Why I Love Mentalism

I fell in love with magic when I was over 40 years old.
This, of course, is not typical of magic which usually
attracts its adherents young.  But it was a very particular
type of magic - mentalism - not magic in general which
suddenly swooped down one evening and captured my
heart.

And it was sudden.   Very sudden.  In fact I fell in love
in the space of a single routine:

Used Car Salesmen
(Note:  This is the American version of the same routine,
which I saw in its original British form, which I prefer,
but which I couldn't find on-line.)


In the original British version, the piece is accompanied
by Derren Brown speaking on the techniques he used
to tell truth from fiction - even when the liar stays silent.
I was hooked by a single question which always grabs
me in the best of Brown's work:

Is the mind really capable of this?
And the same question in inverted form:
Is the mind really vulnerable to this?


A new way of exploring what it means to be human
opened up to me at a time when I really needed
something new, because the world seemed to be
steadily growing smaller.

It came at a time when I was disappointed by the
inability of my latest feature film, Black Mail, to find
an audience and so build my career as a writer-
director on the comparative success of my previous
film, Nightingale in a Music Box; at a time I was
frustrated in my attempts to get a new film or theater
project off the ground; and at a time when my heart
was being broken by the prolonged dying of a 
beloved brother.  


Mentalism opened a new horizon and made the world
bigger again.   It had nothing to do with psychic
phenomenon, which held no interest for me; it had 
everything to do the with the mystery of being human. 
The secrets it brings to light are not altogether pleasant,
for instance we are endlessly manipulable, but they do
inspire wonder and the realization that we have capacities
to be explored that we have been too lazy to look into.  

Three Filmmakers

John Ford
The Searchers

Nicholas Ray
Bigger Than Life

Hurt McDermott
Nightingale In A Music Box

Jack Aubrey, Master & Filmmaker

Strangely enough, the best series of books on
the life of a film director - as opposed to the craft -
are Patrick O'Brian's  Aubrey-Maturin Sea Saga
set during the Napoleonic Wars.

Being a captain of ship at this time of total
naval war is a lot like being a director in this
time of total media saturation in that time is
neatly divided between the times you have a
command (a film) and the times you don't.

When you don't have a film (a ship), everything
becomes about obtaining your next project (command);
and then when you finally get a project, you are not
so much in control - at least not if your budgets are as
small as mine were on NIGHTINGALE IN A MUSIC
BOX and BLACK MAIL - as in a dance with chaos.

Ship's captains of that time were in a similar position
of having absolute authority - but only authority to
improvise in dealing with the chaos that the sea,
the weather and the enemy dealt their way.   

Of course in the end, both captains and directors are
held responsible for the final results as if they really
did have control over the process.

Those made to be captains and filmmakers would not
trade the life for any other.

The first of the series is MASTER & COMMANDER.

The Redoubtable Steve Key

I ran into one of my favorite actors, Steve Key,
in the streets of Chicago of all places.   He had
just come back from a national tour with
Steppenwolf in Tracy Letts's August: Osage
County, a play with a deceptively hard to
remember title. 

Steve has what I consider the trickiest role to cast in
BLACK MAIL, my most recent film.  He played
the cop who romances  a Presbyterian minister
who is in every way above his head.   She is
beautiful, better educated and has veneer of
sophistication he can not match; but in the
same way Benedict ends up with Beatrice in
Much Ado About Nothing he wins
her heart by knowing how to take his time. 

Beyond his acting talent, Steve is just a wonderful
guy, and it was such a joy to see an open seat
next to him on the bus.  Being an independent
filmmaker entails making films with about 1% of
your time - if you're successful, that is - you spend
about 10 times that trying to get a film up and a lot
of time writing.

It's a real gift to run into someone who thinks of
you primarily as a filmmaker!  It helps you get
through the 90% or so of your life you spend in
exile from the film community.  It puts a smile
on your face.
`_/