ISSUE #11
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
[EDITED BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
Welcome to an all-new installment of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH, brought to you by GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY!
To start, thank you, thank you, thank you to all who joined us for TITANIC: AN EVENING AT SEA and SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN last weekend! We were so thrilled to see folks dressed up for Titanic, and the energy in the room was palpable — what a great way to experience such a cultural touchstone. Our own David Blakeslee has a piece reflecting on the event further down that you should definitely give a read. And to those who came out Sunday afternoon, those who drove through the rain to watch Singin’ in the Rain — how perfect was that weather? Similar to Titanic, I can’t think of a better way to watch that classic.
Those two events wrapped up our April programming, so I’m here to give you all a sneak peek at our upcoming May programming…
Up first: on MONDAY, MAY 8th, it’s LADY SNOWBLOOD.
A strikingly beautiful young woman is trained from birth to be a deadly instrument of revenge against the swindlers who destroyed her family. Based on the manga series of the same name by Kazuo Koike and Kazuo Kamimura. One of the primary influences on Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill," the Japanese classic on the big screen for one night only!
Then, one week later: MONDAY, MAY 15th, we’ll be screening TAMPOPO.
Juzo Itami’s rapturous “ramen western” returns to U.S. screens for the first time in decades, in a new 4K restoration. The tale of an enigmatic band of ramen ronin who guide the widow of a noodle shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, Tampopo serves up a savory broth of culinary adventure seasoned with offbeat comedy sketches and the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster. Sweet, sexy, surreal, and mouthwatering, Tampopo remains one of the most delectable examples of food on film.
We are SO excited about both of these screenings and can’t wait to share more about them in the next couple installments of the newsletter. For now, get those calendars marked and tickets bought (links are in our “Upcoming Events” section below).
And don’t forget about our other two May events: FILM SOCIETY ROUNDTABLE (5/11) and OPEN PROJECTOR NIGHT (5/24). You can still submit your short films for the latter until May 1st! So if you have a piece you’d like to enter, you can do so on the OPN Film Freeway page by hitting the button below.
Now on with the newsletter!
PRODUCTION PARABLES
IMPOSTER SYNDROME
[BY: BREANA MALLOY]
Having Imposter Syndrome is such an othering feeling. Even sitting down to write about it, I felt like an imposter. I thought, “Who am I to touch on this?” and “Someone probably is better suited to write about this.” It’s a feeling and a state of mind that is hard to escape. After writing my first draft, I knew I had to start over. I was writing this from the point of view that I thought someone with Imposter Syndrome would write from. Isn’t that ironic? I had Imposter Syndrome when writing about Imposter Syndrome. With that realization, I started over, and here we are now. I plan to be honest and candid.
I know many people deal with this, and most of you who are reading this probably do. For me, it seems to flare up in specific situations: starting a new job/promotion, going to new events, networking, receiving accolades, etc. Essentially, it is most prevalent in any situation I am not comfortable with or where I am receiving notable attention. It arises at least once a week. A good example of this is when I hosted Open Projector Night. The OPN team asked me to do so because I had a connection to local narrative filmmakers as well as the corporate video world. They asked me to do it because I was right for the job. I said “yes” when they asked, but as soon as I did - I was terrified. I didn’t feel that I was qualified, and I was so worried about messing it up. I wanted the opportunity, but I kept telling myself that I wasn’t as accomplished as people think I am and that I didn’t deserve it. I barely even told anyone that I was hosting until a few days before. I was afraid that if I told people, it wouldn’t happen.
On the day of Open Projector Night, I was nervous — I didn’t want to prepare too much because I wanted to be myself. It wasn’t too much pressure on me as I mainly just had to welcome everyone and facilitate the Q&A, yet I felt out of place. About an hour before the evening began, I mentioned to those around me that I wasn’t sure why I was asked to do this, but I was thankful. Nick Hartman, head of the OPN selection panel, responded in the best way possible: he told me not to discredit myself, that there's a reason why they asked me. He was honest and encouraging and didn’t feed into my own feelings of being an imposter. I was still nervous and felt so strange being able to lead the event, but I loved it. It was something I had wanted to do and would love to continue doing, although it can be scary. When the night was coming to an end, everyone told me I did great, and I thanked them. I felt out of my element a lot of the night and wondered if I was really meant to be there, but the next day I felt a lot better. I was so happy I had been offered the opportunity and told myself what Nick had told me, that they chose me for a reason.
