My First, My Last, My Everything

Sometimes I have to go back to the source of inspiration.

As a baby artiste, I remember watching the Truth or Dare documentary six times.  I kept going back and watching it over and over again.  I had to absorb everything.  This was a cultural moment.  I knew it from when I was a kid.  Here was a pop artist at the apex of her powers and popularity.  I would argue that Madonna has done things that have been way more artistic since.  And way more popular before in terms of how commercial and thoughtless her work was.  Some people still prefer "old Madonna."  I take that to mean everything before Like a Prayer. 

It kind of reminds me of this project I'm working on that revolves around the work of Robert Altman.  Actually, that's my take on it.  The theatre's take is that it concerns Nashville.  But to me, that would be like taking Like A Prayer as a source of inspiration.  But to get to Like a Prayer, you should look at Madonna with "Burning Up," "Lucky Star", and "Borderline."  Then you get to the next wave of popularity and one of the best sophomore albums ever with Like a Virgin.  You've got the title track, "Material Girl", "Angel", "Dress You Up."  And Nile Rodgers.  Then you have True Blue where she took another step forward with "Papa Don't Preach", "Open Your Heart", "La Isla Bonita."  She cut all of her hair off.  Then she got married, got divorced and came back darker.  And decided for the first time to confront her iconography.  She was never a "prayer" or a "virgin."  But she was an assimilation of one.  She wanted to take the concept of "virgin" with the sexual images and then look at the religious  iconography and came up with what is my all time favorite album of hers.  It's because it's a reawakening.  It's a breakthrough.  Like a Prayer.  Every track was stunning.  I think a review said at the time that it was as close to art as pop music gets.  And that's taking into consideration the Beatles and Bowie and Patti Smith.  It's taking into consideration a lot of things.

But she knew who she was and she showed it off.  From that high point, she released her best dance track of all time "Vogue", a song that seemed timeless, referential and like the future all at once.  To a very impressionable budding gay person and artist, this just seemed like where I wanted to be.  I invested deeply in pop culture.   The seed for my art was born there.  I loved art.  I loved reading. I loved looking at the past.  I loved being ahead of the curve.  I felt like Madonna embodied that for me.

I guess most people had playwrights like Mamet, Kushner, Albee and Ibsen as their inspiration.  My inspiration was Madonna.  I felt like it was pop art in written form.  That's what I was creating.  I cared about social issues.  But I also was an entertainer.  I loved experimenting and playing with form.  I loved dance.  I loved music.

I just watched the MDNA tour DVD.  And all of that came up for me again.  It's inspiring that someone who is in her 50s can continue to evolve and create.  But that's what the example of Madonna has always been.  She broke through barriers and expectations.  The expectation of a global pop star.  The expectation of women.  And now the expectation that we're done when we get older.  She was drenched in the fountain of youth up on stage in the best way.

Then she had Erotica, which was a step towards a darker kind of sexuality.  She kind of suggested things before, but this felt like she was just challenging people to challenge her on her use of sex.  Then we had the Sex book, which was a part of this whole era.  The music was all right.  It didn't feel as artistic, but it felt like it was trying to make a deliberate statement.  Madonna was now working full-time as an artist and sometimes she took steps that were purely about being defiant.  But even though there were dark gems like "Erotica", "Thief of Hearts", and "Deeper and Deeper", there were also moments of pure beauty like "Rain."  This was followed up by Bedtime Stories, which was kind of a gentler Madonna who was trying to make sense of 90s R&B.  A better album musically, but still her identity had shifted and it felt like Madonna the game changer was gone.  Although "Bedtime Story" spoke of something to come.  And it came like a Ray of Light.  This album was the game changer and a move towards a more spiritual Madonna.  It felt like the provocateur of that early era finished with her growing pains from the previous two albums.  And here was another brilliant artistic statement wrapped in an electronica blanket.  So many tracks on this album were brilliant and it was our introduction to serious, spiritual Madonna who now found another important taboo subject to take on: spirituality and enlightenment.  Music brought us back to the dance floor in a more lighthearted way.  Then American Life came in like gangbusters and broke down the door.  Madonna was getting political.  I loved this album personally, but I felt like the remix album was a bit of a cop out.  No apologies.  "Hollywood", "Nobody Knows Me" and "Mother and Father" were a couple of highlights.  After the serious backlash she got for that album, she got frivolous and stayed there for the next two albums which were heavily influenced by dance music of the 70s and 80s.  Confessions on a Dance Floor was just all right to me and I'm in the minority.  I liked Hard Candy more because it was fun.  It was a better decade for her to take on hip hop because the sound was a lot more fun.  She went back to black on this one with Pharell, Kanye and Timbaland.  It also sounded a lot like the old stuff, which interestingly enough wasn't enough to interest a bunch of folks.  And now we have MDNA, which I sincerely love.  I think people are getting a little fatigued by a woman who keeps going and keeps reinventing and keeps turning out successful, fun, listenable music.

