Today’s isn’t a philosophical post, just a celebration of much-needed love-hugs as we host secret (but not to you) parties for “Brother Verses Brother.” We’d love to see you. For families that need to be reunited (whatever family is to you), this is your ticket…

A few nights ago in NYC, we held a BrotherVerses + SisterVerses movie/piano party, testing our future plan for cinemas (we are talking to different distributors, some of whom know what’s up). For now, let me know if you’d like to join for these events. LA soon, and beyond soon enough.

Party pied piper moment here:

- Ari

Brother Verses Brother

[Film folks: I’m hosting private screenings of Brother Verses Brother in NY & LA. Contact me if you’d like to sing to our wine bottles.]

I was stopping over for a night in Iceland, and decided to re-gift to a friend a bottle of cheap wine from my hotel in Paris. We opened it. Battery acid. Before he poured it into the moss, I asked him to try a different kind of decanting.

I said, “Imagine it’s a rare bottle from a micro-vineyard on a tiny island in the middle of a river in Southwest France. The family has tended these vines for 150 years. This is a legendary 1923 vintage - the year Europe was drunk with post-war exuberance. This bottle is worth $17,000. Let’s drink again.”

We drank. And it tasted complex, weirdly warm, rich. Spicy. Good. A wine that had been objectively awful was now special.

This same sorcery runs the way we experience movies.

The Alchemy of Perception

Imagine a movie called A Poet. It’s my favorite movie of last year - a Colombian heir to Sideways, where the hard-drinking Miles character doesn’t even have one friend. Find it on a free streaming site with a low-res thumbnail, and you might turn it off in ten minutes, thinking it’s too sad and ramshackle. But let a prestige distributor like A24, Mubi, Neon, Criterion, or 1-2 Special make a nice poster and charge money for it. We can see the film’s genius now - heartbreaking, riveting, hilarious. The film didn’t change. Or did it?

Distribution isn’t just logistics, it’s the friend telling you the bottle is worth $17,000, or that she wrote a rave on Letterboxd. I’ve seen this from the inside: a movie that feels like a disaster in a half-empty test-screening becomes a masterpiece once it’s framed by Cannes laurels and a prestige price tag.

The Sideways Effect

We saw this play out nakedly with Sideways. Miles’s rant (“I am not drinking any fucking Merlot!”) didn’t just write itself into film history, it crashed Merlot’s market price and sent Pinot Noir sales surging. One grape became the wine of the unimaginative. The other became something to seek out and understand. The grapes didn’t change. The soil didn’t change. Only the story changed, and the culture’s palate shifted with it.

We are all Miles, all the time, riding the waves of narratives we didn’t write and mostly can’t see.

Dregs on the Edge of the Wineglass

There is a cynical read here: that we are just tricking our brains. The Japanese researcher or quack Masaru Emoto claimed that water exposed to loving words formed beautiful crystals, while water exposed to hostility formed chaotic ones. Science dismissed him when his results were unrepeatable.

And yet.

Are we so certain that perception is a one-way street? If a story can change the market value of a grape, or the way my mouth perceives a 2-dollar wine, is it possible that intention actually leaves a residue?

I challenge you to run an experiment. Get two identical bottles of the cheapest wine you can find. Spend an evening with Bottle A, cursing it, telling it it’s garbage, the barrel-of-piss treatment. Take out your childhood trauma on that bottle.

Bottle B gets the opposite. Speak to it as a lost relic, a legendary vintage that survived against all odds. And the greatest lover of your life.

Then take both bottles outside, and offer glasses to strangers without telling them which is which.

Maybe the wine will taste identically mediocre. Or maybe there will be a difference. And if there is, we won’t know which explanation to reach for: that you changed the wine, or your tongue. Or both.

We do this to our cities, our memories, our lovers, our enemies, our fathers, our mothers, our sons and daughters.

What story are you telling to the thing you’re about to drink?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Make it a good one, fucker.

Try the experiment. Then come tell me what happened here:

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Three years ago, my brother Ethan sat with his guitar in my living room and tested out a new song called “I’m Always Sad.” I argued that he could record it as a dance number - I always loved sixties ska which sounded “up,” with lyrics about being down.

Ethan had a different vision for this song he’d written on a train - so he recorded it epic and cinematic, which led me, as his sometime video director, to a snowy train track in Latvia.

One of the things I love most about filming in distant places is the generosity I find when I’m far from home. I can’t imagine commandeering an Amtrak train without a budget or a permit, but in Riga, thanks to a community of good friends, we were able to make it happen.

Apocalypse When

We intended to edit the video quickly, but life intervened with a violence I wasn’t prepared for. First, the creative impulse took us to San Francisco to film our improvised musical Brother Verses Brother.

Then, I found myself with a nonrefundable ticket to a double-feature of grief: navigating the maze of my father’s hovel, physically hoisting him to the toilet while he prepared to die - all while an earbud stuffed in my ear was squawking a terrible secret.

As I and my sisters tended our dad, I was also arguing with one specialist after another in a hospital in another city, where Ethan had suddenly taken mysteriously ill.

I didn’t know how to tell my dad that his other son might be dying, nor how to tell my lucid but stricken brother his father was dying too.

Thirty minutes after my dad died, my friend and co-star Lara offered to drive me through the night, away from my father’s body, 350 miles to my brother’s hospital bedside, so I could be the one to break the news to Ethan.

With Friends Like These

It’s funny who shows up when the world ends. In those months, the smell of my brother’s hospital became normal to me. There were good friends I expected to visit who complained about “afternoon traffic,” while unexpected medium-friends actually showed up with salad and coffee. You learn quickly who can handle the smell of death.

When Ethan could function, I watched Wild Strawberries with him, and furiously redesigned my father-son poetry book Father Verses Son to include a bundle of his poems, changing its title to Father Verses Sons (plural) in case Ethan didn’t make it - or in case he did.

He did. Ethan began to move. The unexplained autoimmune condition retreated in fits and starts, as mysteriously as it had arrived.

As Ethan regained his strength, we began the long, cathartic process of building the musical soul of our film, Brother Verses Brother, while he put final touches on his album, Earth City 2: Nightfolk.

Creativity and the Magic of Isolation

Last night in Riga, we returned at last to throw an “I’m Always Sad” release party for a great Latvian crowd. It was more than a video premiere, it was a celebration of persistence.

There is a strange irony in “I’m Always Sad.” It’s a song about the glories of isolation, written before we were forced into a very real, very terrifying isolation by illness and loss. But finishing this project (and I am a firm believer in finishing everything) reminded us that while the song honors being alone, the making of it required the opposite: the power of family, and of friends who don’t care about traffic.

No matter the tempo, a song about sadness can always be a dance.

