Ode

Writer, Producer, Director, Camera, Editor:

Philip R. Fagan

2004

Life is transient, but film is forever so it seems. We mortals get older and fall apart, but the youthful images on the screen remain untouched, eternal. This meditation on mortality vs. cinema features Sherry D. reciting a maudlin poem on the theme as she wanders through an abandoned drive-in theater. Definitely influenced by Bazin's pseudo-theological take on film theory.

ODE - by Philip Fagan (2002)

Old friend
How you have faded before my eyes
With moth holes and cigarette burns
And sound crackles of your age
And a reel or two missing.

You were so much the elder
Yet I felt we both,
In sweet embrace,
Were for all time.

Immortal.

T’was a mirror you held before me
That I might capture the moment
Holy.

And behold,
All I was to be
Beauty and Style and Grace.

The Tak-Tak-Tak of the Dreammaker.
Others may sicken and fall away,
Their ashes scattered in 24-frame-per-second winds.

But not you and I.

We watch the universe unfold
And never miss a beat.
You have stayed the course.
Must you slip into the sunset
Without your fondest lover?

Forever,
You promised.
And I see now you never lied.
For it is I who must fall away
As your bright eye,
A beacon in a dark realm,
Flickering imperceptibly,
Will shine for all

Forever.

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