Cutting Teeth

There's a line in the film about 'wanting to transcend'.  That feeling artists have in the early steps where we know somewhere deep down we can achieve greatness and create something that will elevate the experience for those who come into contact with it.  Then we set out to do it and the space between actually achieving this goal and what we first deliver is the hard stuff.  In the beginning there is just you  and your story and the pictures in your head.  Then you have to find the way to get it out into the world and both listen to the critiques that guide you and keep at bay the inner and outer voices that keep you from the truth.  (That sounds like a schizophrenic lady talking, but trust me we all have inner and outer voices telling us what they think).  Trusting that there is something beneath the surface that will indeed transcend if you let it, is the even harder part.
I saw the amazing film TAKE SHELTER this week and went and heard the writer/director Jeff Nichols speak last night.  He was a little cocky- but- well his film won the Grand Prix at Cannes this year and it's quite an extraordinary piece of art.  For me- it transcended.  It took me to another plane and the deeper story beneath the one of the surface is still jumping around in my head.  My favorite moment of the night was when someone asked what the ending meant- was it a dream or real or a message or something else- and very politely he answered that he wouldn't answer- that those were all good questions and he did indeed have his own answer but that he wouldn't share.  The point- he stressed- of making the film independently and not having to answer to a studio was to have an ending like that- one that ignites a conversation and begins an inner inquiry.  I went home thinking about the questions I wanted to have left looming in my work.
Today I discovered Jack's first tooth had made it's appearance- a small white sliver piercing up out of his pink gum.  It's been coming for some time.  There have been hard days and other days where it didn't seem like it bothered him at all.  All that time it was working below the surface and now that it's presented itself it will continue to grow and serve him.  It reminds me of my own journey into this world of filmmaking- for the work to transcend I've got to keep cutting teeth I think.  I've got to trust it's underneath and it too will make an appearance one day soon.