Greatness Within Our Grasp

A few days ago, I witnessed a talented, young artist get discouraged to the point of sulking because one element of the project he was working on didn’t turn out the way he had hoped.

It was interesting to witness.

“I suck,” he said. “I’m terrible.” This, after a quick experimentation he had spent a short time on didn’t work—or didn’t work in the way he wanted it to.

He’s barely out of his teens, has only relatively recently grown serious about his art, had worked on this particular part of his project for a very short time, and was quite dispirited because it wasn’t an instant success.

The disappointment and depressing condition the young man experienced were temporary, and he’s back at work on his craft—and probably was later the same day—but it reminded me of just how much hard work, discipline, dedication, patience, practice, time, blood, sweat, tears, failure, and investment becoming truly proficient at something requires.

I can’t know for sure, but the young artist, like nearly all young artists, seemed to expect to be able to accomplish what he wanted to because he wanted to, because he has talent, but what he lacks, what prevents him from being able to achieve what he’s striving for isn’t talent. It’s something else—something that makes talent the smallest component of the equation in any endeavor.

One of the most dangerous mentalities we can have is the easy, lazy belief that “you either have it, or you don’t.”

I work with creatives all the time, mostly writers, who want to—no, check that—who expect to be good, even genius early in their development (notice I didn’t say career) and in early attempts or first drafts.

Only people who don’t know any better think they can be good at something from the jump—which describes most novices and people trying to do something new. We don’t know because we’re new, and either we think that what we do is good or we’re so overwhelmed by its failure, we abandon it. Both cause us to give up—the first, on truly becoming good, the second, for good.

Both tragic responses fail to perceive the truth—being great at something is not a birthright, but the result of busting our asses.

I’m not saying we’re not born with talents, not given certain innate gifts and natural abilities, that we don’t have specific interests and internal proclivities that point to potential, just that they are little more than a place to start.

Talent is a seed. Full of potential—not much more.

I know a lot of talented people. The world is full of them. Hell, prison is full of them. During my time as a prison chaplain, I was amazed at the staggering amount of talent languishing behind the chain link and razor wire.

Talent inside prison is like talent anywhere. It’s all the same. Just potential. Just possibility.

What we do with our gifts and talents, how we develop them, what we invest in them, that’s what determines outcome, that’s what makes the difference between success and failure.

And it’s no small investment that’s required to become truly great.

Experts agree that to truly excel at something, to be world class, requires ten years or ten thousand hours of a certain type of the right kind of practice.

Two inspiring and encouraging and wise books that make a convincing case for this are “Talent Is Overrated: What really separates world-class performers from everybody else” by Geoff Colvin and “Outliers: The story of success” by Malcolm Gladwell.”

If the frustrated young artist who says he sucks after failing in certain ways at his new craft and you and I want to become masters, we must invest a decade of our lives to deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice, according to Colvin, is “designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly demanding mentally, and it isn’t much fun.”

Notice that last one. Amateurs have fun—both in practice and in performance. The proficient (notice I didn’t say professionals) do not. It’s all about approach. Do you want to have a good time or do you want to become good at what you’re doing?

The latter approach is about always improving—pushing ourselves just beyond what we can currently do. It avoids automaticity and actually changes our bodies and brains.

I can say unequivocally and experientially that I have found this to be the case. I became serious about writing fiction in the summer of 1994. It was then that I began to write daily, seek and receive feedback, study great writing—reading books about writing and reading lots of great novels—and though I witnessed improvement all along, it was after I crested the ten thousand hour and one million word mark that I experienced a quantum leap into a level of proficiency that was, to me and trusted others, apparent and recognizable.

Want to be great at something? Whether or not we are is far more in our control than most of us realize.

Here’s a challenge for you. Find someone who is consistently proficient, who is great at what they do, and examine what enabled them to reach their current level of performance. I guarantee, whether you find evidence of natural abilities or not, you will certainly find someone who is reaping the reward of years of investing, of working harder and longer and more intentionally and deliberately than anyone else.

