Flicker #37
December 10, 2001
Here's what we screened:
Paul Alanis, Wanting Ziggy
super 8 to video, 4 min.
Johanna Hibbard, Three Kisses
16mm to video, 7 min.
Chris Johnson, untitled
16mm, 3 min.
Jason Gira, Prepare to Meet
Thy God
super 8 to video, 15 min.
Bendte Fagge, York Wilson, and
Viva, Hairs of Desire
super 8 to video, 3 min.
David Teague, Six Minute Movie:
Beauty Film #2439
super 8, 6 min.
Flicker Hat Trick #8: Kirk Adam,
Suburban Sting-Ray
super 8 to video, 4 min.
Lucy Weismann, In the Red
16mm, 5 min.
Alan Lebetkin, Clean Streets
16mm to video, 3 min.
Robert Koegler, Flowers Title
Sequence
16mm to video, 5 min.
Brad Boll, Down Here Drinkin'
16mm to video, 15 min
Eva Saks, Needle in a Haystack
16mm to video, 7 min.
Good A. Smudd, I'm Gonna Cut
Ya
super 8 to video, 5 min.
Flicker #37
Welcome, and thanks for coming to the holiday Flicker. We've got films from all over the place tonight, as well as returns from Flicker veterans who have been away too long.
Thanks also to everyone who attended the "Ms. Films" festival last month, which was an incredibly enjoyable and successful event. If you're interested in volunteering to help make it an annual event, please sign up at the merch table.
And, as always, drop me a line at flicker@ipass.net to get your film in the next Flicker. Enjoy the show!
by Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan is a New York-based writer, actor, and filmmaker. Hollywood seems only able to imagine him as a serial killer or creep (probably because he's so darn good at in movies like Manhunter, The Last Action Hero, and on TV on "The X-Files") but his own work is very different. What Happened Was... and The Wife are small, ensemble movies that explore awkward psychological moments and the pain of everyday living. The following is excerpted from his website, TomNoonan.com--go there to read this essay in full and find Mr. Noonan's thoughts on many other aspects of filmmaking.
When I was nine things were pretty tough. I was a Catholic school kid wrestling with guilt and confusion. But then I saw The Boy With Green Hair. It was like watching myself. The story of my life made sense for a moment - I wasn't so alone. At fourteen, my loneliness became the Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and at fifteen East of Eden and Long Day's Journey Into Night helped me survive my own insane family drama. I saw people up on the screen who were so alive - my life was so pale and empty by comparison.
I've thankfully moved past that particular low point in life. I'm in love with a great woman and have two great children...Life seems easier now - but sometimes I think I've just managed more successful tactics for avoiding life - found more seamless ways of lying to the world and myself. I need movies now more than ever. But my God, what's happened to movies? Is it because I'm middle-aged that I see so few movies that make me feel anything vaguely authentic? True, I am awed and amazed and shocked and titillated by movies, but rarely am I touched. It's far too rare that the lights come up after a movie and I have to hide the tears in my eyes - it's rarer still that during a movie I feel a rush of love for my partner and my children the way I remember as a child feeling love for my parents during a movie, my chest heaving up into my throat with longing. That's why movies have always meant so much to me. They were a guiding force - a spiritual and emotional rebirth that rivaled any force in my life: religion, family, friends... even rock and roll.
And that's why I think most people go to the movies. They need to laugh and cry and feel the anger that eats at them. They need someone to put into words those things they can't articulate - they want a character in a movie to fall in love so they can believe it can happen to them. They need something to poke holes through their pretensions and denial. An audience comes to sit in the dark together to share laughter and isolation and yearning. I thought that was why, over the years, I gradually became involved in making movies.
The process of creating a film is the thing that makes me alive. I have to let go and just follow my heart. Making a decent movie is like falling in love or hitting a curve ball - it's beyond our control - it's all instinct. I've realized that it's the experience of the moment on a film set that is of value - not the deal, not the press, not the power. Making a movie with that kind of understanding has made me a better person. That's why I make movies. I feel lucky that I found a way to be alive, if only for those brief moments. It's like they turn the lights on for a minute and I can see the world. And that's enough for me. Life's become that simple for me, and I pray to God it stays that simple.
But still too often when I watch movies these days I feel nothing. I sense nothing in the hearts of the people making the film - from the actors to the writers to the director to the person that makes the coffee on the set. It seems to have become an exercise in power and money and fame. That's not the reason to make a movie. Movies are too important to the audiences to be reduced to that. There are other ways to merchandize toys, theme parks, and fast food - there are other ways to be rich and famous and powerful that don't betray the hopes of an eager crowd sitting in the dark, waiting to be reminded what it is like to laugh and cry and love and hate.
If you're interested in becoming alive through the process of making a movie, then just do it. We so need people to do that. Contrary to what you hear, it doesn't take millions of dollars to make a movie. In many ways, with the emerging film technologies, it's cheaper now than it's ever been to make a movie. If you have a story you need to tell, than please do what you have to do to tell it. Like they say, just do it. Get together with your friends and share this amazing experience. If you have to shoot on video in your parents basement or on your friend's backyard then just do it. If you have something to say, just say it, whether it's ugly or pretty or wrong or stupid. If you need to do it, please do! There's nothing like making a movie if it's done in the spirit of fun and out of a need to communicate.
© 2001 Tom Noonan