A lot of us have had those feelings of Imposter Syndrome creep in and take away some of the joy we get from our success and accomplishments. I try to remind myself that Imposter Syndrome is quite common in high-performing individuals. So if you have it, you are usually already successful. Over the last year, I’ve been learning new skills and changing my mindset to prevent me continuing down that path again. I try to do these three things:
Stop trying to be perfect.
Acknowledge the achievements I have made, don’t diminish them.
Check the facts - What actually happened? What did people tell you?
At the end of the day, I know a lot of it is in my head. I am my own worst critic. I have to work past my own limiting thoughts and continue doing the things that I tell myself I shouldn’t. There is no magic fix for Imposter Syndrome. That’s the reality of it. I go to therapy and work on myself weekly, and it still gets to me at times. OPN is a more recent example. I don’t know why I can’t just flip a switch in my brain because I know I am worthy of these things. I work hard for what I have, and I know you all do too. I find that it is ever-present in filmmakers specifically because it is such a subjective field. We are often freelancing and don’t get direct feedback on our work. Just try to focus on the facts. You are getting jobs, people tell you they like your work, and continue trying new things. At the end of the day, we are in this together…and when the feelings start to lurk in, remember your own Nick Hartman is right around the corner to remind you why you do belong there.
CHECK THIS OUT!
Our friends at Media Production Alliance shared this cool event with us and we thought we would pass it along to all of you:
Film & Media Alliance Networking Event at The Collaborative Lab
Mingle with like-minded creators for the Film & Media Alliance of West Michigan’s first-ever membership drive! Learn all about what the Film & Media Alliance of West Michigan has to offer, along with experiencing the breathtaking space of The Collaborative Lab.
The Collaborative Lab opened its high-tech production space for in-person, live-streamed events in Comstock Park in June last year. The versatile 10,000-square-foot space houses a podcast studio and other facilities for content creators. The FMA event will showcase the Collaborative Lab’s 6,500-square-foot primary studio with 4K cameras, studio lighting, teleprompter technology, and an LED wall.April 27th, 2023
6:00pm – 8:00pm
The Collaborative Lab
943 West River Center Drive Northeast
Comstock Park, MI 49321FREE, RSVP via EventBrite
This sounds like a super great event, and GRFS encourages those interested (looking at you, filmmakers) to check it out — especially if you can’t wait for another one of our own Roundtable events.
A CINEPHILE SNOB’S REAPPRAISAL OF TITANIC
[BY: DAVID BLAKESLEE]
Until this past Friday, I had only seen TITANIC once - way back sometime in late December 1997 or January 1998, a few weeks into its original theatrical run. I know that for some readers, such an admission is grossly out of sync with their own experience of having seen the film on countless occasions. Furthermore, it’s laughable in its disregard of a massive and significant foundation of 21st century pop culture… a dubious expression of contempt for one of their formative experiences and influences… discrediting in its arrogant negligence, and an embarrassment to anyone (like me) who claims to be a dedicated aficionado of cinema. Though I have what I believe to be legitimate and justifiable reasons (which I shall shortly disclose) for not making my way back to the almighty shrine erected by James Cameron at the turn of the millennium, I cannot help but acknowledge that, with the benefit of a second viewing now firmly lodged in my memory, my plainspoken disclosure is accompanied by sincere regrets that it took me more than 25 years to give this powerhouse movie a second look.
And yet… I also have to say that, despite that egregious lapse of common sense, bolstered by a trite confidence that I had ‘been there and done that’ and possessed by a reliable grasp of what TITANIC was all about, I can’t imagine a more ideal, fulfilling occasion to renew my acquaintance with one of the greatest theatrical blockbusters of all time than what I experienced at Wealthy Theatre on April 14, 2023 - the 111th anniversary of the final night that RMS Titanic floated atop the frigid waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean.
But before I relay my account of what I experienced at that event, sponsored by the Grand Rapids Film Society, I’d like to fill you in on my personal history with the film in question. Back in 1997, I was very aware of the pending release of TITANIC. It was a lively topic of conversation, a highly anticipated release that had already generated interest and controversy due to massive budgetary overruns, delayed release dates, the unprecedented scale of the production, and lurid speculation that the movie industry was about to experience a legendary flop that would bankrupt Paramount Pictures and leave a trail of career-wrecking carnage in its wake.