There are no shortcuts.

The belief in genius, in prodigies, in “you have it, or you don’t” amounts to little more than an excuse for laziness.

You, me, and the sullen young man who inspired this piece, have an opportunity to be world-class, but are we willing to pay the price, put in the work, sacrifice a big chunk of our lives to achieve it?

Dedication to a decade of deliberate practice is the beginning. What are you waiting for? Get Colvin and Gladwell’s books and get busy.

The Sacred Journey

I went to see “Eat, Pray, Love,” not because I expected it to be a great movie, but because its subject—namely how to live optimally—has been a lifelong pursuit of mine.

I’m so very grateful for the gift of my life, and sincerely attempt to put the most into it and get the most out of it. Toward that end, I continually ask myself the following questions.

(I’m not saying Liz Gilbert, the protagonist of “Eat, Pray, Love,” asks the same questions, just that her quest may have led her to some of the same answers.)

Am I practicing love and kindness?

How do I obtain enlightenment?

What is the meaning of my life?

How do I truly savor every drop of juice from the sweet fruit of the tree of life?

Am I being mindful?

How awake am I? How aware? How alive?

Am I blindly following the culture I was born into or questioning everything in search of the truth?

Am I living justly and compassionately?

Am I making the world a better place by living unselfishly, extending myself for others, giving my gifts with joyous generosity?

I’m not saying I’ve figured out the best way to live—not even close—just that I’ve devoted myself to finding out the best way for me to live my life.

Liz Gilbert dedicated a year of her life to a similar pursuit. Here’s how the studio describes the film:

“Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having — a husband, a house, a successful career — yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali. Based upon the bestselling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love proves that there really is more than one way to let yourself go and see the world.”

“Eat, Pray, Love” is better than I expected it to be, and, as usual, Julia Roberts is resplendent. The writing and directing are good—save for the way too much of the film is lit with a soft, ethereal quality from above and behind its actors, the overblown rim light putting a halo-like aura around Julia that I found extremely distracting. And it follows her not matter where she is—in a theater, a darkened room, even walking down an unlit street at night in Italy.

Liz’s journey toward enlightenment, toward love, began because she’s lost her appetite for food and life and wanted to go some place where she could marvel at something.

She’s in a crisis—recently divorced, floundering, trapped on a treadmill of meaningless, unintentional existence.

Like so many of us, it takes a crisis to move and motivate her. But we don’t have to wait for crises to force us toward meaningful lives any more than we have to travel the world to find some place to marvel at something.

Right now people from all over the world are traveling to Italy, India, and Bali attempting to eat, pray, and love their way to happiness and fulfillment, but the problem isn’t our zip code. It’s us.

Liz traveled around the world to find that the kingdom of God was within her all along. To walk the path, the way (of enlightenment, fulfillment, and love) doesn’t require outward travel, but inward.

There’s nothing wrong with travel, with an outward journey that symbolizes our inner one, but it’s the smallest aspect, shortest distance, least important part of the true journey.

In the same way the best thing an education can do is to teach us how to be students for life, the best and only hope Liz has of a continuous life filled with meaningful eating, praying, and loving is if her journey caused her to be able to have the same experiences when she returned. If we can’t find something to marvel at every single day, the problem isn’t with the world or where we live, but with us and how we perceive.

And we don’t have to devote ourselves to a guru to become our best selves. Or, if we do, it needn’t be for long and we don’t need to have just one. And no matter how helpful or inspiring or transformational we find certain leaders, we must inevitably shoot our gurus and sprinkle ashes on our Buddhas.

Like inspiration that becomes doctrine and eventually dogma, teachers, counselors, gurus too soon become gods and our attachment to them ultimately leads to spiritual dependency and death.

Liz found what worked for her. You and I have to find what works for us. There are no rules. There is no one path, no one way to walk The Way.

