I watched the Coen brother's film, "No Country For Old Men" this weekend. Based on Cormac McCarthy's book of the same title. I would say it is a dark western, chase movie that exemplifies the beauty of the Coen brother's skill to translate the power of the image into a work of art. The two brother's are truly at their zenith as film makers. That got me thinking about some of this generation's film maker's who are making films that will be remembered for decades. Most of them cut their teeth in the late eighties and early nineties and are part of the generation squeezed between the boomer's and the millennials otherwise know as Generation X.

People like Joel* and Etahn Coen, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh and others. I feel lucky to live in a time where these directors can manage to have the freedom and resources to make films with their own unique vision. It is something that comes from whole hearted passion and extremely hard work. If you want to really make something one cannot go without the other. You cannot be passionate and through your passion will whatever it might be into being simply because you are passionate.

I think too many times we think that our dreams will just appear one day, that those promises about our gifts, talents, or whatever, will just kind of happen one day because we want them so bad. Before Joel and Ethan Coen made "Blood Simple" they were sweating away learning how to edit in some discreet building in New York working on b-rate projects. They decided they could do something better or at least as good as the films they had been editing and put together a plan to raise the money and film "Blood Simple." It took a lot of work, months of writing, months of planning, months of tireless energy spent to find investors.  They had a passion for film and did something about it, whatever they could do they did; if they had believed all the doubts, all the fears that tell you failure isn't worth risking, the film might never have been made.  

I have known a lot of people that want to work in film, that want to be an artist, that want to travel but eight years later and they are still wanting to do those things, imagining one day it will all somehow come together or they feel so guilty about not doing something they do nothing. However, the people that seem to succeed on some level seem to be a little bit mad. They have to not believe all the logical doubts that tell them it is not possible. They have to be just a little bit mad enough to have hope that when they do step out, when they try something, when they fail or succeed, that by putting their hammer to the iron something will be created. Passion has to be coupled with action or else it is wasted.

This project has been a leap of faith for me and other's around me. Troubled Waters has my heart in it, my passion, my dreams, my destiny if you will, are intertwined with the completion of this film. It is safe to say I am little bit mad. So now, it is off to put my hammer to the iron and make something worth sharing. I am going to sweat and bleed if necessary and make this film. It is worth the risk of failure, it is worth the energy, the work and the stress because in the end, I love film. I love the power of the image as story and this story is powerful. 

*On an interesting side note, Joel and his wife adopted a child from Paraguay. Our family lived in Paraguay and worked with orphans in Paraguay for 6 years.