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

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.

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.

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.

         

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

Because post-modernism clearly no longer does.

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.

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."

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.

I saw Factotum today, and really liked it. I'm not usually a big Matt Dillon fan, but I thought he was excellent in this film. Matt Dillon portrays the young Bukowski, and does so with the right balance of dignity and degradation. This is a Bukowski we can all identify with, as opposed to the broad-stroked Hollywood-inflected whino portrayed by Mickey Rourke in Barfly. It was the best Bukowski adaptation I've seen, and the only one that made me want to actually read Bukowski.

Years ago, I saw Barbet Shroeder's The Bukowski Tapes which was mind-blowing. What an amazing portrait of a person. I have yet to see the other documentary on Bukowski, Born Into This, but now I want to.

At the festival, I saw an inspiring and moving documentary portrait of Ans Westra, the Dutch-born New Zealand photographer whose works I had been totally unfamiliar with until today. Ans Westra, who is now in her seventies, attended the screening. She's one of those people that you just want to hug. A true artist. Seeing the film made me want to abandon fiction and devote myself exclusively to making documentaries.

In the film, Ans Westra tells the story of how she was inspired to take up photography after seeing a book of photographs by then 17-year old Johan Van Der Keuken, whose portraits of his classmates had just been published. She and he were the same age, and his example made her believe that she too could make a contribution to the art form.

Many years later, I met Johan Van Der Keuken, who by then had become one of the world's most revered documentary filmmakers. He was being honored by the San Francisco Cinematheque and I somehow ended up giving him a ride from the screening back to his hotel. I told him how much his films had meant to me when I had first encountered his work 15 years earlier. He had already been diagnosed with cancer at this point, and died a few months later.

Baudelaire compares artists to beacons in the night. Johan Van Der Keuken was a beacon to Ans Westra, who tonight was a beacon to me.

In honor of today's pilgrimage, here is my top ten list of favorite films by New Zealand directors, in order of preference (I have yet to see "Whale Rider," "Once Were Warriors," "The World's Fastest Indian," "Utu," or "Lord of the Rings"):

1) Two Girls (Jane Campion)
2) Sweetie (Jane Campion)
3) The Piano (Jane Campion)
4) A Girl's Own Story (Jane Campion)
5) Passionless Moments (Jane Campion)
6) An Angel at my Table (Jane Campion)
7) Kitchen Sink (Alison Maclean)
8) Crush (Alison Maclean)
9) Peel (Jane Campion)
10) Two Cars, One Night (Taika Waititi)

Then later this evening, my film premiered in New Zealand. Again, there was something wrong with the projection, only this time the film was speeded up. The whole thing had the look and feel of a Keystone Cops comedy, and I sounded like I had inhaled helium. Unfortunately, it was impossible to fix the problem, so all I could do was blog about it afterwards.

My experience of filmmaking is one of an endless series of disappointments and humiliations. Today's projection snafus were really just par for the course. These things used to make me suffer way more than they do now, but I never cease to be amazed by the irony that it is invariably the very thing we think will somehow increase our self-worth that invariably challenges it the most. It feels like the work of a higher power hell-bent on teaching us humility.

I realized a long time ago that people are more important than movies, and that on one's death bed, it will be the encounters that one had with people that will be cherished and remembered, not the great films one saw. And yet, I had made a verbal commitment to Steven and Julia (who I also know and like) to see their film (which I had heard great things about). It was a difficult decision. My own preference on a pure pleasure-principle level was to skip the film (I could always see it another time) and to hang out with Lee instead. I don't get to see him all that often, plus he was alone (which is rare), plus I really, really like him. He's one of the most zen people I know, and I always enjoy his company and his idiosyncratic spirit.

But I decided on the basis of guilt avoidance and proceeded to the movie theater. I'm glad I saw the film because it was an amazing human experience, the kind that sears itself into one's memory forever, but afterwards I could't help thinking that I had made the wrong choice, not because the film was disappointing in any way (it far surpassed my expectations, and I'm haunted by it still) but because people are more important than movies, and I always forget that.

The first film I watched was Terence Malick's "The New World." It was like watching a miracle. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. How is it possible that this film wasn't universally praised? I thought it was his best film to date, and this from a director who had already made three of the greatest films of all time. What I especially loved about it was the way the locus of the poetry in this film shifts from his previous voice-over and imagery-centric poetics to a poetics of narrativity itself. I was stunned by the brilliance and maturity of his story-telling, and I can't think of a more brilliantly edited film. I have also never seen a film that so convincingly captures the absolute disparity between the mindset of the European colonists and the radical alterity of the Native Americans they first encountered.

Afterwards, I watched Michael Haneke's "Cache." He won the best directing award at Cannes for this film, and it's easy to see why. Every single shot is brilliantly conceived, brilliantly composed, and brilliantly executed. This film has already been universally praised, so there's no need for me to add my voice to the already loud chorus, but I would like to add my voice to that chorus just the same.

The last film I watched was "Tsotsi," the South African film that won the best foreign film oscar this year. Usually, I'm not crazy about the oscar winners, but this particular film blew me away.

This was the most fun I've ever had on a plane.

Today, I found out that the DVD of "I Am A Sex Addict" will have trailers for other films at the beginning of it. I was assured by the Weinstein Company that the viewer would have the option of clicking to the main menu and obviating the trailers, but still, the experience will be one of immediate marketing assault.

The upside of going with The Weinstein Company is that the DVD will be in more stores than it would be otherwise, and in fact they have been very accomodating. But the downside is that the DVD will bear less and less resemblance to the product that I myself would have wanted to put out into the world.