Waking Life

On friday, I get to go hear the art director and leading animator from one of my top 20 movies: Waking Life ( www.wakinglifemovie.com)

Waking Life is an animated film made by Austin film maker Richard Linklater. It's about a guy who is always dreaming and the people he meets in his dreams. They usually do most of the talking and do something like tell him their philosophy of life. It was actually filmed and then animated over, but it's an excellent use of animation, because each character is animated to express his worldveiw or exemplify what he's talking about.

I recently stumbled upon the blog of the man in the picture:Caveh Zahedi
He has some really interesting things to say about art at his website:

"...But I believe that all art is “channeled,” i.e. that it comes from God, however one defines that word. But the modern view of art is that it is the self-expression of a sui generis individual, a “genius” who is somehow more brilliant and talented than the rest of us.

The truth is that we are all manifestations of the genius of God. The artist is no different than anyone else except insofar as he is closer to the source of his Being. But today, the artist has acquired the status of a saint, and the culture of celebrity has become our new religion. Only instead of a panoply of saints, known for their virtue and good works, we have movie stars and rock stars as religious icons. These people are worshiped not because of their spirituality or wisdom, but rather because they enable us to project a more grandiose image of ourselves, namely that, like them, we too can be more important and powerful than we actually feel ourselves to be."

Anyway the Art Director Bob Sabiston is going to be in corpus on Friday, and I don't even have the movie to get him to sign. Drat. Maybe I'll go trybuy tomorrowrrow instead of eating one day this fall. Pretty good trade off.

Linklater and Sabiston are also making an animated movie of the Phillip K Dick novel A Scanner Darkly (Watch trailer here ) Dick wrote the stories behind Minority Report and Bladerunner and other scifi movies. I read A Scanner Darkly a few months ago. I had always wanted to read Phillip K Dick, and I was not disappointed.