A Sandbox and a Pendulum

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 16 July 2014.

A scene from Drunk History

Here's a quick prelude to some thoughts I've been having.

Recently a few things have been making me reflect on Arthur White. One is JPII's letter (more on that another time) and the role of artists. Another is Steve Miller's book Detroit Rock City, which got me thinking a lot about the DIY thing that made Detroit rock so great and also more or less kept it off the national radar, since it was so feral in Californian terms. The final thing is a few things: NPR storytelling shows, Maron, and Drunk History.

Back to Detroit. When I thought of the idea of working on a screenplay or teleplay, the idea was rooted in actually putting on shows and getting footage onto the internet. An Evening with Arthur White is so natural to the way I work.

I was talking about it with my sister, who is an outstanding photographer. She was talking about how I was a good photographer before she was, and it's true: I had a 100% in photography class and won the book award for the class. But when I took the class, there was some weird physics experiment involving a sandbox and a pendulum that was more or less in the darkroom, and, as a result, I always had scratched negatives from all the sand in the room. And really, that's become my aesthetic--sand in the negatives, which is in many ways like the swaddled existence. Everything is so punk and lo-fi and duct taped together, and hopefully the ideas transcend the materials that produced them. With my moving, though, I pretty much killed our ability to take that approach, and it was difficult even when I was in town. Too many moving parts and no real way to deal fairly with all the people we'd need.

So the screenplay idea made sense: get the ideas on paper and let a network fund everything. We could get as wild as we wanted and if we won the lottery odds-wise, we would have a really polished, professional product with great marketing potential. Plus, we could take our time and handle the work. At the same time, though, the odds of getting signed would be so slim, as would the odds of maintaining our vision of the project. Plus, our chances to play our characters would just disappear.

Tonight, it dawned on me while watching Drunk History that if we were to work on making the project podcast-based, we could retain the DIY feel and our own ownership of the project while liberating ourselves from the tyranny of the visual, which creates massive amounts of cost and labor. A podcast would let us tell our stories from multiple angles and create a venue for the music.  We also wouldn't have to have everything ready to go, which is something I liked about the performance idea originally: let a little of the story out at a time, and since the story could come from multiple narrators, the different stories wouldn't even have to mesh with each other.

You might remember an old idea I had for the Arthur White superfan who runs the fansite who really knows very little about the story and just wants to maintain the aura that comes from being the biggest fan of a group nobody knows. We could have him on. We could interview people who saw the shows. We could play snippets of records we make, or we could broadcast concerts that wouldn't have to look particularly authentic as long as they sounded authentic. We could even get into the meta stuff by being ourselves on occasion.

What do you think?

Evidence of Wrong Turns

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 26 June 2014.

Yeah, I was thinking about how, in some ways, you are the Apollonian and I am the Dionysian.

If we could afford it time- and money-wise, I would totally just do the garage, DIY version of the project we started with: put on shows, generate footage, get it on the Internet, and let the story unfold that way.

I'd be totally fine with a version of the project where we just pick a show from the timeline and put on that concert, then repeat. I think you go Apollonian when it comes to the records and live performances--you want to make them flawless.  I'm probably more Apollonian about the story, especially when it comes to chronology.

...filming for some unknown and presumably useless reason

I think what sets our story apart from The Office or Parks and Rec is that we don't have an anonymous documentary crew filming for some unknown and presumably useless reason.  I totally agree: there is absolutely no reason for the documentary crew to give a crap about 11 years of some paper company in Scranton.

In our case, if Jo is the frame, then the story is unfolds around her.

She is on a quest to understand her own father amid her own existential crisis, and she quickly learns that the only way to do so is to understand Arthur White, the man who inspired him to risk everything and who inadvertently led him to his death. There's that old cliche that cynics are jaded idealists, and I think that's true for Jo. She has her father's nature and her mother's nurture: her dad was attracted to truth and beauty like a moth to a flame, but her mom raised her in a cloud of cynicism, preaching the gospel of her father's betrayal and the idea that life is pain.

I think where I'm very Apollonian is that I don't really care that much about sharing the story of our quest to create the project.

I had the same problem in all of my drawing classes: my teachers would try to get me to leave all the marks of my process in my work, where to me, they were just distractions, evidence of wrong turns. But I trust your vision here.

Regarding our story, I think we need to see if we still like the strategy of aiming toward a TV show. The advantage is that we can map out the whole story without spending money, rehearsing, acting...all the things that are difficult for us. The disadvantage is the difficulty of getting the show signed and produced. Also, for good or bad, we probably won't end up being Art and Will.

If the show gets signed, we'll probably end up with lots of interviews about the making of the show anyway.  I watch too much cable, and I can't believe how much television is devoted to behind-the-scenes stuff. I've seen more interviews with and stories about the cast of Mad Men than I have episodes, and I've seen all the episodes.

Plus, we still have the blog.

Some New Fangled System (Part 1 of 2)

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 25 June 2014.

