Draft: Eddy & Frances

The thing about this project, is that it means a lot to me. You see, from the very outset, the moment I made up my mind, that I was going to do this movie, I had every aspect of it pictured in my mind, although I struggled to wipe off some of the details because I do believe that a film should be allowed to roam about, gain its own curiosity, make beautiful messes, and as usual, it was more of a discussion in my head, all these voices arguing over this and that, until I took a stand and decided to just fucking do it already. And the part that most precious for me, were the characters, these two men, well technically they were meant to be distinctive and different, even in age, so one was a man and the other a boy, and I knew that it would be hard to find an actor who would suit either character. And with my low budget, it was hard to find producers, the script was always either too long or too short, and after a rigorous edit they’d always be more dissatisfied, so in the end it was my own pocket that was raped, that’s what I call a true compromise, as a filmmaker you learn to give your ambitions a tint of imperfection, to allow for discrepancies, and hope for less than best.

The man was meant to be a lonely figure, someone who spoke more with his face and mannerisms, words were redundant to him, or simply insufficient for the things he had to express, or perhaps he had nothing left to give to the world, so this man was hollow or too full, you see how I idealize a character, how the fuck is an actor meant to embody any of my characters when they are so thoroughly intoxicated with vague, impossible descriptions, so I always leave it part to nature, so anyway, we found this guy, he’d been in a couple movies before, quite a name on the independent scene, though very much a fleeting, unmemorable presence. And I couldn’t tell you how perfect he was, he was sick I think, or perhaps just born to seem sick, because he looked grave and old, but alive too, bright silver hair and a face that was perpetually locked in thought, and his body moved with a slither, bones cracking with each step as the body strove to continually correct itself, and though his posture was slightly bent Eddy was very much respectable, physically, and the quality that I found most attractive was his slight anxiety, he was going through a difficult phase, mentioned that he was prone to nervous breakdowns and unexplainable bouts of depression, but I told him to leave his meds while we were filming, and being the man he was, he left all his pills behind, but kept his sadness contained, so you didn’t have a weeping, anxious man but someone deeply constrained in an almost uncontainable sadness, it would come pouring out into his body language, and each word he uttered spoke openly of some distant, intangible hurt.

And the boy, this was harder. Because young actors, well, they’re not so good, so much of them have a ridiculous and inflated sense of self, bloated by misperceptions of themselves and the world, so I had to sift through quite a tedious number, before the miracle that was Frances appeared. I wanted someone who was, here I go again, I wanted someone who was young. Not just by means of age, but someone whose mind was still fresh and uncorrupted, a prevailing innocence from having just entered adulthood, but I guess I overshot at first, all these Zac Efron types with near no talent, they always had shiny faces, and puppy-dog hair, all so earnest and heroic, I doubt any of them had read my script to the full, because this project was going to be dark, and if you’re not a bit damaged I don’t think you’d come out the other side in one piece.

Back to our Frances, he wasn’t as young as the others, but he looked like he was still blossoming, and behind this façade of the angel face, confident-stud personality and all around sense of impenetrability or whatever, there was this lurking other that was dangerous, and very defensive, it was someone who was always fighting back, pushing forward, and I can’t exactly divulge to you what this boy has been through, but I’ll just say that its made him this person, who can honestly be a real fucker to deal with, he went insane on the set once or twice, you’d never know what to expect from him, all kinds of wild tantrums and juvenile behavior, but I think part of it was the project you know, it put our actors into a very tough process, and especially as the story progressed it forced them to face, or bring out, a more animal side that was reckless,destructive,unpredictable.

And the two, man and boy, Eddy and Frances, had no qualms about the story, it was about these two people, living across each other, and their lives sort of leaking into one another, I know as a director, I had to provide some titillation, and I tried to do this as subtly as I could, but it wouldn’t let it take over things though, because I had a story to tell, two lonely characters and their loneliness, I guess that’s as basic as it gets, but of course some part of it was, biographical, it was a melting pot of fucked-up-ness, everything from my stepfather, and ,my Uncle Gary, and my old ex’s, my teachers, my whole life and the life of others and the people I’ve met, but the challenge on my part, is to package all of this nicely, trim out all the bad bits that poke out, and present it to you, the audience, in an understandable, and not too traumatizing piece, that spoke about a few things, and not just some flippant, over-general comment about lonely people.

But of course that’s just in my head, and the film came out two years ago and it wasn’t so widely seen, I guess we should’ve made it more controversial, made it the bait for people to come and watch, but it was really an experience for me, to have met these two actors, Eddy and Frances, I can’t tell you how special these two are, and what they’ve done to made this project work, the film industry is still a business no matter how you put it, and the fact that this project failed to make money doesn’t help with my portfolio, producers are still hard to convince, so for my next project, I’ll call it an experiment, yes, I guess you can sort of call it that, there’s some time travel, and the script is there, but I need to amplify it, take it to the next level, as my part-time girlfriend Mandy would say, I’ll make a few of these films for a while, I need to get someone like Cameron Diaz on board, put out my name, and then maybe later, once all of it has subsided, and I’m on the safe side of this business, I’ll call back Eddy and Frances and we’ll do one more film to quietly blow your mind, it won’t be big, but it’ll get under your skin, and at the end of the day, I do this because I need to, I need it to branch out,poke around and play about, each new tomorrow is a horrible mystery to me, and this is my guiding torch, it’ll show me things that show me other things, until one day there won’t be things to see anymore.

And when that day comes, I’ll put my camera down, and be a human in the most minimal sense possible, I would be able to stop wanting to know things, to become things, to be characterized by things, I could just breathe and live on, knowing fully that I had tried, and each passing day would be a throwback to the last, and tomorrow would be void of desire, I’d stop pushing myself so hard, and then,I’m free to be noone,nothing,nowhere.

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