Want to know the best approach to life? Ask anyone with a terminal disease. They’ll tell you. Cast aside what really doesn’t matter. Spend your few rare, precious, priceless moments on meaningful things of lasting value.

Liz tried new ways of living in an attempt to change her life—going to extremes and traveling the world. And it seems to have worked. But true, lasting change is about integration, about how we live every single day. It lasts because we’re making lifestyle changes that lead us back to our best, most original selves. Diets don’t work because they are faddish and temporary and don’t constitute a true change in the way we live. The same is true of spiritual fads or programs or the latest greatest teaching of the most popular guru or book or Oprah guest.

Lasting change is about integrating what really matters most into our lives.

Here’s what I attempt to (and fail to) do every day and what I recommend to you:

Be. Savor every second. Breathe deeply. Empty. Open heart and mind and belt to the wonderful, terrible grace-filled catastrophe of life. Live with abandon. Love with passion and without reservation. Search for God—within and without. Be kind. Be still. Be silent. Be with supportive, nurturing friends. Be alone. Give. Give. Give. Ask. Seek. Knock. Sing. Dance. Make every meal a celebration. Make every day an adventure. Think. Create. Have lots of sex. Dream. Play. Protect the weak and vulnerable. Speak the truth. Fight for justice. Stand up for the oppressed. Be creative. To mine own individual, idiosyncratic self be true.

Only when these things become a way of life—something we live every day, not only on certainly holy days or in certain exotic places—only when eating is praying and everything is love, will we be our best, deepest, most actualized selves and live our best, richest, most meaningful lives.

Perchance to Dream

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.


For all we know—or think we do—we know very little about dreams. Of course, the truth is, we know very little about much of anything, but some things are harder to fake than others.

Dreams can be defined as a succession of images, sounds, or emotions the mind experiences during sleep, but that doesn’t even begin it.

Dreams are mystical and spiritual, ineffable and inexplicable, which is why I take issue with Freud’s claim in “The Interpretation of Dreams,” that he can “demonstrate that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the application of this technique, every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state.”

Dreams are mysteries. Any interpretation is at best only partially correct.

Dreams can be instructive and inspiring, but in the way all mysterious things (God, the universe, art, life, death) are—In subtle, lyrical, non-literal, largely metaphorical ways.

Dreams are also rich material for story. Fiction, whether on page or screen, is like a dream. My experience with writing fiction—particularly the novel—is that it is very much like entering a kind of dream state, and, I to varying degrees, remain in it until the novel is born.

In thinking about this column, it occurred to me that dreams play significant roles in three out of four of my most recent novels.

Dreams are the subject and the setting for acclaimed filmmaker, Christopher Nolan’s new movie, “Inception”—an original sci-fi actioner that travels around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved.

Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible—inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move—an enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

Though one of the most well-made and entertaining films of this disappointing summer at the cineplex, “Inception” was not as good as I wanted it to be.

Sure, it’s demonstrates a brilliant filmmaker at work. It’s as well constructed a movie as you’re likely to see. It’s interesting and exciting and intense, but it has no soul.

It’s visually stunning, intellectually engaging, but emotionally unfulfilling. A puzzle, a logicians labyrinth. Clever. Cold. Cerebral. I wanted to care for the characters—enjoy the movie on more than an intellectual level—but there was no heart, no warmth, no spirit.

And I wish “Inception” had been more dreamlike, more random and hazy and nonlinear. For all its talk about and delving into dreams, there’s very little in it that feels like anyone is actually dreaming. I felt it could really have used the hypnotic touch of a director like David Lynch. “Mulholland Drive” has far more of the dewy residue of dream state than does “Inception.”

Both times I watched “Inception,” I thought of another dream-like movie, “What Dreams May Come”—and though it’s more about the dreams that come when we’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, it makes a quite convincing case that those dreams are more like the ones we have in our beds at night or in our heads during the day than we realize.

Though I’ve seen “What Dreams May Come” several times, I decided to watch it again while writing this, and I discovered that it’s even better than I remembered. A lot better.

