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Another great movie came my way recently. Before I watched it, I knew Martian Child was about a writer played by John Cusack. I guessed that I would like this movie (being a sucker for both stories about writers and John Cusack in general), but it turned out to be even better than I expected.
John Cusack plays David Gordon, a successful science fiction author living under a cloud. His beloved wife has been dead for two years, and he has been isolated and grieving. As a couple, they had planned on adopting a child, but that dream died with his wife. When David gets a call from a social worker about a child she thinks might be right for him, David shows up in person just to say no. Despite his determined non-interest, David begins to learn things about Dennis, the boy the social worker wants him to adopt, and his curiosity gets the better of him. When asked why the social worker thought he would be a good parent for Dennis, she tells him that the boy believes he is from Mars.
We all know that Dennis is going to wind up living in David’s house, at least for a while. What you can’t predict about this movie is what the boy will do and why, and how far David will go to help him. Dennis has a clear understanding of who he is – a Martian on Earth – and that he has to learn how to be human. As a result, David runs into many challenges as he integrates Dennis into his life. He gets advice of all kinds from his sister (who has kids) and his sister-in-law (who does not). He works hard to live with Dennis on his own terms, to support him in his world vision so he can become whole again. His efforts are simultaneously sweet, sincere, and funny. In the end, healing needs to occur on both sides, and eventually it does.
As I would have predicted, John Cusack is at his best as the intelligent but quirky David. What I didn’t expect was the moving performance by Bobby Coleman as Dennis or the beauty of the film as a whole. Dennis is seriously shut down emotionally, and Coleman does a good job of getting across the fear that is just under the surface of his strange habits and beliefs. The director Menno Meyjes enhances this performance through beautiful cinematography that is in complete harmony with the dialogue and plot. When Dennis’s explorations uncover the beauties in the world around him, the shots and scenery fill us with wonder and awe. When David begins to rant about the speed of the Earth around the sun and the sun through the galaxy, the lights outside of the car windows turn into colorful streaks, reminiscent of the blurred stars seen at warp speed. A hyper-reality is achieved, one that is both beautiful and believable.
Martian Child was delightful and touching. Long before I knew how the story would end, I was in love with this movie. The care taken by the director and the many great actors involved shows in every scene and was stunning right from the start. I can’t wait to watch this jewel of a movie again. And again. And again.
Actually, I didn’t go anywhere. But I’ve been busy with two writing projects, and they’ve kept me from writing for my blog. One is a joint writing project I’m working on with a friend, which is loads of fun to work on. The other is Script Frenzy.
Script Frenzy is Nanowrimo for scripts – you write a script (movie, TV, play, whatever) in 30 days. The event is held every April, and this is my first year to try it. Anything is fair game, including adaptations of your own, or someone else’s, work. So I decided to get a better handle on the key parts of the novel I wrote last November by distilling it into a script. It was a fun and educational process.
The goal is to write 100 pages, which actually isn’t much once you apply the formal movie script format to the writing. There’s lots of white space in a properly formatted script. My script wound up being 118 pages long. I made a point of getting my story wrapped up, and had the fun of writing a montage of “where are they now?” scenes to cap off my movie. It’s not a work of art, but it is a complete draft, and should be useful when I get around to editing the book.
I highly recommend giving this a try if you have any interest in writing or happen to love movies. It gave me a whole new perspective on the challenges of telling a story on film and I now watch movies with added appreciation.
I decorated eggs this year. It’s a cheap and easy form of color therapy. I tend to do experimental stuff (multiple soaks with clear wax added in between each color bath) so some are more attractive than others…. Maybe some day I will get organized and take notes about what works and what doesn’t. Or not.
During the first week in October last year, Kurt and I took a driving tour with his parents. We stayed in Durango at the old but opulent Strater Hotel.
The Strater Hotel
Our reason for going to Durango was the narrow gauge train that runs between Durango and Silverton. Jean had heard about it and was interested in taking the trip. It’s about a four hour ride through the Animas River Canyon and turned out to be well worth the time and money. We were in the Vista, the only car with a glass roof. It’s well back in the train, but we still got our share of ashes from the engine smoke.
