What The F*** Is Love
Fourteen years ago as I was preparing to shoot my first movie I sat at my desk faced with exactly the same problem I am faced with now, which is that the lovers in my story aren't really and truly, on the evidence of what's on the page, in love. Oh, sure, the plot moves them to all the places they would go if they were in love. But that feeling? That actual real thing which will make the audience root for them to join their lives together, which will leap off the screen as actual love? Not there. Fourteen years ago I brought in two other writers to fill in what wasn't there and neither of them really added anything. Fortunately I had two awesome actors who managed to come close to pulling it off on the force of the chemistry between them. But it still didn't exactly work. So knowing my own history I can't entirely blame the author of the flawed and schematic book I'm adapting for my inability to bring love to the page.
The good news is it's three weeks until I shoot. I can find it. I know that I love my wife and that there are a few scenes I could excerpt from my life that would make any audience go "Yes, absolutely, their being together will add to the sum of light and happiness in the world." But we've been together for over thirty years, since we were just out of high school, and while there was an immediate jolt of connection it took a year before we were actually romantically a couple. The script in my hands gives the lovers a couple of weeks. So I have just a few encounters out of which to build the magic. I know it can be done. I've seen it in other movies. I'm just up against it right now.
Dear readers, if any of you can think of moments in your lives when love blossomed quickly and with great intensity, even quiet intensity, or moments when you suddenly realized you were in love, and what those moments sounded, looked and felt like, I would be infinitely grateful if you would share them with me.
The good news is it's three weeks until I shoot. I can find it. I know that I love my wife and that there are a few scenes I could excerpt from my life that would make any audience go "Yes, absolutely, their being together will add to the sum of light and happiness in the world." But we've been together for over thirty years, since we were just out of high school, and while there was an immediate jolt of connection it took a year before we were actually romantically a couple. The script in my hands gives the lovers a couple of weeks. So I have just a few encounters out of which to build the magic. I know it can be done. I've seen it in other movies. I'm just up against it right now.
Dear readers, if any of you can think of moments in your lives when love blossomed quickly and with great intensity, even quiet intensity, or moments when you suddenly realized you were in love, and what those moments sounded, looked and felt like, I would be infinitely grateful if you would share them with me.
posted by Tom at 6:24 AM
4 Comments:
WRONG POST - SORRY.
I'm not absolutely sure of what it is you're looking for in conjunction with your story line, but the manner to which my wife and I started our relationship is certainly unconventional.
If you pass along a little more information, maybe I can help you - newbie or not.
Cal, that is an amazingly beautiful statement of love and I am very grateful that you took the trouble to write it down for me. A thousand thanks.
Why did you take down your blog?
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When my wife and I met, for some reason I was compelled to give her gifts. Every day. Most were small ... two coffee cups to share our morning coffee, a leather journal to record our activities, flowers, a candy dish of chocolates, a package of gum; some were not ... a gold bracelet, a diamond and black onyx broach. For two weeks, I managed to surprise her with a gift every day. The planning, buying, giving and receiving all became love moments. Two weeks later we were engaged.
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