Please watch on YouTube and pass it on - it genuinely helps. Have a sad party.

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Stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting for the perfect script. The kazoo orchestra is playing “Enter Sandman” and the dance floor is yours. Film the people you love. Film the things you’re afraid to lose.

Film someone dying. Because they are. And so are you.

Join CinemaVerses

BROTHER VERSES BROTHER

The improvised one-shot musical EP’ed by Francis Ford Coppola. Coming to cinemas in fall 2026 (somehow).

HELICOPTER

A dangerous spiritual assignment from Alejandro Jodorowsky: re-enact the helicopter crash that killed my mother and rock impresario Bill Graham. Can we heal from trauma by re-writing it? Coming to festivals in late 2026.

THE SONG OF SWAY LAKE

A stolen record, a glamorous grandmother, a lake frozen in time. My meditation on the seductive danger of living in the past, and the music that won’t let us go. Starring Rory Culkin and Robert Sheehan.

ADVENTURES OF POWER

March to the beat of your own drum, even if you don't have one. My cult comedy about an outcast air-drummer who discovers that the rhythm in his heart could change the world. Featuring Michael McKean, Jane Lynch, Chiu Chi Ling, Adrian Grenier, Nick Kroll, Shoshannah Stern, and Neil Peart.

HOT STICKS DRUM SHOW

My podcast about drumming, featuring some of the world’s best drummers: Neil Peart, Marky Ramone, Charlie Benante (Anthrax), Dave Lombardo, Ray Luzier (Korn), and many more.

SHORT FILMS AND VIDEOS

Dozens of shorts, $50 film challenges, 4 second films, music videos, and more. Here’s one of my 87 four-second films to get you started:

I used to do that. Here’s some tips on a better way.

The 1:00 AM Execution

It's been five Sundance rejections for me since Adventures of Power premiered there. And that premiere was its own kind of disaster. It was a whirlwind of snowy streets and the dangerous feeling that I’d finally Arrived. My twin brother was terrified I was about to become a star, and he’d be forced onto the ride with me. He needn't have worried. Reality was more brutal.

My midnight premiere was pushed to 1:00 AM for tech reasons. A certain kingmaker named Harvey Weinstein showed up drunk. Ten minutes into the movie, he loudly walked out. Wannabe filmmaker bloggers immediately clicked their Blackberries from the bathroom to gloat that my three-year passion project was DOA. One said I had the charisma of a bowl of cottage cheese. Another that he hoped my sister would get cancer. (This is not hyperbole. Human beings actually wrote this.)

After the credits, the big agent who’d just signed me and called me a “genius”… slipped out of the cinema and dropped me from the agency.

Never mind the Audience Awards that came at the next festivals: the gatekeepers had spoken, and the road to employment in Hollywood (or even a future return to Sundance) was barricaded.

Neil Peart, the drummer of Rush who’d acted in the film, kindly reminded me that if you listen when people praise you, you’ll listen when they hate you. As he wrote in “Bravado”: If the moment of glory is over before it’s begun - If the dream is won though everything is lost - We will pay the price, but we will not count the cost.

Why I Sucked at Softball

A “No” from Sundance taps the feeling of standing on a dusty fourth-grade field, waiting to be chosen for the softball team. At age nine, was I rarely picked because I wasn’t what they were looking for? Or did I suck at softball because I didn’t really love softball?

We often beat ourselves up for not being allowed into spaces that don’t actually fit our souls. Maybe I wanted the affirmation of being on the team more than I actually wanted to play shortstop. The rejection forced me to look elsewhere - though it took years for me to figure that out. So you… do it now!

What brings you energy? For me, I discovered the untrammeled energy of drums and the freedom of cycling. It's no accident my favorite screenplay was Steve Tesich’s Breaking Away, about ditching the quarterback fantasy for the freedom of the bike. Now bikes are woven into my work: In Helicopter, I’ll be riding my mom’s bike to the top of our “holy mountain” to free her spirit. In Fogtown, which I tested in Brazil, the bike is the engine of a high-stakes action-adventure. Now you get to ask where your joy is, and go that direction.

The “Punch in the Nose” and the Danger of Desperation

When you’ve been rejected - by a festival, a studio, a mate, or a drunk mogul - there’s a dangerous instinct to fix it too fast. You feel blood in your nostrils, and you’re tempted to take any deal just to feel chosen again.

Don’t do it. When you’re looking for the next partner or project, listen to your gut. Never sell yourself short because you’re hungry for a “Yes.”

A bad deal (or a bad relationship) is just a slow-motion version of that 1:00 AM walk-out. If collaborators don’t love your vision as much as you do, they’re just another set of softball captains who’ll keep you out of the game.

To the Class of “Not This Year”: Find Your Holy Mountain

Rejection is a brutal diagnostic tool. It asks: Do you actually love this, or do you just want to be told you’re special? If your work feels like play, then rejection isn’t a wall, it’s something to dance around.

I’ll admit that sometimes loving something isn’t enough to get you a golden ticket, but the love is the only thing that gets you through the “No” anyway. Acknowledge the pain and find a path the gatekeepers don’t own.

For years, I was told I couldn’t direct television because I was just an “interesting” (that’s a slur) filmmaker with a track record of being unemployed. Brother Verses Brother was born directly out of that frustration. If they wouldn’t let me onto the field, I had to excavate my own. (I can thank Francis Ford Coppola, Werner Herzog, and my sister for reminding me with their work.)

Resilience isn’t about standing up in the same spot where you were knocked down. It’s about having the courage to crawl to a new path that nobody can see but you.

The most profound art isn’t made in the spotlight, it’s made on the long quiet climbs where nobody’s watching, and you’re pedaling only because you have a hunch the mountain might look pretty from another angle.

I want to hear from the outsiders today. What’s a project you’re working on right now that was born because a door was slammed in your face? How are you turning that “No” into your own path? Let me know:

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Okay, now what’s the one thing you can create this year that won’t exist without you? Not the thing you should do, but the project that keeps you up at 3:00 AM? Cool… now hold that thought.

The Myth of the “Fresh Start”

Every January, the creative world falls into a trap. We treat the New Year like a fresh reel of film, imagining that a change in the calendar will somehow fix a flaw in our process.

We call them resolutions. But in the language of production, a resolution is just a wish without a line item. It’s the “development hell” of the soul.

If we want to create something that didn’t exist before (a film, a revolution) we have to stop looking at the calendar and start looking at the nature of the commitment.

The “Assessor” vs. Actually Playing the Game

There is a recurring character in every artist’s thinking mind: The Assessor. The Assessor is basically a studio executive who lives in your skull and has never actually helped anyone finish a script. He’s obsessed with how things are going. He looks at the footage from yesterday and says, “This isn’t good enough,” or “You don’t feel inspired, maybe wait for better light.”

