Lessons learned
When shooting outside:
- If you are in range of a power outlet, shoot from the charger.
- When you take 1/2 an hour for lunch, charge the camera.
- Fifty percent chance of rain means they don’t know what will happen.
- Always be aware of how cold your actors may be.
Sequence: Rushmore “A Quick One While He’s Away”
At this point in the movie, Max (Jason Schwartzman) has discovered that Harold (Bill Murray) has been having an affair with Rosemary (Olivia Williams), the woman whom Max loves more than anyone or anything—including the Rushmore Academy. Never mind that Rosemary loves Harold, too, or that Max is far too young to have any kind of real romantic involvement with Rosemary. Harold’s stolen her away, which means that Max is going to dedicate himself fully to Harold’s destruction.
The first step is revealing Harold’s infidelity to his wife, leading to a divorce and his exile to a posh hotel room.
Opening: Harold relaxes. Nothing is apparently happening in the scene. Then, something flys into view. More things. Insects. Bees. Harold panics, flails. Harold sees something, freezes.
0:22: Sticking out from the door, a tube, covered in bees. They haven’t gotten in, they’ve been put there.
MUSIC: The opening of the final movement of The Who’s “A Quick One While He’s Away,” a song about an unfaithful woman, this part concerns the return of her lover and her confession. Drum hits and a chant of “Dang!”
0:25: Harold realizes that Max has sent the bees there. He smiles, is he impressed?
0:31: The smile fades, somewhere between a frown and a grimace. Is it a realization that Max isn’t done with him yet, or is he rising to the challenge? Both?
0:34: Max getting out of the elevator. Shot in slow motion, Max, despite his geeky glasses, looks undeniably cool. We see Max the way Max sees himself at this moment. A slow strut out of the building. He checks left, right to see if anyone’s looking for him, but he knows they’re not. He knows he’s going to get away with it. He sticks his chewing gum to the wall. Why? ‘Cause fuck ‘em, that’s why. A boy who had defined himself by his ability to manipulate the rules—while still following them—has now thrown them out the window.
MUSIC: Guitar riffs. In contrast with the slowness of Max’s escape, the Who quickly begin chanting “cello cello cello.”
0:56 Back to normal time. Bloom pulls up to Max’s new school, comically stopping his car with a squeal. The school grounds are filthy, papers strewn everywhere, a clear contrast to the manicured lawns of the Rushmore Academy.
1:02: Bloom calmly gets out of his car, a bolt cutter brazenly carried on his shoulder. He, too, looks around, but no one sees him. He walks over to a bike rack and cuts a bike free. He carries the bike away on his shoulder, making no attempt to conceal his actions.
1:14 Bloom throws the bike under the back of his car.
1:16 Bloom drives forward, the car bounces twice. (Wait, he drove forward?)
1:21 Reverse of the previous shot, Bloom carries the bike back, its front tire bent like a banana. He ties the broken chain to the bike. Again, he’s not sneaking, and is completely unconcerned when the caretaker from the Rushmore Academy—a man who knows both him and Max—drives slowly by, watching him. This is between him and Max.
1:35 Max (on a different bike), rides down a road. His face is like a stone, focused dead ahead.
MUSIC: The Who begin a refrain of “You are forgiven,” as the boyfriend in the song accepts the confession of his girl. Max, however, finds no forgiveness at all.
1:40 Max bikes over the logo for Blume International, and into the parking lot. He waves to the security guard, who waves back. Max, has, after all, been here before, and is a good friend of Harold Bloom.
1:48 Max rids through the parking lot, more quickly now, his butt is off the seat and he’s looking from side to side.
1:54 Max inside the Bloom factory, where Bloom’s car is parked. Why is the car parked inside? Why in an area marked with black and yellow hazard stripes? The factory is dark. Max is running as he dismounts the bike without stopping.
1:58 Max carefully lays his bike down next to Bloom’s car, still moving quickly. He takes out two tools from his saddlebag: tin snips and an adjustable wrench. He lays down, takes off his glasses, and moves the wrench under the car. We hear a “snap.”
2:04 Bloom driving in his car. It’s sunny out.
2:09 Bloom puts his foot on the brake.
2:11 Bloom looks down at the floor, then up again, quickly. Repeatts
2:13: Bloom mashes both feet onto the brake pedal.
2:14: A kid walks in front of Bloom’s slow-moving car as it begins to jump up and down. Bloom struggles with the wheel, waves out the window.
2:16: Exterior view of the car: Bloom drives around the circle of the Rushmore Academy, students jump out of his way. He’s not going that fast but he could still hurt someone if he hit them.
2:20: Interior view from the car: Bloom is sweating and wiping his brow as he tries to control the car.
2:23: Interior view from the car: More students jump out of Bloom’s path.
2:26: Exterior view: Bloom’s car slowly coasts towards the caretaker. There is a building behind him. The caretaker takes a step back, then several more quick ones, to avoid getting hit. Bloom’s car stops, perhaps a foot or less from pinning the man against the building.
