The D-Word's life is one of glamour and riches, as only a documentary filmmaker can live it

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So much for promises.

The last delay in my entries was over a crisis of confidence. All of my ambivalence about making my ongoing process open to public scrutiny was severely tested. It’s one thing to have a filmmaker whine about losing his way in a journal published after his film is a smashing success (which is a precondition for it getting published, right?). It’s another when he’s midway through post-production, can’t see the forest for the trees and still needs to convince funders to lay down their money.

I’m thrilled to report the crisis has passed. This delay is due mainly to a burst of creative energy I didn’t want to interrupt.

You see, until recently, the very heart of the film was missing. And it was that sudden recognition (rather than the prospect of missing a certain festival in Park City) that got me so depressed.

I’m making a film called Home Page that’s about these kids writing extremely personal and revealing things on the Net, but in a larger sense it’s about everyone’s yearning for home and all that home represents. It’s certainly about mine. And in order for me to go on a journey in which I ultimately find my way back home, I had to somehow show what I was jeopardizing. Namely, my most primal relationship... my marriage.

For a long time I thought Marjorie’s role was to be the representative of the forces of privacy, a shadow presence hovering on the edge of the film, who silently disapproves of the scrutiny I’m placing on our home life. But that was just my projection. When we actually talked about it, I discovered she was hurt that I wasn’t giving her a voice or more of a direct presence.

It’s no coincidence that Debbie had independently realized the need for me to interview Marjorie for the film. I guess I resisted for a while. It’s not something I dreaded, but I knew it would dredge up difficult stuff.

Furthermore, the timing had to be just right. We happen to be going through a really good period in our marriage, but I know that in the film the interview will appear at the rockiest point of the story. Debbie suggested I wait until things were tense again.

Great. Pick a fight, get the wifey really pissed, then whip out the ol’ camcorder. Now that’s cinema verite!

I talk it over with Marjorie in advance. Not the questions I’ll ask her, but the general areas we’ll touch on. We set up a time and date to do it and, as luck would have it, I do something the night before to get her irritated and she’s in an all-natural emotive state when I sit her down before our computer at about 11pm..

I try to get things rolling with some less than personal questions. What’s your understanding of the Web? Would you say you’re skeptical about it? How do you use it? Stuff like that.

“So far, you’re right, this is not at all personal,” she says.

“Do you want it more personal?”

“I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what you want.”

I ask why she hasn’t ever read my D-Word entries.

“I think on one level it’s respecting your privacy. And your autonomy. Because if I were to read it and you knew I was reading it, it might affect how you wrote it. Just like when you film anybody you’re a catalyst in what’s going on.”

“But you’re not curious?”

“I don’t find myself curious about what’s in the journal on the website. Which isn’t to say I’m not curious about what’s in your head.”

“And what do you think is in my head?”

“No, I mean, you know... I don’t want you to take my not reading your journal as a suggestion that I’m not interested in you.”

And then she starts to cry. And whatever preparation I’ve done goes out the window.

“I know,” I reassure her, trying mightily to regroup. “Um, what do you make of what I’m doing...”

“With the film?”

“Yeah. What do you think it’s all about?”

“Well, it’s clearly a manifestation of your search. You’re using your art to resolve this particular passage in your life. And the Web, to you, represented some new exciting frontier and you found all these vibrant young people doing no-holds-barred things and that was fascinating to you. And you were drawn towards it. And much of what’s happened since is you’re trying to make sense of what that has to do with your own life.”

I ask if she’s felt shut out of the process.

“To some degree. I guess I’ve always felt shut out to some degree of your work. I guess it’s the downside to us being in such different careers. And certainly at times I’ve been jealous of the people you’ve been following.”

“In what way?”

“I remember feeling it very strongly, sort of anger and jealousy at Josh’s graduation when you seemed more interested in finding Justin than you were in what was going on with Josh’s commencement. So I didn’t feel like you were there with me in the way I wanted you to be for that special event.”

Again, the tears.

“Well, there’s a flip side,” I add. “The flip side is me feeling I’m missing stuff too.” (Like how it’s now assumed that I’ll always tape important family events, I leave unstated.)

“I know.” She asks if it’s upsetting me that she’s crying.

“No, no,” I reply, reflexively. “Well, I mean, I guess the same as it usually does.”

“This isn’t easy for you.”

I laugh, embarrassed. “No, no, no, no... I just didn’t think this would be...”

“What?”

“Nearly as... hard.”

“Why didn’t you? What were your expectations?”

“I didn’t think it through. When I do these interviews, I’m partly... playing it by ear. And partly... I don’t know. I’m not looking for intense melodrama on camera, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe that’s why you stayed away from shooting me for so long,” she replies, dead on as usual. “You’re not looking for intense melodrama in life.”

“No. No I’m not. Which is maybe why I do what I do. But I feel like I’m not able to hide behind here like I usually do.” I refer to the camera, of course.

“Well, good,” she replies and laughs. “It might make for lousy footage, though.”

Next comes the interchange that I knew, even as it was happening, I’d use in the film. Near the end, just before my last round of shooting with Justin in San Francisco.

In the film I encounter these Twenty-Somethings who spend most of their days on computers, pushing the boundaries of the medium, and yet what all of them are looking for most is face-to-face intimacy. My role in the film is to be the older, established, so-called “normal” guy with wife and kids whose infatuation with the Web, and all that it represents, jeopardizes the kind of real-life relationship that everyone else is longing for.

“When we see a movie,” I begin, “we often joke ‘Oooo, the character has changed. He’s a more evolved person at the end of the film.’ Do you think I’ve changed? Have I evolved?”

Marjorie nods. “You’ve definitely changed. And you’ve definitely evolved. I still see us as very much in process.”

“How have I changed?” I ask. “For the better?”

“Yeah. You’re more here with us than you were at the beginning of the project. I think you have come home. I believe you want to be home.”

“You want me home more, though.”

She nods again and smiles to hold back her tears. “Yes... And I want you to want to be here.”

My wife is beautiful at that moment-- full of love and heartfelt emotion for this disembodied restless soul behind the lens. It’s clear to anyone who’s not blind that what I’m searching for is right there staring me in the face.

Which is why in the film we’ll cut to the view out my airplane window. I -- the character I now inhabit in the film -- will not come off well in that moment. So be it.

After that last round of shooting with Justin and the launch of Electric Minds last November, I rented a car and drove around the wine country a little north of San Francisco. Just to clear my head and enjoy the stunning scenery after a week of intensive work. I came upon a hillside by a secluded road and, following some strange impulse, set the camera on a tripod, took off all my clothes and taped myself running around naked.

I always thought I’d use it to illustrate how far I’d travelled in my willingness to reveal myself. And as a sort of nod to Justin. It was a pretty funny shot -- I must have been a half mile from the camera.

Yesterday, Debbie and I cut the scene out of the film. The comic tone was dishonest and cowardly. Real risktaking isn’t about being physically naked, it’s about being emotionally naked. Thanks to my wife, who I need far more than I acknowledge, even to myself, I now stand far more exposed. And, more important, feel truly on the path towards genuine personal honesty.

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