HOMAGE TO BERGMAN (February 22, 2014)

My beloved and I have just agreed to make a film about climate change. That is, our perceptions of its growing threat. I am pretty convinced that the human species is facing Armageddon, but she is not. She believes that the species is capable of dealing with the challenge. She also believes that our different perceptions can be best explained by the fact that we are a generation apart in terms of age. The film would be of the simplest possible kind. Facing the camera, our faces would be next to each other on the screen. The background would be blank. We would talk about our perceptions at the same time without listening to each other. And we would say what we believe without looking at each other, either. The viewer would not be able to hear us both at the same time. He or she would have to choose whom to listen to at any one time. Switching from one face and voice to another from time to time, the viewer would hear bits and pieces of our perceptions, just as is the case in the world in which we live. The cacophony is often confusing, but we still manage to pick out whatever we deem relevant to ourselves. Although we have not yet agreed on the title of the film, I have already accepted my beloved’s idea that it will be our homage to Bergman. Perhaps this would be an appropriate title, too.