Merlot Commentary and Spoilers Part I

I have been asked by many people, "what the heck???" after watching Merlot for the first time. Typically people think they are watching a sappy mellodramatic soap opera then the end comes and the whole world flips upside down. Watching the movie a second time will be like watching hopefully an entirly different movie. The scenes that seemed overly dramatic now have new meaning and new levels of drama that are easier understood and appreciated. I was told by one person its deceptive because you are watching an independent movie so you are already geared up to be critical and the story plays out so its easy to be critical, the end hits and you relize you haven’t even watched the movie and you have completely missed the actual story. So here is some background and some spoilers for those who are interested. One friend told me the third time watching the movie was by far the best. That to me is the best compliment I could ever receive.

*Background
I sat at my computer staring at the blank screen looking for inspiration. Six months ago I had spent an exurbanite amount of energy trying to bring a script to life The Wednesday Woman and it ended up tanking at the last moment. Did I really want to try and do this again. I enjoyed writing scripts. I had even started a tradition of writing the names of scripts on bottles of wine and when the script was finished I would drink the wine. Did I really want to try and take a script and try and shoot the whole thing from start to finish.
I knew it had to be short, it had to be simple and the concept had to be hi. Concepts are free so the higher the concept, hopefully the higher the audiences interest or acceptance.
So I sat there staring at the blank screen. Looking over I noticed my bottle of Merlot with no script title on it and decided to write a script based off of just that, a wine, and more specifically Merlot.
When I look at wine I don’t think of snobbery or different oaks or vintages or years or whatever it is that wine coinsurers think of. I think of bitterness, dry vapors and dark colors all created by grape that is crushed. The grape that was once sweet is now dry and bitter. So in the story I wanted to recreate what I saw in the wine, a dark, bitter dry story.

Miriam, Robert and thier son are the grapes crushed to make this happen.

more to come......