When we make New Year’s resolutions, we are letting the Assessor run the show. We are making deals based on how we think we will feel in three weeks.

But feelings are the most unreliable crew members you can hire. If I had waited until I “felt ready” to shoot a one-shot musical with my 99-year-old father, Brother Verses Brother would never have happened. The Assessor would have found a thousand reasons to delay.

Did I make mistakes in the movie? TONS. But creation isn’t a result of the right mood, or perfect preparation. It’s the result of a declaration.

The Path that Disappears

The greatest lie the Assessor tells us is that we need clarity before we begin. We think we need a map, a shot list, and a guaranteed distribution deal before we take the first step. But as the poet David Whyte reminds us, the absence of a path is actually the sign that you are finally on one:

“How do you know that you are on your path? Because it disappears. How do you know that you are really doing something radical? Because you can’t see where you are going.”

I’ll include a clip of him saying it, because he’s a good-lookin’ dude too!

If you feel lost, it’s not because you’re failing, it’s because you’re hacking into the woods on your own. You get to do it anyway - especially when you don’t know the way.

How Films Actually Get Made

Through the lens of these Cinema Verses, I don’t look for “motivation.” I look for structures that make the impossible inevitable. Maybe these principles can be helpful:

• Ownership of the Frame. In production, the weather (or any other outside factor) is never an excuse to cancel. You either get the story on film or you don’t. Radical responsibility is the realization that the work happens because of your will alone - not in spite of your circumstances.

• The No-Exit Commitment. When we committed to the improvisational format for Brother Verses Brother, we removed the “out.” Creation requires burning the boats and sailing towards possible failure. Maybe I’ve mixed my metaphors, but you get the point.

• The Memento Mori Factor. Urgency is the artist’s best friend. My father was 99. I didn’t have the luxury of a Five Year Plan. When you realize the light is always fading, you stop negotiating with your distractions.

• Generosity. The moment a project becomes about proving your talent, it dies. When the work is an act of generosity - a gift for the audience, a tribute to a subject, an open canvas for your friends and collaborators - the paralyzing fear of inadequacy disappears.

• Commitment to a “Bad” Take. This is related to my idea of a poop draft as the solution to writer’s block. Basically, you learn 100x more by doing something wrong than by thinking about how to do it right. Recently, after months of wanting to perform a story at The Moth, I biked to Brooklyn by myself and signed up. I told a story in front of 300 people in Brooklyn, but I could barely speak, I was so nervous. I’d completely forgotten to warm up my damn voice! I was so furious with myself, I almost forgot two causes for celebration: 1. I’d actually done it! 2. I’ll NEVER forget the lesson to warm up my voice. If I’d stayed home I’d have learned nothing. In life, as in film, daydreams provide no data - only action teaches.

Beyond the Resolution

If you are waiting for 2026 to provide you with more discipline or more readiness, you are still a slave to your Assessor. I prefer a declaration, which doesn’t care if you’re tired or uncertain. It’s a stand you take: “This film will exist.” It’s the difference between being an observer of your life and being the director of it.

So… what must be created by you this year - not because you “hope” it works out, but because you have declared it so? Say it out loud. Text it to a friend who won’t let you off the hook … or put it in the comments if you like!

What single thing can you do right this second to lasso your dream down from the clouds onto planet Earth?

This is a green light

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I put Francis Ford Coppola, Lars Von Trier, and Quentin Tarantino into a soup and decided to act out our entire culture. This film won Best Film at SXSW and other places. Here are the rules:

CULTURE COMPLIES WITH THE RULES OF DOGMA 99

1 THE FILM MUST BE EXACTLY ONE MINUTE IN LENGTH

2 THE FILM MUST HAVE NO CUTS

3 THE NUMBER 3 MUST NOT BE MENTIONED

4 THE FILM MUST HAVE LIVE SOUND ONLY (NO POST)

5 THE FILM MUST HAVE NO DIALOGUE

6 ONLY BLACK, WHITE & PRIMARY COLORS MAY BE USED

7 THE FILM MUST BE SHOT IN ONE TAKE, WITH NO REHEARSALS

8 THE FILM MUST BE PROJECTED IN 35 MM

9 THE CAMERA MUST NOT MOVE

10 ARI VON GOLD MUST PERFORM IN THE FILM

WINNER - BEST NARRATIVE SHORT South-By-Southwest Film Festival

POPULAR JURY AWARD Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival

This film is only one minute long. Yet, what is said in those precious 60 seconds could fill a series of books about film and pop culture. Written, directed by and starring Ari Gold, ‘Culture’ is one part performance piece and another part essay on movie violence and moviegoer’s thirst for blood -- or it may just be enjoyed for what it is, an actor flexing every muscle in his highly trained body. It will take you longer to read this review than to see the film, but it may be seen over and over again and examined and argued about as to its meaning. ‘Culture’ is 60 seconds of pure cinematic brilliance. - Film Threat

Ari Gold made a wordless one-minute short (’Culture’) in which he goes through comic paroxysms until he falls down.... ‘The number three must not be mentioned’ is one new declaration from Mr. Gold’s Dogma 99. - New York Times

An amazing one minute short film. It’s a shame most of you won’t get to see this bit of brilliance.... We were giggling with pleasure and disbelief at the unexpected genius behind this one. Fantastic stuff. - Ain’t It Cool News

Theatrical shorts are poised for a comeback. The fact is that this Christmas, three features had shorts on them--but they were children’s movies. It would take a different, hipper sensibility for a short to connect with adult audiences. And this year’s Sundance has one that could, observers say. It is a one-minute comedy, Ari Gold’s ‘Culture,’ best described as Franz Kline meets Pulp Fiction. Showing with the hottest featurelength comedy at Sundance, ‘Culture’ has received as much praise as many of the features. - Denver Post

In sudden strike of inspiration, five of us shoot a short film here at our working place. The film is inspired by “Culture”, one minute masterpiece by Ari Gold, an American filmmaker who sent us ‘Culture’ just before the war began. - War Diaries (Former Yugoslavia)

Each day in front of us will have more light. And yet, we all know it’s difficult to perform spring when you’re stuck in mental winter. Many of us have faced challenges this year, and the pressure to be merry can feel like another weight to carry.

But solstice reminds me that a shift happens in the deepest trench of shadow. We don’t have to feel warm for light to be on its way back.

Here’s a 23-second piano improv for today’s movement towards spring… and for my pet frog… and for you if you are in the mood. Be kind to yourselves. Spring is coming, ready or not.