NOTE: I did a lecture on the spirituality of Madonna and reinvention when I was in college.  This is an interesting parallel for me when I look at the work of Robert Altman because they are both artists who do not apologize.  And their most special and well-received work just came from them working at it.  I think Like a Prayer is Madonna's Nashville in that it was a turning point for her and influenced everything after it, while not trying to recreate its magic.

That's the funny thing about influences.  They don't have to look anything like each other.  As human beings we can like things that don't seem to go together.  And that's the wonderful cross-pollination that becomes art.

Back to The Company

I love how the film begins on the beginning of a performance and ends at the end of a performance.

I want this play to almost work as an outline.  As a piece of choreographed notation. 

Here are the things that are supposed to happen right now.

The following pieces of dialogue should happen simultaneously.  Here’s the transcript of what the actors are saying, but when you see it, you wont hear everything upon first hearing.

Of course there are scenes that happen in a normal way. But this is about the creative process.  And sometimes that creative process happens all at once.

Inspiring Films: The Company

The following is from my notes on watching The Company and how I want to incorporate elements from it into I Want It.  It also includes criteria from the theatre company that's offering a commission.  From my notes, it seems like The Company has influenced me the most out of the Altman films I've watched thus far. Although, I just got word that the library finally has Short Cuts ready for me.

Take different parts of the dance in rehearsal…then see it fully actualized in the performance.  We see how it is put together.  We see process.  WE MUST SEE PROCESS in the ads that are created.

Character starts talking, talking, then retalking…then putting it together slowly (like in the writing session with Alanna the other day). 

ORIGINAL NOTE: Is temperature a factor?

In The Company, there’s a dance that’s heightened when a thunder and rain storm take over the stage. 

“Does weather take a part?” 

Is a much better question than

“Is temperature a factor?”

One character plays a minor part in one scene, then he expands into the next scene.

Overlapping dialogue.  Talking over action as commentary.

He uses different versions of “My Funny Valentine”, much like he used different versions of a song in The Long Goodbye.  Recurring motif.

What purpose do the dance sequences provide?

The argument that the black dancer has with Malcolm McDowell about constantly changing movement.  Taking the piss out of this touchy feely creative bullshit.  “How’s a man gonna give birth?  Where’s it going to come out of?”  Genius.

There’s no plot in this movie.  In the DVD featurette, Bob says that The Company is the closest he has gotten to Nashville in that there are real singers in Nashville and real dancers in The Company.  It has a verite feel even though it’s a scripted film.  There’s something to that.

Josh and Ryan’s relationship is kind of happened upon (as a matter of fact).  Toward the end, I love how they barely talk.  They just signal to each other from across the room.  Once at the bar on New Year’s Eve and then again in the last scene across opposite sides of the stage.  I don’t know if this is meant to imply that their relationship is heading towards an inevitable end.  It seemed like a relationship that is good for a while, but not one that is meant to be long lasting or life changing.  I loved how that was handled.

I love how the world of dance was so exactly created: the jargon, the physicality, the drama and the matter-of-factness of getting injured.  I loved how much of a bubble the world felt.  I loved that when two dancers injured themselves, it was just matter of fact.  I loved how slice of life it was.  There were things that were not tied up or resolved—like Josh and Ryan’s relationship, like Justin being kicked out of the dance and his guardian wanting to file a complaint.  It just was a period of time and then it was over.

I also liked that the movie ended with the curtain call.  And there was a bit of a run on sentence there with Josh and Ryan talking at the end.  It felt alive and very much like eavesdropping. 

Here’s what Roger Ebert said about The Company:

“Why did it take me so long to see what was right there in front of my face—that “The Company” is the closest thing Robert Altman has come to making an autobiographical film?  I’ve known him since 1970, have been on the sets of many of his films, had more than a drink with him in the old days and know that this movie reflects exactly the way he works—how he assembles cast, story, location and plunges in up to his elbows, stirring the pot….”The Company” is his film about the creative process itself, and we see that ballet, like the movies, is a collaborative art form in which muddle and magic conspire, and everything depends on that most fragile of instruments, the human body.”

