Preparation
"What would it take to set yourself on fire? How long before the act do you plan? Is it necessary to be in some altered state of consciousness brought about by drugs, mental agitation or some such extreme state of being?" As a method actor of old, I would ponder such questions as these when taking on rolls with such extreme scenes. Method acting demands total immersion, the losing of one's self. "
Oh! she said. Perhaps method acting is the only route to reality."
There are thousands of ways to die and I have toyed with scores of them, seeing as the life of the vagabond thespian has been my life. So colorful. So joyously careless. So poignantly bon vivant. The accompanying sound track can sometimes fill one with deep painful resonance, though when it's over you don't remember hearing it at all. Very satisfying. Very worthwhile. Very "in the moment."
Recently my fascination has turned toward an extreme of human experience, namely the glory of self-immolation. I speak here not of the horror of burning a human body as spectacle. Viewing a person being burned at the stake demands your attention, believe me. I have done it more than once, as preparation for a role. But no, that of which I refer is more analogous to monks setting themselves on fire in the village square. Setting oneself on fire as a religious or political act can be a powerful protest or perhaps an act of love. As a matter of fact, I believe Pontius Pilate may have better met his goals to take Jesus out in a glorious and dramatic bonfire. A fast-moving breathtaking crescendo of sensational painlove, rather than a long drawn-out scene of lachrymose suffering. But that's just me.
Alas, I cannot control all of history. Only my own and some others to a lesser degree, and even then, I can only hope I am getting it right, and the acting will be masterful.
For example.
In this scene blood flowed down my hands and fingers, red heart-driven rivulets softly flowing onto the speckled linoleum kitchen floor. Tempting it was, to crouch down and get a closer look, perhaps on all-fours, and then to lightly touch my tongue to the cool scratch filled floor. She imagined how that would look. If the camera were behind her, she on her knees in her faded housedress, her mound of buttocks the apex of a great mountain range which after its descent quickly began its climb toward two pointed shoulders which, under their supporting arms, revealed a torrent of falling hair, spooling out, falling helter skelter in and about the bright clotting crimson smearings, amid the shiny golden speckles on the outdated linoleum floor. Pollockesquery
she thought.
It's a take.
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