Authors: Shirley MacLaine
I learned after many years in show business that if an expressive artist shares his or her point of view as authentically as possible, it will somehow be identifiable to large masses of people.
S
o often now I hear a great filmmaker say, “Could we get such and such a film financed today?” No. The answer is always no because the days of old Hollywood moguls who were visionaries, who were eccentrically stubborn and in love with celluloid, are gone. Jack Warner, Hal Wallis, Sol Siegel, and Lew Wasserman must be looking down and weeping for their beloved industry of fantasy and passion. Marketing departments run the industry and it’s all about money now. It’s no longer about passionate self-expression that mirrors humanity back to itself. The good scripts are not at the studios anymore because the development process destroys any original idea. Minor executives and people who should be bankers make copious notes on every screenplay, which is then delivered to the writer, who is ordered to make changes. Because he wants to get his picture
made, he agrees. Hence you have studio movies totally unlike the great ones of yesterday.
Tent-pole pictures (the franchise pictures full of special effects and moving, swirling objects) don’t need to have a plot that works or even makes sense. Studio people seem to have forgotten that having a first, second, and third act is a good structure. They also play to the most dumbed-down members of the audience nowadays. People are so stressed out economically and in their individual lives that they just want to be blindly entertained in a manner that doesn’t make them have to think. Studio pictures are not an artistic contribution from and to our nation anymore. They play into our insecurities and our character defects out of a desire for nothing but profit. That’s because most of the studios are now owned by big corporations. Corporations care about profit more than quality, and it costs about the same to market and distribute a big picture as it does a small one. So if a studio puts aside $
300
million for making movies, they would rather do three big ones than twenty small ones of quality. It saves money.
I’ve had many studio producers tell me they make horror films and other fare that induces fear in the audience’s mind because the lives of audience members are so negative they need to be entertained by something more frightening than their own experience. Is that really a good reason to make a movie? Good scripts are turned down all the time because they might make the audience think too much!
Every star in Hollywoodland has a dollar figure by his or
her name. That’s the amount each person is considered to be worth at the box office. With those dollar figures acting as a price tag, presales of a film are solicited overseas. Each star is worth so much money in Germany, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, etc. It has nothing to do with the star’s talent or the quality of the film being shopped. Based on the box office worth of the stars attached to the film, the film distributors overseas then determine what they will pay to distribute it in their market. The total budget of each film is determined by these pre-sales. I know that I can get more money added to the budget if I’m in a comedy or a musical. Thus, I become typecast if I only listen to the presales definition of what I’m worth. Surprise is eliminated from the formula, because offbeat casting is simply not recognized by the money men.
There is a deep and sincere underdog respect for filmmakers who make pictures like
Slumdog Millionaire, Little Miss Sunshine, The Hurt Locker, The Kids Are All Right,
and all those independent films that have budgets next to nothing but are driven by the belief and vision of the filmmaker, who sometimes hocks his home to keep the filming going. The studios don’t like to take risks anymore, but they aren’t alone in that. They seem to be reflecting the fear experienced everywhere in the business community of this country these days.
I’ve talked to so many distraught writers who have been forced to compromise their original scripts. Studio employees who justify their jobs by making their notes often ruin the authenticity of the piece. The horror of it is that sooner or later
the writer will not only compromise but will feel “Oh, it’s not really that bad.” But it
is
that bad.
In the old days the studio heads either liked a script or not. Sometimes they would have a note or two, but the writers always knew they could humor them and walk away.
We’ve been suffering badly in Hollywood for a few years now. People who work “below the line” (technicians, grips, drivers, caterers, cleaning establishment owners, etc.) are going into foreclosure with their homes because hardly any films are being made. Our business is in Big Trouble. It’s so disappointing. Spirit is what fuels the art of making films. Now spirit has been replaced with budget cuts and market sheets. I look back with longing at how it used to be. Those old moguls who ran, ruined, and inspired our lives don’t seem so bad now.
One of my disappointments with young people I know in film is that they don’t ask me enough serious questions. They should pick my brain about Mike Todd, Hal Wallis, the Warner brothers, Wilder, Wyler, Fosse, Nichols, Hitchcock, etc. They are too focused on the red carpet if they’re actresses, how to seem dangerous and sexy if they’re actors, and how to manipulate everyone else if they’re directors. If I were an up-and-comer sitting with me, I’d put aside all decorum and smother me with questions.
I can always tell how serious a filmmaker is by how much he knows about the history of Hollywood. Does he or she have any idea about the struggles involved with making the hundred
or so greatest films of all time? When we are young, it’s often hard to think of anything but what is happening right in front of or around us. But the true artist can see beyond this limited (and limiting) viewpoint. A great artist, I believe, lives in the past, present, and future all at the same time. That’s one difference between a great artist and a talented craftsman.
L
eaving my car in the garage after the sun goes down has been difficult because I like to be in charge of my nights as well as my days.
I eat out with friends a lot and that usually happens at night. Sometimes they pick me up, but I don’t like to impose on them. So I usually suggest an early dinnertime so I can come and go while it’s still light. I plead easier parking in daylight.
Pretty soon I’ll have to give up driving altogether. That’s when I will hire a combination driver, cook, pilot, and well-intentioned friend. Hopefully that private plane will come before too long!