When I look at what came before The Company—the widespread triumph of Gosford Park (which I have been resistant to watch again)—and what came after A Prairie Home Companion (and the end of the magic), I have to say that The Company feels more like classic Bob than anything else.  Sure, A Prairie Home Companion is about the angel of death coming to take someone, so it seems autobiographical in a way.  But I just think it’s a film about the end.  It’s not a film about Bob.  I agree with Roger Ebert, The Company is about Bob.  It’s about everything he seemed to love and thrive in.  In that way, it is like his All That Jazz more than Prairie Home is.  But I don’t want to get into the business of comparing two luminaries of the directing world.  Fosse had Cabaret and All That Jazz (I haven’t seen Star 80).  All of his films had a darkness in them or a darkness realized.  And while I admire that in a person because I don’t think I have that sort of darkness available to me at all times, it just seems cynical.  And The Company…I still can’t get it out of my head.  Even when I saw it ten years ago, I knew how much I loved it.  So revisiting it now, for this project…it’s a great template.  My play is about the creative process, but it’s about a secret creative process.  It’s about a creative process that’s not supposed to be creative because all you’re doing is selling shoes.  All you’re doing is trying to move product.  But these guys—unintentionally (they would never aim that high)—are trying to do something else.

The entire film felt like eavesdropping.  That was its strength.

Research

I love doing research for the scripts I write.  Yeah, it sounds really good, doesn't it?

"I research all of my scripts."

"I do A LOT of research."

"I researched the fuck out of this."

"See that moment?  It comes from this documentary I saw."

"Did you get the reference?"  (smiles.  pleased with himself.)  Research."

I did watch the following Altman films in preparation for this play I'm writing:

• M*A*S*H
• McCabe and Mrs. Miller
• The Long Goodbye
• Three Women
• Streamers
• The Player
• Pret a Porter
• Prarie Home Companion
• The Company
• Cookie's Fortune
• Dr. T and the Women
• Gosford Park

I told someone at a party recently that it was 11.  It was 12.  Not to brag.  And I didn't even get to two of the films I wanted to, A Wedding and Short Cuts.  

Yes, research is important.  And it helps.  But I also do a lot of other research.  

I watch The Real Housewives franchise.  And talk shows.  I want to get a sense of the culture, even though most of those shows show an ugly side of things.  

I watch a lot of cooking shows.  I am actually writing a pilot about chefs.  So that gives me an excuse. But what I'm loving these days are:

• David Chang - The Mind of A Chef
• El Bulli
• Anthony Bourdain - No Reservations
• Anthony Bourdain - The Layover
• Step Up to the Plate

I want to know how chefs think and talk.  I try to get my hands on biographies as well for whatever I'm working on.  For the Altman project, I re-read his oral biography, which I had purchased years ago.  I want to get a sense of a life.  And the quickest way to do that is by reading a detailed account of one's life or by watching a piece of their life on film.  

I actually prefer to watch documentaries and read biographies than to watch scripted programming or reading fiction.  I don't prefer one over the other in terms of quality, but when I'm writing it's easier for me to watch something that's pure information than something that's fiction-based.  I'm not making an argument about how real or not real reality TV is here.  But when you have a writer write a script, then for me as a writer it's open to a different set of criteria and a different kind of judgment.  And I don't like my brain to be on in that way when I'm writing because then I'm thinking more about what that person wrote and I compare it to what I'm writing.  I also have the tendency to copy it: more tone than content, but it's still perjury in my mind.   

I've have been watching this AMC show The Pitch, which I actually have found boring.  But then when I discovered that Netflix had Season One, I realized how great this show was and how much the producers fucked it up in Season Two.  It's great to get inside the heads of these ad guys.  I'm not writing about them.  I'm not writing about the prototypical ad man.  I'm writing more about people who think of themselves in an elevated sense and have a higher sense of purpose.  But it's good to know the landscape and what they're reacting against.

I started rewatching a show on Bravo called Kell on Earth last night.  I am obsessed with Kelly Cutrone.  I think she's a total bitch.  But a great example of someone with a lot of style and ego.  She's also not attractive.  She's a bit overweight, trying to make her way in the fashion world with a fantastic sense of style and self.  I love her as a character because she doesn't give a shit.  She's just stylish enough.  She's just cutting enough to get her way through.  But you can tell that she's more maternal than anything else and fucking nuts.  I love that.  As a character study, it's a great show.

I need to get my hands on Bravo's Work of Art.  I love that show and I think there are stories in that world.  Just saw that it's on Amazon instant video.  That's a binge watching weekend activity for sure.  

I find research necessary.  I can't generate all of these thoughts and ideas on my own.  Plus it's a way for me to connect.  And it's a great excuse to watch something.

I also like to watch things multiple times.  The reason why my queue on my DVR and my Netflix doesn't really get depleted much is because I keep watching things I've already watched.  

Am I crazy?  Don't answer that.

I don't do research just because I want to show off or brag at a party about how many Altman films I've watched.  But when I get fixated, I need to know everything about a subject I'm working on.  Plus, these ideas take time to marinate and the research not only enriches what we're writing, but it buys us time.

