SMOKE GOT IN MY EYES

Something here inside cannot be denied

One of the scariest parts about being a screenwriter (though I’m still not sure I qualify for the title) is returning to old, most likely never-to-be-made scripts from the past that resemble those half-formed creations from Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author.

Just the other day, I decided to revisit one of my old projects, and it left me in a funk for a few days. Perhaps it was the residual PTSD from the summer of 2014, when I wrote Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, a modern-day version of Grand Hotel set in 21st-century Los Angeles, during which I went borderline Jack Torrance in the process of writing it—drooling and getting hairy like a Red Bull-fuelled werewolf. Looking back at the script now, it even resembled, to my depressed mind, those endless Torrance reams of pages filled with “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Though, being a little kinder to myself, it did have a bit more variety than his repetitive exercise at the Overlook Hotel.

Funnily enough, even mentioning The Shining brings the hotel concept up again, making me think it was perhaps buried somewhere in my subconscious when I wrote my Chateau Marmont–inspired fantasy.

It was sobering to re-examine work from the past and feel despondent about its quality. There’s something deeply depressing about leaving projects unfinished or unborn, falling short of ever being pushed into production. Yet even in the fever dream in which I wrote it, I can now see a kind of maniacal sense to it all, like deciphering and decoding a surreal dream.

The difference with dreams, though, is that you can quickly forget them.

Unmade scripts, less so.

When a lovely flame dies
Smoke gets in your eyes