/ en-US Mon, 31 Dec 2018 03:11:25 -0800 60 / 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg /author_blog_posts/13440541-dialogue-isn-t-just-for-screenplays Tue, 22 Apr 2014 07:16:36 -0700 /author_blog_posts/13440541-dialogue-isn-t-just-for-screenplays The Suspect is a natural extension of that drive.

posted by Stuart Connelly on December, 31 ]]> /author_blog_posts/4583619-one-damnation-under-god Wed, 24 Jul 2013 14:14:37 -0700 /author_blog_posts/4583619-one-damnation-under-god . The picture is shot in a distinctive style (the old Twilight Zone episodes were an influence) and during the question-and-answer session after the screening, a woman in the audience expressed her interested in the production's overall look, and suggested the film seemed... she struggled for the right words...



"Dated," she said, a little anxious thread to her voice.



I didn't take offense, but I offered an alternative to her word. "Maybe it looks timeless?" I suggested.



The woman agreed. "Yes, that's how it feels. Timeless."



Timeless indeed. As the film deals with issues of social justice and keys off a dangerous instance of racial profiling, it is as au courant as the circus of a trial we were all about to watch unfold. Yet I couldn't watch the verdict over the fate of Trayvon Martin's killer come in without thinking of Lamar Smith, Emmett Till, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. Cell phones, 911 recordings, neighborhood watches, stand-your-ground laws and a Kel-Tec 9mm pistol may conspire to make this story seem 24-hour-news-cycle new, but it is far from that. Sadly, some perversions of human dignity are so far-reaching they seem eternal, some epic form of society-wide damnation. But a society isn't damned unless it sins, and our transgressions against our people of color are sinful. It's not bad enough that we don't act particularly sorry for all the damage done to date; as a country we continue the charge. The racism changes methods, gets rearranged, dressed up, hidden differently, or thrown into soft focus. But it never truly seems to move in the direction of dissolving.



And knowing this, and knowing this George Zimmerman is merely the latest in a long parade of George Zimmermans, I chose to shoot my film in a surreal style-its setting a sort of indeterminate time in an indeterminate town. It could take place anywhere between the 1960s and yesterday; anywhere within my lifetime, which is kind of the point. The only certainty the audience can pin down? The power belongs to the white man, the crime is blamed on the black man, and we are somewhere in an America we all somehow recognize.



A film like Fruitvale Station is of-the-moment (2009 as yesterday) and feels that way. And I applaud its makers for finding sure footing to dramatize that urgent, current tale. But the story of the rush to judgment is as old as stories themselves. The story of racial tension as old as the races coming into contact. And this goes to the heart of why that woman wanted to talk to me about the "when" of The Suspect. I wanted to create the kind of iconic cinema that echoes America in the broadest sense, the same way the cowboy in the showdown or the GI readying for battle, in films at least, are not pinned down by time like a butterfly in a frame.



We like to think we outgrow the ugliness that's sewn into our history. That's the only logic I see behind the Supreme Court's neutering of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; surely those states that heaped on such fraud at the polls won't do that now that they're all grown up. Just you watch those states History says otherwise. And those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.



In the words of William Faulkner, the past isn't dead; it isn't even past.



If that isn't damnation, well... I don't know what is.



The Suspect starring Mekhi Phifer and William Sadler, will have a distributors' viewing in Los Angeles on Wednesday at the Aidikoff Screening Room.

posted by Stuart Connelly on March, 18 ]]> /author_blog_posts/13440542-one-damnation-under-god Wed, 24 Jul 2013 10:13:29 -0700 /author_blog_posts/13440542-one-damnation-under-god The Suspect.

posted by Stuart Connelly on February, 22 ]]> /author_blog_posts/4446928-smuggler-s-cinema Sun, 30 Jun 2013 10:28:00 -0700 /author_blog_posts/4446928-smuggler-s-cinema The Suspect, which just had its world premiere at the American Black Film Festival in Miami Beach.

A New Way to Look at "Black" Film

We've all seen the ghettoized and exploitative looks at the African American community, and the ways the same old tropes are worked time and time again. Why not tell a different story? Why not use those tropes as leverage, in a surprising new way? Why not use the unconscious biases of the viewer as an integral part of the storytelling?

Genre as State-of-Mind

The Suspect uses the psychological thriller model as a kind of Trojan Horse to explore real racial and cultural pulse-points. Combining and undermining the patterns of both the thriller genre and the way mass media presents people of color, the film � starring Mekhi Phifer (Dawn of the Dead), William Sadler (Iron Man 3), and Sterling K. Brown (Army Wives) � is completely finished.

Now we're looking for help in spreading the word and finding the right distribution path for the project, so the widest possible audience can experience the journey. We've reached out to you as a leader in the community to see if you're interested in supporting a new, exciting and yes... somewhat subversive... film project.

The Finish Line

The Suspect needs your power to assist in getting its message out. The producers require a small amount of financing ($25,000) to plan and execute a distribution and public relations campaign.

