My spirits soar to welcome a new school year but my body lags behind. I could teach today in a pinch and hopefully, presumably, tomorrow I'll be better. But I'm thinking I won't be 100% tomorrow. We'll see. Normally the first week includes a 2-hour introductory lecture, which is what worries me. I can shuffle a few things if I have to and show a documentary before the lecture rather than the usual order.
I've been rejoicing over the ending of my film. It's quite new for me -- an optimistic ending! The ending of recent work with similar themes -- my novels Love At Ground Zero and Kerouac's Scroll have darker endings -- but the ending of The Farewell Wake is not dark at all. It is playful, it is fun, it is optimistic. Resolution as play, as dropping out imaginative fun. I like it.
It's revealing how this ending came about. First, it is based on the biographical experience of one of the actors. I've gotten good at incorporating biological events into my fictional stories. So when I learned that Rick, playing the director, had taken a motorcycle trip over the entire old route 66, I knew I had to use this in the film. However, at the time, I did realize how important this would be and how it would inform the resolution of the story. And once done and decided, how could the ending be anything different? It's so organic and natural to the events in the story.
None of which would have happened had Rick, the actor, not taken his trip! A fascinating process.
Given its optimistic ending, maybe the film should be my swan song. Hmm.
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