Director James Cameron had certainly shown an ability to create memorable and highly lucrative crowd-pleasing entertainment through earlier films like The Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2. He helped transform the 1979 sci-fi/horror mash-up Alien into a successful franchise as the director of its first sequel, Aliens. He showed his technical chops in shooting intense underwater scenes in The Abyss. His previous film True Lies demonstrated an impressive blend of action, suspense, comedy, clever plot twists, and eye-popping visual effects. But with TITANIC, there was a sense that perhaps this ambitious perfectionist had bitten off more than he could chew, that he had perhaps ventured out to ascend a peak that his admittedly prodigious skills might not be capable of attaining.
The sinking of the Titanic, after all, was indelibly etched in the popular consciousness as one of the greatest and most profoundly moving tragedies in the 20th century that was rapidly drawing to a close. The relatively recent discovery of its wreckage and the astonishing footage captured by Cameron using new innovations in deep-sea watercraft and imaging technology had propelled a fresh wave of interest in the sad story of an impeccably appointed luxury liner lost at sea due to hubristic decisions and a foolhardy confidence that the ship itself was absolutely unsinkable. So while there was certainly a general curiosity to know more about what happened on that fateful night in 1912, it wasn’t clear just how successfully those events would translate to film, or if Cameron’s adaptation would be compelling enough to draw viewers in sufficient quantity to offset and ultimately reward the hefty investment of its producers.
Quickly dispelling the initial doubts and skepticism of how TITANIC would fare at the box office, the film emphatically proved itself to be a smash hit within days of its premiere. Whatever eagerness might have existed in the minds of certain critics who looked forward to enjoying a hearty feast of schadenfreude at Cameron’s expense, all that dissipated in a vapor once the early returns started rolling in. There was no doubt that TITANIC was the biggest ‘event’ movie in recent memory, and its momentum continued to build to the point that simply watching it became just about as obligatory an experience as one could imagine (not only across the American cultural landscape but just about anywhere else in the world where an appetite for big audacious movie spectacles had been established). TITANIC was the first film to ever earn over $1 billion in box office receipts (its current haul is around $2.25B worldwide). And so it was that my wife and I made our dutiful pilgrimage to a date night at the old Studio 28, located just a few minutes away from our home, to see for ourselves what all the excitement was about.
Yes indeed, there was definitely plenty in that film to be excited about. The technical marvels of recreating the ship’s interiors in such meticulous detail, the powerful mastery of special effects that rendered Titanic’s ill-fated collision with an iceberg and subsequent destruction in photorealistic verisimilitude, the indelible delivery of heart-wrenching pathos as we witness the sad fate of 1500 innocent souls who perished in one fateful night…and all the associated thoughts the film stirred up about class divisions, the folly of trust in scientific progress and financial prosperity as safeguards against threats of calamity, the random cruelties of nature and the inherent fragility of life: TITANIC delivered massively on each of those points.
And then there was the element of the film that proved to be so polarizing yet, at the same time, so crucial to its success that went on to make it the highest-grossing movie ever made for years: that bombastic romance involving the two main stars of the film - Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, Rose and Jack, the young strangers-become-lovers whose paths cross for a brief moment in time and provide the narrative framework which all the spectacle hinges on. As dazzling and enticing as the couple proved to be to legions of fans who flocked to theaters to take in multiple showings over the following year and beyond, their potent charisma and cultural ubiquity also proved to be a strong instigator of backlash among a sizable contingent of viewers; that was the camp that fell into, I now ruefully confess.
In that initial wave of reaction to TITANIC, it was oh so easy to punch holes in the chain of events constructed by Cameron and his collaborators - the implausibility of so many plot elements that had to perfectly fall into place in order for any degree of plausibility to be maintained. The introduction of gunfights, chase scenes, suspense and horror film cliches about being trapped below decks on a sinking ship, the garish reveling in the depiction of passengers sliding down the deck of the steamer as it appallingly rose above the waterline and bouncing off of metal fixtures as the angles grew ever steeper. There was, and still is, an element of campy theatricality to so many sequences. And yet, I now have to admit that my mild disdain for that so-called excess was terribly misguided as I vainly sought to place myself above what seemed to me at the time to be overtly crass pandering for mass appeal on Cameron’s part.
