My hands are full, would you hold my breath?

Watched 'Perfume' tonight. I've never read the book, and my opinion is still solidifying about the movie. In the middle, I was thinking, bah, this is no good at all. Well, they could have done without Dustin Hoffman, for one thing. But this is not meant to be a review of the film. I'm not in the mood for that. The themes, however, got me thinking. The film is beautifully shot, and the focus is on senses. People praise the filmmakers for being able to capture scents through film, though I don't find this any more impressive than doing it through writing. Film is another way of telling stories, and we communicate our sensory experiences through language, story telling . . . this is natural. I'm getting off-track. The film made me think about the concept of being a 'sensualist,' which is, I suppose, one way I would describe myself. All artists, at their cores, I imagine, are sensualists. All creative people . . . and craftspeople as well, because perfecting a craft requires an acute sensory attunement to whatever it is one is crafting, be it bread (smell, touch, taste, sight, sound), shoes (touch, sight, sound, smell), perfume (smell . . . sight? taste?), painting (sight, touch). I often (often) ask myself if I might be happy simply as a craftsperson, but I think the reality is that I am too much of an intellectual (read: I enjoy intellectual meanderings, not: I am intelligent) to be satisfied with craft alone.

But this is not exactly the point I intended to get at either. There is more dealing with the themes of the film -- this desire to possess these sort of intangible, ephemeral essences of life, to put in a bottle the scent of beauty, to make the transient eternal, to hold something which cannot be held. This is one of my driving forces as an artist, one I have ignored, neglected, since I decided I shouldn't be a photographer in the 12th grade. I thought, I am trying to make a document which contains my life, and this is impossible, and in attempting to make this document, not only am I guaranteeing disappointment, but I am also failing to live my life in the present, but instead am only experiencing life for the express purpose of creating and preserving a memory. Well.

I walk through cities. I make notes to myself: "the smell of hops and yeast," "an asian couple wearing mickey-mouse earmuffs," "the damp cold, my aching bones," "fireworks light up the foggy horizon like some celebratory battlefield," "buskers on the Paris metro," "inviting lips," "the smell of sauerkraut," "the click-click-tap of rose pastilles in my mouth bouncing against my teeth," "santas playing bagpipes in front of Jenner's department store." I want to capture these things, in a story, in a work of art. I want to place them somewhere for view again and again, where I can study them, use them, try to understand them, possess them.

I am writing a story. It is self-indulgent, sensual, sexy. In it I have the chance to sleep with all the beautiful men and walk away unscathed. I can control every aspect of my world. I say to myself, "is this art, is this literature, or is this pornography?" Should I get off on writing a story? Or, perhaps more importantly, should I feel guilty for getting off on writing a story?

Lars von Trier wrote this: "There is only one excuse for living through -- and forcing others to live through -- the hell of the filmmaking process: The carnal satisfaction in that fraction of a second when the cinema's loudspeakers and projector in unison and inexplicably give rise to the illusion of motion and sound like an electron leaving its orbit and thus creating light, in order to create ONLY ONE THING: a miraculous breath of life! . . . For here is my confession: LARS VON TRIER, A SIMPLE MASTURBATOR OF THE SILVER SCREEN."

(yes, I recognize how disturbing this revelation is in view of such works as 'Breaking the Waves,' and 'Dogville,' but this isn't so much about Lars von Trier or his work as it is about the statement removed from any context.)

I have no conclusion tonight, I'm leaving this To Be Continued (or maybe I've said all I want to say on the matter?). Thoughts? You're always so quiet.