Zen Again...

I know they say enlightenment first, then the laundry. But I really gotta do some laundry.

— Hᴏʟʟʏᴡᴏᴏᴅ Dɪᴄᴋ (@HollywoodDick) June 25, 2011

Technology

I got my first computer around the time I was transitioning out of the 'Lego' phase of human nerd development and into the 'science-kit' phase. It was, in fact, a science-kit computer, which was basically a rudimentary circuit board which I 'programmed' by connecting pieces of wire into a series of pinholes. If I wired the circuits correctly, I could perform simple calculations by placing a pre-printed strip of paper in front of the row of bulbs at the top of the board, and sliding a set of sliders into place. The bulbs would light up the numbers and the answer would magically appear. Pretty crude, but I thought it was amazing.

When I was in high-school, we had access to a 'computer lab' where we learned to program a computer using BASIC. The computer was actually a teletype connected to mainframe at the University of Louisville, which we accessed through a timeshare system using a dial-up connection. And when I say dial-up, I mean we literally had to dial a rotary phone and place it into a special cradle so it could 'talk' to the mainframe. I really didn't learn much programming in the computer lab, though. We mostly just used the phone to make crank calls.

In college, I took a class where I learned to program micro-computers to use in the composition of electronic music. I say I 'learned' to do that, but I honestly don't remember much at all from that class. I was a lot more interested in making music than learning programming. I spent most of my time playing around with the ARP 2600 synthesizer, which was programmed using patch cords, not unlike an old telephone switchboard, or my science-kit computer.

My first 'home' computer was a Commodore 64 that I plugged into an old black and white TV set to use as a monitor. The CPU was contained within the keyboard, and the only other piece of hardware was the external 5.25 inch floppy drive, about the size of a child's shoe box. I used the C64 to to create a spreadsheet to balance my checkbook, but not much else. My biggest achievement with it was taking apart the floppy drive when one of my disks got stuck and successfully putting it back together.

When first I started writing screenplays, I had to rely on borrowed computers. At one of my paralegal jobs, I had access to an early IBM Thinkpad, which I managed to smuggle home with me. I wrote my first screenplay on it, using good old WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.

Yes, those were the days, my friends.

Eventually, I broke down and bought myself a Compaq notebook with 170 MB of memory (total) that ran Windows 3.1 and had a PCMCIA slot, allowing me internet access with a 56k modem. I logged on to AOL, picked out my screen name (MYRDHINN) and never looked back. I was now part of the technology revolution!

It was an exciting time to be alive.

By the time I made my move to Hollywood, I was ready for a technology upgrade. The little Compag notebook was not suitable for writing screenplays. I bought my first PC, an eTower 400i, running Windows 98 with a whopping 4 gigabytes of memory and 250 MB of RAM. And with a few minor upgrades, I have been using that machine ever since. I increased the RAM, added a CD burner, installed an Ethernet port, and replaced the power supply.

And the damn thing just kept on working.

For several years, however, I have been contemplating getting a new computer. I figured I should have a laptop so that, if need be, I could write my screenplays from anywhere -- say, on location on a movie set, for example. I watched and waited as the technology improved and the prices dropped, until it got to the point where they were practically giving them away.

And then I made my move.

The machine I am using now beats the pants off my old computer. It has tons of memory, it's super-fast, it has WiFi, and it can go anywhere. When I wanted to move all of my files from the old computer to this one, I was able to store over 4000 separate files on a thumb drive. The total amount of memory required is less than the available RAM memory on this computer. It has a webcam and a DVD burner. I can write screenplays, record music, make movies and video-chat with my family.

And who knows what else?

It's a far cry from the crude science-kit computer I once found so amazing. But it's still just a tool. An unbelievably powerful tool, but still just a tool.

The question is: what am I going to do with it?

Sidney Lumet

One night, back when I was at Wesleyland, I was walking down Foss Hill and I saw a helicopter sitting in the middle of Andrus Field. I went over to check it out and found the pilot sitting in the cockpit. I asked him what he was doing there and he told me he had been hired by Sidney Lumet to fly up from New York for a speaking engagement on campus that evening. Although I knew who Lumet was, somehow I had missed hearing that he was coming to Wesleyan. I would have liked to see him. I thought it was pretty cool that he flew up from New York in a helicopter to come talk to a bunch of film students. Who does that?

