by Cynthia Wands
Nocturne, artwork by Eric Boyd
I’m sharing an image for this blog that my husband, Eric Boyd, created some years ago, and it’s a favorite of mine. The model for this beautiful image was my sister, Barbara. Eric’s legacy of artwork, in images and art glass pieces, reminds me of our evolving viewpoint, and how we frame our perception of the world.
The world has changed in profound ways in the last two weeks. I’m referring to politics, of course, and to Kamala Harris now running for president, and the newly energized Democratic Party. But I’m also referring to how I see the world, how it feels. I’m curious to see how this viewpoint will change how I write, how I grieve, how I experience theater, and how I look at character development again.
I’ve dreaded this election – the ongoing political maelstrom was depressing, infuriating, and my feeble efforts to become involved again as a pollster/volunteer seemed futile. Last year I stepped away from writing. I was finishing a script that I was initially enthused about, but writing with grief as a partner found me profoundly lost. So I just stopped writing.
In the past few months I’ve started to write again, this time working with a fiction writer’s group and it’s a very different dynamic – one I’m enjoying – although I refer to the feedback of the other writers as “puppy dogs and rattlesnakes”. (I miss my playwright comrades too.) This style of writing is a bit like wearing someone else’s clothes: they fit funny, look funny, and get a completely different response. I’m continually reminded about the crucial value of dialogue: words being offered and a change taking place because of that dynamic. And viewpoints being changed because of that interaction. Perhaps like politics this year.
Many years ago, I was cast in a movie , A LITTLE DEATH, based on THE DECAMERON, stories by Giovanni Boccaccio, written in response to the plague of 1348. I have mostly forgotten it, and misplaced most of the production stills from that project. But I recently saw that Netflix is showing a version of THE DECAMERON this month. And it reminded me of a moment that changed me.
At one point in the filming of A LITTLE DEATH, I asked the director why he was so focused on including a lit candle in the shot. It seemed all the effort to balance the light for this brief image was unnecessary. We were filming at Hammond Castle, and it was cold and damp and it was a thirteen hour day, and the crew was tired. That’s when he told me: “It’s all in the frame. How we see it, what we see, what we understand. It’s all in the frame.”
That was a moment of zen for me. I looked at this busy, crowded set where everyone just wanted to get to the next shot. And he was looking at one image, and what was revealed in the frame of the shot. How we frame what we see, how that tells us the story of what we include and focus on. It changed me.
I don’t know that the image of the lit candle created much meaning for the movie. I don’t even know if that image was included in the final version. But it was important to him. His artistry was trying to find – I don’t know – symbols? atmosphere? overtime? But I do know that he created beautiful images in the lightning and filming of this project; and I really admired what he created. (His name is Alan Ritsko, he was a Managing Director at NOVA, and he wrote the book, literally, on lighting for motion pictures: Lighting for location motion pictures: https://a.co/d/3Ec06Uu)
So – when Kamala Harris became the nominee for the Democrats – just two weeks ago – it changed how I saw the election. It changed how I saw where I belonged. So, it became for me, something that was “all in the frame”.
I managed to find two images of a young 19 year old Cynthia, from that film. I wish I remembered where I saved the rest of the production stills.
These still images from A LITTLE DEATH were taken by the photographer Francesca Morgante, who worked with Alan Ritsko on the set.
Even with all the chaos and noise in the political world,I’m going to try to find focus and meaning in the months ahead. I’m going to try to keep writing. I hope you do too.
