"Better never than late."
- George Bernard Shaw

Dear Readers,

As some of you may have noticed, I have stopped posting blogs. I apologize for dropping the ball, but it was starting to feel oppressive to have to come up with a posting each day (whereas for a long while, it was fun).

Also, I wanted to spend more time on filmmaking, which is what I think I do best, or at least, what I love doing most. I have a lot of new projects that I'm working on simultaneously, and there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to make all of the films I would like to make, so I feel I really need to prioritize.

I want to thank all my readers for their comments (positive and negative). I really enjoyed this experience, and may resume it at some point, but wanted to communicate with you what is happening now.

Affectionately,

Caveh

"Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed."
- Mark Twain

When we were mixing the film, the sound mixer asked me if I wanted him to output a separate M & E (music and effects) track for dubbing. I told him I am philosophically opposed to dubbing.

He said: "What if someone wants to buy the film, but they only want it if it's dubbed?"
I said: "That's not an option. If they want it, they're going to have to subtitle it."

Recently, our foreign sales agent got an offer from Italy. They're offering us a significant amount of money, but they only want the film if they can dub it. In other words, no M & E track, no sale.

"Okay, fine," I said.

"Each day I go to the marketplace of lies. Hopefully I take my place among the sellers."
- Bertolt Brecht

Today, I discovered that I Am A Sex Addict is already available on Netflix (to add to one's queue), even though the DVD won't be out until September 12th. All of my films are already available on Green Cine, who have always been wonderful to deal with, but I've never been able to get any of my films on Netflix before now. My phone calls and emails were always unreturned. It's amazing what a difference having a recognized distributor makes. Before, Netflix wouldn't even return my calls. Now, they've put my film on their site even before it's out.

Yesterday, the Weinstein Company sent me a revised DVD cover. I had complained that the previous cover was lacking in humor, and that I found the Roger Ebert quote less-than-inspiring. I liked the new cover much better than the last one, and preferred the new quote, but I was still unconvinced that it was better than the original poster image. Moreover, when I asked for feedback from readers, the comments were overwhelmingly in favor of the original poster.

Today, I spoke with the marketing people at the Weinstein Company, and they said two things that I found convincing. 1) They said that if a couple walked into a video store together to look for a video to watch together, they would be more likely to rent a video with their DVD Cover than with mine. I found this plausible, and most likely true. 2) They said that they had taken their own survey, and that the comments they had gotten were overwhelmingly in favor of their DVD cover. I found this surprising, since I'd had the opposite experience, but I conceded that my blog readers were undoubtedly a very specialized audience, and might not represent the majority opinion.

I nevertheless objected that the proposed cover arguably misrepresents the film, and that the hypothetical video couple might rent it but then be annoyed that the film wasn't what they had been led to expect - namely a sexy, erotic thriller. The Weinstein Company people countered by saying that the poster also misrepresented the film, and that they had found the film to be much funnier and more complicated than the poster had led them to expect. Moreover, they argued that their proposed cover would more likely bring in a wide range of viewers who might not otherwise rent the film, but who might really like it once they saw it.

Their arguments were persuasive, and so I capitulated and agreed to their proposed compromise cover.

         

Last night, I watched Tristram Shandy. I liked the film a lot. It's well-written (by Frank Cottrell Boyce), well-directed (by Michael Winterbottom), and brilliantly acted (by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon). But watching it, I couldn't help feeling that it tolls the death knell of post-modernism. "Tristram Shandy," the novel by Laurence Sterne, was published in 1759 and was arguably a precursor of what would come to be called post-modernism - a style conscious of itself and of its history and in which form becomes content (the greatest example of which is arguably James Joyce's "Ulysses"). "Tristram Shandy," the film, released in 2006, announces the end of post-modernism as a radical movement that was once on the cutting edge of consciousness. Despite its excellence as a film, its post-modern strategies fail to surprise and are easily assimilated. We've all seen it before, and we all understand it only too well. The film, which would like to think of itself as cutting-edge, announces instead the final and complete exhaustion of post-modernism as an artistic strategy.

The question for artists today is: What's next? What speaks to the truth of today?

Because post-modernism clearly no longer does.

"Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt."
- Dorothy Parker

Today, I received the latest DVD front and back cover from IFC Films. I wrote a rather petulant letter demanding to know why my previous input had been ignored. I received the following email from Ryan Werner:

"Caveh - i really think you are wrong in this instance. you have one of the biggest video companies working on your release. i think that they know what sells dvds, and i would really listen to them. video marketing is very different than theatrical. However if you insist, we can discuss this further."

I wasn't sure what to do after that. Is he right? Do they know better than me what the cover of my DVD should look like? And even if they do know better than me what sells DVD's, is selling as many DVD's as possible the only goal? What about accurately representing the film?

When I was in film school, I noticed that the students who were most sure of themselves usually made the worst films, and those (like me) who doubted their every decision tended to make better ones. But self-doubt is both a gift and a curse, and finding the right balance between confidence (which is, I think, essential to art) and self-doubt (which is also, I think, essential to art) is a tricky process.

In this case, I'm not sure if I should fight for what my gut tells me (which is to say no to this DVD cover) or if I should be humble and accept that I don't always know what's best. I'm open to feedback on this.

"Let's have some new clichés."
- Samuel Goldwyn

The flight back to San Francisco wasn't nearly as stimulating as the flight to New Zealand. I tried watching Lord of the Rings on the plane but I couldn't stand it. So I watched The World's Fastest Indian instead, which I wasn't too crazy about either. Anthony Hopkins was good, as always, but what a god-awful script. I don't think I've ever seen so many clichés in a single two hour period.

Afterwards, to cleanse my palate, I watched Perfect Strangers, another film from New Zealand (I wanted to watch as many New Zealand films as possible before my current fascination with all things New Zealand fades completely). "Perfect Strangers" is about a woman who is kidnapped by a man she doesn't know (but who claims to be in love with her), and whom she eventually kills in self-defense (before falling in love with him retroactively after his death). In any case, it was a lot less clichéd than "The World's Fastest Indian."

Today, I met Jafar Panahi, the Iranian director of The White Balloon, The Mirror, The Circle, and Crimson Gold. His new film, Offside, is about young Iranian girls who have to disguise themselves as boys to attend soccer games (from which women are banned). Panahi is arguably the Iranian filmmaker most critical of the social policies of the Iranian government, and his last three films have all been banned in Iran as a result. He is also the Iranian filmmaker most critical of the social policies of the U.S. government, and has refused, in the wake of post-9/11 legislation, to allow himself to be fingerprinted as a precondition for entering the country. Consequently, he has declined all film festival invitations to visit the U.S.

We are exactly the same age. His English isn't very good, and my Persian is even worse, so we communicated by means of a translator (note to self: learn Persian). But it was fascinating to hear him talk about the difficulties Iranian directors have in trying to get their films past the censors, and it made me appreciate the straightforwardness of the American system in which the rules are at least democratic and clear: only films that are commercially viable will be greenlit. In Iran, the rules are much more nebulous, and open to the vagaries and whims of bureaucrats and clerics.

The irony here is that the international interest in films from Iran (and especially banned ones) translates into a kind of commercial viability, whereas independent American films that eschew blatant commercialism are invariably relegated to a lower rung on the hierarchical ladder of cinematic esteem. Panahi, a director of international repute, was arguably the Wellington Film Festival's most famous guest, and his films are profitable enough to allow him to finance them himself, despite the fact that his last three films have all been banned in his own country. I couldn't help wishing that my films had been banned as well.