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| Robert Ellis |
While I enjoyed college
very much and graduated summa cum laude, something about high school just
didn't agree with me. Yes, I was one of a handful of students who wrote and edited
our high school newspaper, but at the time my family life left a lot to be desired.
One night I went with friends to see the movie FIVE EASY PIECES. (Curiously, in
an earlier post I had said that I didn't think a film could move me to the
point of personal change, yet here's one that actually did).
After watching FIVE
EASY PIECES I was never the same. I went back the next night by myself. The
film was even better a second time around. It's probably a safe bet that I saw
something of myself and my circumstance in Jack Nicholson's portrayal of Robert
Dupea. The existential man living in a world with no purpose, no meaning or hope.
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| Jack Nicholson in Bob Rafelson's FIVE EASY PIECES |
I started reading Camus.
I bought a movie camera and began making my own films. But even more, I started
skipping school to go to movies in downtown Philadelphia. This went on for more
than a year until one afternoon I realized I'd seen every movie playing in
town. For whatever reason, somehow I ended up at City Hall. At the time, the
Criminal Justice Center hadn't been built, and criminal and civil cases were
tried in the courtrooms here at the hall. I sat through two murder trials
before catching a train back to the suburbs. The first trial would have been horrific
for anyone. But for a teenager on the run, it changed everything: a man had
come home from work and caught his wife in bed with his best friend. He kept a
shotgun in the closet. He surprised them. He shot both of them before they
could even get out of bed. He shot them dead, and from the crime scene photos
the prosecutor was showing the jury, there was blood everywhere.
I took a deep breath and settled back in my chair. I could see the
murderer sitting at the table with his attorney right in front of me. He must have
sensed that I was staring at him. He turned and our eyes met. This was real
life, and not a movie. I was a seventeen-year-old boy.
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| FIVE EASY PIECES (40th Anniversary Poster) |
I went home, my mind
reeling, and wrote a short story based on the trial. And then I made a huge
mistake. I turned the story into my English teacher! Today, I would have been
kicked out of school, and who knows what else would have happened? My teacher,
a very gentle woman, read my story and gave it an A, but said that it would
require a parent teacher visit. In fact, she had already made the arrangements,
and would be stopping by the house that very night.
After an hour of listening to my teacher, and then my parents, all trying to figure out if I was
okay or not, they reached a final judgment. I had been pronounced sound in body
and mind. In the end I had to agree to stop skipping school. In turn, my
teacher agreed to give my future stories an A, but said that it was unlikely she
would ever read one again. After she left, my parents seemed to shake it off.
They'd read the story I'd written, and thought it was good.
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