|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Despite
being confronted for some time now with the need to
pen my thoughts on Thorns, I have been hesitant to do so for
two nagging reasons: 1) my longstanding assertion that any opinions
I dispense on the project will only muddy viewers’ personal
interpretations of the work, and 2) the knowledge that a legitimate
statement would needs be a veritable anthology of statements from
everyone else who worked on the film, whose own contributions were
equally as influential as my own. Quite frankly, having me sum up
their cumulative works is like having Ed Woods’s manicurist sum up
the Louvre. The audacity (read ‘insanity’) of filming a personally-financed period piece for under six figures fits the modus operandi for me and my creative cohort, Eric Powell. Naturally, we both would have preferred a simple, one-apartment story about two ex-cons crying over their dying grandmother, but the poetic dialog and simplistic poignancy of Eldon’s script ignited passions that became too hard to ignore. Despite the litany of obstacles that accompany any project, |
| and due in large part to
the steady hand of producer Jay Thames (without whom, we would still
be wallowing in impotency), what seemed unfeasible a year ago has
become a welcome reality. I leave it to the audience to decide whether our attempt at the impossible was successful. Like many others, I believe art’s great power is its inability to self-interpret, so that each viewer’s experience can be unique and personal. To that end, I mean not to sully whatever effects Thorns may have on viewers by pontificating on what the story meant to me, or what I felt its central themes were, or what I have taken from it; rather, I simply extend a sincere hope that it provides a few brief moments of escapist satisfaction, an indulgence in darker moments of the human experience behind the relative safety of the silver screen. – Neil Thompson |
