Not too long ago I was speaking with my friend S. about something other than film and art. He said, “In my experience, whenever you try to force something, it doesn’t work.”
Advice like this no one wants to hear, myself included. I believe I can will things to happen. It’s magical thinking. It’s how I deal with the uncertainty of my life at various times.
But it’s also true of film and art. Consider….
I have written before about one of my favorite lines in A Life’s Work, when Robert Darden talks about a setback the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project encountered. It’s in the following clip, the line is, “Okay. I need more faith.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2dmHvFA-3I[/youtube]Not long ago I had been thinking about Jill Tarter’s response to my question about whether faith plays a part in her life. She said, “Faith in terms of an organized religion, no, it’s not part of my life.” I had also been thinking how I could juxtapose these two responses. I was twisting and turning the footage, trying to ram square pegs into round holes, and it wasn’t working. The problem is context — they are responding to different questions, Darden’s response is to a very specific incident and Tarter’s response is to a poorly formulated question from the interviewer (me). Sometimes you can make such disparate things work, sometimes you can’t. And when you can’t, you can’t, no matter how much you force it. So, I’ve moved on. Darden’s response has a very definite place in the film, Tarter’s, we’ll see, but I think not.
Life lesson learned? Probably not. I’m sure I’ll keep trying to force things. But maybe yielding this time will result in keeping a confusing scene out of the film, and that’s no small thing.
Related: Editing a Setback Sequence – Process