MYSTERY’S CHOIR – ARTISTIC STATEMENT

FILM AS RITUAL: MYSTERY’S CHOIR ARTISTIC STATEMENT

Film is a guided meditation and at times a night sea journey. It is a ritualistic affair of putting on the blinders on programmings of the outer world and being willing to walk into the invisible darkness to find out something new.

Topics:

•   NEWNESS
•   A DEEP LOVE FOR TRUTH
•   STORY
•   DREAMS AND VISIONS
•   THE CHOIR EFFECT
•   PORNOGRAPHY VS. EROTIC ARTS
•   CAST AND CHARACTERS
•   FILM AS RITUAL

NEWNESS

Today, there is a falsehood that says, “nothing is new under the sun.”

But without newness, every child would look the same and every crop that replicates would never provide nourishment. There could be no argument that the birth of anything is old news and done before. The illusion that nothing is ever new must be overcome—because the nature of Creativity is that it is always new—and it is always new when it appears the first time.

By saying that “nothing is new under the sun,” this paradigm has granted us permission to copy, and to me, an artist that copies is a copy-artist. This is where the dividing line between artists that are purveyors of death and lovers of life begin.

Art Films have a tough time in the marketplace. But this does not mean it has no value. It is quite the opposite.

In the business climate or market of film, the film world and even film festivals, it is non-conducive to create films that distributors are unable to describe or to sell. Yet the antithetical nature of Art—is that it is impossible to sell Art or even describe it, as it is impossible to sell Soul.

It’s for this reason that it takes many years until a vision becomes assimilated into mass consciousness that society begins to see the potentiality of a concept—to either market and make money or embrace as something new.

Newness—which is the avant-garde—is threat to modern society, particularly a materialistic ones. The avant-garde is all about “newness.”

The fear of newness is based on the commodity and the propaganda perpetuated to keep minds in a trance to spend dollars on “more of the same.” That’s usually why art should be made only by artists…because buyers and shoppers do not have any concept—nor should they have any control—over what newness is.

In a commercialized culture, there is no such thing as Alternative, New, or Art Films. It is a dead concept (lacks market value) because it’s easier to manipulate money and control of people, education, popular culture and influence of aesthetics through product management based on perceived—rather than true—value (Advertisement). The reality of this however, is not entirely bleak. Anything antithetical to Art (or Truth) will reach its peak and starts to fold…it cannot stand up to the test of time. Nothing can stop people from seeking freshness because Newness is life…even as people are often sold on so-called “newness.” It is a matter of awakening.

To show something new does not mean that you have to be different. Newness does not mean a cold shell in an art installation where you stare at a speck until your eyes bleed. It has to be functional and house the human: Soul. Newness is how you can regenerate the truth to make it living again. It has to have life. It cannot just be mental or visually aesthetic.

A DEEP LOVE FOR TRUTH

I started creating Mystery’s Choir (US, 1999) when I was 24 years old. It was my first low budget feature.

The project was conceived while I was in film school and finished several years later after I joined the work force. Tired and overworked, I often scraped time and cash to finish the project in bits and pieces—renting 16mm flatbeds by experimental film artists, friends, or editing facilities. All this was done by hand, which meant carrying tons of “cake boxes” of raw footage and unwinding thousands of bits and pieces of spliced celluloid.

Like most college students, I spent a good period of my adult life paying off debt to support a passion for the film arts and formal education. I was possessed and controlled by the vision of the film for many years—and still remain so today…not so much because there is anything fantastical about it: but because Mystery’s Choir comes from a place of Truth and a deep love for the Aesthetics of Truth, which is my code word for Art.

The word, “aesthetics” refer to the material world and pure visual, audible or tangible form. Art is intangible—and the” aesthetics of truth” communicate the abstract, knowledge, understanding, and perspective; deeply subjective, yet universal and immaterial.

Art is not something an artist “creates;” it is a living force of creativity that continues to generate and regenerate through whatever viable receptacle it can find. That is why we often can argue that Art can be found in nature, the sunset, a meal, the “zen” of motorcycles, lovemaking and the “art” of anything.

In terms of the Aesthetics of Truth—where an Artist allows the creative ways in which life uses him to express indefinable beauty of knowledge, this aspect is what makes works of art timeless. Long-lasting, not because of its shelf life space in terms of historical preservation or commercial worth—but because the nature of it pertains to Truth—the expression is immortal and regenerates itself regardless of changes on the material or transitory level.

