Necessity
...The Mother of Invention

It really is.

Needing more money. Needing a couple more paints. Needing some love or at least some sex.

Makes you inventive, either to get any of those items or other. Or to create.

At the very least, when you've got everything and don't have anything to worry about, it takes a keen mind to be able to create something that isn't sappy "gee isn't life swell" happy nor trying to cop to some bullsh!t lifestyle that isn't true.

Take that Metallica documentary. I'm not saying that money and success made them happy. I'm not saying they don' t have their problems. However, it's not like it's easy to feel sorry for them. Either they stuck it out (which they did) for it to come back together, or they go their separate ways. They made their mark already. Without a major modification, they'll soon be on that trip where audience don't want to hear anything except for the hits you had 10 or more years ago.

And it's hard to believe that some superstar hip hop artist is still a part of the South Central streets when he's now lived the past 4-5 years in some mansion in the middle of nowhere in suburban Calabasas.

Compare the inventive/creative quality Rodriguez's El Mariachi vs. his movies with a budget. I'm not saying they're bad, but there was markedly a whole lot let reason to push the envelope. Or take Clerks vs. Mallrats (but I do think that Kevin's tried to expand his vision as he's gone along)?

I enjoyed reading Stephen King's book from earlier on when he was still subject to an editor. There were some good books later on, but they read better when they had to be much more taut and focused.

It also has something to do with peaking in a time line.

It has something to do with vision too. That's true.

But it also has to do with contentment vs. desire, and having your resources taken away from you.

It's what I always liked about Soderbergh's little movies that he would shoot between the blockbusters. They weren't all great across the bored, but they at least would push the envelope here and there. They would get a little more personal. They would figure out a different way of doing things because there wasn't enough money to do it the "Hollywood" way. Then a lot of that would make it back into the big budget movies.

Jim Jarmusch is real love/hate for a lot of people, but there's still always something interesting in them because he has to craft on a much more miniaturized scale to some soulless Jerry Bruckheimer vehicle. You may not like the results of Jim's movie, but you'll walk away knowing whose movie you watched.

That has to be why there are so many people out there now like Tarantino (...and myself, I guess) who thrive on all those exploitation and genre flicks of the 60's and 70's because they great ones are still low budget but they're often just so d@mned creative. They had no choice. They had no money, and they had to stand out in markets flooded with similar product. Of course, it's called exploitation because all too often the way to stand out was nudity, carnage, or gore....but what can you do?

If you got no money, you gotta make a movie that tells a story, write a book that got the big grab, pour some pain into a song...you know whatever. I don't know many "starving" artists who can afford to be deemed self-indulgent. That's not to say that there aren't many who are, it's just where does it get them?

I'm rambling.

Take care.

Cheers.