I had also forgotten how beautiful and extraordinary Annabella Sciorra is and what a tour de force her amazing performance is in this film. Watching her served to heighten how weak the poorly cast Ellen Page is in “Inception.”

Watch any scene in “What Dreams May Come” and you’ll find more true, convincing human emotion than in all of “Inception.”

“What Dreams May Come” is a gorgeous film, a work of art, filled with and about art. It’s magical and mystical and beautiful. In short, it’s a dream. It’s a stunning work of imagination about life and death, but most of all it’s about love and loss. It’s profound and says some interesting things about the world to come—something like “As below, so above,” we create our lives in the afterlife in the same way we do in this present life, that if something is true in our minds, it is true. As the person who wrote the phrase “what dreams may come” says, “Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

“What Dreams May Come” is about things dreams are made of—twins, soul mates, second chances, not giving up, winning when you lose and losing when you win. It’s filled with the things that fill dreams. It’s inspiring and inspiriting—and everything that “Inception” is not.
It’s not that “Inception” is bad. It’s not. It’s quite good, and as for well-crafted, thoughtful and thought-provoking entertainment in theaters right now, it nears the top of the list of limited choices. In fact, I recommend it.

I recommend both movies, but for very different reasons. If you want to see a high-quality timepiece at work, go see the Swiss watch-like “Inception.” Its precision and brilliance are beautiful to behold. But if you want to spend time with something truly timeless watch “What Dreams May Come,” and as you do, open your mind and heart and embrace the dream of life taking place in the mind of God.

Where Do Broken Hearts Go?

What do you do when your heart hurts?

As someone who attempts to live with a certain mindfulness, I try not to bypass a broken heart, try not to short-circuit the process no matter how painful, no matter how long. There’s much to be gained from sitting with the saturnine experiences of existence.

I’m not advocating wallowing or prolonging or being miserable one moment more than we need be, just that there is benefit in the sad, in the sorrowful, in the song of the thorn birds fluttering around inside of us.

As Siddhartha so rightly stated, life is suffering. Pain is part of being a healthy human. I live, therefore I feel. And in addition to our own pain—that caused by others and the self-inflicted variety—there’s the pain of others. Only the narcissistic feel only their own pain. Love, genuinely caring for an other, inevitably leads to pain. The more love we have, the more pain we have. He who loves ten has ten woes. He who loves fifty has fifty woes. The more capable of compassion we are, the more we will suffer. Compassion comes from two words that mean to “feel with.” Feeling what others feel leads to additional pain and suffering.

Whether we choose to open ourselves to others and to their pain, or focus on ourselves and the thousand natural shocks that our flesh is heir to, pain, suffering, broken hearts are inevitable.

When my heart hurts, as it does right now, I think and feel, reflect and write, read and meditate, turning to art and religion for guidance and healing. Occasionally, I turn to trusted friends and counselors, but mostly I experience my sadness in solitude. And in my aloneness, few things comfort, console, and give care as much as the right movie.

It’s true, books are better, but there’s something so immediate about movies. Like fast-acting medicine, an old familiar film provides nearly instant relief.

I’m not recommending simple escapism, though there’s certainly a place for that, but films that feel like old friends—available to us when old friends can’t be and without all the guilt and calories that accompany comfort food.

I’m sure you have your own medicinal movies, but here are a few films that get me through you might try, too.

No filmmaker makes me happier, cheers me up faster, than Richard Curtis. “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill,” and “Love Actually” are movies I watch and quote from so repeatedly it seems as if I have them on a continual loop.

When I need inspiration, to be reminded of the difference one person can make, I pull “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “Keys of the Kingdom” off my shelf—two films that, in numerous viewings, never fail to speak to something deep within me and make me cry like a little girl.

When I want to fall in love or be reminded of the possibilities of love—particularly for those whom it has seemed to pass by, I turn to “Before Sunset,” “Conversations with Other Women,” “Love Affair,” “Frankie&Johnny,” and “The Russia House.”

