Miriam: A Serialized Interview with Brian Pera -- Part Four of Five (featuring the short film "Melissa")

Yesterday's winners of the "Miriam" sample and the DVD are: Veta and Alicia! Get in touch with me at the email to the left and I'll send out your prize packages!

“For me, serialization means a story keeps on deepening and expanding over time.” -- Brian Pera, Writer and Director 




“Woman’s Picture,” the film, is a beginning. Filmmaker Brian Pera plans to continue exploring these characters in an open-ended series of short, web-based films over the next ten years or so. 


The segments, while at first view may seem unrelated as stories, do relate on “subterranean levels of mood and theme,” according to Pera. This is a process he likens to perfumes from a long established house like Chanel. Compare two of them, and the differences are obvious. But, when looking at the line through time, the differences become more muted, while the parallels become more apparent, and more complex.


Visit the other participating blogs for different angles. They’re listed at the end of this (and subsequent) posts. And stop by Evelyn Avenue  for all sorts of interesting stuff. “Miriam,” which is to be released in early October, will be sold there, and through Lucky Scent. 


Andy Tauer has provided a very generous allotment of sample prize packages for the drawing, too. Details appear at the end of this post.


Pera has also done a fascinating series of short films in which women talk about their memories of perfumes, loved ones and the links between them. Here is one of them:

"She was a very clean woman": Melissa from brian pera on Vimeo.
   
It seemed appropriate to serialize this interview, which was conducted online, as well. So it is appearing over a five day period.


Question 4:

You have said “to me, ‘Miriam Masterson’ is a role Miriam plays, based on childhood memories of her mother’s public mask.” In trying to identify her mother’s old perfume, is Miriam showing us her fear of being unmasked?


Pera:  "I think Miriam is terrified of losing her mother.  Like everyone she has a terror of unfinished business.  She has an active fantasy life, and her mother, or her idealized version of her mother, is a big part of that fantasy life.  I think for a long time Miriam has been able to enjoy a certain level of denial about her mother's mortality.  Her mother has been so alive and so fixed to her within her TV fantasy space, within her imagination.  When her mother becomes ill I imagine it's just a rising awareness for Miriam that her mother is "slipping", and I think she knows that the fantasy version of her mother can only exist and flourish in any useful way while her mother is still alive to contrast against it.  That uncertainty and transitoriness calls everything into question for her, and nothing seems stable or secure, including her conception of herself.


So in a way, yes, I think you're right.  Miriam's afraid of the reality underneath the fantasy, which is that people are imperfect and mortal, secretly incomplete, and that they don't just live but die that way, taking their secrets with them.  They leave mystery behind. While Miriam respects the mystery of her mother, she's terrified of being left without answers and having to trust her own judgment.  She'll never truly know who her mother was - only who she wanted to think she was.  All of her memories have been so influenced by fantasy that she can't properly parse through them.  Her mother is everything to her, even though they've had a troubled relationship, a very complicated one.  The whole thing about her obsession with her mother's perfume comes straight from my life.  I had a tiny bottle of perfume my grandmother left in her medicine cabinet - the only fragrance she owned.  I took it when she died.  And it was a big part of me.  Somewhere in my mind, that perfume was her.  And when it broke, and ran down the drain, it was like another death, as crazy as that sounds. I still haven’t gotten over it.


Like Miriam, I never knew the name of the perfume.  So I only have the memory of that scent now, which is practically nothing.  And it fades a little each year, the way memories of people do."


Visit the other participating blogs for more exploration of “Woman’s Picture,” reviews and short films in which women talk about their memories of perfumes. Links appear at the end of this post.


 The drawing: Each day, I’ll pick two winners at random from that day’s comments, who will each win a package from Tauer Perfumes. This includes a sample of the fragrance “Miriam” and a DVD  of the “Miriam” short film, which opens in October. I’ll announce the names of the previous day’s winners with each day’s post.


Previous winners of the “Miriam” package won’t be eligible to win again until the drawing for the Grand Prize, a purse-sized sprayer of “Miriam,” which all commenters are eligible to win. That random drawing will be held at the end of the five-day series, and announced at 9:00 a.m. US Eastern Daylight Time, Monday, Sept. 19th. 


All winners must contact me with postal details at the email listed to the left, by midnight US Eastern Daylight Time, Friday, Sept. 30th. Otherwise, I’ll do a random drawing to select alternates.




Other participating blogs are:

Perfume Shrine   

 Persolaise

Perfume Smellin Things

Perfume Posse

The photo, a still from the film, is of Ann Magnuson  as "Miriam."