I do like Jo as the documentarian searching for meaning and peace and trying to put together a good documentary in the process.

That could provide for some interesting on-camera and off-camera conversations were it to be staged like last time. It also provides the basic motive for telling the story. And it banishes anything irrational or beyond the scope of human understanding.  I also like the idea that she could have conversations with her faculty advisor as another way of telling the story.

Boy, in some ways, what we had with Joe was unique in that we had an actual person trying to create a documentary. I wonder if that would be a good route to go in the future, finding someone (Joe again?) who would be able to conceptualize some approach. The mainstream approach is beginning to get hackneyed, what with all the Christopher Guest movies, The Office, Extras, etc. How is ours going to be different?

Jim looking at the camera

One thing that bothers me about those aforementioned fake documentaries is that they often require more and more suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewer.

At some point, the idea of all these people willingly going along with a documentary seems more and more unlikely. And the motive for having the documentary too...i.e. why are we spending 11 years documenting the lives of paper company employees in Scranton?

If we wanted to get super postmodern about it, we could make the documentary about the quest of Art and Will to "make this happen"--and, yes, become somewhat famous in the process. This, of course, does not fit your Apollonian leanings, but, as I said before about the blog, it releases a deluge of material to be exploited. Also, it provides much-needed relief from the approach that is getting hackneyed.

Now that I think about it, this was actually the direction we were going with Joe! Joe took tons of footage and interviewed us as ourselves! What was he going to do with that?

I understand the thought that this may be a cop out writing wise. A.D. Melville gives a good definition of cop out in the "Translator's Note" of his Metamorphoses: "some new-fangled system, more or less metrical, turning its back on achievements it is frightened to face." I'm not exactly what he's talking about, but it calls to mind Robert Pinsky's translation of The Inferno, which uses Yeatsian rhyme and loose iambic pentameter (really just 10-syllable lines) to render Dante's stricter terza rima.

Obviously, there are some gifted writers out there developing excellent made-for-TV serial fiction. Are we avoiding head-on competition with them in taking this route?

It's a good question and I don't know the answer.

A Good Disclipline to Impose

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 25 June 2014.

As we have loosely used Aristotle's Poetics as a guide in our decision making, I'm beginning to think we should keep as many irrational elements outside the scope of the play as possible.

Obviously, this goes against much of what I've described in the "Epic Finale." Ideally--as with the jawless ghost and the subterranean beast--we shouldn't have to rely on big bucks from Hollywood to make our vision a reality; we should convey it through other means such as speech, like how Teiresias comes back to the square and explains how crazy the birds were acting as he was sitting on the seat of augury.

Showing the birds tearing each other apart would amount to something Aristotle would describe as being "beyond the scope of human understanding" and therefore not proper to drama. Euripides, by having a god (Dionysus) explain a few things at the beginning of The Bacchae, violates this principle.

To the greatest extent possible, I'd like deaths and all irrational elements occur either hidden from view or outside the scope of the drama. I think imagining our story as a play (musical would be fine too!) would be a good discipline to impose. Obviously, we are writing an epic or saga just as much as a drama, but, for both practical and artistic reasons, I think we should attempt to consciously limit ourselves in the special effects department.

Odysseus at the court of Alcinous by Francesco Hayez.

Having a frame story with someone telling those irrational/beyond-the-scope-of-human-understanding parts of the story--as Odysseus did in the court of King Alcinous--would be one way to accomplish this straddling of epic and tragic poetry. Blurring the lines between hallucination and reality--as in Death of a Salesman--would be yet another way.

Despite the story's expansiveness, I think we should come up with a way of unifying the plot and perhaps even condensing the amount of time that will have actually passed. Is there a 12-step program in which these stories are being told? Is it all happening in Arthur's mind while strapped to the stretcher headed down to the ECT room? Is it a series of letters that are read by Josie Lazarus, perhaps while we focus on her more down-to-earth drama (whatever that is)?

Bottom line, could we accomplish the scripting of this story observing the unities and using a minimum of what Aristotle would term "spectacle"?

Again, for both practical and artistic reasons, I think our pilot--even for a TV program--should be highly doable on stage.

This Creepy Nihilistic Thing

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 29 May 2014.

Plot-wise, I feel like the Farthington stuff is really coming together.

Thief starring James Caan and Tuesday Weld

The problem I'm seeing is that it has in some ways crowded out the stories of Joe Lazarus, Arthur White's Brand New Life, and Will Witkowski. I don't want to undo any of the Farthington stuff; it's really good. I just want to figure out how to revise and reinsert a few things it has eclipsed.

Originally (and I think we disagreed on this one a bit), I really loved the idea that at some point, Arthur came really close to making the sort of music he was born to make. I saw Brand New Life being the first step in that process and an escape with Joe Lazarus being the closest he came to fulfilling it. Before Farthington, Will was the nemesis who crushed Arthur right when he was about to become the artist he was supposed to become.