When I want to look at life from a different perspective, to see the world and love and relationships in a new way, Charlie Kaufman is what’s called for, in particular, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and “Synecdoche, New York”—movies that are moving, thought-provoking, awe-inspiring, devastating.

And for all the above—for love, romance, inspiration, sacrifice, making a difference, and just getting carried away—nothing the doctor orders can compare with “Casablanca.”

If my broken heart wants not to feel unbroken, but commiserate with other broken hearts, I find “Brief Encounter” and “The End of the Affair” particularly appealing.

Sometimes, when I’m laid low by life or love or something far more random, what I need is to just be swept away, to get caught up, or take off on an adventure. When I do, I return to “The Last of the Mohicans,” Blade Runner,” “Spartan,” “Man on Fire,” “Déjà vu,” “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist,” “The Holiday,” and “Dan in Real Life.”

And if I just need to laugh, nothing helps me quite as much as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “The Hangover,” and, of course, a Richard Curtis film—most of which could go in all of these categories.

There are so many other movies I could mention. This list is not meant to be comprehensive. These are just where my broken heart goes, the ones I keep in my medicine cabinet—my first aid kit for my in-case-of-emergency moments.

As you can see, among other things, I recommend movie therapy. Story gives meaning to our lives, and films provide a singular, immediate experience of story—art imitating life in narrative we can relate to and be inspired by. So the next time you’re feeling broken, remember my prescription. Take two movies and call me in the morning.

Kingdoms in Conflict

Leo Tolstoy said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

He wasn’t the first to say it.

After penning what many believe to be two of the best novels ever written (“Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace”), he spent his later life studying and writing about the Kingdom of God.

Jesus’ teachings, encapsulated in the “Sermon on the Mount,” became the foundation upon which Tolstoy attempted to build his life and legacy.

The Kingdom of God is within—not without. Not of institutions or empires, church or state, but of love.

It is not only opposite the world, but opposed to it—standing as an alternative, a current that is counter to culture and creed, dynasties and domination systems.

As such, the Kingdom of God functions differently than the Kingdom of the world. Those who live by it trust, share what they have, love everyone—even enemies—refuse to retaliate, fight greed and hate, inequality, and injustice. In stark contrast, the world, fueled by selfishness and greed, in largely controlled by money and power, manipulation and physical force, oppression and brutality, most often putting the might of the majority in power over the rights of the multitudes.

The kingdom that’s within rejects power, refuses to use physical force. Built on compassion and justice, it operates in freedom and love—which are virtually the same thing—making a priority of helping the poor, the oppressed, the least, the lowest, the marginalized, and disenfranchised.

In Tolstoy’s antiestablishment and antiauthoritarian “The Kingdom of God is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystical Religion but as a New Theory of Life,” he argues that all societies contain social systems of wealth and power based on the inequitable distribution of wealth where, even as governments and ideologies change, domination systems use the threat of force to protect institutional inequality. The powerful maintain their power because of systemic oppression, and under the threat of force and the allure of material desire, individuals committed to maintaining the status quo are actually instruments of their own domination.

Power corrupts.

Like the Roman Empire Jesus challenged or the Russian Empire Tolstoy railed against, our culture is corrupt. Greed has led to a domination system that, through brainwashing of state and church and family, leads most of us to walk around in a hypnotic state, faithful cogs in the very machine that oppresses us.

But as evil as injustice, inequity, oppression, and domination are, Tolstoy, like Gandhi and MLK, follow Jesus in his insistence that force can never be a part of the Kingdom of God, and strictly adheres to Jesus’ prohibition of responding to evil with evil. Freedom is love is right. Force is evil is wrong.

Tolstoy’s radical commitment to Jesus’ teaching, particularly his insistence on nonviolence and ending greed by the sharing of one’s possessions, led him to reject the ownership of private property and to sign away his copyrights to his works, which in turn caused an epic battle with his wife—the last year of which is dramatized in Michael Hoffman’s “The Last Station.”

