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To access Ray Carney's complete website, go to www.cassavetes.com

Dr. Carney,

Here are more Andrei Tarkovsky quotes. I feel like I've been sitting in his class today. I think they're all from T's Sculpting in Time. Shouldn't this be required reading? Maybe your readers will be tempted, as I am, to go find a copy and read the real thing. I read somewhere that Tarkovsky was inspired by Gurdjieff. Do you believe that the shallowness of American film today (click here to read Prof. Carney's note about this) may be related to a lack of familiarity by filmmakers with the work of spiritual teachers or philosophers? Is that a failure in our society as a whole today? And do you consider it an essential part of a filmmaker's or an artist's education to study from the greats in spirituality and philosophy, struggling with the great questions of our existence? It seems to me that our uniqueness lies in the individual ways we answer these questions. If I were to embark on this line of studies, what/who would you recommend? (And you're probably thinking: Oh no! Not more recommendations, aaaagggghhhhh!!!!!) : ) Ah, but I would say you are a teacher, and students need some direction... and the only dumb question is the one you didn't ask. So, I'm asking.

A perpetual student of life,

Fran

Tarkovsky quotes:

"...[The aim of art] is 'to explain to the artist himself and to those around him what man lives for, what is the meaning of his existence. To explain to people the reason for their appearance on this planet; or if not to explain, at least to pose the question..."

"...The greatness and ambiguity of art lies in not proving, not explaining and not answering questions [Š]. Its influence has to do with moral and ethical upheaval...."

"...Art must give man hope and faith..."

"...True artistic inspiration is always a torment for the artist, almost to the point of endangering his life...."

"...The artist becomes the ideologue, the apologist for his time, the catalyst of predetermined change..."

"...The artist cannot express the moral ideal of his time unless he touches all its running sores, unless he suffers and lives these sores himself..."

"...The artist is always a servant and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle...."

"...Artistic creation demands of the artist that he "perish utterly", in the full, tragic sense of those words..."

"...[Real masterpieces] range themselves at the sites of possible or impending historical cataclysms, like warning signs at the edge of precipices or quagmires. They define, hyperbolise and transform the dialectical embryo of danger threatening society, and almost always become the herald of a clash between old and new..."

"...The genius [of the artist] is revealed not in the absolute perfection of a work but in absolute fidelity to himself, in commitment to his own passion..."

"...Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of self can only be expressed in sacrifice..."

"...What I'm interested in is not symbols, but images. An image has an unlimited number of possible interpretations...."

"...Through the image is sustained an awareness of the infinite: the eternal within the finite, the spiritual within matter, the limitless given form..."

"...It can be apprehended through art, which makes infinity tangible. The absolute is only attainable through faith and in the creative art..."

"...An artistic discovery occurs each time as a new and unique image of the world, a hieroglyphic of absolute truth. It appears as a revelation, as a momentary, passionate wish to grasp intuitively and at a stroke all the laws of this world - its beauty and ugliness, its compassion and cruelty, its infinity and its limitations..."

"...And so, if art carries within it a hieroglyphic of absolute truth, this will always be an image of the world, made manifest in the work once and for all time. These poetic revelations, each one valid and eternal, are evidence of man's capacity to recognize in whose image and likeness he is made, and to voice this recognition..."

"...The birth and development of thought are subject to laws of their own, and sometimes demand forms of expression which are quite different from the patterns of logical speculation. In my view, poetic reasoning is closer to the laws by which thought develops, and thus to life itself, than is the logic of traditional drama....\"

"...Art must transcend as well as observe; its role is to bring spiritual vision to bear on reality..."
"...The artistic image cannot be one-sided: in order justly to be called truthful, it has to unite within itself dialectically contradictory phenomena..."

"...The image is indivisible and elusive, dependent upon our consciousness and on the real world which it seeks to embody..."

"...Time is a condition for the existence of our "I"..."

"...The time in which a person lives gives him the opportunity of knowing himself as a moral being, engaged in the search for the truth..."

"...The human conscience is dependent upon time for its existence..."

"...Time is a state: the flame in which lives the salamander of the human soul..."

"...Bereft of memory, a person becomes the prisoner of an illusory existence..."

"...I want time to flow in a dignified and independent way on the screen...."

"...The dominant, all-powerful factor of the film image is rhythm, expressing the course of time within the frame..."

"...In a certain sense the past is far more real, or at any rate more stable, more reliant than the present..."

"...For the first time in history of the arts, in the history of culture, man found the means to take an impression of time..."