Don’t get me wrong, I was never a TITANIC hater. I just made a foolish assessment that the movie, while possessing many admirable traits, had won its financial success, zealous fandom, and a steamer trunk full of Academy Awards mainly due to the faddish popularity of its admittedly gorgeous young stars. The phenomenon was propelled by a lemming-like stampede of kids with nothing better to do who kept the turnstiles spinning over the course of a lengthy theatrical run, back in an era when the turnaround to home video availability was much longer than what we’ve become accustomed to in the subsequent decades. And once that unfairly derisive opinion had settled into my brain, I just didn’t see any particular reason to go back and revisit TITANIC. I’d already figured it out. As my interest in cinema as an art form continued to point me more in the direction of independent, classic, and international films, I assumed that there were just so many other movies that I’d rather spend my time with. So this particular epic got filed away in memory, and I was content to leave it at that.
So let me jump ahead to the late winter of 2023. Over the course of the 25 years since I’d watched TITANIC for the first and only time, I certainly wasn’t lacking for exposure to the film via memes, quotes, allusions, and its ongoing, enduringly pervasive presence in the culture at large. Of course Kate and Leo have gone on to have impressive, fantastic careers in the film industry - I’m a fan of them both. I can’t really say the same for James Cameron, but I’ll save my thoughts on the Avatar franchise for some other occasion. As my involvement with the Grand Rapids Film Society has grown in recent months, their plan to put on an anniversary showing of TITANIC in mid-April captured my fancy especially once I heard about the special programmatic touches they had in mind.
As the arrangements for the night came into focus - guests dressed in period-appropriate formal wear, champagne at the concession stand, replica tickets, live musical accompaniment - I recognized a unique opportunity to approach this cinematic colossus with a fresh perspective and renewed appreciation for all the creative imagination and talented effort that went into its celebrated production. So after a bit of reflection about where I’m at in life and the kind of profile I could cut if I gave myself the opportunity, I volunteered to stand at the helm and liven up the proceedings in a little cosplay adventure as Captain Edward John Smith, RD RNR, the skipper selected by White Star Lines to take Titanic out on her maiden voyage for what he intended to be his last crossing before he retired…but who wound up riding her down to their mutual oceanic grave.
Despite the captain’s piteous real-life destiny, what a delightfully fun evening I enjoyed playing the role! Not only did I get the chance to meet-and-greet the majority of audience members as I welcomed them aboard, I also had the experience of watching what I now regard as a true masterpiece of moviemaking at its highest level. Unburdened by any sense of vanity that I was ‘too cool’ for TITANIC, or that I was somehow obliged or entitled to try and knock the film down a peg or two simply as a counterbalance to its overwhelming popularity, I was able to gladly immerse myself in the full emotional sweep of the saga. I saw without prejudice just how captivating the chemistry is between Leo and Kate, how the twists and turns of the plot are not simple indulgences or absurd mechanisms to set up the next set piece but rather efficient masterstrokes of narrative progression that enlarge the real-life tragedy into operatic, even mythic, proportions. Buoyed by the enthusiasm of an audience that showed up ready to heartily engage with the movie as they re-lived cherished scenes for the first, second, tenth or hundredth time, I could not help but feel like I was, for a few fleeting hours, the king of the world myself, thoroughly happy to be riding that wave on what turned out to truly be a night to remember! Whatever critical knocks one might try to register against it, TITANIC the film proved to be more powerfully impermeable on the rewatch than the actual ship’s hull turned out to be when it encountered that implacable, unforgiving chunk of floating ice in the middle of a dark and tragic night.
UPCOMING EVENTS
LADY SNOWBLOOD (Toshiya Fujita, 1973)
WHAT: Based on the manga of the same name, this Japanese classic was the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL films! Don’t miss it on the big screen!
WHEN: Monday, May 8th, 8:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
TAMPOPO (Jûzô Itami, 1985)
WHAT: A band of ramen ronin who guide the widow of a noodle shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe. An all-new 4K restoration of this classic example of food on film!
WHEN: Monday, May 15th, 8:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
Before we wrap things up, we came across this rather fitting installment of the classic comics strip Nancy that we wanted to share with you all…
And so we’ve arrived at the end of another BEAM FROM THE BOOTH! We appreciate you taking the time to read it and truly hope you’ll continue to do so. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to get each issue in your inbox every FRIDAY and stay up-to-date on all things GRFS!
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Look for ISSUE #12 in your inbox NEXT FRIDAY, 4/28!
Until then, friends…
