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Independent Short Film
February 2nd, 2012
First Entry.
This blog is dedicated to the sharing and study of Independent Short Films. Hence, the title.
This topic fascinates me immensely. Questions flood my mind, like: How do you go about telling a compelling story as concisely as possible? What elements and techniques are often used? Are they perhaps overused? And which are powerfully effective but underused?
Filmmaking is in many ways similar to writing. There are a handful of authors who can get away with writing excessively long novels, most are praised for their brevity with words. In other words, works like James Joyce’s Ulysses (250,000 words), Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (513,000 words), Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (460,000 words in the original; 560,000 words in English translation), Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (645,000 words), Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa (969,000 words) and lastly Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu–English title: Remembrance of Things Past/In Search of Lost Time–(1.5 million words published in 13 volumes) are the exception rather than the rule.
In the same way, some filmmakers use miles of film to tell a story (Gone with the Wind, a 418,053-word novel translated to almost 100 miles of film used, and the final edit is almost four miles long) or take a long time telling it (like the TV miniseries Stephen King’s The Stand, around 6 hours in duration). In some cases, the style and tone of the production make the films seem longer than they actually are, as is the case with Mia aioniotita kai mia mera–English title: Eternity and a Day which is a two hour film that feels like four hours when viewed.
My intention for this blog, Independent Short Films, is to engage in lively discussions, share links or embed video, host prize contests and otherwise create an online community devoted to Independent Short Films.
Please join me in this endeavor.
Until next time,
Chad
P.S. Here are some great articles you might want to check out:
- TCM’s Classic Movie Blog – The World War II Years like the earliest period (1927-1933), I think it would be unfair to label or judge this time-frame too harshly. Movies laced with propaganda were both prevalent and necessary as we united to confront and defeat the evil in Europe and the Pacific. 1946-1950 these postwar years were particularly strong, featuring film noir and more mature dramas, Westerns and war movies than those from the prewar years, but great comedies and musicals were in short supply.
- Watch “Water Calling” films on Seattle Channel starting this Thursday – In case you missed the free screenings of our Water Calling short films last summer, Seattle Channel will broadcast the films on its cable channel in a two-part series beginning this Thursday, Feb. 25. Featuring works by Seattle …
- Bix sees green in online contests – Speiser believes that controlled sponsorship of a legally sanctioned online contest, be it karaoke, short films, photo essays all of which the Bix engine supports, is a powerful brand advertising concept. As someone who has faced the very problem Bix is trying to address, I think he’s right. Online contests present not just a branding opportunity, but open a new direct channel for the marketer, allowing multiple opportunities to deliver coupons and offers.
- science is fiction: the films of jean painleve – jean painleve. format: dvd release date: 11 june 2007. distributor: bfi director: jean painlevé. idiosyncratic french filmmaker jean painlevé was a poet in celluloid and a pseudo-scientist in brine. with friends such as jean vigo, …
- JibJab’s “Great Sketch Experiment” – JibJab is now leveraging their brand to expand beyond a few self-produced parody videos. In April 2006 they launched JokeBox, an area of the site where users can upload their own video, photo, audio or text jokes. Over 15,000 jokes have been uploaded and are categorized by most popular and other categories.
- on character and motion – this post is more like an essay i always wanted to write for the machinima magazine, but felt like i don’t really have the time to get a new issue out the door, so it would never see the light of day… …
- Comment on Top 31 free alternatives to YouTube (video hosting … – This site gave me exactly what I was looking for. We have started producing a 30 minute HD show every other week. We had hoped originally to have it on YouTube but realized after the fact that they limit videos to 10 minutes and/or …
- comment on how to define web 3.0 by futurama episode – a detailed great post about web3.0……wow!!! keep up the god work..
- Who’s Afraid of Online Advertising? – Publishing 2.0 – Ryan Sholin says: Comedy: Woot bills AP $17. 50 for “the content you borrowed from our blog post” about the company’s sale to Amazon. Scott Karp says: Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “You have to plan your corporate strategy around what the internet does.
- Ypulse Essentials: Marvel To Develop Short Films, Teen Blogger … – Marvel may test drive secondary characters (in a series of live-action short films to help pick out potential big-budget franchises. Meanwhile a Doctor Strange movie is apparently already on the way. And in rival comic news, …
- Marvel may make short films with second-tier characters – A while back, CHUD reported that Marvel was meeting with directors about smaller-scale movie adaptations of some of their second-tier characters (Really?
- Marvel To Produce Short Films Featuring Lesser-Known Characters? – According to Latino Review, Marvel is rumored to be considering properties like “Doctor Strange,” “Black Panther” and “Luke Cage” for 10-minute short films that would introduce the characters to moviegoers without taking the financial …
- Students Turn Life Experiences Into Short Films – City Room Blog … – Students show off films that range from a chronicle of abuse to an imagined trial of Col. Sanders.
