I can get images caught in my mind without conscious effort...and sometimes they pop up for no particular reason...maybe just to nudge me towards some idea or other. But just a moment ago I remembered a beautifully composed shot from 1934's The Scarlet Pimpernel. It stars Leslie Howard and Merl Oberon and really isn't very good; it meanders and some very important scenes happen off-screen, violating all the rules of storytelling.
It's set during the worst of the French Revolution, as anyone who even seemed to support the aristocracy was being guillotined. A number of people are awaiting their fate, something presaged by a man appearing at the door and calling out a few names. In the middle of all this is a beautifully dressed woman calmly reading a book as if in a sitting room, her image like that of a painting by Gainsborough...until her name is called. She calmly slips in a bookmark to keep her place as if she's going to return and finish it...then heads off to her death.
I think this is what gave me the idea to jolt Devlin into finally feeling empathy for the fate of another human being he didn't even know, in Underground Guy. Liam Hanlon, one of the killer's victims, has been dead for weeks when Devlin finally sees a video of him exiting a tube station in London and happily popping some gum in his mouth, just like Devlin had done a thousand times when en route to an important meeting. But Devlin knows he's heading to his death...and he connects with the doomed man and it shatters him.
There are other images I get caught up in, sometimes...images that might be silently influencing me in my storytelling. I almost think the moment when Jamie, in Empire of the Sun, stands by an airfield in China near the end of WW2, watching Kamikaze pilots prepare to take off, and begins to sing a Latin hymn in honor of the young man about to die is influencing me with Brendan, in a way. Jaime's a prisoner of war, cut off from his parents, his childhood destroyed but not his sense of honor and respect.
Brendan is caught in a similar whirlpool slowly dragging him down to who knows what as he fights to keep his sense of self...his equilibrium...while his world devolves into chaos. It's like evil dances around him, hinting at what's to come but not taking the final step to try and crush him until he decides to leave it. Then, like a jealous possessive lover, it crushes him.
I still don't know exactly what it is I'm trying to say with this book. I may never know. Hell, I'm not even sure what style it will take...what form...because it's not sitting quiet within me, anymore. It's searching and pushing and wondering and wandering and testing...
...and waiting for me to finish the foundation so we can begin the act of building...
It's set during the worst of the French Revolution, as anyone who even seemed to support the aristocracy was being guillotined. A number of people are awaiting their fate, something presaged by a man appearing at the door and calling out a few names. In the middle of all this is a beautifully dressed woman calmly reading a book as if in a sitting room, her image like that of a painting by Gainsborough...until her name is called. She calmly slips in a bookmark to keep her place as if she's going to return and finish it...then heads off to her death.
I think this is what gave me the idea to jolt Devlin into finally feeling empathy for the fate of another human being he didn't even know, in Underground Guy. Liam Hanlon, one of the killer's victims, has been dead for weeks when Devlin finally sees a video of him exiting a tube station in London and happily popping some gum in his mouth, just like Devlin had done a thousand times when en route to an important meeting. But Devlin knows he's heading to his death...and he connects with the doomed man and it shatters him.
There are other images I get caught up in, sometimes...images that might be silently influencing me in my storytelling. I almost think the moment when Jamie, in Empire of the Sun, stands by an airfield in China near the end of WW2, watching Kamikaze pilots prepare to take off, and begins to sing a Latin hymn in honor of the young man about to die is influencing me with Brendan, in a way. Jaime's a prisoner of war, cut off from his parents, his childhood destroyed but not his sense of honor and respect.
Brendan is caught in a similar whirlpool slowly dragging him down to who knows what as he fights to keep his sense of self...his equilibrium...while his world devolves into chaos. It's like evil dances around him, hinting at what's to come but not taking the final step to try and crush him until he decides to leave it. Then, like a jealous possessive lover, it crushes him.
I still don't know exactly what it is I'm trying to say with this book. I may never know. Hell, I'm not even sure what style it will take...what form...because it's not sitting quiet within me, anymore. It's searching and pushing and wondering and wandering and testing...
...and waiting for me to finish the foundation so we can begin the act of building...
No comments:
Post a Comment