The entry begins:
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):...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: The Fact of Memory.
Writers Read: Aaron Angello.
My Book, The Movie: The Fact of Memory.
--Marshal Zeringue
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