seeking clarity (vagueness strikes back)
Time in studio is currently split between forming some movement possibilities for the shoot and script-based planning, thinking and talking.
I’ll deal with the movement in another post.
In a previous post on being clear, I suggested very ‘plain’ relationships between the various protagonists. In the spirit of projects run on a (reasonably sized) shoestring with even less time, things have changed a bit …
Bagryana and I have been considering a type of warmth in the language, and ‘style’ of Liz’s character … graciousness. This is modelled on the footage of Gladys Eastwood from 2000. We seem to be less concerned about the relationship of Bagryana (and her character as the ‘interviewer’) to Liz. It seems clumsy given the shortness of the film to delve into this, to spend time in the film establishing and developing this, or to be too concerned with the ‘why’ of the interview. Having said that, it’s not implausible that Bagryana is family, or is known to Liz’s character (I suspect this will come out as the script materials become clearer) - again, the concern here is a sense of warmth and intimacy between Bagryana and Liz. I also felt that we don’t need to hear a lot of Bagryana’s voice … perhaps simply bookend the work with the ‘framing’ of an interview. The scenario will be very clear. This means we’ll be able to (more easily/fluidly) cut into Liz’s storytelling, drop into abstraction and then return to the beautifully everyday ‘what’s the weather like?’, ‘would you like a cup of tea?’ at the end.
We’ve also been considering the presence of the dancing person as perhaps being a concatenation of various men that Liz might mention in her narrative(s) … to not to be too specific, to glance across various permutations of a man (including the possibility that he is manufactured in Liz’s character’s mind). Having said that, the relationship that might be closest to the foreground of the film would be of mother and son (which was our original thinking way back when the treatment was written). This means that including a small fragment of Gabrielle Eastwood Ellis’ poem is plausible …
We are very focused on these extraordinarily subtle moments in which Liz’s character slips between knowing and not knowing. These gaps in her lucidity (that she hides so well): the blink of an eyelid, the turn of her head, the pause before she asks a question. Might these spaces become the ‘portals’ for the presence of the ‘danced landscapes’?
postedbysimon