- Ari

Where does inspiration come from? My answer can sound like I read books: Francis Coppola’s Live Cinema, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Psychomagic, Werner Herzog’s Conquest of the Useless. But let’s be honest, my lifelong hunt for mentorship can feel like distraction.

Today, inspiration comes from my sister Nina, and her journey to San Quentin.

As I’ve been battling the vagaries of the film business to bring Brother Verses Brother to the public, Nina asked who I can turn to when the world doesn’t give me what I think I need. My answer was open water, and then it turned back to my sister herself.

The Debate on Water Courage

I used to tease Nina because she wouldn’t jump in the freezing San Francisco Bay with me.

My pitch was simple: the cold is good for you! Chemicals and pollutants jack up your immune system! To prove my point, I’d remind her that I’ve survived weird water everywhere: a frozen Latvian lake, a polluted river in Lithuania, a shipwreck in Haiti, even the shopping-cart-and-syringe extravaganza of the L.A. river. New York beaches that hire cops to stop people from swimming because they “can’t afford lifeguards.” And the creek in Ukraine where our grandfather’s family was shot.

While traveling I always find the nearest blue dot on a map, bushwhack to it, and jump in. Police, rangers, property owners, or passersby yell at me for swimming. I get to feel like a rebel, shouting as I float away that water can’t be owned.

Swimming this way, I said to Nina, is a masterclass in the interplay of preparation and action: you don’t always know what’s in there, but there’s only one way of finding out. Then, when working on my films, especially with the grand musical improvisation of Brother Verses Brother, I could count on the muscle memory: You’ve been colder and more scared than this. So leap, then look.

Nina’s Plunge

Nina has made a different leap. She transitioned from stage actor to yoga and meditation teacher, and then made a pivot that might frighten some people: she became a facilitator at the GRIP training institute (Guiding Rage into Power) inside San Quentin. She works with men—often lifers—to face the roots of the worst thing they’ve done. The courage of sitting in shame and guilt, refusing to look away, and taking radical responsibility, changes these men completely, and it has changed my sister.

She called bullshit on my cold-water pride. I endure physical shock for a few minutes, and then get out and brag about it (sometimes to seagulls). Could I imagine smelling the SF Bay for 40 years from a prison, and not being able to swim because I’d made one terrible mistake?

GRIP requires radical truthfulness to work. Meanwhile many of us, me included, have difficulty admitting to our dentists that we don’t always floss. Can you imagine having the courage to speak about a murder or rape you committed? And then listening with an open heart to the victims of similar crimes, who come in to share their wounds?

Nina guides incarcerated people through a toolkit to alchemize violent past behaviors, towards deep understanding and accountability. The program has an astounding 98.8% success (non-recidivism) rate, and its participants achieve a level of presence that’s rare in our outside world. To facilitate, Nina has to keep her soul open every second she’s in the room.

She rarely finds that level of presence outside.

The Teachers of the Deep

Though I was losing the argument, I pressed my case to Nina, that my habit of finding inspired presence in water wasn’t just a solitary selfish stunt. It leads to connection too.

In Latvia, diving into a hidden forest lake, I was stopped by a furious salmon farmer whose land I was trespassing on. After two minutes of wild gesticulation, the man offered me tea, and I ended up staying for two weeks, helping him build a meditation hut in the shade of a family of storks. The risk of the trespass led to human connection.

And once, learning to surf, I ended up right next to a pod of dolphins hunting (or surfing). We waited for the wave which comes when it comes, and then sprung into action. In my case, surfing meant jumping to my feet and wiping out. But they seemed cool with that. They didn’t laugh at me. See, Nina? I can sit in my shame with dolphins! Is that courageous enough?

Why The Effort?

Cold rivers, cold waves, San Quentin—none of it matters until we agree to risk our ego by being fully there with the beings around us. Making a 90-minute improvised real-time film with my brother and our dying father required sustainable courage, not cold-water bravado—I can’t bullshit for that long.

It’s not easy for me to be present - half the time I’m somewhere else, working to crack the nut of movie distribution, or maybe just melting my brain on Instagram. Unfortunately for my distracted nature, Nina can instantly sense, when I’m on the phone with her, if I’m looking at the damn thing while talking to her.

With Nina, and with movies, being present is required. The men in her “tribe” (as they call it), some of whom may never leave San Quentin, do not live any other way. No phones. Just men, their shame, their power, their love. Courage to speak, courage to listen.

Inspiration may be any tide we jump into, to see if we can breathe into the freeze without panicking.

Then, only then, can we get carried somewhere real.

🎥 Consider a donation or learn more about GRIP.

🎥 Welcome, FilmStack readers! My new movie, a one-shot improvised musical set in the streets of San Francisco, is executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola.

🎥 You can see Brother Verses Brother at a festival near you. Say hi in person, or in the comments, or here. Ok!

In Cali we also got to see Metallica’s movie, and road-test our “The Moth meets the Smothers Brothers” live movie-show concept, a new bit of NonDē for all you film experimenters out there. Write me if you want to join us onstage as we travel. More philosophy next time - just landed in Brazil where the country’s top film blogger chose our film as the best of the festival. Say hi. - Ari

Holy Mountains, Unfinished Cathedrals

Every creator eventually encounters a project that becomes an unfinished cathedral. For me, that was a feature film called Helicopter. But just as cathedrals need grace to take their final form, so do movies.

Helicopter is a re-imagining of my mother’s death in the crash that killed rock music promoter Bill Graham. Filmmaker-shaman Alejandro Jodorowsky gave me the following “psychomagic” assignment to heal: put on my mom’s clothing, fly in a helicopter through the towers she hit, bike up a (holy) mountain, and re-invent her death - on film - to free her spirit. A trailer, if you’re curious:

What followed was a decade-long edit-hell spanning five countries, as I worked to alchemize childhood trauma into a movie that could heal an audience. Or maybe just break me. I learned that when you’re lost in the middle of building a Gothic-Cathedral-level piece of architecture, you need to try a different construction technique.

The Elf House Principle

To finish a cathedral, I sometimes build an elf-house in the forest. For me, twice, the elf house has been an improvised single-shot movie. This provides the practice of fast completion, when another project gets stuck on the gargoyles.

• My elf-house Short Film: While lost in a year-long edit for the original Helicopter short, I made an instant film called Culture - a one-minute performance, filmed once. It won the Grand Prize at SXSW and gave me the self-confidence to finish the first Helicopter.

• My elf-house Feature Film: Years later, paralyzed again by the complexity of the Jodorowsky feature-length version of Helicopter, I commenced Brother Verses Brother, a one-shot improvised musical starring my family. This also became the oxygen that brought Helicopter back to life.

