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Possibility | Sep 19 2005

There’s a film I star in. It’s called Michael Barrish Screen Test. I’ve never seen it, but people tell me it’s good.

The story is this. A few years ago my friend Ross, a filmmaker, sent me an email saying what a big hit I was at a certain film screening. He didn’t mention Michael Barrish Screen Test, which I knew nothing about anyway, so I had no idea what he was talking about. Still, his email made me happy. I was a big hit! At a certain film screening! I responded with an email saying, “It’s about time.” I didn’t ask Ross to explain my success, and he never did. A year or so later, a mutual friend told me about Michael Barrish Screen Test, and the mystery was solved.

It turns out that the film was intended as a screen test for a feature-length film that never got made. I believe Ross shot it in 1993, while we were both living in Oakland. From what I remember being told, the film simply consists of me telling the same story twice. Naturally I’ve forgotten what story I tell (in fact I can hardly remember anything about the experience), but I assume my story must have related to the theme of Ross’s unmade film, which unfortunately I’ve forgotten as well. Sadly, the only thing I remember about that film is that I was to star in it, which seemed crazy to me at the time, because whatever I am, I’m no actor.

I mention this now because I never want to see Michael Barrish Screen Test. My reason? Not seeing the film leaves me free to imagine it any way I want. Once I see it, I’m stuck with whatever it is, that film only, and all the films I might otherwise imagine are gone, obliterated; or to use a term from quantum mechanics, collapsed.

It’s the tyranny of the real.

I want to keep the film alive, as I think of it, although the film I’m keeping alive is not Ross’s but mine. Nor is it only one film. It is all the films called Michael Barrish Screen Test I’ve imagined and may yet imagine. These exist only so long as the real film, the one shot by Ross, remains unknown.

Possibility is voluptuous.