Miriam: A Serialized Interview with Brian Pera -- Part Three of Five

Yesterdays two winners, chosen using random.org, are Fernando and Zazie! Get in touch with me at the e-mail to the left and I'll send your prize packages posthaste!




“For me, serialization means a story keeps on deepening and expanding over time.” -- Brian Pera, Writer and Director 

“Woman’s Picture,” the film, is a beginning. Filmmaker Brian Pera plans to continue exploring these characters in an open-ended series of short, web-based films over the next ten years or so. 


The segments, while at first view may seem unrelated as stories, do relate on “subterranean levels of mood and theme,” according to Pera. This is a process he likens to perfumes from a long established house like Chanel. Compare two of them, and the differences are obvious. But, when looking at the line through time, the differences become more muted, while the parallels become more apparent, and more complex.


Visit the other participating blogs for different angles. They’re listed at the end of this (and subsequent) posts. And stop by Evelyn Avenue  for all sorts of interesting stuff. “Miriam,” which is to be released in early October, will be sold there, and through Lucky Scent. 




Andy Tauer has provided a very generous allotment of sample prize packages for the drawing, too. Details appear at the end of this post.


Pera has also done a fascinating series of short films in which women talk about their memories of perfumes, loved ones and the links between them. Look for "Melissa" here on Saturday, September 17th.


It seemed appropriate to serialize this interview, which was conducted online, as well. So it is appearing over a five day period.




Question 3: Which Miriam does the completed, real-life perfume “Miriam” represent to you? 


Pera: “The Miriam perfume is amazing to me.  I think Andy based it on the character and her world, as well as on Ann Magnuson's performance, but also on the things I'd written about my grandmother's perfume, and losing it, and how that felt.  So it's like another creative mind was there with me when that bottle of perfume shattered. Andy rescued it in a way by paying it homage.  The perfume he created isn't the same as my grandmother's was, but it doesn't need to be.  


What matters is that, based on this story I filmed -- which is grounded in real experience for me -- he created a new memory. That helps me deal with the fact that my grandmother's perfume, and my grandmother, are gone.  In a way, they're not gone now.  They live on in Miriam - in someone's appreciation for and understanding of what this person and her fragrance represented to me, the same way that Ann's performance memorializes them.  As far as how the Miriam perfume relates to the character in the film, it's replaced any perfume I might have imagined while we were shooting the piece.  For me, it's become the fragrance Miriam's mother wore, and when I smell it I feel like I might be a little closer to sharing in its importance to her, something that only exists in smell, way outside of words.  


By the time we filmed ROSE, the film which revisits Miriam and her mother, which takes place several years earlier, I imagined that the perfume we were all talking about was the one Andy's created.  So it was a nice creative exchange that way - my work inspiring him, and his inspiring mine.  The “Miriam” this fragrance represents to me is the one who values the past and lives with it both comfortably and uncomfortably, trying to reconcile it with the realities of the present.  The perfume is dreamy and strong like her, a space for the imagination.  It embodies her respect for people and places and the continuum of history and feeling they exist within.”




Visit the other participating blogs for more exploration of “Woman’s Picture,” reviews and short films in which women talk about their memories of perfumes. Links appear at the end of this post.




 The drawing: Each day, I’ll pick two winners at random from that day’s comments, who will each win a package from Tauer Perfumes. This includes a sample of the fragrance “Miriam” and a sneak-preview DVD version of the “Miriam” short film, which opens in October. I’ll announce the names of the previous day’s winners with each day’s post.


Previous winners of the “Miriam” package won’t be eligible to win again until the drawing for the Grand Prize, a purse-sized sprayer of “Miriam,” which all commenters are eligible to win. That random drawing will be held at the end of the five-day series, and announced at 9:00 a.m. US Eastern Daylight Time, Monday, Sept. 19th. 


All winners must contact me with postal details at the email listed to the left, by midnight US Eastern Daylight Time, Friday, Sept. 30th. Otherwise, I’ll do a random drawing to select alternates.




Other participating blogs are:

Perfume Shrine   

 Persolaise

Perfume Smellin Things

Perfume Posse


Photo by Andy Tauer.

Miriam: A Serialized Interview with Brian Pera -- Part Two of Five

Yesterday's 2 winners are Ewik and  CC Douglas! Get in touch with me at the email to the left and I'll send out your prize packages posthaste! (Winners chosen using random.org)

“For me, serialization means a story keeps on deepening and expanding over time.” -- Brian Pera, Writer and Director 

“Woman’s Picture,” the film, is a beginning. Filmmaker Brian Pera plans to continue exploring these characters in an open-ended series of short, web-based films over the next ten years or so. 

