Ain't we got fun?

Negotiating the public versus personal:

There is a film called “Evening.” I think that much I am allowed to say. It has been stated, in no uncertain terms, that, “There can be absolutely NO REVIEWS of Evening.” I think I am also allowed to say that I have seen “Evening.”


I am ABSOLUTELY not going to tell you what I think about this film.

Last year I was allowed to write about, but not allowed to review, the new version of “Lassie,” and in the same sentence was told that it was desired that people would be dying to see the movie. Well, I am not a marketer or advertiser (if anything, I practically subscribe to the Bill Hicks school of thought on advertising, which is almost too barbaric to print here, however satirical it may be). I am no jerk, though - I appreciate the work that needs to be done to get my beloved art up and out. (Thanks, peddlers!)

What is most loveable about these film festivals for me are not the red carpets or the celebrity sightings (though I am dazzled in a real way by the work of mostly independent actors such as Michael Shannon and am hoping he will be at my interview later today) or the control and eventual dissemination of information regarding a certain movie in order to hype and generate excitement. I am not an excitement generator (except in my personal life). What is loveable to me is sitting in a darkened theater and being moved by this powerful, still relatively new, medium of film. It’s really quite hippy dippy. And pretty personal.

So after watching the press screening of “Evening” yesterday morning, I had to get out of the theater without talking to anyone. I immediately called my sister and cried all the way back up Touro Street only to then turn around and meet my friend at the Gap by the water for some very needed retail therapy. My Americanness never ceases to amaze me.

Good, or bad, or different, I knew I was in for it, going to view “Evening,” since I think I’m allowed to say it is a film about a dying mother and her daughters (I mean, the postcard advertising the film that came with my last amazon.com order states that). It is something I’ve lived through and still go back to, am still triggered (and don't get me started about otters). I think I’m allowed to say that without setting the buzz afire, without destroying the “purple dust of twilight time" wash that is meant to fall over a film about which no one must speak. The desire to see "Evening" is still stealing across the meadows of your heart, right?

I almost could not put a photo in here of “Evening” because the web has them on lock-down. But then I found one on the Newport International Film Festival site.

All of the buzz-control makes me think of a favorite quote from James Merrill’s “The Changing Light at Sandover.” Of course I can’t find the exact quotation right now, but it has something to do with the “erection of theories, dissemination of thought”… and the last line has something to do with choking on it.

See you at the red carpet! (Unless of course I'm in a darkened theater doing what I do).