CANTRILLS FILMNOTES: He always thought they would grow old together

CANTRILLS FILMNOTES: He always thought they would grow old together

"When I call up pictures of friends, lost, a terrible ache comes over me, so much so that it has to go away on its own, there isn't much by way of remedy that I can do. I remember a letter of Henry James where he said that in times of great grief it was important to `go through the motions of life'; and then eventually they would become real again.... I've been trying to write myself a poem about those ancient Japanese ceramic cups, rustic in appearance, the property at some point of a holy monk, one of the few possessions he allowed himself. In a later century someone dropped and broke the cup, but it was too precious simply to throw away. So it was repaired not with glue but with a seam of gold solder. And I think our poems are often like that gold solder, repairing the break in what can never be restored perfectly. The gold repair adds a kind of beauty to the cup, making visible part of its history...." – friend on answering machine

(A portion of a letter from the poet Alfred Corn, Feb 19, 1994 ‑ from Heaven's coast by Mark Doty)

#1 STILL: MARIAN BY THE SEA, LOOKING DOWN ‑ COLOR

On November 17, 1996, my spouse of 13 years passed away of cancer. Marian McMahon was an inspired writer, film‑maker and curator, an activist of `the social' and `the everyday', a devout friend to many, and a lifelong working and living companion to me. The dark months that followed sent me into the pit of grieving, where I reviewed the images we had made together. Staring back at me was the theory that I intellectually had known all along, but had never fully felt: The photograph says that the body is gone.

What follows is text and image taken from an ongoing work of mourning "He always thought they would grow old together". Parts of the work have been screened in the months following Marian's passing, in Helsinki Finland, February 1997, as a six screen installation, and at the 1998 Sydney film festival as a single screen, three‑part presentation. These memorial offerings to Marian served as a place to put the pain and re‑enter a different world. - Philip Hoffman

TITLE: He always thought they would grow old together (LARGER FONT)

(PLEASE USE DIFFERENT FONT STYLES FOR MARIAN AND PHILIP)

(MARIAN FONT)

For the last year I have had this picture hanging before me as I sit at my desk. It has plagued me with its possible meanings. Each time I look at it, all that stands out is the contrast between black and white. Yet, I am

convinced that this image holds and contains other meanings and that if I stare at it long enough, I will be able to tell myself something about what was going on around the time of the picture's taking. The picture was

taken on September 24, 1988, in Spain at a castle near Guadalest, a small village located 60 miles inland from Valencia. As I write here now I hold my breath in fear of reawakening a bodily memory that will recreate the physiological and psychological environment of the time when the picture was taken. It was a time I was becoming acutely aware of how little control we have over our body and its functions, and of how frightening it

is not to know. The terror of not being believed and an inability to believe myself resurfaced. To not know, to not be able to name what was happening to me, meant many months of darkness and denial until I began to

believe myself, to listen and recognise that something extraordinary was taking place in my body. I have since retraced the lessons that taught me the power of naming and the disadvantage of not being able to describe

what is taking place in my own world, in my own body.

Two days ago I woke up with the picture from Guadalest in my mind and realised that the image represented the beginnings of an inner process which started when I took the picture and which was precipitated by a decline in health. This process taught me how to begin to interpret the world from the inside out. I took this picture at a time just after a period of intense work. It was also the time when the symptoms I was to experience over the next ten months began to appear acutely. I recall very clearly feelings of confusion and an overwhelming desire to hide, to withdraw. I see this image as a record of those affective states as well as a glimpse at the beginnings of a phenomenal process. There are of course many other interpretations of this image. At present this is what it means to me. (Living in Limbo: An Experiment in Uncertainty ‑ Marian McMahon, journal entry, October 16, 1988)

#2 STILL: IMAGE OF SEASCAPE SEEN FROM A DARK CAVE

GUADALEST, SPAIN ‑ B&W

(PHILIP FONT)

Philip Hoffman: This image was taken by Marian 8 years ago. I was sorting through her files and uncovered these words, paper clipped behind an 8X10 glossy of the same image. I do not know much about the actual place where the photo was taken, except that its taking co‑incided with a severe illness, which Marian eventually recovered from. In a state of wellness, which has marked her last years, Marian travelled, relentlessly pursuing and purging the demons that she felt created her illness in the first place. Lodged somewhere in the darkened surround, of the bedrock that encircles this view lays the afterimage of Marian's sojourn on earth. If I could brighten up this part of the picture I might illuminate for myself the conditions of her death, the purpose of her life and the reason why, during the instant of Marian's passage I felt content with her leaving, a feeling I no longer hold.

