The hook

I just saw danish filmmaker Susanne Bier's "Yours forever", a much stronger story than you might think from the title, and fantastic acting. It's the kind of acting that looks as if it is cut straight out from peoples lives, and in other words doesn't look like acting. The kind of acting that makes me think "This I will never be able to do" and in the next moment "I won't stop trying til I can." That's the catch, the hook that makes me sit up too late with my blog because I just have to express something, makes me take on too much work between classes and makes me hate having to spend time earning mony on other things. It feels like wading in molasses, never getting anywhere, stuck. But like I said, this summer a way out of that is opening.Øyvind and two other people, Hege Gabrielsen and Yngve Marcussen, are starting a school in method based film acting. They want people to be able to apply directly for the second year. And he has told me that I am one of those who can do that. That gives me the chance to go to go to acting school full time for a year, something I possibly will be able to handle economically in my age and situation in life. And with that, I just might get good enough to swing it.

He's breathing!

I did the monologue again tonight, and decided to set my goals no higher than to try to make it breathe. A little.

The first time I did it without a physical person as a substitute for my assassin. I felt it went somewhat better than the last time, but I was nervous and it didn't quite open up. But enough had happened to make Øyvind give me a second go, and then I had a woman sitting in the chair. That made a big difference. The whole thing slowed down, and I felt that what I said had meaning.

But I still have a long way to go with it. And afterwards I realized what kept me back.

Words on Kurtz

I read the manuscript over again tonight, and got hold of some keywords on Kurtz; stubborn, enormously tired, worn out, aggressive, lonely, reminiscing of childhood. Wanting to be freed from his pain.

Directly after reading, I took a half hour with the boots, and interesting things started happening. The polishing gradually took on a frantic character, and tick like mimicry emerged when i did the monologue while polishing. The madness, which I had almost overlooked, maybe not wanted to acknowledge, came out. I still have some ground to cover, but it felt like a good long step toward opening the monologue. I'm starting to believe in it, and I look forward to a new turn tomorrow. Have a good weekend!

A new feeling of night

You know, I'm a real sissy when it comes to staying up late during the week. I have to be in bed somewhere between eleven and eleven thirty, or else I'll be just a little bit too tired to enjoy my next day and get things done. But with my blog this has changed. I have a passion for it that easily keeps me up til after midnight, and I don't fell tired the day after.

I just have to show you this kitchy nocturnal from where I spend my summer vacations.

On the contrary, I'm full of energy in a peaceful way, optimistic about the future. I even feel stronger than before that I have a future. So that means the blog is important, it lets me do something I have needed but not found a means for earlier.

Like I said in the piece about Life and passion, many people feel the are in a hurry all the time, but never feel they get anything done. That's because they are busy doing the wrong things. There is something of vital importance that they haven't done, and don't realise that they want and need to do that keeps them busy and dissatisfied. So that's what my blog must have hit in me, and opened up. Now I'm going to bed...

Searching for Kurtz

I want to show you some photos I took on my way home from Embla the other day. While I'm selecting and uploading them, I'm thinking of Kurtz. During the day a new Kurtz has been emerging in bits and pieces. Some has come from emotions that have been locked and hidden by the influence of Marlon Brando, or the way I've seen him, some has come from Joseph Conrad's Kurtz and some from Elliot's poem The Hollow Men. And I rembered that early in the process of working with the monolouge, I used a woman as a substution for Willard, Kurtz's assassin. The pictures reminds me of pictures from the film, the lights in the deep darkness. And, by the way, Embla is the woman god in Norse mythology. I think a female element is what I need for Kurtz, and I want to make him much weaker, more in need of compassion and care.

