Day 73.1: Sunshine Hotel (2001)
Jul. 28th, 2024 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunshowerdandelionAn incredibly literary documentary. Michael Dominic, the documentarian, is a hero for releasing it restored on Youtube. I feel that my writing should parallel, or at least sketch my characters with the same degree of fullness and dignity. Nathan Smith is a poet I think, and the brief flashes of people's lives that the documentary affords are very revealing in the same degree that literary fiction is revealing. The bit where Michael follows the hotel's errand-guy to buy a packet of cigarettes and coffee (or was it two packets?) was an absolute standout and delight. The sequence shows a man clawing for his self-esteem, his sense of place, and it's shown out in such clarity that I was embarrassed for him. Very Happy Loman-esque figure.
By the end of the documentary I was tired of the characters and their various humanities. I think this is the mark of a good documentary because people actually are sometimes outsize, and contain a lot of moving, disparate parts, and are generally difficult. I really want to capture that in my writing.
Now I realize this sounds ridiculous when my characters are from a shmup video-game series, but I really do feel incredibly guilty whenever I can't afford them the same level of dignity, especially when I get lazy or tired from work. I feel responsible for these characters, and I feel like I should be a good friend and documentarian. In the film, Nathan Smith, the hotel's owner, writes letters obsessively to a television personality (and these are very nice letters, as far as was shown) and I don't think this makes him a kook or anything - I think I'm in a similar position, writing up these fics about characters and ensuring they're done well. What I really want is to be their friend.
The documentary ends on a somber note, with Nathan Smith dying of cancer, and most of the personalities in the flophouse dying or moving on. But I think in the end that's really the best you can do: record their lives with as much respect as you can, and show them as weird, messy, space-taking people. There's a screed in the middle about the stench of the Sunshine Hotel that's absolutely haunting and I think that sums up the documentary: It's a place where people tried to live.
By the end of the documentary I was tired of the characters and their various humanities. I think this is the mark of a good documentary because people actually are sometimes outsize, and contain a lot of moving, disparate parts, and are generally difficult. I really want to capture that in my writing.
Now I realize this sounds ridiculous when my characters are from a shmup video-game series, but I really do feel incredibly guilty whenever I can't afford them the same level of dignity, especially when I get lazy or tired from work. I feel responsible for these characters, and I feel like I should be a good friend and documentarian. In the film, Nathan Smith, the hotel's owner, writes letters obsessively to a television personality (and these are very nice letters, as far as was shown) and I don't think this makes him a kook or anything - I think I'm in a similar position, writing up these fics about characters and ensuring they're done well. What I really want is to be their friend.
The documentary ends on a somber note, with Nathan Smith dying of cancer, and most of the personalities in the flophouse dying or moving on. But I think in the end that's really the best you can do: record their lives with as much respect as you can, and show them as weird, messy, space-taking people. There's a screed in the middle about the stench of the Sunshine Hotel that's absolutely haunting and I think that sums up the documentary: It's a place where people tried to live.