After almost fifty years of marriage, the Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren), Leo Tolstoy’s (Christopher Plummer) devoted wife, passionate lover, muse and secretary—she’s copied out War and Peace six times…by hand!—suddenly finds her entire world turned upside down. In the name of his newly created religion, the great Russian novelist has renounced his noble title, his property and even his family in favor of poverty, vegetarianism and even celibacy—after she’s born him thirteen children!

When Sofya then discovers that Tolstoy’s trusted disciple, Chertkov (Paul Giamatti)—whom she despises—may have secretly convinced her husband to sign a new will, leaving the rights to his iconic novels to the Russian people rather than his own family, she is consumed by righteous outrage. This is the last straw. Using every bit of cunning, every trick of seduction in her considerable arsenal, she fights fiercely for what she believes is rightfully hers. The more extreme her behavior becomes, however, the more easily Chertkov is able to persuade Tolstoy of the damage she will do to his glorious legacy.

Into this minefield wanders Tolstoy’s worshipful new assistant, the young, gullible Valentin (James McAvoy). In no time, he becomes a pawn, first of the scheming Chertkov and then of the wounded, vengeful Sofya as each plots to undermine the other’s gains. Complicating Valentin’s life even further is the overwhelming passion he feels for the beautiful, spirited Masha (Kerry Condon), a free thinking adherent of Tolstoy’s new religion whose unconventional attitudes about sex and love both compel and confuse him. Infatuated with Tolstoy’s notions of ideal love, but mystified by the Tolstoys’ rich and turbulent marriage, Valentin is ill equipped to deal with the complications of love in the real world.

A tale of two romances, one beginning, one near its end, “The Last Station” is a complex, funny, rich and emotional story about the difficulty of living with love and the impossibility of living without it.

Kingdoms come into conflict in “The Last Station”—inside Tolstoy as much as without. Any attempt to live in allegiance to the kingdom within will inevitably lead to conflicts with other kingdoms—without and within.

Hoffman has made an exquisite film of relationships and rhetoric, of love—love of people, love of principles. It’s the story of spirit and flesh, of noble ideals and small-souled self-interest, all swirling around a gifted writer and thinker, a man attempting to live according to his convictions—no matter the cost.

Every element of the film works, but the directing and acting—particularly Plummer, Mirren, and Giamatti—are stunning.

Though only covering the last year of his life, “The Last Station” gives us a fascinating glimpse at Tolstoy and his struggles to follow Jesus.

Like Tolstoy, I attempt (and continually fail) to follow the true, simple, profound teachings of Jesus, to live according to the kingdom within, and, like him, this leads me to reject cultural status quo and the roles church and state, money and power, play in the domination system. I part company with him when it comes to celibacy, but he did, too, until late in life. Perhaps I’ll feel differently in my eighties (though I sincerely hope not). I also think there are ways to integrate the radical teachings of love and freedom, of nonattachment and nonviolence, in everyday life, to be countercultural within one’s own culture—as opposed to removing oneself completely from culture.

I recommend in addition to watching “The Last Station,” you also read “The Kingdom of God is Within You,” and in the process, search yourself, as Tolstoy did, for the Kingdom of God inside you.

Chaos and Creativity

The act of creation is often chaotic.

As Marilyn Ferguson said, “The creative process requires chaos before form emerges.”

Artists work with chaos—a truth embodied in Sharon Hubbard’s observation that “The creation of true art requires some mysterious innate ability to thrive in chaos.”

Art is an attempt at creating order out of chaos—or at the very least a way of searching for and assigning meaning to the chaos itself.

There’s a random, mysterious, sometimes chaotic element to the universe that I think those of us who spend our time engaged in creating art are particularly sensitive to. Perhaps that’s why chaos theory so appeals to me, and why one of my favorite sayings is: “God created order out of chaos, but sometimes the chaos shows through.” This is also why, for me, any religion, philosophy, or worldview that claims to explain everything is simplistic, shortsighted, and suspect (seriously lacking in credibility).