Please visit our � you can contribute as little as one dollar, or dig a little deeper and in return receive some very cool rewards like books, music, and more...

posted by Stuart Connelly on March, 15 ]]> /author_blog_posts/13440543-there-s-an-extra-charge-for-that Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:48:26 -0700 /author_blog_posts/13440543-there-s-an-extra-charge-for-that
posted by Stuart Connelly on February, 22 ]]> /author_blog_posts/3903678-giveaway Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:42:33 -0700 /author_blog_posts/3903678-giveaway
Get yours now!



posted by Stuart Connelly on March, 22 ]]> /author_blog_posts/13440544-what-we-talk-about-when-we-don-t-talk-about-race Thu, 21 Feb 2013 09:35:05 -0800 /author_blog_posts/13440544-what-we-talk-about-when-we-don-t-talk-about-race The Suspect, a psychological thriller designed to entertain the audience -- but I fully understand that it owes its very existence to the ongoing problem of race relations in America.

posted by Stuart Connelly on February, 22 ]]> /author_blog_posts/3715387-what-we-talk-about-when-we-don-t-talk-about-race Thu, 14 Feb 2013 07:32:00 -0800 /author_blog_posts/3715387-what-we-talk-about-when-we-don-t-talk-about-race . It's a psychological thriller designed to entertain the audience and keep them guessing, but-and this is truly painful to contemplate-I fully understand that the film owes its very existence to the ongoing problem of race relations in America. Racial tension is plot, is character, is environment in The Suspect.

Like Quentin Tarantino's D'Jango Unchained, my film comes at the expense-on the backs-of so many human beings who suffered under the cruelty of institutionalized slavery and its long echoing shadow, American-style racism.


William Sadler and Mekhi Phifer face-off in Stuart Connelly's The Suspect

The fact makes me feel a bit conflicted, though this conflict is nothing new, of course; tragedy of all sorts has always been the raw material for drama. This is the unrelenting truth for any artist. Still, of all the absurd things to tear at the fabric of society... The color of someone's skin? That pathetic reptile-brain idea is our undoing? This embarrassment is the central irony that circumscribes the problem. Those who are fundamentally opposed to racism don't want to dignify any aspect of it with discussion. So no one ends up talking about the realities of racial conflict, and in not talking we somehow feel the wounds will simply heal themselves. The fact of the matter is different: those wounds fester, and infection spreads.

For my part, I've always felt that each and every conversation about race, no matter how painful or awkward, is a stepping stone toward some better understanding and a solution to the primal problem. Yes, it is a sensitive subject. Yes, we tend to get awfully quiet around it for fear of saying the wrong thing. But conversation, like therapy, is its own sort of "talking cure." I for one want to talk it out-The Suspect is a natural extension of that drive.

Before I was given the wonderful honor of working with Dr. Clarence B. Jones on his memoir of the 1963 March on Washington, , I wrote a screenplay that covered his entire life story. Now, Clarence was born in 1930, so I struggled with the shifting language of the black/white issue decade by decade-finding the right phrase in the spectrum from "casual" racism to vehement hatred for the 30s, the 40s, the 50s and so on. The sheer breadth of the language was shocking. Every time I typed one of those words, I felt some kind of guilt by association.

I wanted to apologize to Clarence when I handed over my draft. "This isn't me," I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him I was sorry on behalf of all white people. But ever-so-slowly I realized my hesitation was meaningless. Clarence had heard all those words before. He'd lived through my script for real. And nothing this writer-who was only trying to put his experience into a thematic context-could say would offend him in the slightest. He understood my intentions. In that light, those words that littered my script lost all their power to intimidate and debase and scar.

In honor of Black History Month, I've made my "e"-ssay on my experience working with Dr. Jones available as a free download from Amazon -- just click on the link here. I do hope you'll take a look at it. And if you're so inspired, do continue the conversation...




posted by Stuart Connelly on March, 25 ]]> /author_blog_posts/3498085-new-year-s-on-the-run Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:38:18 -0800 /author_blog_posts/3498085-new-year-s-on-the-run day seemed appropriate for it. I don't care much for New Year's resolutions, but this wasn't about an exercise regimen I wanted to lock into place. It was the beginning of a big year for me, and I wanted to collect myself, assess my approach to the next twelve months.

What I like best about these wooded runs is the isolation. I was in the planning stages of shooting my first film (, just completed this month) and craved the time to plan out the undertaking. A workout on the first day of the year was a chance to focus, gather my long-range strategy. For tax reasons, I had one year to make a feature film start to finish, finance to fine-tuning. No extensions, no excuses. Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline. So there I was, beating out a decent pace, lost in thought. Running with an iPod chock full of music by a composer I'd been lucky enough to corral into working on my project before I even had the first investor dollar in the bank... when I started to understand I wasn't alone after all. I couldn't see another living creature, but the baying of the foxhounds clued me in, s l o w l y penetrating my freezing cold earbuds from the woods off to my left.

You see, I live in hunt country. And without my realizing it, I'd gone running on the one day in this particular park where some local club was doing their thing, whipping through the forest chasing after a fox. Soon the soundtrack of my hypothetical film was drowned out by the thundering chaos of the hunt. And then suddenly, the prey -- a beautiful red fox -- darted from the woods and skittered onto the snowy trail directly in front of me. He stopped dead still and stared at me. I stopped, too. Killing my momentum. Something I try hard not to do on a run. But this creature, this tableaux, had me in a tight grip.

-- see more at the Huffington Post

posted by Stuart Connelly on March, 08 ]]> /author_blog_posts/13440545-new-year-s-on-the-run Tue, 01 Jan 2013 05:43:43 -0800 /author_blog_posts/13440545-new-year-s-on-the-run
posted by Stuart Connelly on March, 20 ]]>