#3 STILLS: CHIMERAE ‑ MEMORIAL FOR MARIAN, HELSINKI FINLAND

(PERHAPS 2 OR 3 STILLS) ‑ COLOR

M: if you could have a ritual for death what would it look like, and would it be private or shared...

P: ...it would be shared...

(audio recording from home movie))

P: the darkness,

it was part of your flesh and blood

it was living in your bones

Marian, where did this come from?

the food we ate

the air we breathed

when was it planted?

in youth?

where did this come from?

wheezing into your breathing

seeping into your bleeding

coming to rest in your body

Marian,

where did it come from

so silently, so violently

why didn't I know that you were going away?

#4a STILLS: BROKEN BODIES ‑ EGYPTIAN TOMB‑ MARIAN & PHIL'S SILHOUETTE

‑ COLOR

(MARIAN'S FONT)

M: When I finally acknowledged that I was ill, I immediately tried to make

sense out of my experience. I couldn't help but think there was a

connection between what I was now feeling physically and what I had been

experiencing psychically during the writing of my thesis. I also found

myself laying blame and chastising myself for not having left the past well

enough alone. How can we reclaim memories without them then becoming

burdensome?

I travelled to a forgotten past in order to understand a fragmented

present. What I retrieved was a pent‑up history of abuse and violence that

I sometimes, usually afterwards, thought best left hidden. What I am

beginning to understand is that insight does not come suddenly, but rather

slowly and repetitively. (Living in Limbo: An Experiment in Uncertainty ‑ Marian McMahon, journal entry, October 16, 1988)

4b STILL: BROKEN BODIES

COLOR

(PHIL'S FONT)

P: Your writing conjured up for you the strewn remnants of a past most would

let rest

what did you do with the pieces?

the wounds you nursed

from the blows of your father's hand, his voice,

and festering silence

from my silence

and times when I wouldn't

come to meet you,

couldn't come to meet you

too torn to engage in the given suffering of our time together

how could I think it might have been different? how could it be different?

now the veil lifts and I can see what was there

#5 STILL: PHIL IN MIRROR IN HALLWAY ‑ B&W

autumn came this year in strange colours

your breath was short

the cough persisted through November

what used to go away didn't

cancer

a word that stayed carefully off

your list of possible causes

cancer

arose out of your 3 hour a night sleeps

it took your father

as you stared him in the face

nursing him through tying his shoe lace

gone before your eyes

without an apology

when the doctor said it might be cancer

you asked me to take you to the beach

your coat covers the strapped‑in cardiogram machine

we sneak out of the hospital into the night

a dome of clouds circled above

the water was black and rippling

I took a picture

You skipped a stone

#6 STILL: ON BEACH AT NIGHT/SUPERIMPOSE MARIAN'S TEXT (BELOW) OVERTOP DARK PART OF PICTURE ‑ B&W

(MARIAN FONT)

The sadness comes and goes

like when there are fast moving clouds

covering and uncovering the sun

as it makes its way across the sky

‑‑ Marian's Journal, Nov. 13,1996

(BACK TO PHIL'S FONT)

P: the next day you told everyone

that you went AWOL

and laughed

and prepared for the operation

on the 3rd day after the operation your breathing got worse

we watched your decline as the Santa Claus parade

marched by your window, the drums slowly pounding down

Queens Park

cancer squeezed tight

while hapless medical staff

looked on hopeless

from under the weight of the Harris health care cuts

why didn't the intern believe Amy when she told him that Marian was dying

Amy said fear curtails learning

a lesson you taught us, Marian

look at her face

her color

listen to what she is saying

feel her arm, it's getting colder

let go of your training

look at Marian

talk with her

see her

#7 STILL: OUR HANDS IN HOSPITAL ‑ B&W

P: The night we left the hospital and had our last walk, Marian found a

gem on the beach which I found in her journal:

(MARIAN FONT)

M: We come together ‑ separate

cry and look wide‑eyed bewildered ...

I want to be near the water

We bundle up and leave the hospital for the beach

Beautiful clear crisp blue skied night

we mourn together

laughing at intervals

clinging madly to some sense of life

The open sky ‑ water makes me feel

part of something immeasurable

larger than me

and it is consoling

#8 STILLS: SILHOUETTE OF MARIAN ON 3 SCREENS, AT HELSINKI PRESENTATION