When I went to film school in the previous century, we had a professor older than dirt who taught directing to a group of eager young fortune seekers each semester.
In film school the students believe they already know everything. So, when this wizened man, Sid Salkow, doled out the wisdom he’d gathered over his highly successful career directing movies and TV shows in the generation before we were born, he didn’t always get our rapt attention.
I think of Sid every year as I watch the Emmies. Like so many people, I can’t help but envision myself up on that stage, holding my award and stammering something about “…never in my wildest dreams did I imagine…”
And somewhere in my speech, before being interrupted by a belligerent co-producer or the conductor’s swelling score, I’d try to pay homage to something Sid taught us; perhaps the only thing that stuck with this dreamy and naïve would-be filmmaker. I’d hold that statuette in one hand, lock eyes with every member of the illustrious audience, point my accusing finger into the camera and say:
“Stop throwing raisins at rice pudding!”
Then I’d walk off the stage triumphant, leaving the pundits to interpret my meaning.
The funny thing is, I don’t really know what Sid meant when he used this expression. He tried explaining it to us one day, but his hearing aid suddenly malfunctioned. The screech of the dying device was so distracting he had to take it out of his ear and stuff it into the pocket of his cardigan where he strangled it like a disobedient mouse. Sadly, that’s my most prominent memory from his class.
But Sid usually rolled out this idiom when a student completed a scene and the class would offer their criticism. Invariably, even if the scene was perfectly directed, some James Cameron-in-training would volley a snipe about the actress’s hat or the actor’s odd pronunciation of the word “supercilious.”
To this Sid would say, “It’s rice pudding. It’s good! Everyone likes rice pudding, right?” And his young pupils would fall silent. Then Sid would continue, “It doesn’t need raisins. Leave the rice pudding alone.”
The day after the Emmies, Thing 1, my 8-year-old daughter, asked if she could make her own breakfast. Kids making their own meal usually results in varied boo-boos, dried egg yolk baked into the stovetop, limited use of the fire extinguisher and a breakfast that will go uneaten. But I pushed back my own tightly wound kitchen impulses and let her do it anyway, standing close guard. As she chopped, I winced. As she mixed, I bit into a dishtowel. As she fried, I leaned against the butcher block to keep from fainting. When she was done, there was a mess, both in the kitchen and on the plate.
And through it all I wanted to throw raisins: Chop that finer, honey. Less salt, honey. Whisk faster, honey. I wanted it to be the perfect scrambled egg. And I didn’t want to see the mess.
But it was good. And she ate it. Some of it anyway.
Sid Salkow died back in 1998. He never won an Emmy, and I never went on to become a director. But if I learned anything in my seven years of undergraduate study, it’s that one shouldn’t throw raisins at the perfectly imperfect things in life.
And I don’t even like rice pudding.
Read more from Patrick Caneday here.
