a lead role with a body and a face that you can relate to. The window of what makes a woman beautiful seems to get smaller and smaller. A straight woman doesn’t see a lot of other naked women except for what’s on TV or in the movies. And it’s a little freaky when seemingly everybody else’s breasts are getting perkier as they get older. (laughter)
Han Ong By virtue of your gift, this could legitimately be called the Suzan-Lori Parks era.
Suzan Lori Parks (laughter) I don’t care about that.
HO Bullshit. Yes you do.
SLP No. I don’t have to claim that. I honestly don’t. I do care about writing as well as I possibly can.
HO Are you writing the best you possibly can right now?
SLP Right now, I’m writing better than I possibly can. I spend three years on a play, and I look at it and can’t believe I wrote it. I wonder where it came from. I feel like I’m writing beyond myself.