P
robably one of the reasons why reincarnation makes sense to me is because I understand how each one of us is so many people. When we open up and allow our soul’s memory to emerge and express itself, we can be amazed at the talent for multiple personalities we each have. I don’t mean multiple personalities in the sense of a psychological disorder. I mean each of us has had multiple experiences in past lifetimes that equip our souls with memories and intuitions that can’t be explained any other way. How did I know and recognize streets and temples when I first went to India? Why did I find myself speaking Portuguese when I was in Brazil? Each human being can point to any number of similar experiences, specific moments that make them wonder why and how they know what they know.
Of course, reincarnation is an accepted fact in a large part of the world, particularly in those that were home to the most ancient civilizations (India, Tibet, the Himalayas, China).
Most of those areas of the world have not been influenced or taught or programmed by Christianity.
Even Christian doctrine was not always in opposition to reincarnation, that is until the sixth century
AD
when Empress Theodora of Byzantium arranged an ecumenical council in Constantinople in the year
553.
The Pope himself and many bishops boycotted the meeting because Theodora was planning an eradication of the understanding of soul reembodiment in the Gospels, replacing the idea of reincarnation with that of resurrection. The Greek philosopher Origen taught physical reembodiment in ancient days and, according to many experts, so did Jesus of Nazareth when teaching his disciples. “And who do you say I am?” he asked his disciples in Matthew
16
:
15
–
16.
He alluded to the truth that he had been Elias or Elijah previously. There are schools of spiritual study that understand the transfiguration to have been the enactment of several of Jesus’s incarnations—including Adam, Moses, Abraham, Joseph, and even Noah.
When one understands karma, reincarnation—physical reembodiment of the soul—is paramount. “What the soul sows, so shall it reap.” This means that every human soul is in control of his or her destiny, depending on what each human needs to work on the next time around. The soul lives on and the learning of self continues.
Empress Theodora was apparently a fascistic ruler of the first order. She and her husband, Emperor Justinian, wanted to control the destiny of their populace. She had her own intelligence
organization and deployed it with great power and cruelty. Gore Vidal once wrote a script about her and educated me about her intentions as empress. She didn’t like the idea of people being responsible for their own destiny. That was to be
her
role. So she arranged to stack the deck of attendees at the Ecumenical Council in order to strike any and all references to physical reembodiment from the Bible. Sadly, she was successful.
Having traveled so extensively in India and the Himalayas and Asia, I was more conversant with these points of view than my scientific-minded Christian friends in the West. What they could prove they would believe, but not otherwise.
When I first began writing in the sixties about having lived before, I was way ahead of the Western curve. Those people who had ventured into these areas of thought were with me, but I infuriated many others who thought it was loopy and I was the object of a fair amount of ridicule. Happily, that disdain has dissipated in the last thirty years as people have caught up with the possibility that reincarnation might be logical. Most of the ridicule didn’t bother me, except for those film and theater critics who loved to review me playing a part as though it was one from a past life I should have turned down. I wondered if they accepted the Dalai Lama’s lessons on physical reembodiment because he wore the correct wardrobe. And today I wonder if the same people who flock to so many yoga classes are those who previously believed I was nuts.
Many acting teachers today use meditation exercises to
encourage student actors to touch a past life experience which might help them play a part they are afraid of. I learned long ago that living
is
acting, and it always has been. Every day we choose what script we will write for ourselves, how we will play our part, what wardrobe we will wear, and what emotions we will allow ourselves to feel or to repress. I don’t know whether I chose acting or acting chose me in this life. Either way, I am the writer, producer, wardrobe mistress, star, and director of my own play every day that I live. And I now know I have been ever since my soul came into being. My search these days is more about the soul. For example, when
did
it come into being? Was that the Big Bang?
I hear about twin souls and soul mates all the time. What is the difference? In my studies I’ve come to learn that soul mates (and everyone has a soul mate) are those souls that vibrate on exactly the same frequency. No other souls in the cosmos vibrate to the same frequency as ours and that of our soul mate. If we find our soul mate in this life, it can be quite difficult because it is like living with a double of ourselves. Since very few of us are happy with who we are, we see a constant reflection of that dissatisfaction in our soul mate. The trick would be to find a twin soul, which is a soul with whom we’ve had multiple incarnations, and have thus come to an understanding of who we are with them. I think people confuse their soul mate with a twin soul. I’m not sure I want to know my soul mate yet. I’m not ready, and I don’t want to be miserable because of my inability to understand another person’s
issues because I have the same issues myself! I’ve learned a lot about who I am, but not enough to tolerate my soul mate.
From what I’ve learned, we don’t necessarily incarnate with our soul mate at the same time, although I’ve met quite a few people who feel one of their children is their soul mate. It must be a beautiful experience if you come across one whom you believe is your soul mate and it works. But I would say that usually that person is actually a twin soul, not a soul mate.
So many people look for their soul mate to fall in love with and marry. I’ve found a much more contented way to live. I live alone and independently. My husband died years ago, and my adventures in sexual passion and romantic love have receded. Sometimes I look back and wonder what the hell I was doing with all those lovers. Was it meant to be, necessary, and growth-producing? Yes, I think so, but my life now, without the Sturm und Drang of passion, is much more pleasant. In fact, I’ve always found that friendship without sexual passion is much more healthy and lasting. When women my age say they need to find a man, I tell them to get a dog. There’s no more loving and satisfying way to live than if you are content with yourself and your freedom.