DREAMS AND VISIONS

When I was creating Mystery’s Choir , my main body of support came from dreams.

In a dream I am in a ritualistic circle. There are judges and witnesses around me. I am filming (or directing) the pop star, Madonna, having sex. While I was doing this, people gathered and watched. They did not watch because they came to persecute or judge me. They came because they simply wanted to watch.

Which is to say, when you witness something, it is an experience and reality. Therefore, no one can therefore say, it is true or false.

Then I had another dream.

The realist painter, Caravaggio, appeared in my dream. A very old ancient stone tablet was recovered from the “depths of the past”—from the unknown.

Imprinted on the stone was Latin text, inscribe something like “Mysterium…” something or other.

I understood the translation in the dream.

It essentially meant: “Mystery’s Choir.”

So it was.

MYSTERY’S CHOIR.

STORY

Mystery’s Choir is a coming of age story about a fifteen-year-old girl, Daena, that has her first sexual relationship with a much older (thirty-year-old) woman, Chelsea.

It is a story that can only be written in images and a shot list. It is abstract, similar to animation or poetry but this doesn’t mean it has no logic or structure. The story structure of Mystery’s Choir is non-structural, which is far more complex to articulate in imagery and words because the hierarchy and “acts” (first, second, third acts) are based on the language of emotions and soul.

For a filmmaker like myself, such a story cannot be sold based on a “script.”

The story is told in symbols.

The names of the characters are all based on myths. The name Daena, is an archetype representing Human Spirit that brings and achieves “insight and revelation.”

The older woman, Chelsea, is named after the city location in New York City. Chelsea symbolizes where “the acts took place.”

To Daena, her lover was like a city and her world. When that world collapses: she loses everything and falls out of a dream. That’s why she’s walking down Time Square in her pajamas with earthly remnants of leaves of grass clinging onto as she sleeps walk out of the true inner world and into society.

She is walking out of a personal world and staring into an obscene world where love appears invisible or is absent. In that sense, she enters “reality.” So the scene is a rite of passage.

Characters are fixed around the motif of Hansel and Gretal: the naiveté of entering into life to find love, but the evils and “witches” or negativism has to be worked out. Until we are eaten by it, until sugar coated concepts of selfish or delusional love are obliterated, the full spectrum and and reality of ideal (or true love) cannot be realized. That is figuratively what happens to Daena in the story.

Color choices in the film are intentionally placed in the lovemaking sequences.

The newness of life begins with Yellow bed sheets when the characters first make love. The second time, making love turns into heated sex, or passion. The theme is Red is in this instance.

In scenes where trust and loss of innocence is involved, I had chosen to line the bed with baby Blue sheets.

When Daena begins to probe her inner world for answers to the future, the Truth is lit as White in the Whitescape sequence.

In the Whitescape sequence, Daena approaches Chelsea by walking into a dream to ask her, “What do you do for a living?

Chelsea answers, “I’m a writer.”

“Oh really what do you write?”

“I write about everything.”

“How is that possible?”

Chelsea replies, “It’s not.”

And that is the truth. It’s not possible to write about everything because once Truth is made concrete, it has to keep regenerating to become new again. So the writer in this sense, has to keep writing…and that is why she keeps doing the impossible to make it possible.

That is also why Daena inevitably will fall out of her inner world—to hit the hard pavement of reality. She has to keep reconstructing her inner worldview in order to overcome the illusion of her minor self. It’s for this reason that I started off the scene with her kicking a bottle into the pond…because that bottle is her empty minor self. It foreshadows.

The Greenscape takes place against a solid neon green background and is the final ending. It is a “spoiler” I’m revealing here (although expressed unconventionally). The Greenscape is the imaginary world where everything makes sense without words. Here, the two main characters stare into the camera for five minutes—performed in real time. This scene was made to screen on film and in a large format—so eye contact between actors and audience is key.

The Green sequence represents the higher form of imagination—figuratively depicting the couple’s transcendence over escapism. It is a time-space where people unite even if they are unable to resolve life’s problems in their physical reality. This scene represents Freedom and Detachment from complexities of life—while at the same time, embracing reality—and that is why the actors are fleshy and nude. It means that you can walk into the invisible world—in the flesh and can touch the dream world—equally real.

In essence it is a meditation sequence—and what it is says is open to the viewer.

THE CHOIR EFFECT AND USE OF SOUND

Most of the sound in Mystery’s Choir is handmade, and in this sense, “purist.” Lots of analog.

