My Own Deal With the Devil Would Be Small (but I think out of his reach)

[rinue]

I make films because I'm uncommonly good at it and think it's a valuable use of time; I do not particularly enjoy the process or find it makes me happy, even though the film community is largely more accepting of my particular personality tics than other professional fields might be. (I'm not even really an outlier.) This puts me in the company of a long list of directors, notably including Kubrick and Hitchcock. It is possibly more common among successful "name" directors to feel the way I do than otherwise.

The film is nearly finished and looking very good; I think it is likely to do well. This gives me no notable pleasure, although it spares me from being angry. I'm fairly depressed and weighing whether I want to become an air traffic controller instead of a filmmaker, since this is also a job to which I'm constitutionally well suited and which contributes to the wellbeing of society. I don't think I would find it especially satisfying, which maybe defeats the point. But perhaps it would be a way of not feeling like this again. This I don't like at all. It would maybe be worth a smaller life to not feel this. It is hard to pick a next step when you have no purpose.

Comments

[valancy_jane]

Sometimes being who you are is right without feeling good. That is, it would feel wrong if you weren't, but it can be exhausting hard work to be right, especially when you have to get up at 5am to squeeze it in before work. (That's me, but I digress.)

I have never known a time when you were not writing or making films. One of my earliest memories of spending time with you was when we were creating some kind of play with a bunch of people. I barely knew you. I think it was the first time I had even gone to your house. Anyhow, I kept overdoing it, the character, a bad child actor, because - and I remember this very clearly - no one ever got it when I didn't overdo it, so I didn't think I could be smart and subtle with stories or acting because people wouldn't get it. And you stopped and looked at me like I was crazy when I started playing the character and you gently said, no, no, she's not like that. And I forget how you said it exactly, but you told me to be subtle, and that you'd still get it. You were a director even then.

love you.