
Dear Doreen:
Other than the fact that my life would have to be directed by Federico Fellini,
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/ ... llini.html
never by someone as organized, rational and coherent as Ken Burns, I'll give your game a shot:
If Ken Burns were to make a documentary of my life, he'd have to include my resolve to be as unlike my father as possible because Dad unfortunately set some pretty bad examples. I would have to insist on the stewardship of my mental and moral health by my mother until about age eleven be included because those traits and qualities she taught me are all that kept me alive during the bad times
When the camera pans over my enormous collection of old science-fiction magazines and novels I bought at the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Anchorage, Alaska, the narrator will talk about fantasy, escape and parental abuse and abandonment. Also mentioned in the inventory of sorrow and mental escape will be the rolls of butcher paper ( my father's most important contribution, in addition to the comic books he occasionally bought me) my father brought home from his shop. Those acres of paper were penciled by me with spacemen, bug-eyed monsters and women with rayguns wearing glass brassieres.
To this day I have never forgotten the most important injunction I learned about drawing: "First, find something you really WANT to draw . . ."
And it will show the audience that I became a (n) actor during that period, with the shape-shifting ability to become anyone and everyone. This made it much easier to become a schoolteacher later when the time came to earn my own living.
During my adolescence when the camera shows the black & white photos from the public swimming pool, athletic fields, baseball diamond and dancing classes it will clearly represent my theatrical phase.
If Ken Burns were to make a documentary of my life, it would be entitled "One Hand in the Cobwebs" and the DVDs would be stocked on the shelves of HORROR AND SCI-FI ( see picture above) simply because my life has been an awkward and sometimes painful performance-- punctuated by occasional startling and unintentional successes. And a long series of lucky breaks.
And it fits to distribute it in non-commercial places.
Zlatko