IMPROVISATION

Yesterday I was trying to post this, but Blogger and The Powers That Be wouldn't let me...

Okay, so maybe I'm not really the target of a global conspiracy... but it sure seemed like it yesterday.

I was going on about the apt timing of a cable network re-running The Godfather III over the weekend. Considered by many to be the worst movie out of the entire Godfather trilogy, it also has the designation of being the least watched of the three.

If you haven't seen the third part, the plot revolves around the assassination of The Pope.

The first time I saw this movie in the theaters, I thought it was ludicrous. Compared to the power and intensity of the first two movies, Part III was strictly amateur. Much of the bad publicity surrounded Sofia Coppola's acting debut-- suffice it to say, she has (over time) proven herself a better director than thespian.

But watching it again, over the past weekend, I howled at how bad the timing was, to play this movie during the weekend that John Paul II passed away.

Then, while looking at a link devoted to Godfather trivia, I read a tidbit about how the third movie's plot was based upon the real-life mystery of Pope John Paul I's death.

I did some online Googling, and found this link regarding John Paul I, aka "The 30 Day Pope", the late John Paul II's predecessor.

As a conspiracy buff, I must admit I was ashamed and embarrassed to not have known anything in regards to this tasty conspiracy theory. And you have to realize that I used to blame the Catholic Church for all sorts of conspiracies, back in the days when my knowledge on the subject of conspiracy was limited to JFK's assassination. The blame was always placed jokingly, in a way that was meant to be provocative and outrageous-- in fact, in high school I even wrote an essay for one of my Humanities classes concerning the Roman Catholic Church's power, and received an 'A' for it... even though the essay subject had nothing to do with Catholicism.

I was on a roll yesterday. Then, Blogger shut me down. Coincidence? I think not...


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Look at that Godfather link that I provided, read the trivia bits, and you'll discover something.

A lot of the most memorable scenes in the first two movies were the result of improvisation.

Yes, it's true that a screenplay written by Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppolla and Robert Towne (uncredited) can stand on its own, but it's the deviations from the rigid structure that give a work of art its life.

Lately, I've come to realize that my improvisational instincts are my strongest asset. In music, it's my ability to change my style up on the spot and come up with something that you actually want to hear (within minutes of the request), and also the foresight to know when an accident is a "happy" one, the kind that seems like it was prepared in advance; in writing, my strength is incorporating ideas from both pre-developed sources and my own ideas that swirl about in the primordial soup of my right brain, as I'm in the prcoess of writing; in drawing and art, I never map out what I'm going to draw beforehand-- it comes out like automatic writing, straight from the id and onto the paper or canvas...

It gives me a feeling of relief and confirms my attitude towards art when I read that a movie as masterful and complete as The Godfather utilized first takes, improv line readings, last-minute scene rewrites, and "happy accidents" to get its point across. There is something to be said for order and efficiency, but sometimes things can be done so simply, if only the people in charge of production had enough faith to take the risky leap and do something that hasn't been done before.

As a person who plays in a band where the song arrangements change every other week, I know how much trouble a person can get into if they refuse to leave something alone, if they cannot let it stand on its own. Elle keeps rewriting her songs, and she will never be satisfied with the outcome. If she wrote them with any sense of confidence, she wouldn't have to sit there and explain them to the producers, who only want to put their fingerprints on her songs so that later on they can take some credit.

The personal songs that I have written haven't changed much in the ten years since I first composed them. My crime against art is that I haven't sat down and devoted enough time to seeing them finished. But now, with the home studio, things are moving in a forward direction.

And, of course, when it comes to creating new songs, the happier the accident the better.

Okay, now I have to do some work, but I hope to have the next chapter of my online novel up before day's end. I have a lot of ideas, but ultimately I will leave it up to the improvisational spirit that overtakes me when I start to write.

Have a nice weekend, y'all...