There are several meditation sequences in the film. One of them is when Daena stares into the camera for five minutes in real time. The scene is a premonition overlaid by a love song about loss and salvation.

Daena enters into the unknown when she imperceptibly “hears” the song (or choir) about the death of the relationship. To capture the choir effect, I took a recording device and beatbox to a church to record the song reverberate off the walls.

This scene is the choir aspect of the film’s title, Mystery’s Choir. I tried to capture a genuine sound or spirit of song for the premonition sequence. Even though during sound mixing, the sound engineer had digital tools to enhance the reverb with special effects from the original track to be much cleaner and more refine—I preferred to keep the gritty echo live sound recording—because it was special.

In the nightmare sequence, the layers of sound effect came from strange sounds and hums I would hear from pipes while walking in basements of buildings or eccentric sounds I would pick up while pouring juice in a glass for breakfast. I listened to sounds everyday and recorded their narrative.

The pacing of sound is Bressonian (Robert Bresson) in every regard. The rhythm of life expressed in a footsteps, the clinking of a bottle, drips of water, the timing and ringing of phones, doors slamming and music are all a secret part of how the world tells a story. Everything has a narrative, and it is hidden in our unconscious.

I try to treat sound with thoughtful intention. Never used to manipulate the audience or to enhance a mood or image. Sound is always complimentary…always supportive if not at times, stand alone, where the audio becomes the image and the image, the audio. Sound is visual.

PORNOGRAPHY VS. EROTIC ARTS

Historically, classical painters that wanted to paint nude figures had to hire prostitutes in order to do so. It was illegal for artists during early periods to tell the truth. It has always been a challenge.

This is the nature of the avant-garde although many people today would have never thought that Rodin for instance, was doing anything progressive. What we call classical today usually means that truth had become dead. It has become digested by society and made commonplace.

When nudity was new, it was not pornographic but truthful…when truthfulness of nudity became old, it resorted to erotic arts; a palatable concept that society can tastefully hang on their walls without stifling an erection or shame.

When porn has become the focal transgression or reaction to our puritanically repressed vices (aka addiction to sex)—then its claim to truth is unjustified…because truth is not just about rawness and flagrancy—it must be processed through a higher means of aesthetics, ethics, responsibility and awareness. By this I do not mean sex has to be “pretty.”

With Mystery’s Choir, my goal was to express truthful lovemaking—which is sex—without fakery and without resorting to “beautifying” it through erotic arts.

To get around this problem, I could not film the sex scenes as a documentary by allowing actors do whatever they wanted—for then, it would be voyeurism and simply documented sex. I also did not allow myself to dress the lovemaking to the taste of audience acceptance by masking any shame regarding the reality of sex—which is that, the reality of sex is animalist, raw and often what society calls “dirty” or “pornographic.”

I decided not to hire prostitutes or porn actors. I wanted to work with real actors and serious artists.

The casting was very difficult for several reasons. The main reason was that I needed actors to have unsimulated (“real”) sex on camera.

The “real sex” part was very important to me; not because I wanted to shock the audience, exploit or be sensational. At the heart of it, I wanted to represent the Truth and the only way to do so: was through honesty and creativity; in that sense, not so different from painters that had to find prostitutes to paint real nudes.

For me, the decision to film and direct real sex with actors ran very deep.

Much of this mission involved my protest against the exploitation of sex in mainstream media: the carrot on the stick waved in front of the audience.

Mainstream entertainment and advertising will use sex to sell soda, cars and hairspray, but ultimately the maneuver is to lure you through sexual imagery, while censoring the impulse. Sex in this case, is used only to sell something through hypnosis—replacing your desires with an object that you did not ask for (you want to have the naked woman, but instead you are addicted to cola).

The sex in Mystery’s Choir is used to heal and connect the physical body, mind and emotional aspects of the human experience.

The sex act on film, to me, is Art. It is part of the human and emotional narrative. It corresponds directly to self-image, self-identity, and how we treat self and others.

By allowing people to see and get used to the sex act as truthful is what Art is for: because the Artist is responsible for putting the proper filters to make sure that the power of sexual expression is (A) not adulterated and (B) the power is contained (C) useful. In this sense, that act is like a chemist, pharmacist or alchemist—who has to prepare the proper ingredients for an experiment to work.

Mystery’s Choir is that sexual experiment. Its goal is to release the social bindings of ignorance regarding sex, human body, body worship, fear, shame, guilt (and the works) inside a context that is directed and controlled—yet never manipulated for the sake of sensationalism.

