Part 3 — The making of the film: Silver Skies — or what it really takes to be a Film Director
I sat in a hotel room today, CNN looping updates of the Paris ISIS attacks. As time passed, I found my heart and my spirit sinking into a black hole of despair. I’m not alone in the darkness, but it’s still paralyzing and scary. Because I had to pack and get to the airport, I changed the channel. Landing on a great documentary by Stevan Riley about Marlon Brando “Listen to Me Marlon,” I was resuscitated back to my life.
In the beginning of the doc, Marlon Brando expresses a strong distaste for movies, acting and the business of Hollywood. He speaks about actors being liars. Then by the end of the doc, by the time life has taken its toll on Marlon, he is in such despair over his personal circumstances that he escapes for a few hours at a clip by watching movies. And for the first time, he feels the value of film to entertain, move us, deepen us and inform our lives in a genuine, unique way. He speaks about the truth that actors bring to the big screen. Hearing him talk about movies this way will stay with me forever. When I’m on set and people say “We’re not curing cancer!” or “It’s only TV,” or “It’s only a movie” it makes me crazy. Film is a powerful medium. Rule Number Six: Don’t become a director unless you believe you can change the world in some way with your movie…even if it’s simply to make one person laugh or bring them into another world that they’ve never experienced before. That’s enough. Film is of the most enduring and prolific art forms because it has the power to change who we are and how we move through the world around us. It can make us better human beings. And we need that!
Based on audience response so far, “Silver Skies” is that kind of movie. In a little part of the world, in the sunny south, in a civic center in Sunrise, Florida, my movie screened to a sold out audience on the same night that in another part of the world, in a special city of romance, in a restaurant and concert venue in Paris, people were killed because of hate that people express towards each other that they’ve never even met. Life is complicated, overwhelming and devastatingly sad sometimes. It makes absolutely no sense. But for two hours in a theatre in the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival, 25o people laughed and cried together. They shared a mutual experience. They watched a movie that united them for two hours in spite of their differences. That is the miracle of movies. Sounds high falutin but I experienced it. Heard their laughter. Heard their silence. Felt their tears. Watched them stand and cheer when the lights came up. #GeorgeHamilton, #JackMcGee, #NestorRodriguez and I answered their questions and shared our stories while they shared theirs. It was uplifting. They talked about their parents, their own lives as they get older, how they related to the characters. They came to see some actors they love, and they saw past the actors to see themselves in the characters. One woman told me afterwards “Thank you for showing that older people still have sexual lives.” What people get out of a movie is bigger than all of us.
A show I directed #Marvel’s “Jessica Jones” starts streaming this week on #Netflix; and, when I read all the fan tweets, I get excited! My husband Nestor always says “We all need something to look forward to.” #JessicaJones gives a lot of us something to look forward to: a fucked up, flawed female superhero that doesn’t have all the answers. I know I don’t have all the answers, and I’ve been through some crazy trauma in my own life, similar to Jessica Jones, beautifully played by #KrystenRitter. There’s a female creator, #MelissaRosenberg, and that’s pretty amazing in itself! We need more women creators in Hollywood. It’s about time. How many shows can say they are created by, starring and directed by women? This is a show that makes a difference in so many ways.
As the hatred wars wage on, and the Paris attacks engage us all in social media conversations and judgments, let’s remember that the most powerful tool we have is capturing images and showing them to the world. Showing each other the truth of our experience, our intellect, our capabilities, our darkness and our light alters how we move into the future. And we are always moving into the next minute of hope. Let’s choose our images and our stories carefully. Let them have the impact they deserve.
Rule Number Seven: Make movies that can make a difference for a long time, not just the time that it takes to watch them.
We all do need something to look forward to. As a director, I definitely have a lot to look forward to: more movies, more episodes, more stories. I’m so grateful. And that’s enough to get me through one more day…until I’m on set again!
