Rolling with the changes in the ups and downs of life is often a challenge and tiresome. Sometimes the choices we make or decisions we’ve made, hasty or whimsical, perhaps driven by the wrong motives… sink us into a valley, yet sometimes these decisions elevate us. In the end the situation we find ourselves in, we are there until the constructs of time release us or the winds of change blow.
We are forced to adapt quickly; we are masters of adaptation. We do know that change always comes, we go from peaks to valleys and vice versa, in the continuum of life.
Sometimes we get stuck in a place and realize we put ourselves way outside our comfort zone. It’s important to be brave while we are living on the outside in a new or different zone. It may feel torturous, and you may be reduced to feeling incapable or you might find yourself running to a bookstore or shopping on Amazon for a self-help book. Stick it out. Something always gives, or changes.
Life is a constant series of juxtapositions.
I am a 59 year old woman. Living in the eve before my 6th decade here in this thing we call life. I recently went way out of my comfort zone, last January 2024. I jumped into a semester of college in Cinema which entailed these three classes: Production One, Screenwriting One and The History of Cinema One.
No problem, right? I graduated from this college 20 years ago, with mostly A’s and flying colors, a member of Phi Theta Kappa and on the Dean’s list. The previous summer I had my book published in July of 2023 after four and a half years of work after surviving a brain hemorrhage.
I thought after all this… Cinema college would be easy. I planned to learn how to adapt my book into a screenplay and make a film based on my story. I had no idea what kind of situation I was getting myself into.
This was no walk in the park, this was the most humbling experience of my life. I was suddenly surrounded by mostly young guys in their early twenties, I was their mother’s age or older. These guys were extremely techie and had been living with this technology for a long time. They were already way ahead of the game; they had been making films and editing with high tech digital software, they were advanced in special effects.
At almost sixty, I was about to have the air deflated out of me. I was about to sink into a deep uncomfortable, painful place. This was Production One.
Screenwriting, I thought I’m a writer, this couldn’t be that difficult. Wrong again. As a writer of creative nonfiction, sometimes mixed with magical realism… I write stream of consciousness. Editing and revising is a discipline that I’m still working on.
Screenwriting is formatted and structured, it is finicky and precise, and it must stay true to its format. I had to retrain my brain how to think and write in this fashion, and I had to do it properly.
Life is a series of Juxtapositions.
The cinema history class I did enjoy. It was the only class that was not painful. Well, some of it was but I did not struggle with listening and retaining information, watching films, taking notes from the silent film era, moving into speaking sound films, (talkies).
I was drawn to the German Expressionism art movement. It is beautiful and rich, dark and sinister. The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel) 1930. Marlene Dietrich was a favorite film of mine. I wrote my final research paper on this film.
My very favorite film from this era was a very powerful, beautiful and disturbing film. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). I wrote my mid-term research paper on this film and made my final film in my production class based on this topic.
Life is a series of Juxtapositions.
It took me 15 minutes to set up a tripod. It took me about 45 minutes to set up the movie camera. That is if nothing went wrong… there are a series of functions and things you do to prepare the camera and the memory card etc. There is a check-list, and it was never memorized by me, it was agonizing to go through the setup. Never really knowing what I was doing, I managed to make two short films on my own. Editing was super techie.
My final project was completed. I had a bit of help in the editing process adding my song, God by Tori Amos, the juxtaposed lyrics as Joan was burning at the stake , the lyrics blast “God sometimes you just don’t come through, do you need a woman to look after you” Later the lyrics continue “A few witches burning, gets a little toasty here” as Joan burns and dies.
I also needed help storing a certain way, so it could be shared (something I messed up). My instructor knew how challenging all of this was for me. I would email him about things. I emailed him in the end of the semester and said WOW, thanks for putting up with me, I know it was painful. He responded. “You made a film and you lived to tell”. He was cool.
Life is a series of juxtapositions.
I did live to tell but Joan of Arc did not, her life was so juxtaposed. Talk about peaks and valleys… She believed God gave her a vision, and that God was leading her as a warrior, she did in fact, lead France to victory. She was a teenage girl and a military commander. She was interrogated by religious officials and convicted for wearing men’s clothing. She was tried for witchcraft and burned at the stake for following her calling from God. After her death she was declared innocent, she lived in the Dark Ages and later in 1920 declared a saint.
I guess I can’t complain. Life is a series of juxtapositions. A candle still burns for Joan.
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