Nate Eckman

This summer, after another round of MFA applications ended with rejection, I dug into my pile of unfinished scripts and committed to bringing one to screen.

I’d been thinking of making a movie since 2019, when a filmmaker, producer, and now dear-friend, commissioned me to write a feature about a veteran struggling to transition back into civilian life.

I was hooked. But couldn’t find the momentum to find another project. Covid started. Then a divorce. Then a change of jobs. My life was starting over. Creative projects would have to wait. But in the interim I kept watching films, and reading just as much about movies and their makers.

One of the greats I studied with particular acuity was Paul Schrader. He’s a fellow midwesterner, who spent his early life steeped in the church, and went on to study philosophy and history. As the broad-stroked similarities multiplied I started imagining myself as an asymptote to his life’s trajectory, following its traces in my own way. Hoping that my unconventional twists and turns also lead me to a fulfilling life in making movies.

Time will tell.

But last week I had the immense pleasure of reading through his papers at the Ransom Center in Austin, TX. There’s an indescribable power to touching the physical works of a person, to see the coffee stained edges, nonsensical scribbles in the margin, and early rough drafts. There’s a realness to the works which, despite all the internet’s pronouncement for authenticity, cannot be rivaled by anything published online.

I left their contemplating about all that’s changed since 2019, proud to have made my first short film, and brimming with ideas about my second.

This was the last paper I wrote in farsi. Five pages about something I now need Google translate to understand. When I read each letter reflexive, unfamiliar, sounds pour out my mouth. Strung together, these tones form words which have lost all meaning. I’m saddened by this fact. Not for it’s literal meaning, that I’ve lost a language. But for what it suggests…that I’ve traded my curiosity in pursuit of more employable skills.

This has happened elsewhere in my mind: with laws, histories, equations. Knowledge replaced with a host of excel formulas and project frameworks. Master of tools and techniques for ‘optimizing’ and ‘scaling.’ Alright, I’m sharing, can everyone see my screen? Let us begin our presentation. More each day I feel like a character casted into this role of Nate, responsible for delivering a most reprehensible script, which, if played well, guarantees me all the comforts of some upper-middle-crust.

Okay, so let’s follow the money. I’m no longer holding a script, but on a reality TV show. The premise is to exchange snippets of my memory for cash, would I go as far as to trade all I know for every possible dollar? I’ve gone this far. The cost of my duller, dumber, quieter mind? Here, I’ll open my Chase app. It aint much.

What to do now? Continue to play the game? Is it too late to reverse the rules, barter some of this cash to squash this nostalgia in and for myself? Let’s see.

**There’s a lot here I’m still putting into words. Once I do, I’ll share these complete thoughts with subscribers to my site. Sorry if this sounds baity — I just don’t believe any social media is conducive to longform thinking. If you’re not yet a subscriber, you can become one via link in bio. Note: unlike my dilemma, it’s free!