The Lesson: If your main project is a cathedral, go build an elf house this weekend. You need to remember what it feels like to write “The End.”

Synchronicity For Beginners

When you have the courage to sleep in your unfinished cathedral towers, even during a hurricane, God sometimes sends you messages to keep going.

While cutting a nightmare sequence for Helicopter, I became obsessed with an obscure Italian electronic-music piece from the mid-seventies, called “Prati Bagnati del Monte Analogo.” The title of the track led me to René Daumal’s book Mount Analogue, which I then realized was the same book that inspired Jodorowsky’s film The Holy Mountain.

Mount Analogue is the story of a quest to climb a mountain that can only been seen by those who know how to look for it. René Daumal died mid-sentence while writing the book - it ends without even a period. When my eyes passed over that abrupt termination, I began to weep.

But it wasn’t a tragedy, it was somehow profound and correct. We are often paralyzed by the “Assessor” in our heads who demands a perfect conclusion. But life, death, and art are really a series of mid-sentence breaks.

And yet here I was, being accidentally tortured for years by Jodorowsky, who’d been inspired by Daumal. Was I also creating a journey up a mountain I’d never fully ascend? I went to Paris to try to meet with Jodo, and ask for clues about his insane artistic-ritual instructions, but his kind wife told me they were too busy to meet. I left a drawing for them in their mailbox.

And then the magic deepened. In my Paris Airbnb, laptop on my knees, I began editing the scene where I slept on the last spot my mom touched the earth.

I decided to try editing to Bob Dylan’s “Changing of the Guard,” the song we’d played at my mom’s funeral, but it didn’t feel right until I switched to Patti Smith’s soulful, powerfully feminine version of the same song.

In the afternoon, I stretched my back from my edit-slouch and wandered to the Pompidou museum, where Patti Smith herself had put together an exhibit of some sort with Soyndwalk Collective. Climbing to the top floor, I was mesmerized by a snowy installation that felt like a mountaineering adventure. And then, I discovered that Patti had placed Daumal’s Mount Analogue quotations onto the walls of the exhibit.

“Prati Bagnati del Monte Analogo” had come full circle. Sometimes in life, things aren’t just coincidences, they are confirmation that the mountain you are climbing is the right one.

The Lesson: Stop looking for the peak (the finished project). Focus on the entryway and the mountain will appear. As Daumal wrote: The summit is inaccessible, but its base is always visible to those who know how to diligently seek it.

The Power of the Unfinished Sentence

My father’s performance in Brother Verses Brother is an unfinished sentence. He isn’t here to see it. And though I am finally polishing the towers of the Helicopter cathedral, I have made elf-houses all the way up to inspire myself (and the gargoyles). But here’s the thing: Helicopter may look okay in an unfinished-gothic state anyway.

The Lesson: Stop looking for perfection to finish your work. God only cares that you started to carve with an intention to reach the spires, and the sculptures will appear. Yes, I realize I’m mixing metaphors: mountains and cathedrals! But they’re the same thing, no?

Even if you die at your the desk before your pen writes the period, the act of climbing and carving is where the transformation happens. As I prepare to bring my new films into the world, my parents - who are the real stars of the film - won’t be here to see my renditions of them. But their dust is on the mountain, in the elf houses, and on the spires.

As Daumal’s wife Véra Daumal wrote:

I am dead because I have no desire
I have no desire because I think I possess,
I think I possess because I do not try to give;
Trying to give, we see that we have nothing,
Seeing that we have nothing, we try to give ourselves,
Trying to give ourselves, we see that we are nothing,
Seeing that we are nothing, we desire to become,
Desiring to become, we live.

We all have a project that feels 'utterly undoable.' For me, it was a one-shot musical filmed on the streets of San Francisco. I didn't have a budget, but I had Werner Herzog’s voice in my head telling me I’d be cooked like a hamster.

Do the Doable + Do the Delusional

"This is utterly undoable."

So Werner Herzog said when I pitched him a short film at his one-week-film-school run by La Selva in Lanzarote, Canary Islands. My proposed plot: a painfully ignored metalhead teen-girl watches Hare Krishnas flood the streets, then hides under the sea where she is transformed by a witch, and then returns to exact revenge on her peers. I'd be the entire crew—writer, director, cinematographer, lighting, sound recordist, editor, and sound mixer—and make the film start-to-finish in four days.

Herzog was skeptical of my unrealistic proposal until I told him I'd already filmed Hare Krishnas on the island the night before, and found underwater caves and a self-proclaimed witch. "Ah," he said. "Then you do it.”

“Do the Doable”

Herzog's philosophy sounds like a contradiction to his audacity as a filmmaker - until you live it. "Do the doable" means: stop making excuses and create something you can actually execute. He took issue with his filmmaker friends (including Coppola, who hadn’t yet dived into Megalopolis) for complaining they were awaiting a budget from Hollywood. Werner said you must do what you CAN do. But I knew that Herzog's definition of "doable" included hauling ships over mountains and hypnotizing actors into eating glass, so I think the trick is: delusional becomes doable when you commit to it.

My week making “Mírame” (link to video there, in case you’re curious) in Lanzarote's volcanic landscape would prove essential for “Brother Verses Brother.” I was standing in a volcanic cave in Lanzarote with a self-proclaimed witch and a group of Hare Krishnas in my head, trying to convince the most intimidating man in cinema that I wasn't insane.

He told me I would be 'cooked like a hamster in a microwave.' He was right.

If I could film a girl transforming underwater with no crew at all, I could film myself hunting for my father with a few people supporting us.

The Principle of the Immediate: Don’t wait for a “yes.” Herzog’s definition of “doable” isn’t about being realistic; it’s about being committed. If you can’t film the mountain, film the rock at your feet. If you can’t find the actor, play the part yourself. Action creates its own permission.

“You will be cooked like a hamster in a microwave”

With Werner’s warnings echoing in my head, we established headquarters at Tibor Szabo's art gallery off Columbus Avenue. While Tibor poured wine or played his violin, I covered his walls with maps, timing charts.

One technical challenge that scared me: How do I communicate with crew while acting? We developed hand signals—ear touch for "slow down," chest tap for "speed up," head scratch for "we're fucked but don’t stop." Stefan and I drilled, him walking backwards through traffic while I guided him with pressure on his back, singing to him.

"Your actors should not cry. Your audience should cry… Set is a no crying zone"

When you are the director of your own life—or your own team—you have to hold the tension so the work can release it.

When I wanted to cry from frustration, or terror that my dad might die, I'd just slap myself and keep going. But what if your actors are your actual family? What if the tears are real? Directing your twin while playing his twin breaks your brain. You're simultaneously subject and object, performer and mirror.

