The other night watching a movie on demand only because the actor Zach Galifanakis was in it I found inspiration for our production. I find inspiration can come from anywhere and at the moments when we are not looking for it. This movie really moved me, and I definitely feel it fits with many of the aspects from atmosphere, mood, and theme that we are working on in our production. There have been articles that director Christopher Nolan had his cast and crew watch Pink Floyd's The Wall before they made Inception. I feel this technique for inspiration can be applied to any mediums whether it be a song, painting, or movie it can inspire our work on this production.
Visioneers is a film that as soon as it was finished you cannot really stop thinking about it. It is a dark comedy that really comments on one man's ambitions and traditions. There are similarities in story between this film and the three one-acts, specifically Wasp by Steven Martin.
The protagonist in the Visioneers is portrayed by Zach Galifianakis. It is the story of a man who is a descendent of George Washington. The founding fathers in America are the ones who originated Wasp culture and why they are still prominent in American culture and places of power. The setting of this film is a near-future dystopia where people for unknown reasons are simply exploding. While everyone works for a corporation that is bigger than any existing today they spend most of their time worried that at any moment they could burst. The main character George Washington Winsterhammerman feels he can never live up to his name. He has a wife that is glued to the television most of the day taking advice from self-help books and the TV personalities. We never see his son who he speaks to through the door only to find at the end of the movie he is no longer there. He learns that having dreams are connected to the exploding. He dreams involve him as George Washington having to deal with telling his troops he has lost the war. It's a touching story of a man who wants to be himself when all late-night TV and advertising is telling him to be passive and to submit to his routine in life.
When George finally goes into his son's room he finds a line from a poem, "We wish, of course, that our women would die like biting rats in the cellars, our men like wolves on the mountain." This is from the poem "We are Those People" by Robinson Jeffers. George is affected by this greatly. The film needs to be seen to in order to fully realize how. After finding the poem the line comes from it continues, "It will not be so. Our men will curse, cringe, obey;
Our women uncover themselves to the grinning victors for bits of chocolate."
When George finally goes into his son's room he finds a line from a poem, "We wish, of course, that our women would die like biting rats in the cellars, our men like wolves on the mountain." This is from the poem "We are Those People" by Robinson Jeffers. George is affected by this greatly. The film needs to be seen to in order to fully realize how. After finding the poem the line comes from it continues, "It will not be so. Our men will curse, cringe, obey;Our women uncover themselves to the grinning victors for bits of chocolate."
I feel at the heart of this film is the relationship between George and his wife, much like a major part of Wasp. Each is satirizing this culture, but people like these exist in fractured relationships because of the internal and external. I do not believe there may ever be a solution, but I feel understanding between individuals and communication are important. These are my thoughts about inspiration and themes we are presenting in production.
