His Reach Had Exceeded His Grasp (On Hubris)
My last year in Armenia I was approached by a director to play a part in his film; an Armenian-American come to fight for Nagorno-Karapagh. The director was excited to cast me because, in his words, I looked like no one else in the country.
I came in for a fitting a few days later. The director was drunk and emotional, as usual. He said he knew my father and told me how much he respected him. Then he reassured me he was a great director, followed by vague vignettes that comprised his movie, an artistic vision clear to him, but one I was unable to reconstruct.
I was not excited. I took the part because it was being filmed in Dilijan. I hate acting otherwise.
I love Dilijan, it is the forested area of Armenia, prone to heavy fog and mist that makes the surrounding magical. I like the quiet solitude of being alone and out of the city. It's like being surrounded by magic.
It was to be a two day shoot and two night stay. I shared a room with one of the other soldier actors, but he was drinking with friends in another room and barely around.
The first day, we filmed walking through the woods. Up hills. Along creeks. They had a giant fan blowing leaves onto us. We did this for hours. Eventually we entered a meadow and looked on in awe. Here, the director, in a burst of creativity, wrote a line for me to speak.
So I spoke into the camera. Again. And again. And again. Until it was perfect.
The next morning one of the actors broke his leg due to falling from a horse into a ravine. The actor had been a jerk throughout the shoot, and had gotten up early to ride that horse in defiance of the director's request not to. He remained at the hotel discolored and in a daze while the rest of us continued the shoot.
The army had come out to assist, providing smoke, and later, explosives. We wandered some more, took some more establishing shots, and finally were brought face to face with the player piano in the forest.
My part done, I was offered the opportunity to stay and watch the piano explode, or head back to the hotel. I chose to find the quickest way back to Yerevan before someone decided more shots were necessary.
About twenty minutes after arriving at the hotel the film crew started pouring back.
Most of them were laughing, but others were visibly upset. I ran into the director in the parking lot, he was drunk and crying.
He spoke in broken words, he could barely move.
Apparently someone had detonated the piano without being told. And none of the three cameras were rolling. And there was no back piano or explosives to re-shoot the scene. Faking some optimism, he told me to be ready for when we would shoot again.
There would be no continuing of this movie. Over time it would be revealed that he lied about the financing he had received, that the matching funds the Film Center had provided him were the only funds. The money, all but gone, was spent on expensive explosive stunts and shooting the movie on film.
The director was overconfident, too sure of himself, and too reliant on expensive methodologies to succeed.
I came in for a fitting a few days later. The director was drunk and emotional, as usual. He said he knew my father and told me how much he respected him. Then he reassured me he was a great director, followed by vague vignettes that comprised his movie, an artistic vision clear to him, but one I was unable to reconstruct.
I was not excited. I took the part because it was being filmed in Dilijan. I hate acting otherwise.
I love Dilijan, it is the forested area of Armenia, prone to heavy fog and mist that makes the surrounding magical. I like the quiet solitude of being alone and out of the city. It's like being surrounded by magic.
It was to be a two day shoot and two night stay. I shared a room with one of the other soldier actors, but he was drinking with friends in another room and barely around.
The first day, we filmed walking through the woods. Up hills. Along creeks. They had a giant fan blowing leaves onto us. We did this for hours. Eventually we entered a meadow and looked on in awe. Here, the director, in a burst of creativity, wrote a line for me to speak.
So I spoke into the camera. Again. And again. And again. Until it was perfect.
The next morning one of the actors broke his leg due to falling from a horse into a ravine. The actor had been a jerk throughout the shoot, and had gotten up early to ride that horse in defiance of the director's request not to. He remained at the hotel discolored and in a daze while the rest of us continued the shoot.
The army had come out to assist, providing smoke, and later, explosives. We wandered some more, took some more establishing shots, and finally were brought face to face with the player piano in the forest.
My part done, I was offered the opportunity to stay and watch the piano explode, or head back to the hotel. I chose to find the quickest way back to Yerevan before someone decided more shots were necessary.
About twenty minutes after arriving at the hotel the film crew started pouring back.
Most of them were laughing, but others were visibly upset. I ran into the director in the parking lot, he was drunk and crying.
He spoke in broken words, he could barely move.
Apparently someone had detonated the piano without being told. And none of the three cameras were rolling. And there was no back piano or explosives to re-shoot the scene. Faking some optimism, he told me to be ready for when we would shoot again.
There would be no continuing of this movie. Over time it would be revealed that he lied about the financing he had received, that the matching funds the Film Center had provided him were the only funds. The money, all but gone, was spent on expensive explosive stunts and shooting the movie on film.
The director was overconfident, too sure of himself, and too reliant on expensive methodologies to succeed.
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