One of my favorite bands is Quasi. Their sound is the sort of jangly melancholy that I connect with. On their album Sword of God, the opening track is F**K Hollywood. It’s a slow groove about moving on. You can’t rage against the machine and be the machine at the same time. I’m pretty sure it was this cognitive dissonance that caused Kurt Cobain to take his own life.
I’m going to the STOWE Narrative Lab next month with my script, Miles Away. I’m looking forward to hanging out in Vermont with a bunch of other filmmakers all looking for money to make their films. I’m working on my lookbook, and since the story is about a photographer, I am trying to use only photos that I made myself. One of the main characters is an older woman. As I went through my job list, which has 2147 jobs over 35 years, it dawned on me that I was rarely hired to photograph any older women. This is deeply disturbing. I have a few. Cher and Yoko were clients, Phylicia Rashad, maybe a few others, but my god, older women are generally banished from the culture. It’s frightening. I ended up using an image of Tilda Swinton that I shot 15 years ago. She would be perfect for the role now that she is 65!
What does this say about ageism? I am embarrassed to say I’m 61. It feels like admitting that I’m over the hill, done for, living the twilight years, out to pasture. But “It’s all downhill from here” could go either way. Is everything falling apart, or in fact getting easier as I coast on down said hill? In 2006, I was hired to photograph Robert Altman. I showed up at his office and hung out with him for several hours. At one point he was on the phone making a deal with Charlize Theron. He was vibrant and full of life at 81. He died later that year. I’ve been making shorts and writing stories for the last 12 years. I can’t say I’m just starting out, but who is willing to invest in an old man? If I live as long as Robert Altman, I've got 20 good years left. It’s thrilling and terrifying at the same time.
I don’t fit in. I never have. I was a professional photographer for 35 years (still occasionally working) I photographed musicians and celebrities mostly. And I was never invited into “the club,” the snotty New York Times Magazine crowd. Sorry, I didn’t go to Yale. It mirrors the festival circuit. My friend Ann Magnuson used to call it “the illusion of exclusion”. I’m not bitter. I am very happy working on all my film projects here in Germantown. Like I said, I don’t fit in, and I like it that way. But this doesn’t stop me from wanting validation. My last short got slaughtered on the festival circuit. Every rejection letter is like a knife to the heart. I bought a projector and did a local screening. Everyone loved it. F**K Hollywood!
My job as a photographer was to make my subjects look iconic, like rock stars. I’ll tell you one thing important. You can’t make an iconic image by copying some other image. You HAVE to make your own images. Comps are bullshit. In Hollywood, everything rides on a comp. They need to know exactly what they are paying for. If your movie is just like another movie, then you need to throw away your script. (unless, of course, you are trying to break into Hollywood) I may be delusional, but I am going to keep trying to make a feature on my terms until I die.
My job as a celebrity photographer was all very exciting and crazy and interesting, but you know what I fucking hate? I fucking hate chasing after Celebrity. It’s total bullshit. Scrambling to get access to “talent” was a big chunk of the battle. Who you know is all that matters. It’s exhausting and pathetic. That’s why I stopped. When I tried to make my feature script, The Pale Souls, a rock and roll ghost story, the whole thing hinged on getting an A-list celebrity attached, but we didn’t have any money, so we couldn’t get CAA or WMA or UTA to pick up the phone. It’s a complete catch-22. That’s one reason why I started to work with puppets. I’m closing in on finishing my short film Monad Bastard, the third installment of my Sci-fi stop motion project, The Dark Odyssey. This 10-second clip took me 3 days to make. And I’m getting pretty fast. Although the talent can be a bit unruly, I always get the final say.
The joy is in the creation, not in the adulation or approval from others. Their comments are not about your work, but a reflection of the lenses through which they perceive it. And those lenses are often clouded with self-judgement. Never about your work, but about themselves. SO keep making what brings you joy! That joy vibration will do a lot in the collective field of existence. That's why we ultimately create. To add joy to the Universe.
Just keep creating. Always do it for yourself first.