In Lanzarote, finding the Hare Krishnas and a witch while scouting transformed my story. Now our inability to separate performance from reality would become Brother Verses Brother's engine. This was Coppola orthodoxy too: the making of the art is also the art.

The Principle of the No-Crying Zone: Art requires a separation of the "Subject" and the "Object." On the set of Brother Verses Brother, I was directing my actual father and my twin while trying not to collapse. You are the lightning rod. If you collapse, the set collapses. Hold your own tension so the work can release it later.

"Storyboards are the instrument of cowards"

Instead of shot lists, I created emotion-maps for each location:

Kerouac Alley: Artist ignored, father and brother absent. Start with fear of failure. Chinatown: Fight for fraternal harmony. Vesuvio: Split into two, add romance, dad still missing. Street: Dad’s books forgotten, Mom’s spirit remembered, passing Zoetrope. Specs: Brian from Weezer as the success that eluded our lives, effortless charm. Dad's photo finally appears on wall. Battle for musical-emotional breakthrough, hint of the risk: Ethan’s dissolution. Bathroom Conference: Twin pathology in a toilet. The Saloon: Fight with Hell’s Angel. Ethan vanishes. Hill: Each step raising stakes, will Dad be dead? Instead, brothers return to teen-era fight. Blood (whose?). Dad's: Terror and frozen lentils. Mom's spider plant. Wrong songs. The Wall: Love versus Letting go.

Each scene had several songs mapped—"It's Never Enough" for despair, "Leitungswasser" for energy, "Our Love is Beautiful" for hope. We’d have to feel out what fit.

This is the Emotion-Map. If you are stuck in your own 'undoable' project, stop mapping the plot and start mapping the temperature. Don't plan the shot; plan the feeling you want to survive

"You are not a fly on the wall. You are a filmmaker. You have to interfere."

I had to control the story somehow. This wasn’t real life, and the narrative had to move with force and pace. Jaws, except about twins, and the shark is a dying father.

I knew that the city would be a loud and disruptive character. Recording dialogue against Atlantic waves prepared me for San Francisco's acoustic assault: the Columbus bus bombing through every 12 minutes, construction and tourists yelling at us, bar music bleeding through walls, street performers competing for attention. Fine, make S.F. one of the main characters.

Meanwhile, Dad's literal 90% deafness might affect his appearance (or disappearance). Would he know when to enter the frame if he couldn’t hear us? He understood the movie I wanted to make, but as in real life, would likely monolog (or go to sleep) (or die) as he saw fit. Perfect metaphor for our relationship.

“Three Guarantees: My honor. My face. My handshake.”

I wanted to live these guarantees, and promised my family and my crew that I would be present for all of them. But still, my anxiety as the director would make my character manic and anxious. So be it. My brother Ethan could be cool as a cucumber.

Calling something undoable is foreplay to making it exist.

We had 90 minutes to discover if a one-shot family musical was doable. The gigantic note on my phone, spelling out the themes and songs of each scene, would disappear like witch-spells doodled with my finger onto the surface of the sea.

“Doable” is far better than “perfect” as a goal. I knew that the film I planned would transform into something else the moment I said “Action.” What lived would be something else, born from pressure and accident - and grace.

What is your Lanzarote? What is the project that everyone - including the Herzog in your head - says is 'utterly undoable'? Start it today. Use the 'Head Scratch' signal if you have to, but don't stop. Because 'Doable' is a better god than 'Perfect'. Tell us here -

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In Life, We All Play Ourselves

Stefan Ciupek, our cinematographer, had worked on Russian Ark—96 minutes through the Hermitage with 2,000 costumed extras. Our film was just 90 minutes through North Beach with idiot twins and a possibly-dead father. Should be easier, right?

Except that extras follow direction, brothers follow grudges.

My Dutch chanteuse friend Lara Louise, who really does perform in all the cafés of North Beach, was my only choice to play the singer who offers my character a small hope of romantic love. The real Lara is happily married, so unlike with the other characters, we subtly changed her name - from Lara Louise to just Louise. She'd never acted, beyond the natural performance of being a working musician in San Francisco. She kept gently offering me ways out — other singers I could cast, friends with more experience — but I had a sense that her natural grace would be a secret weapon for the story.

We rehearsed her mysterious appearance and disappearance, but never her actual dialogue. I wanted her to float through the film like a jazz clarinet.

The Celebrity Playing Himself

Brian Bell from Weezer brought a different challenge. How do you direct someone whose actual fame is part of the plot? During our prep calls, Brian was game to make fun of being a rock star. He’s been studying acting with diligence for some years, and we’d made a $60 short film together which proved how funny he could be. But now Brian Bell from Weezer would be playing “Brian Bell From Weezer.” Should he play an aloof rock star” No,” I said, “not an actual aloof rockstar, but a guy who’s accepted that people think he might be an aloof rockatar. In other words, charming.”

The brilliant thing about Brian’s daily-increasing-acting-chops was his willingness to lean into self-mockery without losing believability. We mapped out his scene at Specs Adler Museum and Café (whose owner was excited to meet him) to be unexpected, magnetically pulling the focus of the audience (and Louise) from our twin-bro amateur hour.

The Family Workshop

Preparing Ethan and Dad was like asking fish to notice water. They'd been performing these roles their whole lives: Ethan, the profound artist with a bit of despair about the world’s cruelty. Dad, the literary lion who lost the love of his life, and who always seemed to be waiting for you to stop talking so he could begin. The challenge was getting them to play these parts without looking at the camera, and within the pacing confines I’d set out in my script. In a film with no cuts, I wouldn’t be able to trim a bloated scene to make it sing, so I was martial in my prep about the scenes hitting the emotional beats without too many diversions. Then again, I knew that the diversions were where it would get interesting.

Ethan understood musical pacing, so we spoke in musical terms. "This scene needs more staccato." Dad was trickier. At 99, he didn't have much energy, and preparing him to wait patiently for cameras to barge into his apartment made him a little anxious. But he moved his New York Times-reading ritual from morning to evening to calm his nerves. And he wanted to look vigorous for the camera, even if his character was dead. Anyway, he understood dramatic structure as well as any of us—25 novels teach you about rising action. During prep, I'd just talk him through the shape of “Herb’s” climactic scene, where… well, sorry, I don’t want to spoil it.

The Poet Laureate Wildcard

To play a friend of Ethan’s we meet on the street, the most fun casting decision was our producer Starr Sutherland’s idea to bring in Tongo Eisen-Martin, San Francisco's Poet Laureate, whom I'd never actually met. The plan was for me to encounter him for the first time on camera, genuinely not knowing what would happen. Russian roulette with poetry, traffic, and strip clubs.

