“Steal Good”
My friend and teacher Stephen Tobolowsky was fond of telling us, “If you’re going to steal, and by all means do, then steal good.” It’s a smart practice if done properly. Creative types are always “borrowing” ideas, often blurring the line of outright theft, but we should at least take something useful.
(Ultimately, my rationale is this: in the end, I’m either going to do it consciously or unconsciously, so I may as well fold it into my mindfulness practice and be aware of it.)
I was just asked to do a short film for a fashion-forward website. Directing the piece is the lovely and brilliant Poppy de Villeneuve, who shot the New York Times short, “The Park,” I did some time ago. When she described the character to me as a man of mystery my first thought was, “Who can I steal good from?”
In about two seconds, it hit me: Alain Delon.
Delon was a beautiful and troubled man, maddeningly talented, who has somehow slipped into the cracks of American film consciousness. It’s a shame, though history is a cruel arbiter even in the best of circumstances. But for anybody interested, watch “Le Samourai,” and see if you can either take your eyes off Delon or ever figure out quite what he’s thinking.
Yes, I will be stealing as much as I can from Mr. Delon this weekend, though to be fair he had an on-screen magnetism I can’t really hope to emulate. Still, as an exercise I will be looking for anything that might clue me into what gave him his particular brand of mystery. Perhaps it was a stillness. Perhaps a habit of holding a look for one beat too long for comfort. I don’t know, but I hope to find out this afternoon.
In the meantime, let’s all steal good. And if you feel like confessing to the practice, there’s never any shame in being clever.
For the Mineralava Musings, this is Edoardo Ballerini.