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Tilda, Lou and I were invited to the Edinburgh Film Festival in Scotland, where the film had it's UK premiere. This is one of my favorite festivals; it's smallish, they're nice to you, the city is beautiful, and thanks to everyone at the Mirrorball section of the festival - this is my third visit. The last trip I brought my father and sister Meg. My dad passed away almost a year ago, but I brought his Edinburgh Festival badge with me this time. He loved all things anglo, he loved film festivals, he would have been there for sure. He knew what he liked, last time he insisted we move all the furniture in our hotel room because it wasn't in the "right" position. He was sort of addicted to paper; wherever we went on that trip, If there was a pamphlet, a flyer, a card, a booklet, a map, anything, he had to take it with him, read it out loud to us during meals, and turn his suitcase into a 200 pound dead weight.


This is the carpet in some sections of Heathrow airport. Carpet can be so beautiful - I'd rank this as one of my new favorite paintings. Do you think the designer was thinking about Jackson Pollack? Or Ed Harris as Jackson Pollack? The nebulussness of life? Or just the inability to understand what you're feeling? Loss? The mediated nature of consciousness in 2005? With less than a month till my film comes out, I feel like this is a painting of not knowing what's going to happen god damn it. This not knowing is just always there, it doesn't change with your moods, it's like Spock, or a mountain, as you walk over it is whispers, "I laugh at you."




I check in to my room, Pop would have for sure needed to move some furniture around. Lou calls before the door even closes, he says "what're you doing? - I don't know - I'm coming to your room - Oh, okay." About one minute later, he's in my room in a head-to-toe Kilt get-up which he wore the whole time we were there and matched the impeccable Scottish accent he acquired. He looked amazing, he didn't visit Scotland, he ate Scotland. We went out later, he could actually talk to people for a couple of minutes before they figured out he wasn't for real. This is what I love about Lou, he has great enthusiasm for life and he just doesn't care. Two of the most freeing and subversive things you can ever acquire – enthusiasm and not caring.

Look, in the past, Laurel and Hardy stayed at the same hotel. They walked these halls! They stared at this ceiling with jet lag like me, or boat lag. We all work in the entertainment industry and traveled from LA to this great city to spread the news. If you look closely, I am actually standing between them long before I was even born. I am looking for me in the present in the hotel lobby, I'm trying to tell myself, have fun, try the Haggis, It's amazing people from all over the world will see this film. Hello me in the past! I will try.


I did my first day of press here. The film seems to be going over so well with people in the UK! It's really amazing to have this American story translate overseas. It is still weird for me when people get the film; when they laugh at the right parts, get sad at the right parts, when they see what it's about. It does make you believe in those things they call art, communication, humanity, all that stuff. I basically want to kiss the feet of anyone who bothers to see the film and finds a way to connect with it - seriously, take off your shoes and call me, I'll be there. Why? Because you're saying "there's this thing called reality and you're in it with me."


Let me just tell you right now that I have to pee a lot. Especially during days of interviews, The caffiene and all the thinking pushes on my already overwhelmed bladder. In between each interview I visit the mens room. These are beautiful minutes of aloneness. Above the urinal is this drawing of Edinburgh. I've developed an intimate relationship with this drawing, it's intensely comforting to come back to every half-hour. I imagine a little drawing version of myself living in this land, wondering these streets. That version of me lives a simpler life, reads lots of books, has time to just sit and think without spacing out from exhaustion, he listens to Belle and Sebastian, makes art quietly, wonders under those trees and has soft feelings.


Look, another one of these rooms! This is where we do press all day. Do all the press rooms look the same throughout the universe?


I was having my picture taken for the Guardian paper. The photographer wanted me to look out the window, chin down, hands through the back of the chair. If you people in the UK see that picture, this is what I was looking at while it was taken. I was thinking how strange it is that I have become used to having my picture taken. I was thinking about the air outside and that it is different from the air where I live, but I'm not really sure exactly how it's different.


The next day I had a beautiful, super jet-lagged morning. Sometimes when you're that tired it's sort of a relief, you are off the hook from needing to be in any way interesting, productive, or good. I listened to my new favorite record "A River Ain't Too Much To Love" by Smog. It's such a positive record. I'm so happy he made a positive record that's still really amazing. I hope he's happy.


The premiere went great. We did a Q+A afterwards, and everyone was really kind to us, they asked great questions. I explained how in adapting the book, I quickly realized how much I related to the Justin character, and how much his relationship to Audrey, his mom, was in many ways like my relationship to my mom. My actual mother had passed away just before I started working on the adaptation, so the writing became a way of processing our relationship, dealing with her loss, and continuing a conversation with a person who is now gone. At the end of the Q+A I ended up saying something like, "I'm Justin; Audrey's my mom." And then I looked at Lou and Tilda standing right next to me, the actors who played those roles, and it was very strange. I have never said that to them so explicitly. Of course, Justin and Audrey are not me and my mother, and certainly Tilda and Lou are not me and my mother, but I have spent a lot of emotional time feeling that they were. Luckily, Lou and Tilda are two of the most openhearted people I know.

Later that night we passed this van with the graffiti. Next to the carpet in Heathrow, this is my second favorite painting I have seen for a long time. It says so much about indecision, fatigue, half-heartedness, rebellion without the belief that anything will really change. Not that I am feeling any of those things, but it's good to see them externalized so you can grab ahold of them. Art rules.

I just right now got a phone call: I won the Guardian New Directors Award at the Edinburgh Festival! Fucking Amazing. Lynne Ramsey won it once for Ratcatcher, one of my all-time favorite films! This morning, here at my desk with the dogs at my feet, writing this to you, is one of the highlights of the whole 6 years I've been working on this project. I'll just be honest: it's a crazily powerful form of therapy and mirroring to have those people, way over there, that I don't even know, feel that good about the film. Me and my therapist thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Posted at August 24, 2005 10:51 AM