Advice for the Couple, Needing Several Takes to Reach the Point

—much like David Fincher, famous for torturing
his film sets with shot after shot after shot,
who may be a strange name to invoke

here on this reverent occasion of love,
known as he is for such romantic films
as Fight Club, Zodiac, and Girl

with the Dragon Tattoo, when
in truth, there isn’t anything to be learned
about commitment that a good serial killer

movie can’t teach us, that dedication
to rigor, the importance of close attention—
—I’ve strayed from the point. Let’s take it

again. I’m here to talk about love, the kind
that lets the cameras roll and roll
and roll. That devotes itself to the labor

of craft, showing up each day excited
for work. After nearly drowning his cast
in 150,000 gallons of overchlorinated water

on the set of The Abyss, James Cameron
famously said: “I shed not one tear for them.”
I wish for you a love with as much confidence

as James Cameron saying: “I shed not one tear
for them.” As much foresight as Park Chan-wook
bringing extra canisters of film to each shoot—
 
—I’ve done it again. Let’s reset. I’m trying to say
what the best directors claim to know: There are
so many ways of getting it wrong and each is a kind

of gift. No two takes are the same. Love,
I think, is like this: repetition, revision—
—one more time. From the top. I’m talking

about process, the love that doesn’t care
how many takes it takes to find the right
look, at the right time, in the right light, as if

such a thing were possible, as if it weren’t
the hours on set that count, the countless
tries sending you back to the start

even after the crew has gone home,
just the two of you, now, reading
lines in the dark, the only

audience that matters.

Read more from Issue 22.2.