The Farthington plot eclipses all that in a lot of ways, so we've got to figure out how to give its impact back. I really don't want to lose the idea that, at some point, Arthur almost became the artist he could have been. He won't stand up as a protagonist if we never feel that he could have been great. At the same time, that feeling we develop is something to make suspect, as the bit of heaven Arthur can show people on earth is only a faint glimmer of what heaven has in store for us. We should be torn between the idea of loving the bit of heaven we see through Arthur and the lesser thing rooted in the American Dream, lamenting that Arthur could have "made it."

So, I don't want to touch the Farthington plotline.

I just want to make room for an Arthur who almost made it and wasn't just a victim; a Joe Lazarus who almost saved Arthur and was dashed by failure; a Will who is the flawed but protective brother who tries to save Arthur from Carlton Farthington; and a Brand New Life that for a period sets Arthur on a positive path.

Reasserting these ideas may complicate the story a bit, but if we're thinking of five TV seasons, we need several ups and downs and some squirminess in terms of how the audience reads the characters.

I don't yet have a clear picture of how to reintegrate these pieces, but my hunch is that after Will rescues Arthur from Farthington and gets him his first treatment, Joe Lazarus helps bring Arthur back to his true form; Will then works with Joe to put Brand New Life together; Will sees the initial success and starts doing a bunch of dumb commercial stuff in his eagerness to make Arthur a star; and the tension that creates between Will and Joe drives Arthur back into the predatory hands of Farthington, who validates Arthur's vision and lures him into the heroic quest to save Iceland.

Maybe after Will kills Farthington, we think he's a good guy looking out for his brother. But then he has Arthur committed until the money runs out, at which points he dumps him on Linda. So maybe what looks like Will's heroic quest actually ends up being this creepy nihilistic thing...more like the end of Thief starring James Caan and Tuesday Weld.

A Higher Order of Creation (Part 1 of 3)

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 14 May 2014.

Circe Invidiosa by Waterhouse

I see your point.  I like the Steffi idea, especially since it's a twist and TV needs twist, but archetypically, she could easily default to a Scylla/Circe figure.  Not that I mind that.

I see a lot of promise in Agnieczka as a character...we just haven't talked about her much because of her loose connection to an ex of yours and partially because of the awkwardness that happens if you play Arthur White and have to have a relationship with an actress. The problem goes away if we pursue the TV show option and don't play the parts ourselves.

Linda is a heroic figure, but she's kind of saved by Arthur, which lends her to a few stereotypes...the redeemed fallen woman Mary Magdalene type, which again, is not a huge problem for me since the men are fairly archetypical, too.  I'm not on a quest to eliminate archetype...I don't think any of us are.  I think we just want to sharpen the archetypes.  Archetypes are really useful for helping people process truth...they just fail when they are presented in a hackneyed manner, unless the point is farce.

Arthur's parents are interesting contrasts. There's probably that problem of the Victorian thing where the wife is the moral head of the household and the dad is the economic head, but I do like the idea in which Arthur's mother's ambitions toward heaven rival and even outstrip his father's economic ambitions.

The big female character you left out is the Virgin Mary. In my eyes, the whole story is about Arthur's relationship with Mary...she's the central figure of his mystical connection to heaven.

In so many ways, Arthur lives in a feminine world, and there's a little bit of a feminist undertone I see in the way that Will and Farthington's aggressive masculinity screws so much up, and if the world could accept Arthur on his own terms instead of trying to butch him up and measure his music in terms of money, it would be a much better place. It's not that Arthur is effeminate...it's that the world can only recognize his gifts--creativity, intuition, love, a profound appreciation of beauty, a life-giving disposition--in feminine terms. Really, though, they are divine.

The idea of Steffi adds an interesting spin on maleness.

One other crazy idea: Joe Lazarus, Jr.  could be Josie Lazarus. Sorry, Joe! But really, there's your female on a heroic quest if we just change his gender.

Television

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 22 April 2014.

I know I said this yesterday, but I really do think creating a pilot and a few episodes is a way forward. It basically gives us freedom to dwell in conceptual land and let somebody else worry about how to buy the gear, stage the performances, act the parts, etc.

Television

If we find time to pursue other parts of the project, I'd say the second order of business would be making an album or two. The third would be maybe a show as a publicity stunt...maybe the idea would sell better if it had some Internet steam, but I'm thinking it would be easier to just script some shows. Who knows...maybe TV studio would be interested in backing some viral stuff to promote the show.

I think the advantage of working on scripts is that we can go as grandiose as we want to without having to invest anything other than time and thought, which we always invest anyway. And like I said, I can initiate some of the writing this summer and then we could tweak it back and forth so that the onus isn't on you to crank out 42-page scripts while changing little Francis.

It seems to me that the time is ripe to push a TV show as original as ours could be. Everyone wants quirky novelesque, hour-long, serial period-piece these days, everyone wants to win an Emmy, and downloadable TV has made it so that Netflix and Hulu are making award-winning TV without broadcasting. Pretty wild times.