"...It has to be made clear once and for all that if cinema is an art it cannot simply be an amalgam of the principles of other, contiguous art forms..."

"...Time, printed in its factual forms and manifestations: such is the supreme idea of cinema as an art..."

"...for living experience; for cinema, like no other art, widens, enhances and concentrates a person's experience -- and not only enhances it but makes it longer, significantly longer..."

"...Prose and poetry use words by definition, while a film is born of direct observation of life..."

"...The cinema image is basically observation of life's facts within time, organised according to the pattern of life itself, and observing its time laws..."

"...No other art can compare with cinema in the force, precision and starkness with which it conveys awareness of facts and aesthetic structures existing and changing within time...."

"...Art is by nature aristocratic, and naturally selective in its effect on the audience..."

"...The beautiful is hidden from the eyes of those who are not searching for the truth, for whom it is contraindicated. But the profound lack of spirituality of those people who see art and condemn it, the fact that they are neither willing nor ready to consider the meaning and aim of their existence in any higher sense is often masked by the vulgarly simplistic cry, "I don't like it!" "It's boring!" It is not a point that one can argue; but it is like the utterance of a man born blind who is being told about a rainbow. He simply remains deaf to the pain undergone by the artist in order to share with others the truth he has reached..."

"...A film director 'starts to be an artist at the moment when, in his mind or even on film, his own distinctive system of images starts to take shape and the audience are invited to judge it, to share with the director in his most precious and secret dreams..."

"...If you stand on firm moral ground there is no need to shy away from greater freedom in your choice of means. Moreover that freedom need not necessarily be restricted to a clear plan which obliges you to choose between certain methods. You also have to be able to trust solutions which present themselves spontaneously..."

RC replies:

As to what to read, what to study, I have dozens, nay, hundreds of recommendations already sprinkled throughout the Mailbag pages. Read any five or six pages in a row, and I'm sure you'll find a few sources you haven't already mastered. I solicit recommendations from visitors to the site for other things to read, other sources of wisdom. I'll publish the most interesting on the site.

A note from Ray Carney: I have not seen the following film, but wanted to pass along the information to my readers, particularly those in the Boston area. The press release that follows was sent to me from Zeitgeist Films, who distribute the wonderful work of Su Friedrich.

Nestled deep in the postcard-perfect French Alps, the Grande Chartreuse is considered one of the world's most ascetic Catholic monasteries. In 1984, German filmmaker Philip Gröning wrote to the Carthusian order for permission to make a documentary about them. They said they would get back to him. Sixteen years later, they were ready. Gröning, sans crew or artificial lighting, lived in the monks' quarters for six months-filming their daily prayers, tasks, rituals and rare outdoor excursions. This transcendent, closely observed film seeks to embody a monastery, rather than simply depict one-it has no score, no voiceover and no archival footage. What remains is stunningly elemental: time, space and light. One of the most mesmerizing and poetic chronicles of spirituality ever created, INTO GREAT SILENCE dissolves the border between screen and audience with a total immersion into the hush of monastic life. More meditation than documentary, it's a rare, transformative theatrical experience for all.

Watch the trailer, read interviews the director, and learn more about the Grande Chartreuse at www.zeitgeistfilms.com/intogreatsilence "ENGROSSING, ENTRANCING." -Manohla Dargis, THE NEW YORK TIMES "Exhilarating...such a poetic essay on the slowed-down rhythms of life, that its quiet pleasures carry the viewer along at a pace commensurate with the monks' own unhurried sense of time." -Jay Weissberg, VARIETY

INTO GREAT SILENCE will open in Boston on March 16, 2007 at the Kendall Square Cinema.
A note from Ray Carney: I recently received the following response to the posting on the top of Mailbag page 54 (click on the page listings at the top or bottom of this page to go there) from Justin Rivers, one of the students whose work is prominently featured in the L.A. Times piece I cite. According to the piece, Mr. Rivers was in Los Angeles as part of the Boston University film program, pitching three different ideas for films: "One involved aliens and cowboys..., one centered on a businessman using zombies to conquer a small upstate New York town, (and the) third was ... a fantasy adventure revolving around a 13-year-old girl who unleashes a horde of creatures locked in a parallel universe from the attic of an old hotel in New York City." I deplored the fact that the Boston University Film Department, implicitly and explicitly, encouraged students to take a non-artistic, commercial, profit-centered view of the creative process and trained and encouraged them to participate in such business-oriented, Hollywood-style pitch-sessions. Justin Rivers replied to my demurrers and noted that "you don't have to sell your soul, just because you've been taught how." His reply follows. I print it to be fair to him.--R.C.

