The Harold and Maude actor shows us that spur of the moment acts of generosity can be truly life affirming
On the first day directing my first film came my first communication error. I’d asked the costume department to take a man’s shirt (which the lead character had stolen after a one night stand), and fashion it into something she fixes around her cat to stop it picking at its surgical stitches. Expecting it to look like a striped cotton bandage, I was presented with a cat wearing an immaculately tailored miniature button-down. In the end I took it off the cat, but I wish I’d made that work because, when I’ve occasionally daydreamed about the etymology of phrases, I’ve always felt drawn to “the shirt off my back”.
At the end of the shoot, my lead, Jemima Kirke, slipped off a diamond and ruby fox ring and handed it to me – the ring off her own finger! I was touched by the gesture and by the echo from a woman I’d cast as “me”: I’d done this same thing myself to friends when I felt they needed moral support, unhooking a bracelet or brooch and pressing it into their palm. It’s never the value of the jewellery that matters as much as the instant decision. Maybe it’s a sense of memory conversation with the ancestors who sewed valuables into their clothes as they fled expulsions, pogroms and ghettoes; letting the past know I feel safe enough in my own life to give my precious things away. I’d say I’ve lost three pieces of jewellery this way, but they’re the opposite of lost.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/xdctqoV
0 comments:
Post a Comment