Bob Altman and his Descendants

I was thinking about the kinds of Altman films I like.  I like the ones that are more about social commentary.  Those are usually the ones that are some sort of play on a genre.  They’re about our expectations and our pre-judgments.  The ones I like less are the ones that are just a milieu or a story.  The ones that are just about quirky characters and an interesting world without the backbone of Bob’s take on something politically.  Even The Company was a story about a strict, regimented world told in a completely laisse faire way.  It wasn’t Fame, which happens to be a movie I love.  But it’s not that narrative and it’s not so disciplined in its storytelling as well as in its subject matter. 

I really couldn’t get into Cookie’s Fortune.  Pret a Porter was a complete disappointment, even the second time around.  I won’t be evaluating either one of them here.

I drove to get some snacks for my evening in and as I was driving home, I was thinking about what subjects I wouldn’t want to see Bob take on.  Now that he’s dead, there ain’t much chance of him disappointing me further.  But I thought about the South.  And even though Nashville is the clear exception to this, I wouldn’t want him to take on a real Southern, Tennessee Williams sort of bayou story.  But then the HBO show Treme popped into my head, which seems like a total nod to Bob in a lot of ways.  I caught an episode of it once and it was cool to be in that world, but I didn’t have a bunch of episodes at my disposal to get into it.

Thank God for HBO Go.  I am going to start watching Treme to see if there’s any inspiration I can get from it.  I am not just “considering” Nashville, like I said, but I am considering the children he had before and after.  I’m considering a godchild of his like P.T. Anderson.  I am considering a show like Treme, which seems to at least be in the same neighborhood.  Just as this project is asking me to consider being influenced by Bob’s oeuvre, I am looking at other artists who were either directly or indirectly influenced by him.  And the truth is, I am considering revisiting an old TV pilot idea I had.  And I was inspired to do so by reading about a project Bob never got to work on that takes place in the same world.  So Bob’s leading me a lot of places.  

Inspiring Films: The Long Goodbye

Now that I'm putting together this play, I realize how important style is.  And how important it is to defy those expectations that people have.  But style comes from within.  Bob had such panache and that came entirely from him.  I also read his oral biography several times.  I love going back to it because it's other people taking about him.  It's him, too.  But he created such community that it's great to hear others speak so fondly (and not so fondly) and honestly about someone they worked with.  

Reading about Bob and watching certain films of his really made me excited about making theatre again.  I started doing theatre because I wanted to participate and I wanted to be around people.  I didn't have a lot of friends growing up, so being around people being weird and expressive was like manna.  The Lost Goodbye was a discovery for me.  I didn't know it at all before.  I had heard of it, but I hadn't seen it.  And it's just a good place to spend a couple of hours.  I have those same high hopes for this play I'm writing.

The Long Goodbye got me thinking about genre.  So many of Altman’s films are a take on a certain film genre.  The detective story, the war comedy, the hero story.  He takes these conventions and turns them on their ear.  It actually got me thinking about this Seven Deadly Sins project I’m working on.  These genres have become institutions.  They’ve become the way we make movies and the way we put stories into categories.  But Altman subverts that, especially in The Long Goodbye.

There isn’t a great deal of suspense in this film.  In moving Raymond Chandler’s story from the 50s to the 70s in California the land of sunshine, he does away with our expectations of a detective noir.  It’s not dark and shadowy.  The dark shadowy characters are out in the day.  It’s like a vampire with a tan.  Marlowe continually is shown in contrast with his LA surroundings.  It’s like the character was cryogenically frozen and then brought back to life in the present day.  He’s like Captain America in that way.  Boy, do I happen to be fond of the super hero analogies.

The Long Goodbye also has style.  It’s got a vibe that’s firmly rooted in its location.  You’ve got the Hollywood Hills and Malibu.  There’s something perennially cool about this film.  There’s a beautiful scene where the Wades are having conversation and the wife threatens to leave.  While they’re inside their house, you see the reflection in the window of Marlowe walking around on the beach.  It’s not a split screen or deliberately superimposed, but it has a great effect of letting us know that there are parallel stories going on at the same time.  It’s the visual equivalent of overlapping dialogue.

So what are the things I can take away from The Long Goodbye?  I don’t know if genre has a place in what I’m telling.  But I like the voyeuristic quality of the film and the cool character of Philip Marlowe who doesn’t bear any resemblance to the character in Chandler’s books.  Yet, he’s a cool guy.  So that subverting of expectations is something I want to take away.  There’s an atmospheric quality to The Long Goodbye that I’d like to steal from.  I feel like this play needs to have a definite vibe, a style, an approach.  It can’t just be a good story told well.  It’s got to have a ruffle or a pocket square or an ascot.  It’s got to have panache.