- Marvel Studios Short Films to Introduce Secondary Characters … – Could Marvel Studios introduce the likes of Black Panther, Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Dr. Strange through short films placed before their upcoming tentpole movies?
- Are There Marvel Short Films On The Way? | Disney Dreaming – It is being rumored that Marvel is planning on releasing a number of 10 minute short films before its upcoming movies in theaters in order to introduce a number of secondary comic book characters that may end up with their own …
- attention student filmmakers! – the purple violet student film festival at kean university is dedicated to the encouragement and recognition of emerging filmmakers. the one-day festival features the screening of student short films in four unique categories (comedic, …
- Complete Series of Winning Local Short Films – Hera Gallery Presents: Free Public Screening of Complete Series of Winning Local Short Films Saturday April 28th 7PM On Saturday, April 28, 2007 at 7 PM, Hera Gallery, Rhode Island Council for the Humanities (RICH) and Rhode Island PBS …
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Originally posted 2008-08-28 15:20:59.
Featured Filmmaker: A.J. Bond in the Spotlight
January 12th, 2012
I’ve gotten a lot of good responses from filmmakers regarding the new category on this blog, the Artist Showcase Featured Filmmaker. Although I’ve been absent longer than I intended, I hope to be able to catch up to the many responses soon. I’m quite proud of the Filmmaker Interview I created, so if you know someone who deserves some time in the spotlight, send them a link to the Filmmaker Interview or to this blog post, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.
ALSO, If you have a question you’d like me to add to the interview, click on the words “Contact us” to the right of this post.
The first artist I’d like to present to you is the incredibly promising A.J. Bond, from Vancouver, British Columbia. This 28-year old filmmaker has already had his work featured here, and I extended the invitation to get to know him a bit better. Here’s what he had to say.
What got you interested in film and how long have you been involved with the medium?
I started working as an actor as a child and that got me interested in film in general, some of the directors I worked with would recommend movies for me to see and my interest built from there. After high school I quit acting and enrolled in film school at the University of British Columbia where I began working as an editor and producer. Hirsute is my debut as a writer and director.
Do you have any preferred equipment?
Not really. I’ve had good experiences with the Panasonic prosumer HD cameras, specifically the HVX-200. I appreciate the freedom that shooting digitally provides, but not having directed a project on film yet, I don’t have the experience to judge fully.
How should formal education play a role in the life of a filmmaker?
It really depends on the person and their situation. For me film school was a great experience, it’s a chance to practice without worrying about making mistakes. You can do really impressive work in film school that will be a big help in your future career, but you can also safely make some really bad films and learn from them without them ever seeing the light of day. Most importantly, I think film school is great place to meet collaborators. I’m still working with many of the same people I went to film school with. Obviously some people have the tenacity to just go out and make their own films with no experience, and if that works for them, great. But if someone is having trouble getting started, film school can be a great motivator and guide.
Which is harder, the artistry or the business?
For me, the business.
Would you care to elaborate on that?
I guess I mean more the networking and fundraising aspect of filmmaking is much more difficult for me. I prefer to be writing or thinking of ideas or working or editing rather than trying to sell my ideas to someone else, or get money from a grant. That’s the sort of thing that I find embarassing and difficult to do. I’ve done some producing as well, and find that that’s not my forte, trying to get deals and trying to convince people to work on the film for very little money, that sort of thing. I don’t quite have the personality for that, whereas, some of the producers I’ve worked with are really good at that so, for some people I can see how the business side would be easier, but for me, I’d much prefer the creative side of it.
If I were to view your entire body of work,what would I say were your trademarks or recurring themes?
Too early to say really. Looking at the projects I’m developing, it’s clear that I have an interest in disturbing material, using genre as a vehicle to provoke thought and a rather dark sense of humour.
It’s always interesting to hear what specific films different filmmakers are watching or rediscovering and how they’ve been influenced by them. I’m also fascinated to hear what films other filmmakers loved as a child – it’s usually very telling and sidesteps the conceit of them trying to sound smart or high-brow or just-so-obscure.
I grew up obsessed with Aliens and The Fly, though my parents refused to let me rent any modern horror films so I ended watching the original Frankenstein repeatedly. In my teens I was blown away by 2001: A Space Odyssey and later became fascinated by Taxi Driver.
In all your experience, what are you most proud of, or what do you regret most?
I regret that I didn’t start writing and directing my own films sooner out of film school. Though I think my work as an editor and producer has had a tremendous impact on my directing skills, it’s important to keep track of what I really want to be doing, which is telling my own stories.