Subject: Selling of Souls

Dear Professor Carney,

I recently noticed that you posted an article from the LA times on your website, with the comment that "you're never too young to sell your soul." As the subject of that article, I would like to point out that I haven't.

Your misgivings about film school education are certainly warranted in some respects, but I received an excellent education at Boston University, and in doing so have expanded and improved by abilities as an artist. Of course, some classes are more "commercial" than others, and some deal with tradecraft with the express focus on how to get and perform various jobs within the entertainment industry. For those with no ambition beyond that, I see no problem. For those who aspire to practice film as an art, these classes are still beneficial, as greater experience and knowledge can only be. I found it easy to separate the useful lessons from the barren ones. If someone claiming to be an artist enters film school and becomes tainted with commercial interests, or loses their unique voice or vision, then perhaps that person isn't cut out to be an artist in any case.

Moving to Los Angeles and working in Hollywood is not necessarily a cause for alarm. The BU program there prepared me for working within the film industry rather well. But in no way do I intend to be held hostage by Hollywood, or confined by it. LA is a place where I can meet people, support myself in some type of film-related job, and have enough economic security in order to work on my own projects. The large number of BU alumns that I know here, and the readily available and experienced crew members and artisans are all resources with which I can produce artwork with complete autonomy. With a modest job, I can afford to express myself in many different mediums, including screenplays and films, web content, music, and (my particular passion) radio drama.
Where you live and how you study does not dictate a person's art. It informs it. I offer myself as some kind of proof that you don't have to "sell your soul," just because you've been taught how. Indeed, the closer I am to the dysfunctional Hollywood machine, the more clearly I can apply the tools I have learned in order to steer clear of it.

Sincerely,

Justin K. Rivers

A note from Ray Carney: By coincidence in the same email in-box that I received the note from Justin Rivers, I received another response to the posting about the Boston University writing program (as described in the L.A. Times article on Mailbag page 54) from a young filmmaker not connected with the Boston University film program:

I read the article on scriptwriting students in LA. What a complete farce and horror. I can't believe that's how they actually greenlight scripts for production. No wonder the films made have NO SOUL or HEART. But then again I'm not surprised. But also not being surprised is the sad part. So many horrors in the world that we take for granted or don't try to change.

Thanks.

trying to stay true with love,

JP

A note from Ray Carney: Justin Rivers wrote back and protested that his letter had not received a fair reply. I post his protest below and my response to it. I do this to be as fair as humanly possible to his position and feelings. --R.C.

Subject: Selling of Souls

Prof. Carney,

I'm not interested in argument for the sake of it, but your reply to my email was rather unjust. The film scripts that I pitched at that event are idiosyncratic and artistic ones, and to judge them based on a journalist's crude summary (he was more interested in the story he was writing than the ones that I had written) is unfair. Science fiction and fantasy stories are not to everyone's taste. But Tarkovsky worked in the genre, as did many others. I am an independent filmmaker who participated in a program that allowed me to practice presenting my stories to others, and showed me firsthand how the Hollywood system was fundamentally incompatible with my work. I do not seek or require approval from anyone for my personal vision. Instead I would merely like to point out that in "deploring" my film scripts, which neither you nor the LA Times have any knowledge of, you are likewise deploring one of the people who shares many of your convictions, and has stood by such convictions with integrity and purpose.

I'm sorry to bother you, but it is sometimes hard to work when everyone tells me that my writing isn't commercial, that compromise will ensure me a better paycheck, and that I need to prostrate myself before a mammoth system of studios in order to work. I've found that none of those things are true, and to have someone who is ostensibly on the same side, as it were, condemn my work, is regrettable.

Sincerely,

Justin K. Rivers

RC replies:

Subject: Marketing souls

Two things (forgive the rush, I only have two minutes):

First, my entire line of thought is NOT about YOU. It is about the Boston University film program (particularly the Los Angeles branch of it), and its values, its priorities, its emphases, its ideas. If you read my words, I state this very clearly in my note. I never attack you personally. I do deplore the program's commercialism, Hollywood values, business emphasis, Los Angeles focus, etc. My critique is not personal but systemic. (If you want to know the truth, I view you as a "pawn," a "victim" not as a perpetrator. You are being used. But that may take you time to understand. So I don't blame you or criticize you. Not in the least.)

As proof of that, beyond this particular posting, the posting of the LA Times article takes its place in a much longer, more elaborate and detailed critique of the values of many American film programs that is presented in many other places on the site. In the note to the LA Times article, I encourage readers to click on these other links so they will understand the context.

