Like Movies in 8mm
A narrative about storytelling. Take something away meaningful, or just be entertained...
He couldn’t make the suicide meaningful, impactful, no matter how hard he tried. He wrote it out a thousand ways, played ever angle in his head; who it would affect, what would it effect. The who-what-when-where-and even the why of it all. But it all felt shallow. Like breaking a matchstick at the end of a slow burn. It didn’t feel right. Surely it would be shocking, gruesome even, so there’s plenty to be said about that and even some value. But it all felt flat. Meaningless and dry. Like everything before it had lead up to this point solely to facilitate the act, which meant he might as well have killed the main character off on the first page.
Elliot crumpled up yet another draft of the last act of No One Comes Around, his supposed ode to a town, it’s people, and the face to face reality of broken dreams. What it really was, was his bachelor’s film writing thesis and an over zealous attempt at realism. He was losing hope. He needed a fresh perspective, some air maybe too. He got up from his desk, squinted at the sun narrowing through the blinds as it crashed into the horizon. Under a dark red hoodie he began walking.
Elliot was always a dreamer. Nothing better to describe him. As he walked the cracked sidewalks he imagined the lives of the passerby’s. Where were they going? Did they want to go there? Were they happy or sad to be leaving? Or going? Someone with kitchen pants on, maybe working two jobs, wondering when the tunnel is going to end, or if it will collapse? A father and son at the park, torn apart by the death of their mother and wife, or worse, a failed marriage trapping them both in the white caps?
Elliot never dreamed of any of these people necessarily having happy lives or even happy endings, but more, happy moments amongst the pain. He obsessed over the idea that life was moments patched together like edited reels. Every movement from scene to scene was a life beginning and ending and only the audience, never the characters, got to see the full montage, the life’s work. He wanted so desperately to put that feeling onto the set and through the camera. But he couldn’t seem to make it feel right.
He hung a right down an alley, kicking up some dirt as he quickly turned. Down past the dumpsters and bric-a-brac he exited to Sunset Plaza and the near death neo flickering of Woody’s Videodrome.
The door squeaked and knocked a small bell that lost it’s chime, ringing a muddled “thunk” instead of a positive tone. Woodie’s was like magic. Not because it’s still around, fending off the deaths of so many other video stores for decades longer than they have, no it was magic because of what it contained and that it was almost always busy. Friday nights looked the same now as they had in the 90’s Chuck Woody, the owner, would say. Elliot came to Woody’s not because it was the only place he could rent an original copy of Star Wars on VHS from 1982 (How Woody trusted anyone to not just flee into the sunset and sell it on Ebay was beyond him), he came here to mediate amongst the old TV’s and ask Chuck Woody for advice.
Woody was tinkering with an old Betamax Player at the Sales and Service counter in the back. He was wearing a white button up worker’s shirt that stretched a little thinner each week over his frame. Woody stared intently at the player, nudging his bifocals up on his pudgy nose and scraping his screw driver butt along his salt and pepper stubble.
“You don’t even have any Betamax for rent ya know?” Elliot said, throwing his satchel onto the desk and hopping over the counter to the other side.
“You’re right, I don’t,” Woody didn’t even look up from his work, reeling back his hand when the supply reel spun up and pinched his finger, he looked back at Elliot rummaging through some boxes, “Hey ya know, it says staff only on the door”, pointing to the way around to the back of the counter.
“It sure does.” Elliot didn’t stop his aimless maneuvers.
“Alright, can I help you sir?” Sighed Woody, wiping anti static on his pants
Elliot stopped, flopped on the floor to where he could only see Woody and the top of the counter, the rest of the store degaussing to his vision.
“I’m stuck again.”
“All you ever are is stuck.”
“Rude, you gonna help or not?”
“Ok, ok, gimmie what you got, pick right up where we left off.”
To Elliot, Woody was a sage, someone who saw the world through 8mm or even sometimes APS. Chuck Woody had seen every movie in the Videodrome he ruled over and thousands more he didn’t have here; most likely locked away in some kind of vault somewhere. If there was anyone who could round out No One Comes Around, it would be Chuck, motherfucking, Woody. Or at the least he could point him to a movie that could.
“So, the main guy, he just, blam! Offs himself and it’s fade to black?”
“Well, yeah, like literally and for the movie".”
“No restitution?” Woody thought for a second, “You’re gonna deny the audience seeing how the people this fella loved would react? Seems cold to me, mean even, prickish at best.”
“Well, like,” Elliot started, “Luke, the protagonist,” Woody cut him off
“You use a lot of fancy words.”
“…the main guy, he kills himself, he doesn’t get to see the results of his actions, so why should we?”
“Because we sat in the theater for 2 hours?” Woody Chuckled.
Elliot didn’t find it funny. Maybe Woody wasn’t getting where he was coming from, what he was trying to do, how he was trying to make the audience feel as hopeless as his characters. He explained.
“Now why the hell would you want to do that? Make someone who took a day off, maybe planned a date, rekindle a marriage, feel miserable? They probably already do and you’re gonna just punch them in the mouth?" Woody stood up and leaned on the counter. “I don’t know, doesn’t seem very thoughtful.”
“Not every story has a happy ending, like, c’mon” Elliot was ready for this debate.
“No it doesn’t, but then it ain’t the movies. Someone has to figure it out, solve the problem, get it right, whether that’s the good guy or the villain, someone always ends up getting what they want.”
Elliot looked puzzled by this but, he supposed it made sense. Woody continued
“Look, I get it, you’re trying to capture the two ends of emotional string, shock and awe almost. You’re script has people care about the puppy, love the puppy, and then you kick it off a bridge. You forget kid, every single film out there, worth a damn anyway, from Rambo to Casablanca, set out to do one thing first and all other things second. Entertain. If you haven’t got that then you just have another 2001 A Space Odyssey, beautifully shot but too long and ends up literally back at the beginning.”
“That is a very hot take Chuck.”
“I own a video store in 2023, I am entitled to many unfavorable opinions” he continued, “anyways, look, they’re movies, you can render anyone happy, sad, miserable, hell make a shitty enough movie, even angry. You’re looking for those emotions without even knowing them.” Out of seemingly nowhere a sandwich was unfolded on the counter, “how old are you?”
“Twenty three”
“Shit and you spend all your time here with me, I am truly flattered.”
“Where you going with this Chuck, you’re usually eager to help, and actually helpful.”
“That’s because your freshman year stuff was fun, lots of zombies and action stuff, this, this new project looks like you saw Elephant with the first girl to fuck you and now you have to tell us something more shocking.”
He was right about the Elephant thing, he name was Brianna and it hadn’t gone well.
“Ok, so fucking what then?” Elliot threw his hands up, “What the fuck am I supposed to do, just start over?”
“I don’t know kid but the story isn’t yours, film what you know and if you don’t know anything, maybe stop hanging out here every Friday.” A customer approached Woody asking for help finding a Brie Larson movie she had heard someone on the bus talking about, woody turned one last time.
“Look, you’re looking for the real life story to tell. The only people that want a story about real life are those who are living it and want some kind of validation that they aren’t alone. So, if you aren’t living it, any attempt to tell it is going to fake and flat and all the words you probably already told yourself. I’ve never written a movie, and I am not the sage you think I am, but, there’s also no shame in being Peter Jackson, or J.J Abrams, we can’t all be that prick Kubrick”, Chuck turned to the customer, “Ah yes Ma’am, I believe you are looking for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.”
Elliot smiled, took out a piece of paper, and started writing in the back of Woody’s Videodrome.