The synopsis of Hirsute emphasizes that the future version of Kyle is hairless, hence the title. You also draw a comparison between travelling through time and making hard-boiled eggs. Where did these details originate? What inspired the story?
I’ve always been a fan of time travel and science fiction and Back to the Future was a film I loved as a kid and this idea of meeting your parents at your age, and what was that like? Somewhere along the line, I started to imagine, “well, what if you met yourself?” and I just started to think about, “would you like yourself?” And on a very personal level, would I like myself if I had an objective view of myself. But then the one thing that really pushed me over into making this film was when I realized I was gay, which was sort of late, in my early 20s and I was like, “What if my self who hadn’t realized he was gay met the self who had? Would they hate each other?”, And that was the subtle genesis of the story of self-loathing/self-loving and these details of body hair removal came out of that. I was thinking, what are the ways that he could change, not just his sexuality, I didn’t want it to be just about sexuality, I wanted to think of, “if he had succeeded as a time-travel inventor, how would that change him? Would it make him more vain?” and I looked at that as a metaphor for filmmaking as well. If I make a film and it’s successful, will I change, will I become very vain, and pompous and arrogant, and so all of these ideas congealed into the script.
The boiling egg was my inspiration for the time machine idea, and so I included that into the film to suggest that that was maybe the future Kyle’s inspiration as well, that one day he was eating boiled eggs and was like “Brilliant! That will be the shape!” So that was kind of the subtle in-joke, I guess.
Hirsute was posted on Vimeo 7 months ago, along with the behind the scenes, and the trailer was posted one year ago…but it was produced in 2007.
We didn’t want to post it on the internet too soon, because some film festivals still have rules about if it’s played online, they won’t show it, and so our plan was to show it at as many of the big film festivals as we could and then try to sell it to television, and we did that, we sold it to Logo in the States. And then when we felt like we had a good festival run, and it didn’t seem like there were any other television sales on the horizon, we decided to try putting it on the internet because I felt like that was probably a place where it might find a good audience. And it was kind of an experiment; we’d never done that with any of our shorts before, but I just wanted to see what would putting it online for free do for us: would it be good exposure, would it generate an audience, and it has, it’s got several thousand views now… I don’t know that it’s helped our careers any, but it felt nice to expose the world to it for free.
Any thoughts regarding online distribution vs. traditional methods, screenings, etc.?
It’s hard to say, it says something like 26,000 views, but it’s hard to tell exactly what that means, but I do know that the film festival forum is the best way to get exposure and meet other people in the industry, in terms of trying to get interest for future projects whereas, the internet seems like a great place to build a fanbase, and to get unfiltered critical feedback for your work, which is really exciting. Watching it with an audience that ISN’T a bunch of filmmakers is always the most satisfying, but in terms of career development I would say that film festivals are still REALLY really important because that’s where all of the producers go to see films, and distributors, and people that you’ll want to be working with, agents and so on, when your career is advancing to feature films or television or something like that.
The other thing with the internet is, when [your film] plays at a festival, you go if you can, and you can literally hear the audiences reaction, if they liked it, if they laughed, if they guffawed, whereas on the internet, there are some comments, but it’s not quite as visceral, so I’m still trying to figure out what the best model for that is. It’s great to know that all these people saw it and some liked it and some didn’t like it, but maybe there’s a more interactive forum in which we could have posted it, or created a website that was more interactive just so there was that sense of feedback and community and audience reaction that you get at at film festival.
Have any of your projects resulted in your involvement with other projects?
Nothing very concrete, I’ve met lots of people, potential collaborators, agents, producers, but nothing has materialized into another project. The impression I get is that, at the independent level, it’s very much driven by the creative parties. No one comes up to you and says “YOU! I want you to direct this script, and I’ll pay for it!” It’s more or less, “what are you working on now, what are you working on next,” and since when Hirsute came out, I didn’t have a feature film ready, a script or anything like that, there wasn’t really much that I could present for people. And so that was a big lesson: If you’re going to make a short film and go to film festivals, it REALLY is important that you have your next project ready, so that when you meet these people, you can say, “This is what I’m trying to do next, does that sound interesting? Do you want to get involved?” et cetera. No one’s gonna come up to you and offer you exactly what you want to do when you’ve only made one short film. I’ve learned that there is a lot of potential for momentum but it really depends on what you bring to the table next, and I learned that the hard way, because I didn’t bring anything to the table, so I’m working on that now, writing a feature.
Has any of your work received any awards or recognition?
