I tend to get very philosophical when I shoot. Not sure if it denial, where I am trying to ward of any pressures of schedules, budgets or day to day practical problems. All of which feel like bees swarming around my head…
… and I am cocooning myself into a world completely of my own imagining. Or is it truly a search for the truth of the film.
But here is a note to my production designer, the wonderful Guy Dias :
Dear Guy,
Every Space that you give me to shoot, provokes an emotional reaction in me. I look for it. And then I find a way to merge the space with not only the scene, but the subtext of the film. But I don’t ask what the emotion is. I just react.
There was something so emotional about the Paris interior. The two pillars were dancing with each other. So the two men started to dance with each other. But in coming to terms with the contradiction of these strange pillars, I am able to verbalize the visual subtexts of what I am looking for in the rest of the film.
Immortality is dancing with mortality. The Body is dancing with the Spirit. Phillip is dancing with Elizabeth. Elizabeth is dancing with Bess and Raleigh. But finally Elizabeth is dancing with Divinity.
The Sun dances with the Earth, the Earth with the Moon. Death dances with life. The male dances with the female.
A dance can exist only between contradictory forces. But the dance itself aches for harmony. Which in itself is a contradiction !
Lets look for these contradictory forces in the spaces you create,
And in the last shot of the film, are we looking for Harmony, or is there still contradiction ? Has Elizabeth become the dance, where there is no contradiction, and the opposing forces have become one ?
love
Shekhar
Dear Shekhar
“…All of which feel like bees swarming around my head…” — I know that feeling well. That you are cool and even more creative and productive in the midst of it, is what I call being zoned — holding the center gently and with generousity, in the midst of what could be complete chaos.
Your observations about space and how you react to and use it, in your letter to Guy, are surprising and very interesting.
Your sharing this much with us is both frank and frankly generous. Thanks.
love, Heather
heyy shekhar…either you’ve totallyy lost it, or totally like un-lost it…nt sure if thts even a word..hmmm…or uve maybe both. a living paradox u are
Where the bees swarm — its like the dirvishes who whirl away the senses so they can only see the divine … maybe this is their dance too … they all, Bess, Raleigh, Elizabeth, in finding thier place in the eternal, even if it is in conflict with it, they know they have beome it.
Hi, Shekhar. The only other film I can think of that features the Elizabeth/Bess/Raleigh triangle is 1959’s The Virgin Queen with Bette Davis. Will your film reference it in any way?
In addition, I am really interested in the costume design for the ’98 Elizabeth. Is Alexandra Byrne doing the costumes this time? If Elizabeth’s costumes tracked her progression as an icon last time, what role will they play as you explore Elizabeth’s relationship with divinity? Since Renaissance monarchs had two bodies, both the physical body and the everlasting spiritual “body” that represented the idea of god’s annointed sovereign, I’m wondering if we’re going to see that reflected in what Elizabeth wears.
Whoops– I meant 1955 on VQ.
…perhaps the dance~contradiction remains the same and the observer changes the vision or thought of perception…thinking there is a coming together of the two, only to find that the two were never separate. Mortality and immortality ARE One, how can one be without the other? So where is the real search?
Dear JKH,
Today you posted about the whirling dervishes. Well well well…Today, I was asking the teacher I work with if she ever heard of the whirling dervishes…and we’ve never talked about this before. I come to this place and BOOM! there is your comment about “WHIRLING DERVISHES” cool:)
A secret turning in us
makes the universe turn.
Head unaware of feet,
and feet head. Neither cares.
They keep turning.
– Rumi
Dear Cinda:
Dont ya just luv it when that happens?
Your citation from Rumi-THAT is exactly what i meant!
it is cool 🙂
Oh lord– i spelled “dervishes” wrong– my apologies —
très embarrassant
I’m also curious as to who will be the costume designer on this film.
One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesteon everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.