The only prep was logistical. Where would he be? How would we find him? What if he felt compelled to deliver a 2-hour poetry sermon that destroyed the film’s pace? Stefan and I mapped escape routes and hand signals, knowing we might need to abort mid-scene if Tongo decided to kidnap the film. But Starr assured me that Tongo was also a musician - he would understand timing. Anyway - real surprise would cause real reactions.

The Hell's Angel and His Attack Chihuahua

I wanted a Hell's Angel to rough me up at the Saloon. Lara, being the queen of the neighborhood, sweetly asked the bouncer, Shane, if he might want to act in a film. He didn’t seem to mind either way, but he apologized that due to club rules, he wouldn’t be able to wear his Angels jacket. Like many tough guys, he’s a gentle person underneath the leather. That said, you haven't lived until you've negotiated violence with a biker holding a chihuahua named Honey.

"So when I say I'm looking for Louise, you maul me."

"How hard?"

"No bruises. Anything else is fine."

The Light Calculator

The most complex casting was the sun itself. We had to backwards-engineer the entire shoot from night into day. Stefan and I spent days calculating light patterns, measuring when golden hour would hit different streets and buildings. The story needed to move from sunset to melancholic dusk to night and the shadow of death, all within 90 minutes of real time.

This meant timing every scene to hit specific light marks:

• 5:47 PM: Start at Kerouac Alley in full afternoon light

• 6:15 PM: Reach Specs as shadows lengthen

• 6:45 PM: Climb the hill as the dusk sweeps the city

• 7:10 PM: Arrive at Dad's as night comes, to find him—

One traffic jam, one too-long improvisation, one actor forgetting to move, and we'd be finishing in the wrong light. Stefan and I walked the streets with a stopwatch, Stefan calling out traffic warnings like a stage manager. We were building a story out of light’s vanishing.

The Unified Theory of Chaos

What I learned preparing all these non-actors was that everyone already knows how to be in a movie. Even the sun knew its role. It’s about opening the door to play.

We play parts all day long. In the film’s ninety minute story, I would play the worried brother, the pushy brother, the unemployed film director, the delusional romantic, the loving son.

How many parts do we all play in any span of any 90 minutes?

The trick wasn't teaching ourselves to act. It was creating conditions where our real selves would serve the story. Where Ethan's actual frustration with me would be real. Where my panic about the film could also be a character’s panic about a missing father.

We weren't making a documentary, but we were capturing real play. The preparation, I guess, was just coaxing everyone to be themselves at the right volume for the camera, and for the dance between the people and the city to generate its own rhythm — something that would carry the emotional momentum of fiction, even if this was a version of truth.

Next time: How to map chaos, with a lesson from Werner Herzog.

How Poetry Sparked a Music Movie

A few weeks into lockdown, I was watching dragonflies screwing mid-flight outside my window when it occurred to me that up in San Francisco, my dad didn’t have anyone to keep him company.

His name was Herbert Gold, and he’d written 25 novels, guzzled coffee with Shel Silverstein, been divorced twice, had dozens of girlfriends, but now, in his late nineties and having survived all his friends, he was isolated. He couldn’t type anymore, and could barely hear me on the phone. (He’d always had trouble listening, but now he could blame hearing aids.)

I had to do something. I’d started writing poetry with friends online, so I wrote one called “Scribble Me a Poem” and sent it by US Mail, with a self-addressed return envelope:

I received a hand-scribbled poem back (typed for you below… his handwriting was crazy).

Thus began a Troubadour-like competition by mail. His poems were leaner, and had the urgency of someone who has little time to dawdle. We wrote things we’d never said, and made up for physical contact with secrets about love, death, tomato soup, and a sexy young woman named Kimmie Lister who appeared in his dreams - and whom he asked me to track down on my “magic machine,” which is what he called my phone. (I couldn't find her.)

When the world opened up again, I compiled collages to go with the poems, and proposed we read the book Father Verses Sons aloud to City Lights Books on his upcoming 100th birthday - and make a movie too, which could start at the same spot: Kerouac Alley. He laughed at the idea.

My dad despised Kerouac.

The Beat Generation’s Last Witness

Herbert Gold first visited City Lights when his college buddy Allen Ginsberg dragged him there to prove that San Francisco was cooler than New York. Midway through a tennis serve in the park, the California sun hit my dad’s eye, and he knew he was never going back. He chose a studio apartment overlooking the neighborhood, and became a “San Francisco novelist.”

He was teased by his compatriots for not tuning in, turning on, or dropping out. Maybe this explained him outliving them all.

Now 60 years later, the once-bare walls of his bachelor pad were obscured by Haitian paintings, photos of his five children, and mountains of magazines and books, the latest entitled Still Alive - A Temporary Condition.

Until recently, he’d been too embarrassed to write poetry. Our book would prove that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

In one poem, he calls me his “impatient, sad son.” Though he’d had a parade of girlfriends, I always knew that he’d lost the love of his life, my mother, through a masculine clumsiness that I hated as a boy. I worked to forgive his imperfections too, through poems that promised I would live and love on.

Writing poetry about a father or son is like performing surgery on yourself, with laughing-gas as anesthetic. For me, an unemployed film director, it also gave me the gratification of actually completing something daily. With movies, and their huge financial and technical demands, too much patience was required of an impatient sometimes-sad son.

But now my dad was 99, and I wanted him to act in my next movie, so my impatience seemed rational.

I found a path in my brother’s music. At the age of six, my twin brother Ethan wrote a post-divorce song called “Dum Daddy Dum, Best Mommy Best,” which was so catchy that we sung it incessantly, to my dad’s irritation.

Now, Ethan’s music could suggest the multi-generational tale in a more forgiving way. And though guitar-and-ukulele songs would guide the film, I wanted the audience to experience the Beatnik jazz of the neighborhood too - a narrative version of Jack Kerouac and the great David Amram’s Pull My Daisy.

As I sat plotting Brother Verses Brother (the movie) on the floor of Dad’s hovel, I also tweaked the layout of Father Verses Sons (the book). These weren’t separate art forms competing for my attention—they were parallel sets of Verses about legacies of male loneliness and love.

But why the hell was I doing art that cut so close to the bone? To redeem a once-sort-of-famous writer now being forgotten? To redeem my brother and me?

I only knew that the book and movie could be a conversation between fathers, sons, lovers - between past and present - between words we say, and the bigger words we don’t know how to say.

That the more specific it got, the more it might speak to people.

So, Coppola’s Live Cinema challenge became not a technical feat, but a way of becoming present to the real moments. Verses of song, poem, cinema. The book would be non-linear and cyclical. And the film would live in that painfully linear perception of time - flickering without a single cut towards night, death, and the light of truth - if we could get it right.