One of the first times I ever went to see a movie without my parents was when I went to see a Sean Connery movie called The Anderson Tapes with our next-door neighbors. It was a big deal going to see a real grown-up movie on my own and I was pretty excited. I still remember certain scenes from that movie very vividly -- it had a real impact on me. But mostly I remember being very upset afterwards. I don't know why, but I couldn't get to sleep. I just kept thinking about the movie and the characters and the feeling that it was all so real and so intense. The Anderson Tapes really freaked me out. It was a Sidney Lumet movie.

A few years later, our church youth group leader took a bunch of us to see Al Pacino in Serpico, the true story of a New York cop who refuses to go on the take and ends up getting shot in the face by his own guys. We had to get permission slips from our parents because it was rated R, and some kids weren't allowed to go. But I had already read the book, so my parents didn't see any harm. I loved Serpico. I thought Pacino was the coolest. And I loved New York -- Serpico's New York, gritty and grimy and hip and tough. Serpico blew me away. Another Lumet movie.

At Wesleyan I saw several Lumet movies, and began to realize just how great the man in the helicopter really was.

Murder on the Orient Express was an adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel featuring the amazing Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot, along with an all-star cast that includes Sean Connery and Ingrid Bergman. Hard to believe it was made by the same director that made The Anderson Tapes and Serpico, but Lumet was never confined to one type of subject matter or genre. Whatever the tale, Lumet brings it to life with intelligence and style, using his formidable craft to serve the story in any way he can.

Lumet's next movie was about a guy who robs a bank to pay for a sex-change operation for his boyfriend. These days that may seem like no big deal, but when Dog Day Afternoon came out you just didn't have a lot of bisexual movie heroes winning over the hearts of audiences across America. Of course it helps when you have Al Pacino playing the bank-robber, Sonny. But it is Lumet's storytelling genius that puts us so squarely in Sonny's corner right from the get-go, so that when he reveals his true motive for the robbery it makes him even more sympathetic, rather than less.

Lumet was on a roll. His next film was Network. What can you say about Network? Brilliant script by Paddy Chayefsky. Brilliant performances by Peter Finch, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty. Brilliant directing by Lumet. What was once considered cutting edge satire is now reality TV. It doesn't get much better than this.

Lumet went back to his roots in the theater for Equus, adapting the prize-winning play with Richard Burton as the psychiatrist. In a way, the film's exploration of a troubled psyche reminds me of another Lumet gem, Long Day's Journey Into Night, which stands as one of the greatest theatrical adaptations ever filmed. In both, you have characters striving to understand the workings of a tortured mind, only to come face to face with their own dark secrets.

I've always loved courtroom dramas. In The Verdict, Lumet teamed up with Paul Newman and screenwriter David Mamet to give us one of the best ever made. Every moment of this movie is worth savoring. And Newman's final summation to the jury is a perfect example of great writing, great acting and great directing. Lumet, Mamet and Newman should have been given Oscars for that scene alone.

Speaking of courtroom dramas, the first time I served on jury duty, I found myself in a situation similar to Henry Fonda's in 12 Angry Men. Everyone else on the jury thought the defendant was guilty, but I wasn't convinced. I had to explain my position to the other jurors, and even though it wasn't as volatile or dramatic as the movie, I couldn't help thinking of Henry Fonda's performance as I laid out the facts of the case. I was in an awkward position, but I had Fonda as my guide. Eventually I convinced everyone that the facts just weren't there to support a conviction, and we let the guy go free. He'll never know it, but Sidney Lumet saved his ass that day.

When I was getting ready to direct my short film Dante's View, I read Lumet's book Making Movies. In it, he describes the process he used to shoot 12 Angry Men. In order to give the feeling of the room closing in on the jurors during the course of their deliberations, Lumet decided to slowly lower the camera angle throughout the course of the movie, bringing the walls and ceiling more and more into the frame to loom over the actors. To accomplish this feat, he shot the movie completely out of sequence, getting every shot facing one wall, in order, from daytime to nightfall, slowly lowering the camera angle as he went, until he had all the shots he needed. Then he'd start over facing the next wall, repeating the process until he'd covered all four walls. This technique took tremendous planning and organization to match the lighting, the angles, the performances, everything. And when you watch the movie, it's seamless. Totally unnoticeable. But the feeling is there. That's a real director.

Lumet's final movie, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, shows him at the top of his form until the last -- shooting on HD video in the quick and economical style he developed in his early years in television. Lumet insisted on calling the movie a melodrama, which has become a dirty word in the movie business, but once again it shows his mastery of the material. By focusing on the emotional impact of the events on the characters, Lumet elevates what could be a hum-drum crime drama to operatic level, serving the story in the best way possible.

I never did get to see Sidney Lumet, the man in the helicopter, but he's always been there, for all these years, showing me how to do it right.