The difference between Art and Porn, is that porn is irresponsible. How Art and Erotic Arts differ is that Erotica lies. This does not confine Art to being clean, dirty, beautiful or offensive. The truth is what matters. In the end, it is up to the artist to be responsible and tell to the truth; and his failure to do so cannot be blamed on the nature of Art.

CAST AND CHARACTERS

The two main actors in Mystery’s Choir, Deidre Curry and Jill Repplinger are courageous not only for the risk they took on artistic level, but very much so on a personal level.

The casting process was very difficult because I did not want to use prostitutes or adult film actors to play the parts. Most screen actors could not risk the consequences of jeopardizing their future as artists; let alone social opinion and what their families or friends might think. Jill and Deidre however, did not view it this way. They saw it as an opportunity to do something of value and different.

Repplinger is a brilliant sensitive actor. She cared very deeply about honest portrayal of lesbians and lesbian relationships in cinema. She took it very hard when audiences did not understand the film and harshly criticized and attacked her and accusing the film for being sexually exploitative or typecasting gays.

Marginalized groups who are insecure about their own place in society often alienate their own kind—because they are hypersensitive and prejudiced. They view everything from the selfish lens of their own self-hatred or fear of social opinion. This is something that I hope will one day fade.

Deidre is a highly creative individual and was a performance artist and painter in her own right when I met her. She is a non-actor who grasped the entire concept of Mystery’s Choir through a oral description of it. She came along after I had auditioned several gay actors for this part—but most of them backed out because of political disagreements with the unsimulated sexual scenes or simply, the film was too weird.

But in the casting process, I discovered the truth about fear, which is that actors are willing to do “hard roles” if they will be exploited and the films are sensational. Yet if they are confronted with role that resembles “truth” they will look at it with distrust. They will accuse the filmmaker/director of being exploitative or taking advantage of them. And the reason they feel this way is because they are not used to people being honest. They like the deception. It allows them to goof off, act strange and not commit to being honest.

That is probably why more transgression sex films are made today than truthful films about sex. It is easier to treat sex childishly, obscenely, as exhibitionism, false heroism, social rebellion, and pseudo freedom or shock factor. It is always harder to be honest.

Deidra and Jill are rare actors that are special in this regard, because they cared and they supported the honesty.

Bill (William Hunt) played the deranged Father in Mystery’s Choir. He was a director in his own right and method actor from the old school of Broadway theatre. In his inexhaustible love for theatre, he retired from the stage and never turned himself over to Hollywood. He worked with numerous unknowns that became the legends of Hollywood cinema today. He kept a very high level of awareness and commitment to his personal truths with integrity.

Jack Pretzer, a dear friend, film buddy and amazing artist, played the role of Daena’s mother in the film. The choice to cast a male for the role of the mother was not for shock value. I chose him because he was right for the part. Jack (19 years old at the time) and Bill (70) combined as a mother-father couple made a gruesome match that fulfilled the Grimm fairytale-like feeling I wanted. Aside from this, Jack already had the complete wardrobe, bad cosmetic and wigs that made the “wicked witch” persona possible.

FILM AS RITUAL

Film is a guided meditation and at times a night sea journey. It is a ritualistic affair of putting on the blinders on programmings of the outer world and being willing to walk into the invisible darkness to find out something new.

To do this journey or perform this type of activity means going into a territory to take risks—never for selfish motive but to complete some kind of circle that has been either been broken or forgotten.

This form of filmmaking uncovers lost messages that every person has forgotten. The lost messages are like undersea and outer space worlds or new frontiers where curious things link to our history, helping us fill in the blanks.

The linkage to the unknown to me, is the heart of what filmmaking is about. This unknown world is not hidden but appears in the dramas masked by social illusions and myriads of distractions and complexities piling up in our so-called “conscious” life while many people are still sleeping—rarely awakened. It is this sleeping world that creates much of our unconscious—and it is the job of art—to go into areas no one else can go.

Film, in its proper (ethical) use of images and emotional faculty is the vehicle that makes it possible for people to seek meaning by finding shape, reason, relatedness, understanding—and most importantly, Beauty and Knowledge embedded in life experiences. Ultimately, when this meaning is decoded, a significant portion of society becomes freer and that is the goal.

However, the goal is not to free many people—because it is not the artist’s decision, right or power to do so. The goal is to be able to offer the mechanisms and safe container often called “ritual,” for people to awaken to embrace change—at a pace, time, location and method that is suitable.