In dealing with the chaos of existence, there seems to be two approaches—those of us who welcome, even invite, it in, and those who attempt, with all the defensiveness they can muster, to keep it at bay.

My own approach is one of openness—honoring the random, the chaotic, the humbling that reminds me just how not in control I really am—all the while careful to avoid manufactured drama and the destructiveness of unnecessary anarchy. But regardless of the approach, the artist and spiritually open person can’t afford not to embrace the whirlwind.

Like everything else, there are counterfeits for chaos, and some people get addicted to the rush and so continually create circumstances so that their lives resemble a Tilt-A-Whirl ride. Some artists suck on chaos like it’s a crack pipe, and so recklessly and routinely set fire to their own lives.

Guido Contini, whose story is told in Rob Marshall’s musical, “Nine,” appears to be just such an artist—a gifted writer/director who’s lost all control of his life and appetites. In fact, at one point his estranged wife, Luisa, tells him that that’s all he is—an appetite.

Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis), famous Italian film director, has turned forty and faces a double crisis: he has to shoot a film for which he can’t write the script, and his wife of twenty years, the film star Luisa del Forno (Marion Cotillard), may be about to leave him. As it turns out, it is the same crisis.

Luisa's efforts to talk to him seem to be drowned out by voices in his head: voices of women in his life, speaking through the walls of his memory, insistent, flirtatious, irresistible, potent. Women Guido has loved, and from whom he has derived the entire vitality of a creative life, now as stalled as his marriage—his mistress (Penelope Cruz), his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), an American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the prostitute from his youth (Fergie) and his mother (Sophia Loren).

As Guido struggles to find a story for his film, he becomes increasingly preoccupied—his interior world sometimes becoming indistinguishable from the objective world—and his producer suggests he make a musical, an idea which itself veers off into a feminine fantasy of extraordinary vividness.

“Nine” is the film adaptation of a musical inspired by Fellini’s mesmerizing classic, “81/2.” Ordinarily, I’m not much on musicals, but because of the subject matter here and its connection to Fellini and “81/2,” I wanted to see “Nine” from the moment I heard about it. And the film did not disappoint. I expected to like the story in spite of the musical intrusions, but found myself really responding to a few of the numbers, and appreciating the masterful way Marshal stitched them into the seam of the narrative. I really enjoyed the musical performance by Fergie, which is not surprising, but what I found shocking was just how talented a singer Kate Hudson is. But it’s not the musical but the dramatic performances that make the movie something special, and though all are particularly strong, Daniel Day-Lewis is again amazing, and Marion Cotillard is absolutely heartbreaking.

Being creative involves chaos. But nothing is as chaotic as the frustration that results from the chaos in an artist’s life becoming so out of balance that it no longer allows for creativity. Few films embody these truths as dramatically and powerfully as “81/2” and “Nine.”

Saul Bellow said that “Art is the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos”—something Guido has yet to learn.

In life, as in art, there’s real skill involved in managing chaos. Of course, chaos can’t be controlled. I’m not suggesting it can. Maybe it can’t even be managed, but we can. We can manage ourselves, our responses.

Maybe managing chaos is like trying to make a movie without a script or maybe it’s an altogether absurd notion in the way “talking about love is like dancing about architecture.” And in the end, that’s what “81/2” and “Nine” and life are all about—love. Love that drives us to create. Create connections—with our words, our bodies, our beings, our art—and, in doing so, touch the void, approach the whirlwind, open our belts and minds and hearts to chaos. A chaos that, depending on how we respond, can lead to creation or destruction—to art, to a more artful life, or to even more chaos.

Film Criticism

I’m not an expert on film (or anything else), but I am a student of it, and I’ve dabbled in it enough to know just how difficult it is to do well. I’ve taken a few film classes, I’ve written and sold screenplays, I’ve made a half dozen short films and one handheld, no-budget feature, I’ve read hundreds of books on film, and watched thousands of movies—just enough to know how very little I know.