I want to see him as a man who leaves the world "not with a bang, but with a whimper", to use Elliot's words. It did me good to find this way of seeing and experiencing him, because under the influence of Brando I've been struggling to make him tough. I've chosen clothes that will show what I've got of muscles, and tried to look like a tough man of war. I've never really believed in this, neither myself as tough in this manner, or the character. I found the opening lines "I've seen horrors. Horrors that you have seen" almost impossible to fill with meaning, and considered leaving them out. I thought of them as Kurtz wanting to teach the young Willard the realities of war, but it never did quite stick. Now they give perfect meaning. He is pleading for compassion, pleading to be seen in a softer light because of the horrors he has seen.

Now I feel that there is life and movement in my work with him, I'm not stuck any longer. Maybe he'll change again several times til Monday, but that doesn't worry me. On the contrary, I look forward to seeing which way it goes.
And every day I'm shining those boots. Tonight I was at it for close to an hour. I polish them til my mind goes totally blank and my sight grows dim. Maybe Kurtz will come out clearly from that.

Deadlock of the stubborn

Kurtz did not go well tonight. I can tell you, the feeling of sitting there on stage knowing that every word you say sounds artificial and like something you don't know why you are saying, really sucks. And when you're done, you see all the faces wearing these slightly worried, serious frowns, politely not looking at you. Well, you just have to take a deep breath and face the music. These are the Norwegian army boots I bought for the occcasion. Having polished them for an entire hour today, and for thirty to fortyfive minutes twice during the weekend, I thought I had the physical action under my skin. I didn't, though. The movements were clumsy and without meaning, just like the words. The whole monolouge felt totally locked for me. Øyvind wasn't worried though, because we've seen it better. He quickly figured out that Kurtz must have polished his boots around 7000 times. I had maybe done them 30. So it's a matter of getting this action so automatized that I don't have to think about doing it at all. I'll have to polish them for at least half an hour every day before I do the monologue again next monday.

But that is not my main problem. The problem is that I wouldn't listen to Øyvinds advice not to do something we have seen recently or many times. I have seen Apocalypse Now maybe six times, and it is my number one favourite film. But since some years had passed since last time I saw it, I thought that wouldn't be a problem. At least that's what I said to myself. But the truth is I just wouldn't listen. Tonight I saw how right Øyvind was when he said that no matter what, Marlon Brando's way of doing the scene will allways stand in the way of my own interpretation. I really felt it tonight, when I made my notes after having been on stage. So much for being stubborn. Maybe that's me being a little bit like Kurtz, in a petty way, and ending up in a deadlock, like him.

Now I'll just have to prove myself by creating my very own Kurtz, against all odds.

Embla ceramics

There's a section of Hegdehaugsveien consisting of only a couple of blocks right by the SAS hotell at Holbergs plass, that has a totally different atmosphere than the busy shopping street most people know. It makes out a small, peaceful world of its own I feel, and here you find Embla ceramics, shop and workshop for the four artists Siw Heier, Diddi Videsjorden, Anne Udnes and Monika Wojtkiewicz. When I walked by the shop som days ago, I was struck by a glimpse of warm, golden light behind the windows, and instantly felt I had to go inside. This vase by Diddi Videsjorden catches some of that shining light, but when I came in I realised that it was the clear, soft colour and golden glow from a large bowl she has made that had reeled me in.

She generously gave me carte blanche to take photos for sygnazeit, but typically I discovered that the battery in my camara was flat. So I came back later, in the evening, as it got dark.As you probably have noticed, the dark and the mirror images that it invites is a favourite of mine. I think it suited these sculptured womens heads by Siw Heier.

Also Anne Udnes sculpts heads. To me this one has a particularily peaceful beauty.

This one portrays her daughter, I was told by Diddi.

Cups in a basket makes a fine mix of patterns.

Two vases by Diddi.

Monika Wojtkiewicz studied fashion sewing at the Academy of Visual Arts in Poznan, Poland, her home country. She also studied engineering in the protection of the environment in Wroclaw. Onle quite recently has she taken up pottery. She made this enigmatic mask.

You'll find Embla ceramics in Hegdehaugsveien 14, somewhat hidden in a world of its own, peacefull like the workshops and burning room in the cellar under the shop.