Resistance: Interrogating Collaboration
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2016 Resistance: Interrogating Collaboration Wade, James Wade, J. (2016). Resistance: Interrogating Collaboration (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27644 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/3130 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Resistance: Interrogating Collaboration By James Wade A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN DRAMA CALGARY, ALBERTA JUNE 2016 © James Wade 2016 Abstract RESISTANCE: INTERROGATING COLLABORATION By James Wade The following manuscript and accompanying artist’s statement are the complete academic materials pertaining the writing of the full-length play Resistance. The artist’s statement will describe the process of adapting elements of the life and work of film director Jean-Pierre Melville. I will discuss issues related to Melville’s biography, his singular style, the development of the character of Dominique and the script’s treatment of “truth”. ii Acknowledgments I would like to take this opportunity to thank my supervisor, Clem Martini, for his guidance and continued support in the writing of this play. The work is much stronger for it, as am I. I would also like to thank my professors during my time at the University of Calgary, namely Penny Farfan, Patrick Finn and Pil Hansen. I would also like to thank Anna MacAlpine, my fearless playwriting colleague. Finally, I would like to recognize the cast and crew of the staged reading of my thesis work as well as those involved in my pre-thesis work. These individuals are: Clem Martini, Geneviève Paré, Bryson Wiese, Mike Czuba, Myah Martinson, Kristi Max, Ryan Sheedy, Logan Teske and the late Tim Sutherland. iii Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………...………...ii Acknowledgments……………………….………………………………………………iii Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………..iv 1 INTRODUCTION AND FINDING “MELVILLE”..………………………..…....1 1.1 Introduction……………………...………………………………………………...1 1.2 Finding “Melville”……………………………...…………………………………6 2 WEARING A RAINCOAT……………………..……………………………….13 3 DOMINIQUE………………………………………..…………………………..22 4 HISTORY AND “TRUTH”……………….……………………...……………...30 5 REWRITING AND REVISING………….……………………..……………….38 6 CONCLUSION………………………………….……………………………….42 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………..45 APPENDIX: RESISTANCE….……………...………………………………………….47 iv 1 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION AND FINDING “MELVILLE” 1.1 Introduction “I considered it quite possible that Melville identified himself with Captain Ahab as well as with his creator, and asked if he too was searching for a white whale. He thought for a moment then answered that indeed he was, and for him it was the United States. “When I’m in a rented car, driving along a highway in the West or South, I’m a happy man. I don’t need anything else. My emotions are contained. I’ve found my white whale.” I didn’t recognize it then, but I do now – the terrible sadness of a man who feels himself most complete when he is absolutely alone.” Eric Breitbart, “Call Me Melville” There is a scene at the end of Jean-Pierre Melville’s film Le Samouraï in which the main character, a hit man named Jef Costello, goes to a nightclub to kill a piano player. He enters the nightclub to shoot this woman, as he has been paid to do, even though he is inexorably drawn to her. When he approaches her and she sees the gun, she asks “Why, Jef?” to which he responds, “Because I was paid to.” At that moment, Jef is shot from off-screen by the police detective who had been tracking him for most of the film. As the police inspect Costello’s body they discover that his gun had not been loaded: the piano player had never been in danger. This strange, unrealistic and subtly fantastical ending mystified me, as it seemed as though the entire film was changed by this one choice. As I watched more films by Melville I found that in many ways they were all poems about male loneliness. For a Melville protagonist, human connection is impossible, but unavoidably desirable. This contradiction is usually reconciled through 2 violence or death. I could not help but wonder at the person who made these films. Did Melville, a very influential film artist, have a similar loneliness? After doing some preliminary research into the man and finding him to be a wildly intelligent, pompous and singularly styled iconoclast I became fascinated by him. Upon learning of his not-to- be-discussed involvement in the French Resistance and that “Melville” originated as his code name I was hopelessly intent on writing the play that would eventually become Resistance. Characters negotiating with the external narratives that impact their lives have always occupied my plays. Pop culture, religious and national narratives influence our lives in fundamental ways. These can be empowering or destructive but I believe they are powerful and omnipresent. What drew me most to Melville was the idea of a man who found the American archetype of the lone gangster to be a salvation during the war, but would later find it also alienated him to human connection as his life went on. 1 The discovery, writing, re-discovery and re-writing of Resistance has been a long journey fraught with frustration and self-reflection. This play went through more drafts 1 Wade, James. Resistance Reading 1. 2016. Calgary. 3 than I had previously written for a finished play and the current draft is unrecognizable from the initial one. In this thesis I will delve into the initial spark of the play and discuss some of the various iterations of the script as it moved towards (and sometimes away from) a narrative with intellectual and emotional substance. In my first chapter I will elaborate on how Melville’s biography and filmography inspired some of the themes and concepts explored in the finished play. To give the reader a fuller idea of the foundation from which this work grew, I will situate Melville solidly within the framework of history, the French New Wave and touch upon his lasting influence on filmmaking. Both in the play and in my accompanying statements I hope to make a compelling case for his relevance and further the critical re-appraisal of his body of work that has occurred in the last twenty years. In my second chapter I aim to highlight the importance of Melville’s signature style and the importance of American culture on his personal journey in the play and how popular and political narratives become hopelessly inseparable from one’s personal identity for a figure such as Melville. Is there an “essence” to a man whose persona, right down to his name, has been carefully authored? Chapter Three will delve into the genesis of the character “Dominique” and her loose relationship with actual history as opposed to Melville’s origin being based in fact. While it is certainly possible to view Dominique as a feminist character, diametrically opposed to Melville’s sexist worldview, I want to challenge this simplistic dichotomy of ‘feminist vs. sexist’. I mean to suggest that the power struggle that occurs between them is much deeper than gendered concerns: that their conflict over gender perhaps masks a deeper discomfort at their similarities. I will touch upon my own subjective view of, and 4 relationship with, Melville’s art and difficult worldview as well as Dominique’s evolution from interviewer to protagonist and why this change occurred. This section will also touch on the play’s ambivalent commentary on authorship. What is collaboration? What is an author? Can two people with disparate worldviews make a compelling piece of art together? I will explain my attempt to honestly apprehend the virtues and folly of Melville’s fiercely individualistic view on art. Chapter Four is concerned with how “history” and “truth” are represented within the play and how one may be reconciled with the other. I will discuss these concepts in terms of how Melville treated them in his own work and what inspiration I have taken from his work in my calculated speculation of Melville’s life. Chapter Five will briefly discuss the development of the script itself. Namely, I will talk about what major changes occurred through the process and how becoming more aware of the importance (or irrelevance) of certain characters or plot points led to the current draft of the play and how I feel my revisions compare against my overall vision for the piece. Finally, I want to outline my original goals for this script and discuss what criterions I used to measure the various successes or failures I feel I’ve met with in the development of Resistance. This will involve talking about the process of engaging in dramaturgy, of working with actors, staging a reading at Taking Flight and receiving criticisms at each stage. Ultimately, in formulating this script, I became fascinated by the concept of a man, as stated at the beginning of this statement, “who feels himself most complete when he is absolutely alone.” (10) Of course, there is melancholy in Melville’s calculated 5 isolation and I hope the play has succeeded in conveying some of that feeling. However, difficult questions arise when considering Melville. I have assumed that there is a humanistic logic that triggers his isolation. What I meant to do, whether successfully or unsuccessfully, was to construct a dramatically compelling and personally satisfying answer to the enigma of Melville.