MUSIC: The music has slowed as Bloom’s car did, and now stops cold on an anticipatory note.
2:32: Night. Bloom talks to two police officers, while the caretaker and a young boy look on. Police lights flash in the darkness. Bloom’s face has no anger in it as he speaks.
BLOOM: About five foot three, 112 pounds, black hair, glasses, oval face.
2:41 Jump cut to a close up of Max’s back as he is dragged, handcuffed, down the school hall by two police officers. He is not struggling.
MUSIC: Jump backs in with a long “You are forgiven.”
2:44: Cut to the same scene, but now we see the back of Max’s head and the faces of the other students reacting in shock.
2:47: Reverse of the previous shot, we see Max’s face, he is staring straight ahead and his lips are apart, his face looks like a pout. The students look on in shock. And I just noticed that in contrast to the exterior, the interior of the school is pristine.
2:41 A door is unlocked in a gray room: prison. We see max through a wire mesh cage where he will collect his personal possesions in a moment. There is a barred wall to the right. Max has his handcuffs removed, he casually picks up his tie, and walks through the door. His father Bert is there.
MAX: Thanks for bailing me out, dad, can you drop me off at Rushmore? I gotta get a teacher fired.
BERT: I don’t think that’s wise, Max.
Max and Bert ascend a staircase, which also divides the scene into bars. We do not see their faces.
MUSIC: Fades out before the final line of the song, “we’re all forgiven.”
Thoughts:
- So many quick cuts, so much information is communicated in just a second or two. When I made my first short, there was a scene where I had to touch a faucet and get an electric shock. I moved very slowly, convinced that it would take the audience a long time to understand what happened. I was wrong. Five seconds of film is a long time.
- Although this is a scene about two men trying to sabotage each other, almost everything takes place in sunlight, or bright interior light. Only two scenes: Max cutting Bloom’s brake line, and Bloom identifying Max to the cops, take place in darkness.
- Both men look from side to side, but seem unconcerned that someone will see them. In fact, when Bloom is spotted by someone who knows him, he doesn’t react at all.
- The pacing of the revenge acts gets faster as they become more serious. The bees slowly filter into our awareness, Max walks out of the hotel in slow-mo, Bloom walks at normal speed to the bike, then Max moves quickly to cut the brakes.
- The music is an interesting contrast: the song is about infidelity, which is what the sequence is about. But the song is also about forgiveness, and this sequence has none.
Elements of Style
There was a long, long period of time where I struggled with my writing, because I was trying to get the words out of my head exactly as they were in my head. And finally, I got to that point.
The problem was, shortly after that I realized that everything I believed was wrong, and that my thoughts were a reflection of the desire to deflect any self-realization of my own flaws by projecting them onto the outside world.
My psychic safety belt removed, I was flung forward through the windshield of self-image, and now my words are a big jumble as I try to stuff them back into my brain.
The lesson here: never read your own stuff.
Fragment
Now in this town there were two restaurants: one of them good , the other evil. And of course all the good people went to the good restaurant, where the staff was polite, the food was delicious, and they had an outdoor veranda where you could eat you lunch when it was nice, which it always was. You would always find a friend there if you wanted to, and if you wanted to eat by yourself, someone had always just left a newspaper behind, and they hadn’t done the crossword.
Now at the evil restaurant, the hot food was always cold ( and vice versa) your appetizers were promptly served 10 minutes after your entrée, and the waiters always sat down at your table before letting you know that they’d just run out of the special. The evil restaurant stayed in business for two reasons: all the evil people ate there regularly, and the good people would stop by because, since it was the only place to get evil food and beverage, it was the only place you could get a cup of coffee.
Watchmen
Watchmen, the film, is an entirely adequate, slavish adaptation to the graphic novel. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but when you’re dealing with arguably the greatest graphic novel of all time, Improving On It shouldn’t be a goal. Zach Snyder does as a good a job as anyone could, except for the ending. I’m not talking about the squid.
He cops out in the ending.
In the graphic novel, the climax is Veidt triumphant. He’s saved the world. Millions had to die, but he’s saved the world. He actually throws his hands up in the air and says, “I did it!” The other heroes, except for Rorschach, are stunned into silence. They could never have done what Veidt has done, but they’re not willing to sacrifice the whole world to bring one man to justice. To borrow from the other Greatest Graphic Novel of All Time™, Veidt’s actions are “too big” to judge.
But Snyder cops out. He wants to have it both ways. He wants to adapt a great work, and he wants to beat up the Bad Guy. So Night Owl (II) witnesses the (previously unmourned) death of Rorschach, screams “Mendooooooooooza!” and punches out the Bad Guy. Instead of meditating over a globe and talking to Jon about the responsibilities of godhood, Veidt is left in the snow, looking sad. Sob, sob. Dan and Sally go back to Beating People Up™ because that’s what good people do to make the world better.
Lesson of the graphic novel: With unimaginable power comes unimaginable responsibility.
Lesson of the movie: Bam! Pow! Sock! Take that, bad guy!
