The following is an excerpt from an email I wrote to "D."



I was watching Sherman's March today, and I noticed something that I never thought about before... Mr. Ross McElwee actually makes mistakes, like, he forgets to turn the audio recorder on a lot, or sometimes there's JUST audio and no picture at all... and he ran out of film when he was interviewing Charlene and the squiggly lines (I don't know their technical name) run across the screen because he was at the end of the film roll.

And I don't know about you, but when I make mistakes like that, I don't really know how to fix them, to make it work, you know? I ususally just end up reshooting or scrapping it all.

But Mr. M does... Like when he ran out of film while Charlene was still talking, it was kind of beautiful. Also, he seems to be a naturalist, like, he doesn't care if the audio picks up the camera noises and stuff. And when he forgets the audio, he even says stuff like, "I forgot to turn on the audio here," so you just get the haunting soundless pictures with his dry narration... and there's something beautiful about it.

Anyway, I was thinking about this today... and about how life is natural and beautiful without all of the prescribed notions and pressures about what everything should mean and how we should behave/act/feel...

PS: Here are some favorite quotes from the movie:

“I spent the next few days with Cam and his friends. They seem to spend a lot of time collecting and trading plastic animals, like the kind you used get in cereal boxes, except larger. I never really understood what it was all about.”

“I’ve come to the end of my journey with no car, no money, and only one roll of film. What’s worse is that I don’t seem to have a real life anymore. My real life has fallen into the crack between myself and my film. I begin to feel paralyzed by these speculations, when suddenly, a news item on the radio snaps me out of my stupor: my old nemesis, Burt Reynolds, is back in
town... and I decided that this time, I have to find him and film him.”

“For a long time I’ve had this notion that love was possible, I mean, romantic love. You know, two people falling deeply in love with each other and somehow managing to stay together for more than two weeks.”

“Having two large empty beds is twice as depressing as having one large empty bed.”

I think I may have said some hurtful things to him recently, which I now realize were huge mistakes. But mistakes aren't meant to be erased from life. Mistakes are an essential and beautiful part of life. I just wish he would understand that.