Independent movies live by word of mouth, so if you’re enjoying this, please pass it on, and/or support with a paid subscription, and/or follow me & Ethan & the movie on Instagram too, for photos and updates of our tour! And let me know your thoughts and questions. Thank you very much for reading. 🧜‍♂️ Ari

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Live Cinema Demands Telepathy

In a film with no cuts, you get raw connection or complete garbage. As my friend Sebastian Schipper (director of the one-shot masterpiece Victoria) warned me, “If you look like you’re acting, the characters will look like they’re lying.”

So: filming with my real family could be a superpower or a disaster.

I always knew that a desire to capture all of life in a single movie would lead to paralysis. So, doing a tale in real-time seemed like the right limitation: what could happen in the span of ninety improvised minutes that would suggest the bigger story? The sun setting on twins - a woman - bars and clubs - a father gone missing.

I knew from experience that directing myself was like holding a mirror to my flaws while trying to manage a set. Directing my twin, who’s known me longer than myself known myself, was probably dangerous.

The Song Islands

My brother Ethan was in Berlin when I pitched him the story. I lobbied him to drop his European tour plans and film in San Francisco in just six weeks - while our 99-year-old novelist father was still willing and able. To prepare, Ethan and I embarked on a mini-tour, stopping first at our friend Maciej Musialowski’s dilapidated artist castle in Poland (as one does), and played him some songs.

We then headed for rural UK and Ireland. Ethan respects the bard-loving-islands where the relentless thwacking of digital music is sometimes muted in favor of an actual human being with a guitar. His solo numbers onstage were intimate and lyrical, but our “Brothers Gold” songs were too ridiculous - more “Flight of the Conchords” than Simon & Garfunkel. How to plan a musical flow in advance, that would work with an improvised movie? Fortunately, our test audience (sometimes just one bloke with a pint) was always ready with an opinion on the pros and cons of each number.

We did tests in Ireland with Stefan Ciupek (a brilliant DP who had deep experience with “one shot films” going back to Russian Ark), then went out to rainy West Cork to workshop the songs one last time with Augustina Saygnavong and Robert Sheehan (who starred in my movie The Song of Sway Lake). Then I had to face my brother on my own…

The Problem with Casting Someone Who Knows You Too Well

By the time we were off to California, we were cognizant of a lifelong problem of trying to fix each other. This was going to be one of the main themes of the film, set during an evening when “Ari” (my character), is taking on the fixer mode. But rehearsals in San Francisco became a minefield of real sibling dynamics. We yelled about how much our characters should or shouldn’t resemble our real selves. Should my pushiness be exaggerated to create tension? Should his “lost artist” persona play as neurotic or mystical? How idiotic should our verbal combat be? And how to deal with my fear that were we just an unemployed version of Oasis, who no one would want to watch for ninety minutes?

Underneath the fights, there was a deeper conflict: terror versus trust. I couldn’t forget an epic music video we’d attempted a decade earlier, for one of Ethan’s Brothers Gold songs. We filmed on horseback outside an Irish friend’s dilapidated castle (I promise I only know two people with broken castles) - that devolved into fights about how the video should end.

This time, both of us wanted to support the vision, even if we disagreed about how to get there. We often hide our grief behind music and humor. We needed to see beauty in each other’s brokenness. To shoot it live, we needed to access the telepathy that other people imagine twins have.

I wanted a real twin story - no “evil twin” or any other cliché - so we had to get to the root of love, hate, identity, separation, and fear of a father’s death - in a way that even a singleton could relate to. In junior high, people repeatedly asked us, “Do you ever wake up, look in the mirror, and not know which one you are?” Well yes my fools, we mostly know, but don’t you wonder who you are too? I realize now that something was asking to be healed, on both sides of the screen. We all have to say goodbye to ourselves, as we say goodbye to those we love.

Thanks for reading. I welcome your comments by the way! And hope to see you on our tour as soon as I am allowed to announce our bundle of upcoming festivals in Europe. - Ari

Next Chapter: How Poetry Sparked a Music Movie

🎥

My new movie didn’t start with a script. It started with a four-page letter to my twin brother, beginning:

Imagine you’re playing your music in Kerouac Alley, and no one’s paying attention.

I was proposing something insane: that we make a quasi-musical, live, in the streets of San Francisco, playing versions of ourselves — and that our 99-year-old father should act in it with us.

I didn’t know then how much real life was about to flood into the story — or how Francis Ford Coppola, godfather of the neighborhood, would end up involved.

As anyone with siblings knows, even when you hate them, you still support them to the death. My brother Ethan thought I was being manic. I’d just premiered a no-budget short film in the company of a Belarusian director friend, Nikita Lavretski, and watched his improvised one-shot feature “A Date in Minsk.” I became convinced I must do a one-shot movie about my musical relationship with Ethan my brother, right away - before we gave up on our musical collaboration, and to catch our Dad while he was still alive.

Though caught up in his own music, Ethan agreed to try. Ethan had been writing stunning songs that the world didn’t seem to notice. I was struggling to find money for a big-budget dream-movie, Fogtown. We had nothing to lose.

Meanwhile, our father Herbert Gold - who’d published 25 novels and battled Kerouac - had somehow survived all his friends and was living alone in his rent controlled apartment.

There was something tragic here that might speak to people. Something funny too.

The idea grew bigger and more urgent.

I told Ethan (deliriously, I soon discovered) that an improvised ninety-minute film would only take ninety minutes to make, and would allow us to capture the comedy and pathos of our existence. And by filming in real-time, we could punk an audience that was increasingly too distracted to watch anything longer than twelve seconds.

We could also live out the particular symbiotic glue of twins. This would be a no-cuts movie about codependent brothers trying to “cut,” by reconnecting with a father who’s preparing to die.

I’d already spent a year putting together a book of poetry and art with them called Father Verses Sons, which was a poetic correspondence about love, loss, aging, death, sex, puns, and tomatoes. Why not a movie counterpart?

I was planning to launch the book at the historic City Lights bookshop on our dad's 100th birthday in a few months. I decided Brother Verses Brother would commence on that same streetcorner.

Some ideas cannot wait.

Given courage by the concept of Live Cinema— a mad, brilliant filmmaking approach championed by Francis Ford Coppola—I set out to create a vision of Bohemian culture and American manhood on the edge of collapse. I would invite a single camera into a safari across a troubled but great city. Maybe we could make something beautiful. Or it would break us trying.

I wanted Brother Verses Brother to be a tale of men grappling for meaning - in songs, in art, in women, and in pigeon shit. What I didn’t know was how deeply reality would crash in, and how love would become necessary in order to survive.

NEXT:

Live Cinema Demands Telepathy.