Yes, I have a serious problem when it comes to Shane Carruth. This much is obvious. If you didn’t dig Primer… (minus the fact that you have been lobotomized by Hollywood, and need a serious encounter with a TENS Machine) please, let’s just not mention that particular detail to me. OK? I choose willful ignorance over having that particular information. And Upstream Color? Holy Moses on a jet-ski. But after Primer, Shane Carruth wrote a brilliantly dense screenplay that is about as inscrutable as Primer on crack. Heck, you can read it right here right now. I’ve read it maybe three times now? And I continue to find new details and new connections each time I read it.
It tells the story of a group of kids who find these weird shapes and weird connections. And these shapes can be reproduced and duplicated into assembled machines that double as animals, things, humans. And as they craft these machines that create machines, there are people that begin to take interest in the power that these kids might have harnessed. (There’s also a lot in there about a group of adults in a support group sort of thing that search for light,… um, light reflections, light coalitions… or something. It’s really intriguing, but I’ll just leave that to you and your script reading.) Not only take interest, but fight for control over these a topiary choruses. Here, this is a photo of some of the design work that Shane Carruth did for the film:
Carruth even went so far to begin learning basic CGI in order to draft and create mock-ups of how the shapes would move and work together as they assemble into choruses. But that was ten or fifteen years ago. I mean, how could a project that dead possibly get resurrected.
Well, a few days ago I told you about a project that Carruth has been pitching for called The Wanting Mare. He is an executive producer for the film, and hasn’t been involved other than to “give a few ideas” and to help promote it. (“Look, if a couple more people see it because my name is attached, then that is great.”) And after “attending” the Chattanooga Film Festival I was happy to give you my break down of The Wanting Mare… which I adored. But maybe the biggest take away from this latest surfacing of Carruth, is that he has pushed out a highly pilfered mock-up for a trailer for his long dead film A Topiary. Let me say that again, but slower this time. Shane Carruth – has assembled – a mock trailer – for his long long dead screenplay – A Topiary. Did you get it that time?
Now, 99% of this thing is pilfered. It’s taken from Indiana Jones, and another million movies… including a score ripped straight out of Inception. There is no way that this trailer stays up for long. But! I’ve downloaded a copy – which I’ll keep handy for a bit, just in case. I might have even uploaded it somewhere – just in case. Anyway: here it is…
So, your homework – read the script. Earn hundreds of millions of dollars. Contact Shane Carruth’s reps. Give said money to said reps. Allow Shane to craft his movie his way. Then, the final step, rest in the knowledge that you have played a sizable role in getting one of the greatest movies of all time created. Simple. You can do it. Because we need this film to be created. No really. We do… so get moving.
Edited by: CY
