[Colorado-talk] Fwd: [nabs-l] Fwd: Blindness-MovieDirectorFernando Meirelles interview

[RyanO]

Arielle, I am not disputing the larger points made by either yourself or
Chris regarding Meirelles' general ignorance concerning the nature of our
movement. I would, however, take issue with this statement you made:

"Whether or not we overstepped our boundaries as a consumer
group, we are a consumer group and need to be respected as such even
by people who disagree with our ideas."

You seem to be implying that the question of whether or not we stepped
outside of our boundaries is irrelevant. I disagree. If we are to be given
any measure of credibility by the sighted public (including Hollywood), then
we must take extra care to stay within our boundaries and afford our
opponents the same courtesy and respect that we would ask for ourselves. We
have dealt with many individuals and agencies over the years who have come
off as pushy and custodial toward the blind. When this has happened, we've
rejected their approach and taken the appropriate steps to counter their
ideas and actions. Is it such a stretch to understand why Meirelles might
have taken the same attitude?

I don't want to speculate on the "bossy" comment since I don't have first
hand knowledge of our dialogue with the director. I am certainly not
defending the movie. I am merely asking if it is true that we asked for
script approval and revision rights. If that is in fact what we did, then
that would have been a miscalculation on our part. Artists of the
right-brain type never like to have their work submitted for approval
beforehand. Such a maneuver might have served only to alienate the director,
possibly bringing our dialogue to a premature conclusion. Again, I don't
know what happened and I suspect the director's comments are not entirely
accurate, but I would be curious to learn.

I am in the process of reading the book and I do believe that it is meant to
be more allegorical than a true depiction of blindness. Meirelles stated
that the film version didn't reflect the allegorical aspects of the novel.
Given this, I feel justified in my protestations of the movie, but I'm not
sure that portions of our resolution last year condemning the novel were 
entirely on point.


RyanO