Eastern, town of Frederick, Maryland. He received his MFA and PhD from the University of Colorado Boulder, and he currently teaches writing and theater at Hood College.
Here Angello dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, The Fact of Memory: 114 Ruminations and Fabrications:
If someone had unlimited financial resources and wanted to make The Fact of Memory: 144 Ruminations and Fabrications into a film, they would 1) find it nearly impossible and 2) end up making either the best or worst film ever. The book is a series of 114 brief lyric essays, prose poems, and flash fictions, each a response to one word from Shakespeare’s 29th sonnet. I can imagine a film that consists of 114 very short, unique films, and that does seem cool – kind of like a much more frenetic version of Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould. On the other hand, the individual pieces that make up the book, when taken together, do form a kind of long lyric essay or lyric autobiography. The way the pieces work together to create a kind of cohesive (though certainly nonlinear) narrative surprised even me. It is, as someone much smarter than me has said of it, “a Gen X coming of age of sorts.”Visit Aaron Angello's website.
So, the challenge in making this film would be in casting the “I” (which is, very clearly, me) at different points in his life. Though one might be inclined to look for similar characteristics in each of the actors who play “I” at different ages, I would encourage the director and his casting staff to look for characteristics that embody “I” at those different times, even if they’re inconsistent.
“I” age 3, running up on the stage at the Elks Club where his father is playing 50s rock and roll (page 92): Jeff Cohen, the kid who played Chunk in The Goonies, but we would need to cast him as a child. I’m not sure how we do that.
“I” age 6, sifting through the rubble of a burned-down grocery store in the small mountain town of Cripple Creek (page 99): One of the twins from The Shining. They need to wear the blue dress as well.
“I” age 8, riding in a car through the mountains, collecting a pet cloud (page 21): Haley Joel Osment at the time he made The Sixth Sense. Again, we need to cast him as a child.
“I” age 19, in college, becoming aware of his doppelganger (page 41): Finn Wolfhard, because he’s made a career playing the kid in nostalgic films set in the 90s, and I think if he was attached to the project, we’d be able to secure funding.
“I” age 23, smoking Parliaments and drinking cheap Chianti on a rooftop in the East Village with his (pseudo)bohemian, artist friends, discussing how important they are (page 101): Ethan Hawke when he played Jesse in Before Sunrise. In fact, I can’t think of a more accurate representation of “I” at this point in his life than Hawke in this film. Anytime I think of “I” at this point in his life, I picture Ethan Hawke sitting on the grass drinking wine and talking with Julie Delpy. In my memory, I have turned “I” and Ethan Hawke into one.
“I” age 28, lonely, angry, living with a friend (who would be played by a young Al Pacino) in Santa Fe, drinking at cowboy bars and wandering through graveyards at night (page 94): Toshirô Mifune, when he did Rashomon, but dressed in ripped jeans and a motorcycle jacket.
“I” at 33, living with his first wife in an apartment above a garage in Venice Beach, listening to couples having sex across the alleyway (page 84): Florence Pugh. She’s a little young for the role, but I think we could age her up. She can perfectly express a sense of youthful wonder and possibility while also allowing the audience some brief glimpses of the emotional chaos that was lurking just around the proverbial corner.
“I” age 38, at his twentieth high school reunion (page 102): Andrew Scott, just because he’s one of our greatest living actors, and he’d really class up this picture.
“I” at the time of writing the book: Paul Giamatti. I don’t know why. I just really relate to that guy.
The Page 69 Test: The Fact of Memory.
Writers Read: Aaron Angello.
--Marshal Zeringue
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