05.09.2005Mike Nichols
So, Now, Why Have You Called Us Together?
In directing a play or a movie-- whether a farce or a tragedy -- the problem to solve is really the same. There are the same questions. First of all why are we doing this? What`s our point? What are we telling? The audience says silently - so, now, why have you called us together? And you have to have an answer. The first thing I think you have to do is make clear that they are in good hands, they mustn't worry, we know what we are doing. The next question the audience asks is: why are you telling me this? And you have to have a good answer for that one. One answer is: because it's funny. Laughs are a good reason -- as we know daily from Jon Stewart. If that is not the answer in the theatre there is another: because it is your life.
I wonder lately whether our politicians don't have roughly the same requirements of them. When you think, for instance, of Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic Convention it met these requirements and continued with an eloquence based on both reality and metaphor, something we have not been hearing much.
I think that metaphor is in trouble. To take the bible literally, as fundamentalists do, is an attack on the greatest collection of metaphors we have. We need metaphor as we need stories. We need stories that mean more than just the events that transpire in them. Anyone who has read to children knows that the development of their entire personalities requires stories beyond the literal. They are the only way to understand and develop ideas. If we have, as de Tocqueville predicted, become pure market forces then we need to do CPR on metaphor pretty fast. Dr. King knew that an improved reality begins with a dream. In dreams begin responsibilities. |