Of course you don’t have to be an expert in or even a student of film to know just how challenging it is to make good ones—even the most casual moviegoer can tell you that more mediocre movies are made than anything else, and far, far more bad films are made than great ones.

Still, I find it a bit uncomfortable to criticize the state of American cinema. Part of the reason is in the difference in knowing and doing. I know a little about film, but I’m not a working filmmaker—and there’s an enormous difference between the two. I feel far more comfortable speaking about the state of American publishing or criticizing novels because I’m a working novelist. But, here again, because I do it, because I know how difficult it is to do well, I find it difficult to be vitriolic or violent in the way so many haters online and in print are.

I recall a challenge John Mellencamp issued to haters years ago. “You make your best rock record and I’ll make mine,” he said, “and then we’ll compare the two.”

The point is well taken. Criticizing is easy. Creating enduring art isn’t. And making an attempt at making authentic art gives us greater appreciation for all who do—regardless of the relative failure that results.

And it will fail. Everything does—particularly art. I understand this all too well. As Joyce Carol Oats observed, “The artist, perhaps more than any other person, inhabits failure.”

This same sentiment is echoed in a remark by TS Eliot. When someone commented to him that most critics are failed writers, he responded, “So are most writers.” I would say all. It’s just some books fail less than others.

My approach to this column has been to reflect on life and meaning as I’m inspired by exemplary works of art, and with few exceptions—a few books and movies so bad I had to comment or mediocre works that nonetheless provoked thoughts I felt worth sharing—I’ve done just that, which casts me in the role of appreciater far more than criticizer.

But the state of Hollywood movies in general, and summer movies in particular, is so bad, I’m compelled to write about it, so, having said all the above, I will now step out of my role as appreciater and into the ill-fitting clothes of criticizer.

What’s wrong with Hollywood?

It all comes down to character and story. We come to movies wanting an experience of what it means to be human. Whether in ordinary or extraordinary circumstances, we hunger for humanity—everything else is secondary. Everything—visuals, stunts, explosions, chases, spectacles. What’s missing is humanity—people we can relate to in credible (if extraordinary or even unrealistic) situations.
And here’s why: money.

Art for profit becomes entertainment. Entertainment produced to make the most money possible becomes hollow, shallow, silly, bloodless, lifeless.

Like politics and our “free” market, greed has largely spoiled the entertainment industry. Blockbuster-driven studios produce absurdly big budget movies that, like other entities in our society are “too big to fail,” and so try to be all things to all people, attempting an even more watered-down version of what worked before.

Sure, there are still a few auteurs around working within the studios, but most are forced to make independent films—something becoming increasingly difficult to do, with fewer and fewer means of distribution.

In the same way chain stores, blockbuster and celebrity books have negatively impacted publishing, cineplexes, blockbuster movies, and star vehicles have hurt the film industry.


Here’s my Top 10 list of What’s Wrong with Hollywood.


1. Illiteracy. Too many people at the top making the biggest decisions don’t read—not books and not even the scripts they’re greenlighting.


2. Gatekeepers. Interns are doing most of the reading, writing coverage, and, therefore, deciding.


3. Risk aversion. Art can’t be made without risk.


4. Money. See above. Things are out of balance. Too much business, not enough show.


5. Sequels. Enough!


6. Old TV shows. Even if something happened to work as a television show, chances are it won’t as a film. TV and film are different mediums—and it has little to do with the relative size of the screen.


7. Video games. Really? Really?


8. Pyrotechnics over people. If we don’t care about your characters, we’ll soon be bored with your explosions.


9. Skewing tween. By attempting to make PG-13 movies for adults that appeal to tweens, too, you do neither.


10. 3D. Gimmicks can’t distract us from seeing that you have only cardboard characters and a preposterous plot—and having to see that in 3D just makes our heads ache all the more.