Excerpt from Emir Kusturica’s Underground
as rendered in Google Sketch Up.

I really don’t know where I am going with this. Is Schlocky imitation for the ham-value really what I am going to pull out of remaking movies with Serbs? Is it endearing by proxy of that french guy? It was an unoriginal idea before I learned that Gondry did it. In fact, it was an unoriginal idea that I didn’t like. I was embarrassed by the idea when I began, but pretended to justify it as a “what the people want” Peace Corps/ Ghana Think Tank approach, and did it because I promised I would.

But it’s grown on me. It may not my style (pop reference as content), but at the very least — I just realized I have a taboo: pop-culture reference. As if 1970’s birdhouses are deeper. The reference isn’t the content here; it’s the vehicle. Wait, that sounds too fancy. Let me put it this way:

When I first came to Serbia, I was scared. Less than a decade ago, my country (the United States) had very prominently led the NATO forces that bombed the town I now live in. And then, while I was living here, in Southern Serbia - the most radical/nationalist part of the country and less than 10 km from Kosovo - Kosovo declared independence from the rest of Serbia. American flags popped up next to Albanian flags in celebration (it is the Kosovo Albanian majority who pushed for independence, and the Kosovo Serbs who are, for the most part, fighting it within the region) while my embassy and my country’s cultural symbols burned - looted McDonalds, smashed Rambo posters, burnt US flags.

At first, I flinched at the inevitable jokes, but soon I realized that they were jokes, and that Gwen Stefani’s Hotness (you listening Rachelle?) represented Amerika to a lot of people in a much more experienced way than our nation’s “leaders” did.

I think this is old hat to most who read this blog, so I’ll just say that an interesting subtext to what still embarrasses me in this The Cinema Works Again project are the clumsy cultural imperialism tones meshed with the equally clumsy we are the world aspects, as well as the layers of awkwardness of working between cultures - and the realization that the awkwardness of culture is caused much less by the Serbian/American thing than the 12 year old girl/ 30+ year old man thing.

So there’s my answer - and I swear I did not start out this post with it in mind, but found it as I typed while thinking - it’s the people. What makes this embarrassing project worthwhile is
1) that it is embarrassing
2) because of the people.

And that’s why a Crappy Google Sketchup of Emir Kusturica’s final scene in Underground doesn’t belong in this project. No people. So I have to get some people, and make a floating hunk of land, and do it for real like Fitzcarraldo. Not because it is harder, but because, as Jacob Goble pointed out, that is the one thing this project has over its shadow: I am really finding people to remake movies so we can show them in our ad-hoc public cinema, rather than making a movie about remaking movies (though, to be fair, I hear* Gondry did find some people cold on the street to remake some of these movies. Of course, how cold can it be when you’re Michel Gondry?) I was thinking about that when wondering if Sting could actually ever experience real Belgrade night life?

*Since I learned about Gondry’s film, which for the record, was after I started, I have been avoiding learning anything about his movie for fear of influence.

Anyway, I don’t want this post to end with a Gondry comparison, so instead I will end it with a quote from Chuck Klosterman’s Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: Damn, I can never find that quote, so I will paraphrase it. This quote pretty much captures the whole book, anyway.

Chuck Klosterman is asking some girl if she thinks MTV’s Real World is real?

“Well, did it take place in an alternate reality?”
       ”No.”
“So these people actually do these things?”
       ”Yes.”
“And actually exist in the same plane of existence as you and I?”
       ”Yes.”
“They’re not just figments from another universe?”
       ”No.”
“And were actually filmed, with real cameras, in this same world as you and I?
       ”Yes.”
“Well, then it’s real.”

His was much pithier. I think I left the book at Haystack.