Procrastinet

Amman, Jordan - 5/17/2005: Art Can Hurt You, Part II

filed under: Despatches

A continuing series of periodic Procrastinet Despatches from Amman, Jordan. By Nicholas Seeley.

To continue with the art-in-Jordan theme, here are a few of the art projects my friends are involved in. (names, when I use them, are changed to protect the innocent.)

There are five filmmakers in my close acquaintance, interestingly representing different approaches to the art. One has Hollywood connections, and is trying to produce a Jordanian-and-American made feature film here, for a western market. The idea is to make something huge that uses Jordan as both a location and a subject, and will catapult this country’s filmmakers into the international spotlight. Getting it made is, of course, a long shot, as with any Hollywood feature, but if it works, it could score big. Another filmmaker makes features and TV series for the local stations. He’s burned out and bitter about the nepotism and cronyism that he says prevents talented people (not just him) from making shows that would get the Jordanian public watching local TV again (they don’t).

The other three are making small, art-scene films for the festival circuit (local and international); they’re determined to try and improve the outside world’s perception of the middle east in their own, small way, bit by bit. I think they’re good, and some have even gotten some notice.

Then there are the painters; I know two, both of whom make their living doing photography and design for magazines and using approximately one trillionth of their talent. One has had some local exhibits of her work, the other doesn’t bother, she’s trying to get back into school in Europe.

There’s a makeup artist who’s constantly shanghaiing friends into letting him turn them into glamour queens or hookers or Rocky-Horror space aliens for his portfolio. There are a couple of actors (one Jordanian-American, the other Jordanian-Jordanian) who grab every short film or voice over part they can, and lament the lack of stage opportunities in loud voices. We have a theater circle that meets every couple of weeks to hang out and read plays; usually we have about ten people there.

There’s another theater artist who works with art education programs here; talking with her is like a lesson in frustration as she describes project after project that’s been shut down because of lack of funding, interest, or hope.

Then there are the writers. I attend a writer’s salon every week or so; the size varies but at the moment there are three hard-core folks. The woman who hosts the circle is an established author who’s published stories in dozens of lit mags in the US, the UK and Canada; she writes in English because she says it’s a waste of time to write in Arabic; most of the other people there are foreigners of one stripe or another.

There’s a musician who usually has about three bands going at once. He just cut a CD, but he’s frustrated because he’s trying to get it printed and promoted locally rather than going overseas where he could probably capitalize on the exoticism of Middle-Eastern Modern Jazz to get a contract fairly easily (the band’s also really fuckin’ good.)

It looks good on paper. Why doesn’t it feel right? Maybe it’s because there’s a sense, in the US, that when you make art, someone cares. This sense may be self deception; may be the fallout of a pseudo-artistic pop culture that American artists all manage to believe they are a part of. Still, it’s there. Here, you know full well that no one gives a fuck.

One of the phrases I hear over and over in conversation is “people in this country are afraid to invest the amount of money it would take to make a film/album/play/magazine/novel/exhibit.”

Or maybe it’s because, in New York, for example, the presence of all those frustrated aspiring artists is balanced by the success stories that surround them. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, The Lion King on Broadway and The Matrix, and the Flea theater that packs every house with downtown New Yorkers, and bands from the Goo Goo Dolls to Antigone Rising to Dirty Mary give you something to aspire to, a sense that there are rewards to be won and path you must take to win them.

Or maybe it’s something else altogether. As usual, beats me. Where’s that whiskey…?

- Nicholas Seeley, 5/17/05

Posted by rjt at May 19, 2005 02:44 PM