I did not want to move to New York.
Because a city is a city, but New Yorkers are Jesus. I couldn't stand them. I hated the way they referred to it as "The City," as if there was only one. And the manner they collected celebrity sightings as if they were trading cards. I abhorred the purple heart people felt overpaying for a one-bedroom studio qualified you for. But most loathsome of all were the transplants, the ones from Virginia or Boston or North Carolina or Seattle, who after only a handful of years, usurps the distinction of "New Yorker" with the same audacity that the writer of the latest O.J. Simpson tell-all claims the title of New York Times Best-Selling Author.
It was the cliché, you see. Of the rough-and-tumble, I-made-it-here-so-I-can-make-it-anywhere variety. And the fact that, in these post-modern, media-conscious times that we live in, people didn't seem to mind relishing in what was such an overused and undermerited cliché.
So when it was finally my turn to move here, I was positive that I'd loathe it.
And I was absolutely right.
So what happened then? Most stories have a turning point, that epiphany where the protagonist recants his ways, and, eyes scanning the horizon, sees where he went wrong.
But to be honest, I don't see it. There are images I do see, though, when I try to: I think of the fall of 2001 and how your head jerked upwards when you heard a plane fly too low. And then, that second later, that humble grin-that-spoke-volumes you shared with all the people around you when you realize you all did it. I consider how, after all, there really are only two degrees of separation between any two persons in this city. I see good parties, and fascinating people I'll probably never meet again and how, when it was time to leave, I told them "Good luck" and how surprised I was to actually mean it.
I think about how proud people become of their bruises and the fact that they never became scars. About how when you sing the blues well enough, others will start to dance to it. About the surprising number of people who've realized that. Because every squeal of the subway tracks whispers a dare, urging each and every one of us to leap into the arms of something we don't know well enough to define. And when you land on that tenuous net on the other side, for every friend who's jealous of your accomplishments, there's two faces you've never met who's proud that you did.
Bruised into beauty, buttressed on faith, this city is concrete and steel housing a Molotov cocktail primed to explode, yet which miraculously never does.
These are the thoughts that became "Color of a Doubt: an urban fable." I approached my co-director, Jason Garrett Lewis, with the script, and he immediately "got" it. Of course he did. Born in New Jersey, he's been scouring these streets since he was a kid, and he's utterly proud of that. Together, we immediately conceived the style of the film: It needed to be shot in black and white, because in a city that moves so fast every second runs the risk of being outdated, it couldn't work any other way. It should be classical, utilizing as little of the bells-and-whistles the DV age of filmmaking allows its filmmakers, because the story needed to be told as timelessly as the city itself. And, ultimately, it had to always be about character, because, ultimately, that's what this city is.
It's also what this city gave us. There's a saying in the film crew world, that good people attract good people, but, quite honestly, I've never been good enough to merit, not just the talent, but the generosity of everyone involved, from our magnanimous producer Thomas Yong, to the incredible talents of our crew to our lead actor Vincent Piazza who's gone way above and beyond the call with his faith in the project.
"Color of a Doubt: an urban fable" is my love letter. It's my public admission that, yes, kicking and screaming all the way, I finally do consider myself a New Yorker. The most loathsome kind of all. The transplant. The one from Virginia or Boston or North Carolina or Seattle, who usurps the distinction of "New Yorker" with the same audacity that the writer of the latest O.J. Simpson tell-all claims the title of New York Times Best-Selling Author.
Goddammit. I can't believe I've become a cliché.
Pornsak Pichetshote
Writer / Co-Director of "Color of Doubt: an urban fable"
New York City
2004