The segments, while at first view may seem unrelated as stories, do relate on “subterranean levels of mood and theme,” according to Pera. This is a process he likens to perfumes from a long established house like Chanel. Compare two of them, and the differences are obvious. But, when looking at the line through time, the differences become more muted, while the parallels become more apparent, and more complex.

Visit the other participating blogs for different angles. They’re listed at the end of this (and subsequent) posts. And stop by Evelyn Avenue  for all sorts of interesting stuff. “Miriam,” which is to be released in early October, will be sold there, and through Lucky Scent. 

Andy Tauer has provided a very generous allotment of sample prize packages for the drawing, too. Details appear at the end of this post.

Pera has also done a fascinating series of short films in which women talk about their memories of perfumes, loved ones and the links between them. Look for "Melissa" here on Saturday, September 17^th.

It seemed appropriate to serialize this interview, which was conducted online, as well. So it is appearing over a five day period.

Question 2:

“When you originally imagined Miriam’s mother’s perfume, what was it like?”

Pera: “In the film, Miriam keeps her mother's unnamed signature perfume off to the side of her vanity, in a crystal decant it must have originally come in.  It's like a shrine there, and she has a ritual around it.  People who love perfume will recognize that ritual and I think relate to it pretty strongly.  Dressing the set, I put a tray nearby on the vanity with a variety of perfumes I selected from my own collection, all of them things I imagined Miriam would have inherited from her mother.  All those bottles are pretty full, which indicates that her mother didn't wear them much, whereas her mother's signature perfume is almost empty.  It's special.  

Those other perfumes I put out were clues, pointing to what Miriam's mother's perfume might smell like, a combination of fragrances that would have been released around the same time.  They give her mother's unnamed perfume some kind of context for the viewer, showing where it situates itself in time.  I don't remember all of these perfumes I set out but I think they included Miss Balmain, Bal a Versailles, and Balenciaga Le Dix, some of my favorites.

All those perfumes represent a bygone era and signify how temporary things are. But, at the same time, because Miriam has kept them, we see how we can make things last, carrying the past forward with us.  At the same time, I feel like Miriam's mother's signature perfume does something none of the others can, together or separately - which is why both women have revered it and kept it separate.  Somehow, Miriam and her mother made a strong personal connection with this fragrance, and I'm fascinated by that.  What endows one fragrance with those emotional properties, and not another?  How does a fragrance speak to us that way, cutting right to who we are and how we feel about things?  Miriam and her mother have a relationship with this fragrance which is like a relationship with a person.  It's definitely a relationship with each other, through this perfume.  For me that shows how huge a fragrance can be, how powerful and unique.

The perfume I had in mind as Miriam's mother's perfume while writing the script was Youth Dew by Estee Lauder.  I liked the idea of Estee Lauder because I'm fascinated by that brand and what it means to women in America, the way it has bonded mothers and daughters in this realm of fantasy and luxury and ideas of everyday American femininity over the years, and the way that's a shared fantasy, similar to the way Miriam shares her fantasy world of perfection with her viewers.  However, once I smelled Andy's version of Miriam, I couldn't picture anything else on the vanity there.”

Visit the other participating blogs for more exploration of “Woman’s Picture,” reviews and short films in which women talk about their memories of perfumes. Links appear at the end of this post.

 The drawing: Each day, I’ll pick two winners at random from that day’s comments, who will each win a package from Tauer Perfumes. This includes a sample of the fragrance “Miriam” and a sneak-preview DVD version of the “Miriam” short film, which opens in October. I’ll announce the names of the previous day’s winners with each day’s post.

Previous winners of the “Miriam” package won’t be eligible to win again until the drawing for the Grand Prize, a purse-sized sprayer of “Miriam,” which all commenters are eligible to win. That random drawing will be held at the end of the five-day series, and announced at 9:00 a.m. US Eastern Daylight Time, Monday, Sept. 19^th. 

All winners must contact me with postal details at the email listed to the left, by midnight US Eastern Daylight Time, Friday, Sept. 30^th. Otherwise, I’ll do a random drawing to select alternates.

Other participating blogs are:

Perfume Shrine   

 Persolaise

Perfume Smellin Things

Perfume Posse

Photo by Andy Tauer.

Miriam: A Serialized Interview with Brian Pera

“For me, serialization means a story keeps on deepening and expanding over time.” -- Brian Pera, Writer and Director 


“Woman’s Picture,” the film, is a beginning. Filmmaker Brian Pera plans to continue exploring these characters in an open-ended series of short, web-based films over the next ten years or so. 


