FAQ

Saints and Poets is hoping to discover, through its aging protagonist, what being human means today in this age of distraction. I intend to take the viewer on a journey of coming to terms with a new world surrounding them. The protagonist, a one hit wonder, aging ex-celebrated author has been a recluse by both circumstance and choice, is coerced to step out and face what he and modern society has become. Can a passive viewer watch a man actively mirroring our search for meaning on the inevitable universal journey towards our mortality?

My intention has been to craft an antidote to our society’s misguided obsession with technology. Life has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. The onset of the Digital Age has streamlined systems and consolidated access to information with negative consequences that are just beginning to unfold. People find themselves longing for an experience they can’t properly name. The square bytes of data invisibly swirling from device to device is a simulation leading us nowhere. Can the virtual engagement with the outside world ever satisfy our human needs?

This is a road picture of unfolding encounters with people both influencing and amending the path. If virtual reality is the fantasy of what we hope to be, then reality must be faced by who we are now, and that fracture can be violent, funny, unexpected, surprising, compassionate and almost a prophecy itself. 

Saints and Poets gets its title from the classic American play Our Town. In the third act, Emily looks toward the Stage Manager and asks abruptly, through her tears: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?” The Stage Manager replies: “No. The saints and poets maybe…they do some.”

Our Town is a timeless and prophetic attack on our inability to comprehend mortality and like the novel “Song of the Leafbird” that the film’s main character D.A. (Don) Porter wrote, it has become a mythology.

There are 3 deliberate moments where voiceover from “Song of the Leafbird” perfectly echo the challenges Don Porter faces on his journey. These transcendent passages, from a novel that have seemingly helped a generation, are finally but unconsciously coming to life for the reluctant author that never took ownership of having truly created them. Don hasn’t lost a curiosity for life, it has simply shifted into deep isolation. He has a strong point of view but with the recent death of those close to him he becomes adrift of purpose. We follow him being led by the unusual people he is both open and forced to meet. Characters all around him seem to need something and he slowly comes to realize that life really is about desire as a human condition. Desire to be something, do something or have some thing. He is juggling his own issues with aging and the feeling that his “something” is misunderstood and from a past he can’t remember. This conflict between meaning and practice will be visually evident.

Saints and Poets will meander like a great novel. It allows for moments to play like an exhale. Introspective and languid, Saints and Poets will prioritize the human condition. The action is pushed forward by chance encounters and happenings. The settings are simple reflections of the mostly forgotten and misunderstood small towns along the central passage west out of Chicago. Old barber shops, convenience stores, diners, tired motels, bookstores, and mechanic shops all house an untampered wisdom from the simplicity of place and people within them. Like Our Town which broke convention by stripping the stage bare of prop and set, Saints and Poets will have no superfluous objects or characters added to the frame. Meaning will come from the moment and the character will make discoveries along the journey as it unfolds in real locations moving west with the story. Every object and moment will juxtapose the journey of the search with the lessons learned from trailing circumstance.

Every artist believes their work will transcend the boundaries that may limit its acceptance but every artist also tends to be divinely dissatisfied. The real work is to boldly speak one’s truth without fear of judgement.

In my lifetime I have experienced the onset of the digital age. I celebrate the benefits this hyper speed exchange of information has allowed, but I also recognize the isolation that same access has brought to people. That shift, that push and pull, a glimpse of tension between the old and new, what we had versus what we have is what I am exploring in Saints and Poets and the audience that recognizes that friction as something always around us, I hope, will ride home from seeing Saints and Poets and ask, “What do I value from day to day?”

If a viewer asks, “Have I forgotten what it all means…”, perhaps questions what they perceive as their own purpose, then Saints and Poets will have been successful. Maybe a young couple, having seen the film, will pause before grabbing their cell phones while sitting across from each other and engage in real conversation. Someone older perhaps, in the last chapter of their lives, will recognize that it’s never too late to discover adventure and be open to a forgotten passion.

I believe that this film will have universal appeal because at its root is a hope we haven’t lost that same human need to connect with each other beyond any device we can only manipulate alone.