Second, I think your frustration is misdirected at me. You were made fun of by that article. BU collaborated in that process (whether you realize that or not--that reporter came at THEIR request and wrote the story THEY encouraged him to write). So where is the angry letter of denunciation and protest to the LA Times? To the reporter? To the BU PR office? To the LA program director? Where was the letter of protest from BU about the unfairness of the article? Who at the PR office called the reporter on your behalf and said that you had been misquoted or misrepresented? I am just posting material. For the most part, I let the reader draw his or her own conclusion about that material. My note is very short and anyone can draw any conclusion they want from that material (including the conclusion that I am wrong about it). You, correctly I believe, feel that the LA Times article mocked you and demeaned your projects. You should take that up with the reporter and the BU PR office. You really should. To take it up with me is to misplace your embarrassment and frustration and feelings of misrepresentation.

I offer this in all sincerity. I genuinely believe it is worth thinking about. Boston University and the BU PR office and the LA program can't play the game both ways and want the PR and contribute to the PR and participate in the PR and rejoice at the PR (I heard BU professors gloating at how the article had gotten into the LA Times and "how good" it would be for the program), and then disavow the implications of the PR and deny everything it implies about the program.

But, count this as a blessing. This is wonderful lesson to learn early in life. Learn it. Don't turn it into regret and dislike (or into shooting the messenger!!!). Learn how American film and television PR works. Learn how the media work. Learn how shabby and irresponsible American journalists are. Think about the long-term effect on American film and television of this breezy, contemptuous, dismissive journalistic tone--as if everything in film were horse manure. Think how demoralizing it is to true artists. Think how much damage this journalistic cynicism does to the art of film and how it degrades public taste and values. (Think about its effects on other aspects of our culture too, like our political campaigns and the level of our public discourse in other areas as well.) Think about how immoral PR people are--how they will chew you up and spit you out to sell a story. How they don't care about the long-term values and effects of the story, but only about getting it in the media. We teach PR in the College. We teach people how to do this. Do we teach them the consequences? Do we teach them the effects of what they are doing? Think about the result of training students in this way. Learn how you can be used by the system. Think about how contemptuous the media are about the people they use to sell their newspapers and magazines. And learn how universities use their students as part of the promotional system. Learn how your program in LA really works, culturally and intellectually. Ponder its values. All wonderful, deep, important lessons.

And, as a separate matter, it sounds like you have already learned an important lesson about Los Angeles and Hollywood. Bravo for that. Painful, difficult hard-won, hard-earned knowledge is the best kind. You have gone into the belly of the beast and emerged to tell the tale.

Best wishes on your work.

RC

A note from Ray Carney: I wanted to post the following letter about the screening of a young artist's film. It is a horror story of inadequate preparation, slipshod support, bad attitudes, and malfunctioning equipment. But I am printing it not to scare other artists and get them down, but for the opposite reason: as an encouragement--because ALL young artists will have (or already have had) comparable experiences at one point or another.

Heck, I've had similar experiences throughout my career. I remember the time I showed up at Anthology Film Archives in New York for a major public lecture for which I had put in dozens of hours of preparation only to discover that the Archive had forgotten to publicize the event and only three people (friends I had told about the event) were sitting in the 100-person lecture room when I walked up to the podium. I went on anyway. They were counting on it. I remember another time at another major film archive when, a few minutes before the event was supposed to begin, the curator raced up to me and told me he had lost the videotapes I had given him a few hours before, which the entire lecture was organized around. In that case, there were 500 people waiting in the auditorium for me to speak, and I suddenly had to face the fact that I couldn't say anything I had planned on saying. I walked to the front of the room and improvised an entirely new lecture to cover the fact that I didn't have any of the illustrative material I had counted on using. No one in the audience ever knew. Even fairly recently, when I took the first version of Shadows to Rotterdam, in the re-discovery world premiere, to screen in an NTSC Digibeta format, no more than three minutes before the screening was scheduled to start, the projectionist suddenly told me that he didn't have an NTSC deck to read the tape. There were 500 people sitting in the theater, on the other side of the wall from where he was talking to me, many of whom had travelled from halfway around the world to see the movie, and he was suddenly telling me he couldn't show it. So I walked down front and "filled in" with an introduction to the screening for the next half hour (an introduction that I hadn't prepared to give) while someone scurried around locating the correct piece of equipment that would project the image.

