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Providence Comes Through
- but sometimes the view is better from below. (A post-mortem of a moviemaker's dream).
Part 1, Part 2The dream began like this. I was once a little boy in a tiny Greek village and a man- ironically named Taso as well- would come into town every Wednesday, bringing his hand-crank projector to show movies. This was in the early 1960's.
One coolish summer evening my parents decided my older brother and I would go to "the movies." I had heard about them, but had never been to see one. In a village that had only one old telephone, no indoor plumbing, and only a few radios to connect it to the outside world, this was a big deal.
So late in the evening we trotted off to the main square, walked up a few steps to the roof of a cafe where several chairs had been arranged, along with a bench in front for the children to sit. In front of us all was an old bedsheet. In the rear, I snuck looks at Taso winding up his old machine.
What happened next still defies my imagination. I had to go back to the Bible and Saul's lightening transformation into Paul to equal the thunderous transformation I felt when the first issues/02/images flickered across that old bedsheet.
It was my first movie.
I don't think I've ever really left that scene, nor has that scene ever left me. My parents thought 1 was crazy when I declared on the way home after the movie (later I found out it was an American flick called Pony Express with Charlton Heston) that I would grow up to make those "movies." Up until a few months ago, they still thought I was crazy.
On November 25, 1993 the dream was no longer a dream. I was making my own movie. In four days, with only $20,000. Few believed it could be done. At times I was wondering if I was living a delusioned nightmare to think it was possible myself. Was I just being positive because I was too crazy or stupid to know otherwise? It is now a few weeks since that moment and I'm not sure it's any easier to describe what happened.
In the first column I said that one of the reasons for making this movie was to test the existence of God or Providence. Having shot the film, I can reliably attest to the existence of both; this film was the work of a greater power than the people who made it, and for that I am eternally grateful.
Yet neither can I not acknowledge the sheer commitment and hard work of people who made it possible without receiving a bloody dime.
And now? What happens now? We edit, we try to sell, we maybe try to make a few pennies from this venture before I declare bankruptcy.
Any lessons? Life is the lesson here. You go from a dream to a reality and everything in between; you walk away a stronger yet sadder person- sadder because once you climb the mountain and see what you have to see, you suddenly realize the view was better from below. Sad because a part o£ me has died. What new dream will replace it? I don't yet know.
So I made a movie. Anybody can do that. Anybody who
has an idea and the will to make it into reality. The next step
is to find the center in me that points out the direction I should
go now. And that's something you can't project on the screen. MM
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This story was published in the January 1994 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Providence Comes Through / - but sometimes the view is better from below. (A post-mortem of a moviemaker's dream).
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