David Klein Gallery
presents
have more going on
inside than they appear
to, and I also seem to
play loners and out-
siders.
"What I liked about
Manual Jordan is that
he's obsessed with get-
ting forgiveness, yet he
doesn't know if it's possi-
ble to find redemption:"
While Solomon says
he was "terrified" on the
set, it helped that
Paroled murderer Manual Jordan (Billy Bob
Thornton shared his
Thornton) seeks atonement, tenuously befriending his
vision of Manual as a lost
victim's sister (Holly Hunter) in "Levity"
soul "wandering like a
ghost through the city."
The theme was enhanced by subtle,
peddling a comedy.
drifting camerawork and by "people
"A producer friend went so far as to
constantly laughing and engaging with
tell me that Levity was career suicide,"
each other just out of frame," he.said.
he said.
The character shares something with
The turning point came when he
the teen Solomon tutored in prison
got the script to Thornton (Monster's
Ball), who remembered how Solomon years ago — and with the director
himself. "I wanted this movie to live
had fought for him to star in Leaving
in that uneasy space between the secu-
when
he
was
an
as-yet-
Normal
lar and the spiritual," he said. ❑
unknown actor. Thornton committed
the next day.
"I related to the idea of being some-
Levity is scheduled to open
one who doesn't really know how to
Friday, April 25, at the Maple
fit into society, because I feel that way,
Theatre
in Bloomfield Township.
particularly in the film business," the
(248)
542-0180.
actor said in Levity's production notes.
"I tend to play a lot of characters who
wrote about the five steps one must
follow to achieve redemption. The
last three involve making right with
your neighbor, making right with
God and being in the same place and
behaving differently.
Levity's central character, Manual
Jordan, knows he can't return the dead
boy like a stolen chicken. And he does-
n't believe in God. And since he is con-
vinced that time makes certain one is
never in the same place nvice, Manual
knows there's no hope for him.
But Manual has a conscience, and
he's obsessed with trying to salvage
some version of a life. And even
though he knows his is perhaps a lost
cause, he desperately wants his some-
what hesitant presence on the planet
to not be wasted.
So he bumbles and stumbles, dis-
connected from the flow, never really
knowing where he's going, yet some-
how guided by what may be seen as
his best intentions.
So often I think we feel our behavior
as individuals doesn't have any effect,
that what we do doesn't really matter.
Levity looks at how, to the contrary, the
world around us can actually hinge on
our individual actions. What we do
can have direct, instantly determinable
consequences, or our words and
actions can ripple away behind us, in
subtle ways we never know and could
certainly never predict.
For instance: the boy who started
this whole thing off At 18 — just two
weeks after we met— he was trans-
ferred to a state penitentiary. I never
heard from him again. My guess is he's
still there. And he'd certainly have no
recollection of our time together- I
was one of dozens of tutors.
So there's no way he could possibly
imagine how our brief conversation
had any effect on anything. Most
likely, he was just trying to get out of
talking about math and English.
But, looking back, if I follow the
steps that lead to this very moment,
right now, as I sit at this table writing
this piece, I arrive at that image of that
nearly 18-year-old staring at that pho-
tograph of that eternally 16-year-old.
And I think about how those two
boys — completely unknowingly —
changed my life. ❑
Dan McCleary
New Paintings
May 3—May 31, 2003
Reception to meet the artist
1-4 pm, Saturday, May 3
Please attend the Spring Gallery Tour May
9, 6-9:30
pm
163 TOWNSEND BIRMINGHAM MI 48009
TELEPHONE 248.433.3700 FAX 248.433.3702
HOURS: MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY 1 1 - 5:30
www.dkgallery.conl
704200
weet Georgia Brown showcases Detroit on the move"
1045 Brush Street - Detroit • phone (313) 965-1245 • www.sweetgb.com
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2003
75