The segments, while at first view may seem unrelated as stories, do relate on “subterranean levels of mood and theme,” according to Pera. This is a process he likens to perfumes from a long established house like Chanel. Compare two of them, and the differences are obvious. But, when looking at the line through time, the differences become more muted, while the parallels become more apparent, and more complex.


It seemed appropriate to serialize this interview, which was conducted online, as well. So it will appear over a five day period.


Visit the other participating blogs for different angles. They’re listed at the end of this (and subsequent) posts. And stop by Evelyn Avenue  for all sorts of interesting stuff. “Miriam,” which is to be released in early October, will be sold there, and through Lucky Scent. 


Andy Tauer has provided a very generous allotment of sample prize packages for the drawing, too. Details appear at the end of this post.


Pera has also done a fascinating series of short films in which women talk about their memories of perfumes, loved ones and the links between them. Look for "Melissa" here on Saturday, September 17th.




The first question:


“What was the fragrance’s development, the process of collaboration with Andy Tauer, like?”


Brian: “Andy and his work represent for me, in a way very few people do, what it means to be truly independent now.  Indie and independent are words which are used very loosely these days, but Andy sets an example which really clarifies what those terms essentially need to mean for me.  I feel a real kinship with his creative philosophy and practice and that's the reason I approached him in the first place.  It's the way I'd like to make films, not just now but always: following my own instincts, doing much of it myself, getting my hands dirty, making things, producing them, in a meaningful way which feels hand crafted and sincere rather than hyped and distorted by a thousand intermediaries.  It requires a strange admixture of humility and confidence, and I hope I'm moving toward that equilibrium as successfully as he has.


Andy read the screenplay and said yes, which shocked me.  I expected him to say no.  I felt I needed to ask and get it out of the way, and once he said no I could move on to others.  But he said yes, and away we went.  From the beginning he showed a lot of trust in me and faith in what I wanted to accomplish.  He started working on the fragrance very soon after he said yes.  He saw a first cut of the first three Woman's Picture short films, including MIRIAM.  We exchanged many letters discussing Miriam and her influences, relating it to our own experiences.  He told me pretty early on what direction he was considering going in.  We then talked about that, and I think he made a few modifications, as did I, and we moved on from there.  


I think the creative process is both singular and universal, and I found that while the art of perfumery is obviously a lot different than filmmaking, the practices share many of the same struggles, challenges, and inspirations.  In one of the essays he wrote on perfumery, Edmond Roudnitska talked about imagination and the way it works - by association, by organization of accumulated influences and inspirations.  It means being open.  "The most insignificant detail - occasionally even one that is alien to the field of perfumes - can trigger a first association of ideas, which can entail another such association..." and so on, and all those associations graft themselves onto an initial idea like base notes and modifiers in a perfume. 


 That's filmmaking, too, really.  So when Andy and I talk about combining the arts of perfume and film I think we're not just talking about the result but the process, the engagement; as artists we're both inspired by each other's creative world to make something new, and our imaginations work alongside each other, producing some third piece of art which exists in the mind of the smeller and viewer, who relates these things for herself.  


Collaborations are pleasurable to me and I feel very comfortable with them, but few have been this rewarding and gratifying.  I think everyone who knows Andy's work knows something of Andy - that's the kind of artist he is, a very personal one.  I can tell you that's sincere and real.  He's a uniquely committed individual and I consider myself more than lucky to have engaged in this with someone so creatively generous and fearless.” 

The drawing: Each day, I’ll pick two winners at random from that day’s comments, who will each win a package from Tauer Perfumes. This includes a sample of the fragrance “Miriam” and a DVD package with excerpts from "Woman's Picture," a bonus 15 minute short from the movie, and related short films from Evelyn Avenue, and the “Miriam” short film, which opens in Los Angeles in October. I’ll announce the names of the previous day’s winners with each day’s post.

Previous winners of the “Miriam” package won’t be eligible to win again until the drawing for the Grand Prize, a purse-sized sprayer of “Miriam,” which all commenters are eligible to win. That random drawing will be held at the end of the five-day series, and announced at 9:00 a.m. US Eastern Daylight Time, Monday, Sept. 19th. 


All winners must contact me with postal details at the email listed to the left, by midnight US Eastern Daylight Time, Friday, Sept. 30th. Otherwise, I’ll do a random drawing to select alternates.


Visit the other participating blogs for more exploration of “Woman’s Picture,” reviews and links to the other short films from Evelyn Avenue in which women talk about their memories of perfumes.


Perfume Shrine  (post up now)
 Persolaise (post up now)
Perfume Smellin Things (September 21)
Perfume Posse (October 5)


Photo by Andy Tauer.