DIRECTOR STATEMENT by Ewen Bremner
The enforced confinement of 2020 asked us all to be resourceful in ways we had never anticipated.
In a spontaneous burst of inspiration, Clark Middleton, the beloved American character actor, rapidly created an anthology of vignettes, using real life stories, mythology and improvisation to vividly express the full spectrum of these real-time lived experiences. Assembling a truly global cast of his favorite actors from Mumbai to Manitoba, Dublin to Bogota, and everywhere in-between he masterminded BLUEFISH: a live online performance that made a profound and moving impact on its audience.
The primeval urge of the human heart to reach out, beyond all obstacles to touch and be touched, was an instinct that Clark understood better than anyone, due to a childhood condition that fused his skeleton and cruelly stunted his physical growth. It became Clarks urgent mission to develop Bluefish into a feature film, and he wasted no time in co-ordinating his team of actors and directors to re-envision their scenes and stories in a more cinematic context than was possible via a live ‘zoom’ production.
Tragically, during the early stages of principal photography, Clark contracted a severe case of West Nile virus and passed away suddenly. His greatly bereaved company resolved to honor his vision and to complete the project in memory of his unique spirit.
As a longtime collaborator and colleague of Clark, I have inherited the creative reigns of the film and have been working intensively with his cast of actors and directors to do justice to the mission of Bluefish: To articulate the majesty of the human spirit in its ambition to reach beyond all obstacles, beyond flesh and blood, whether in love or anguish, to reach out and connect.
The fish represents our endurance and lust for freedom, but also the primeval survival instinct. The concept of Bluefish was inspired by certain species inability to co-exist together in captivity, devouring each other, mirroring the destructive urge that endures within us, and pushes even closer to the surface beneath the pressures of this pandemic.
Bluefish explores the fluid intersection of Identity and Technology: The fabric of each is permanently on the brink of disintegration, dissolving beneath the breaking waves. A tension we all experience as we connect to each other via glass screens, reaching out from our two dimensional fishtanks and puzzling at our own reflections in the glass. Our vain attempts to be understood: a plentiful source of both comedy and tragedy.
The stories of Bluefish map the epic size of our ordinary encounters. The frustrating limitations of video call technology, these jumbled interfaces, their fields of motion, arbitrary frames, disintegrating audio and vision are the ghost in our machine as we
summon Iemanja, the ancient water goddess, protectress of ocean farers and our spirit guide in this this mystic digital ocean. Bluefish reminds us that we all share the same water, the same air, the same vulnerabilities, power and ultimately, the same destiny.