Kurt with his parents, Jean and Carroll
The scenery was glorious. We had excellent weather, chilly at first, but sunny most of the way. While the majority of the trees were coniferous, there were golden aspens to brighten things up. The river itself grew greener the farther we went up the canyon.
The Animas River from the train
The train wound back and forth and we were able to take pictures of the front of the train from our carriage near the rear.
Silverton turned out to be a tiny town with wide dirt streets and a plethora of restaurants and gift shops. We had lunch at a cafe, then caught the bus back down to Durango. The drive takes about an hour, but it doesn’t get the kind of views we got from the train.
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived
As freezing persons recollect
The snow -
First chill, then stupor, then
The letting go.
–Emily Dickinson
Research is good for me. It’s leading me to books I would never even look at normally and Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead is one of these. In this case I feel like I’ve found a treasure, or rather, met an extraordinary person.
First: why this book? I’ve got a character in a novel whose wife is kidnapped and killed about ten years before the book starts. I wanted to find out what it is like for the survivors of such a tragedy, and checked out of the library a variety of crime books, most of which were too violent for me to read. Then I had a brain storm. The famous kidnapping of the Lindbergh’s baby in 1932 is the kind of event I’m interested in, and also a story that isn’t too horrific for me to deal with. I found out that Anne Morrow Lindbergh published her letters and diaries in a series of books that included the key years – leading up to the kidnapping, covering the kidnapping and discovery of her son’s body, and the prosecution and conviction of the criminal. So I started with Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, which covers the years 1929-1932. I wanted to have a sense of who this woman was before I got to the events I am interested in, so I started at the beginning of the book. Am I ever glad I did.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a charming young woman who lived an extraordinary life. She traveled with her husband, the famous pilot Charles Lindbergh, all over the world, mapping potential flight routes and promoting commerical air travel when it was in its infancy. Anne loved flying. She was both a pilot and a radio operator. She was also enchanted by the many places they visited on their long tours; included in this book are descriptions of a tour of South America and another of the Orient.
Not everything was wonderful, however. The Lindberghs were news, big news, and the American press hounded them constantly. They could not go out into public without being accosted and the press would often follow them to the retreats they had hoped would stay private. Charles schooled Anne in how to evade questions and give noncommital answers, and she complained more than once of having to be reserved even in her writing for secrecy’s sake. This fame would lead to the kidnapping of their baby.
In 1930, Anne bore their first son. Charles, Jr. was often on Anne’s mind, even when they were on opposite sides of the world from each other. Knowing that her son was taken from her, I was sensitive to her concerns about him. More than once, she begged a trusted relative to stay with Charles, Jr., because she was afraid the press would take advantage of the Lindberghs’ absence and of their staff’s inexperience with reporters. Six months before her son disappeared, Anne quoted a poem she heard in China, written by a mother about her dead son. If thus was fiction, these little touches would seem like artistic foreshadowing. Unfortunately, they are real, and they make the reader aware just how much Anne loved her son and feared for him. When tragedy finally strikes, her tortured hopes and loss of faith in the world are all the more poignant to the reader.
Anne’s diary entries and letters from the disappearance of her baby on March 1, 1932 to the end of that year expose the full range of emotions she experienced, and the many conflicting thoughts. Their second son, Jon, was born on August 15th and Anne experienced a wonderful, though brief, return of her faith in the world. She realized even before his birth that Jon could never erase her memories of Charlie, but that he would give her new experiences as a mother. She respected Jon as an individual even in his earliest days. Whenever memories of Charlie caused Anne to panic about keeping Jon safe, she always reminded herself she must not let her terror negatively affect Jon’s life.
The next book is Locked Rooms and Open Doors (1933-35) which will include the capture and trial of the man who killed Charlie Lindbergh, which is the rest of the reading I need to do for my novel. I’ve decided to go back and read Bring Me a Unicorn (1922-28) as well. My interest in Anne is now much more than academic and I can’t wait to read her observations and thoughts about meeting and falling in love with Charles Lindbergh. It’s not on my official list of topics to research, but she is too special to abandon without hearing her whole story.
