After Harvard, Rob shared some inspiring email discussions with the Citizen Cinema studio team. We though the readers of Citizen Cinema would be interested, so we asked for approval from the correspondents, and they generously approved. Below are the associated letters from Nina Avedon, Tim Roessler, and Rob Nilsson.

Dear Rob,

Still not quite sure how to put into words the visceral experience of 9@night but didn’t want too much time to elapse lest I lose the immediacy of the experience. In the interest of full disclosure, I saw 7 of the 9 films. In the interest of full exposure, I had just returned from a most painful and redemptive time following the death of a family member which left me in a state of physical and emotional exhaustion and openness.
This is a long way of saying that I’m not sure how much was me and how much were the films but I suppose that’s the point anyway; about the blurring of inner and outer and the constant of a fluid subjectivity.

I said to you last night that I don’t trust words anymore which I realize is an odd thing for someone who makes a living plying “The talking cure” to say but your films showed the beauty of the unspoken word and the truth of a gesture. Language can obfuscate but the body knows and cannot lie.

Some themes and images have remained with me. I think you capture the dance between men and women very well; how we continually disappoint one another and want the other to “amaze” us as Michelle says about Denny. How vulnerable and hence unforgiving we can be when we feel rebuffed and our fantasy of desire is thwarted like between the German chanteuse and Perry or between Bid and his roommate. You also show how a little bit of kindness goes a long way for example the tender way Perry treats Lu in Go Together. And of course the pas de deux between a wheelchair bound Bid and his beautiful blonde seductress/savior was so gorgeously poignant especially when we have already witnessed the brutal and tragic consequences of their tryst.

Lu’s daughter’s capacity to remain open to love despite what we know of her backstory struck me as one of the many redemptive stories in your oeuvre. Bid’s performance in the scene with her where you see him struggle with the dual reality of current longings that can’t be fully realized and the memory of desire fulfilled was almost too much to bear; but bear it he did and we along with him. I never cease to be amazed at the mystery of how and why some of us close off while others of us remain open after sustained suffering.

In addition to capturing male bravado and gruffness- Spoddy, Malafide (What a great name!) et al. you also highlight the love in male friendships. I found the scenes between the two roommates in Stroke some of the most moving in the series.

So much more to say … but I’ll stop for now. Rob, many thanks to you, Michelle and all the other players in your Tenderloin Group for providing me the opportunity to undergo such a creative, intense journey these past three days. I know that I will continue to digest, feel, reflect and dream about what I experienced in ways that are familiar and hopefully in ways that are not…

Best,

Nina Avedon

PS. I would like to purchase several of the films. When you get a chance, please let me know the price of a DVD and I will send you a check.

Hello Nina,

Thanks for writing with fresh impressions. Very good for me to hear and digest after a powerful weekend. Your comments feed and nourish. Your recognition of the body as the “non-lying” organ, reminds me of the transports I went through in Reichian therapy, a large factor in my distrust of sitting down and just “talking through” roles and relationships. How much better to live them, experience the nature of character, as opposed to defining it with language and intellect. There are plenty of things for the brain to do in all of this, but for me, that’s mainly in creating a workable structure to begin with and then editing and shaping after the voyaging is over. I think it’s Mike Nichols who talks about the relief of the “dark room” where the alchemy can start once everyone has “lived” (my term) in front of the camera.

I will share your words with our close intimates (Michelle, Dean and workshop members) with your permission. I am also wondering if you would object to me posting your letter on our website. It would be wonderful for others to hear the depth of feeling and perception you show in relation to our work. I don’t have to tell you (the size of the audience does that better) how much we need intelligence and sensitivity in our corner. We have staunch allies in the world, but we need inspired witness such as yours. Let me know your thoughts. You could also go up on our new website to see how we right at the beginning of trying to create new dialogue with people.

We are going to create a box for the 9 film box set and I will let you know about when and how you can get one… or purchase them separately if that’s better for you.

Meantime, let’s stay in touch. Thanks for your courage in sticking it out in the face of personal stress. I remember how my mother started losing hope toward the end of her life. One of the symptoms was her unwillingness to watch Bergman anymore. Also, no one could “argue” at the dinner table any more. Couldn’t we just talk about pleasant things? It was a mistake, in my view, and I think you showed me why. Tragedy “opens” rather than “closes down.” Perhaps that’s why films which exhibit human suffering in an honest way are cathartic. This is one of the paradoxes which I try to keep in mind in the face of the crippling insistence in this country on being “positive” at every moment. In my new film PRESQUE ISLE a woman soliloquizes about how she realized she didn’t love her newborn son, and when she did, tried to hide it from herself. She became a “nice” person, and says that a nice person is one who “has to smile a lot, because she has forgotten what the truth really is.”

Thanks for being there.

Rob

Dear Rob,

A while back I called you to ask your advice about starting an acting workshop, following up on the council you gave Dean Hyers. I regret to say I didn’t follow up on it immediately. In fact, it seemed too – not too hard, but too dishonest, given my own lack of knowledge. Perhaps it was just cowardice or resistance. What I did do, was take some classes myself. Out of the blue, I found a remarkable mentor, a guy named Yuri Brusilovsky. He’s an émigré from Kiev, where he lead a few theatre companies and, importantly, was trained in and then taught the Stanislavski System. So I worked with him, and he worked me very hard, being the old school Russian he is, rigorous and devoted to Art with a capital A in way few people seem to be. And, now, finally I’m beginning, with a few actors. We’re working on some one acts as a basis. Partly out of my own lingering doubts about my capacity, but partly to give some shape and to honor, I hope, the work of some great writers.

Anyway, this is a long way of thanking you again for your generosity with your time and your willingness to share your advice. I’ve shot a couple of short films, and in the process, and in their faults, they’ve only confirmed the good advice you gave me. So, thank you, again. It’s the season for thanksgiving, and although I haven’t completely paid off the debt of your help, I’m starting and will continue to do the work. Your example continues to inspire and teach. I’m grateful that you took the time back then, and I look forward to the time when I’ll have something worth sharing with you.

Best, Tim Roessler �

Hello Tim,

Thanks for your words. If I helped, I’m glad. Our media world, our cultural context in both plastic arts and cinema, is sad. We need committed practitioners who realize that the water is poisoned, the air mutilated with fear and false witness and that human joy, rage, despair and intimate connection must be courted to be human, so that we might receive the benefits of a true catharsis. Anything less shoves the animal aside and promotes the idea that there are “solutions” to the world problems. That is what stops us, this false idea that living a full life, fighting injustice and cruelty is like filling in the blanks in a cross word. If this person is elected, if this law is passed, if this criminal is brought to justice then…

Out there in the world there are actions, activities, things to do, things to avoid. Culture can give us clues to the poetry of truthful recognition and only that, I believe, gives us the clues. We have to live seeking “the way things seem to be”. That is the path to empathy and wildness, joy and the embracing of tragedy. Comedy too. Since people turn away from this difficult realm in order to “lean back” into the babble of mainstream entertainment, we have to make work which helps them to “lean forward” into the work of the pilgrim, the questioner, the curious seeker.

Good luck in your leaning.

Rob