What a complicated mess! God has tumbled all of my beliefs and counter-intuitive thoughts together in a giant battle royale and I've spent the last two days fighting between anger and laughter. Mostly I've just been depressed. I feel like I was really put through the ringer.
Failure #1: "Do you mind?" I hate it when people ask me that. It forces me to decide whether my interpretation of God's judgment is correct. Would God mind your behavior is what I'm being asked? Because I see so many wicked things in this world, I've become immune to them. Grand Theft Auto, R Rated Movies, even the Evening News - these are all things that I shouldn't watch and shouldn't enjoy, but do. So when someone asks me if I mind being part of something that might be questionable, I'm forced to confront my feelings about the appropriateness of entertainment and whether God would be pleased by my choices. I told "Quint" (see yesterday's blog) that I didn't mind based on the description of the project he had given me - because it was right on the fence between good taste and bad. I think what I should have said was, "I would prefer if you filmed something different, but if that's your choice then I will be there so long as the film doesn't go any further than that."
Failure #2: The Drunk Actor. I hate that when the inebriated actor asked me whether I'd be willing to drive him home, I said no. In my opinion, that was inexcusable. Of course, in context, the question was hypothetical at that moment - would I be Willing to drive him home? Willingly? No, I don't think so. I'd like to think that if he was clearly intoxicated and heading for his car that I would have stopped him and taken his keys away. However, I do think that my response forced the actor to sober up before leaving. And I have to add that I didn't know he'd left until he was gone - so I have no idea what condition he was in when he left. But still, my initial failure to agree to offer a ride bothers me. I have no right playing dice with other people's lives merely because the guy was a complete jerk.
Failure #3: When the half-naked priest appeared I was so shocked that I didn't do anything. I simply shut down my responses to doing whatever I was asked and continued to film. The failure here is that I knew Quint was screwing up his film. I knew it. And I said nothing. I didn't try and tell him what he was doing wrong, I let him continue to make mistakes on purpose. I keep thinking back to Cain's response, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Though Quint had clearly mislead me and placed me in an incredibly awkward situation, did I have the right to let him fail?
Failure #4: I let this film get made and sent off to a lab. Had I known what was going to be shot, I would never have gone. But I did go. And I stayed for the shoot. And now its done (albeit poorly) and I had something to do with it. I feel dirty and I feel like I failed God.
Do I mind? Yes! Damn it! I do mind! I mind that I was put in a position that repeatedly caused me to fail this weekend. I mind that in the end my artistic belief in everyone's ability to create discourse by any means necessary betrayed me by forcing me to help produce something that I don't want to see or be associated with and that goes against pretty much everything I believe. I'm angry and confused and I simply refuse to be put into that situation again.
I'm adding a new requirement to my filming standards. I will not shoot in any unsafe environment. And I will not shoot anything that might be considered exploitive or pornographic by me (not by society, but by my own standards!) And if someone has a problem with that, tough.
Mr. Nice Guy has left the building!
No comments:
Post a Comment