So why do I tell you all this? Not to discourage you. But because that's show business. That's what live entertainment almost always is. Last-minute surprises. Last-minute flukes and flubs. Last-minute changes. Last-minute improvisations. If you are a young filmmaker, get ready for it. This is your life. And, more to the point, this is what all life is. You'll cry a little when you discover they projected the reels of your film in the wrong order. You'll die a little when someone in the audience tells you that they forgot to turn on the sound. You'll cringe a little when you see the awfulness of the image that they promised would be wonderful. What to do? There's no solution for it, but to learn to roll with the punches, soak in the experience, and laugh, laugh, laugh, if you possibly can. This is life. This is the danger, the fun, the adventure of life. If it was more predictable, it would get boring. Get used to it, and try to find some way to love it, to appreciate the wackiness, the unpredictability. And, above all, by hook or crook, try to find some way to get these kinds of experiences and emotions into your work. Only in Hollywood movies do things go smoothly. Only in funeral parlors do people look great. Life is messy. Life is surprising. Life is strange and disorienting and embarrassing. Love it, relish it, cherish it, enjoy its messiness.

And at the same time, work to make things better. Work for excellence and professionalism and preparation. Work on behalf of caring. The world has to learn to care more. Each of us has to learn to care more about the fate of all of the rest of us. Nothing is just "a job."

What follows is a copy of a letter the young artist wrote to another artist who shared his feelings and experiences about bad screenings. At the writer's request, I have blanked out the personal references to conceal his and his correspondent's identity.--R.C.

Subject: the explanation explosion

Dear XXXXX,

XXXXX experience does not sound good at all. =(

I would have probably thrown stuff or punched walls (that's how I reacted to the censorship xxx).
As for (University of XXXX), well, that's that. I'm not going back to that school of mine (hurts even more that I graduated from that school) for a long time, I won't say never, but they won't see me for a while.

I'm really not scared of burning bridges if it's a matter of standing up for what's right. Or I used to be scared, but I'm just tired of putting up with these things.

If I overreacted and was bratty by pulling my films out, I don't really care because I don't want to put up anymore with the standards of the world which are mediocrity and incompetence.

To give you the lowdown of what happened, they were not prepared to screen my work.... My fault was that I assumed they would be prepared and I should have pushed for some kind of technical rehearsal a day or two before. The venue was supposed to be open at 9 am so that we could have a last minute technical rehearsal and I was late arriving there at 9:15 pm. But when I got there the venue still wasn't open and we couldn't find the technician whom they said they had already talked to about the screening. By the time the venue was opened it was already around quarter to 10 am and some audience members were already starting to arrive.

They had a lot of technical equipment missing and they also did not know how to work their own equipment so I and another filmmaker had to step in to work the LCD projector. And for the audio they just wanted to use two microphones put up right against the LCD projector speaker. NO WAY would that have worked! I've tried that before when I screened my full length film at another alma mater of mine the University of XXXX and the audio was a complete DISASTER (hmm, there seems to be a pattern between me and screening my films at former schools).

And to top it all off, beyond our control, there was a brownout (blackout) too. I actually calmed down my anger a bit during the brownout.

So the first screening at 10 am got canceled. Good thing director XXXX came to the 1 pm screening for the forum and not the morning or it would have been so shameful.

To their credit, one of the guys who wasn't even part of the organizing committee went out to buy all the missing connectors that we needed during the time between 10 am and 1 pm.

So the 1 pm screening pushed through, but all throughout that time I was slowly building myself up some real and artificial rage at the whole thing. And by the time XXXX was into it's first third, I was beyond the point of no return. I left the screening venue with a friend and I was just supposed to take a walk around (the city) to clear my head, but as I stood outside the university gate I made my decision.

I went back inside and told the screening organizer that the deal was off, I'm pulling my work.
And I left.

I've had a lot of other past bad experiences with screenings of my films. The worst of course was the censorship by XXX of my film and coming in for a tie was a local festival and a very prominent member of the independent filmmaking community whose name I won't mention online, but I'll just tell you when we see each other if you care to know, who cut my film off in the middle of its screening to make way for another film ....

And there were other less malignant screening flubs and stupidities that have been happening since last year so I'm kind of on a streak.

So I realize know as I write this to you that my reaction to the XXXX thing was more of the final spark that blew up the powder keg rather than the previous frictions.

Pardon me for dumping all that on you.

Even though we're just getting to know each other, I just feel I can trust you.

Thanks.

(Name withheld by request)

RC,

Just a thought about your great note about going with the flow of last-minute problems and learning to laugh, love it and appreciate the messiness. I was reminded of a Mark Twain quote:
"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."
What a crazy, wonderful, scary world we live in, nothing is ever what we think it will be.

"Alice in Wonderland"