We didn’t win any awards for the first year, 2007 we didn’t win anything, and then mid-to-late 2008, it started to win awards at all of the more specialized festivals like a science fiction festival, or a queer festival or a smaller festival like Northwest Film Festival so that was kind of interesting to see, that, if you have a kind of niche-y film, you really have to think about the type of festival that would like it. And that’s something that we’ve learned. As a lesson to someone who’s starting out, I would say, keep submitting to as many festivals as you can, because you might not get into all the big ones, but the little ones are really valuable as well.
Thanks, A.J., we loved your Independent Short Film and are looking forward to your feature!
If you’d like to see other projects that A.J. Bond has been involved with, you can visit the website for his company The Siblings.
Some of his previous projects as a producer have sites here (but are not available for online viewing):
www.modernfamily.ca
www.thepatternstrilogy.com
Again, if you or someone you know would be interested in being a Featured Filmmaker, here’s where to start.
Thanks for reading!
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Originally posted 2009-07-19 07:40:59.
The hidden potential of Independent Short Film (La Jetée & Peluca)
December 22nd, 2011
One reason I like Independent Short Films is because of what they represent in terms of influence and impact.
For example, the Independent Short Film La Jetée was made in France in 1962, a good location and era for interesting and creative motion pictures. This 26-minute film was made entirely from still photographs, with the exception of one moving shot. It’s title means The Jetty (or The Pier) which refers to the outdoor boarding platform at Orly airport in Paris, where the crucial scene of the film is set. However, the title also has a revealing twist because it sounds similar to the French phrase “There I was” or La J’Tais.
Itself being inspired from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, this film was the main inspiration for the film 12 Monkeys with Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt, and many plot elements were borrowed by Terry Gilliam (or rather David and Janet Peoples) for the feature-length film.
Peluca was an Independent Short Film made in two days and with a budget of less than $500. It was shot in 2002 and featured in the 2003 Slamdance Film Festival, considered by some to be more “indie” than Sundance. This nine-minute Independent Short Film was then expanded into a feature-length film, Napoleon Dynamite, which was featured in the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and was sold on the opening day of the festival to Fox Searchlight for $3.2 million and later earned $44 million in box-office sales. Thus, it can be reasoned that Peluca was directly or indirectly responsible for the launch of the careers of Jon Heder, Jared and Jerusha Hess, and Jeremy Coon, as well as the aftermath of endless quoting, dancing, and nerd-off competitions around the world.
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Originally posted 2009-05-03 17:16:59.
Artist Showcase: Featured Filmmaker
December 1st, 2011
When I started this blog last year, I started getting emails and comments from people who were involved with an Independent Short Film production and were looking for a way to promote themselves and their work, which, as I wrote back in February, was a goal of mine from early on.
I’m introducing a new aspect of this blog, which has been a long time coming. A while back, I created a new category, but because it has remained unused, it never appeared on the blog itself.
I’ve created a form online which gives artists the chance to introduce themselves and share a little about their work. Hopefully, by answering a few questions, a remarkably interesting conversation will develop, which I can then pass on to you in its most complete form.
If you’re a filmmaker or aspiring filmmaker, please fill out this form. If you know someone who would benefit from this questionnaire, please forward THIS LINK to themand have them fill it out.
Thanks!
Originally posted 2009-07-01 07:49:59.
Independent Short Film: The Gift of the Magi
November 24th, 2011
In light of the holiday season, I thought this short film would be appropriate. Not only is it a short film, it’s also a short story, none other than The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry.
O. Henry’s real name was William Sydney Porter, and The Gift of the Magi comes from a collection of short stories he wrote called The Four Million. The idea behind the collection was that at the time, there were four million people living in New York City, and that each of them had an interesting story to tell, even if they were just everyday people, and not just the cultural elite you would often hear about in the newspapers. From Wikipedia:
The Four Million was his first collection of stories. It opens with a reference to Ward McAllister‘s “assertion that there were only ‘Four Hundred’ people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen—the census taker—and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the ‘Four Million.’” To O. Henry, everyone in New York counted. He had an obvious affection for the city, which he called “Bagdad-on-the-Subway,”[3] and many of his stories are set there—but others are set in small towns and in other cities.
Among his most famous stories are:
- “The Gift of the Magi” about a young couple who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim’s watch; while unbeknownst to Della, Jim sells his own most valuable possession, his watch, to buy jeweled combs for Della’s hair. The essential premise of this story has been copied, re-worked, parodied, and otherwise re-told countless times in the century since it was written.
- “The Ransom of Red Chief“, in which two men kidnap a boy of ten. The boy turns out to be so bratty and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy’s father $250 to take him back.
- “The Cop and the Anthem” about a New York City hobo named Soapy, who sets out to get arrested so he can avoid sleeping in the cold winter as a guest of the city jail. Despite efforts at petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and “mashing” with a young prostitute, Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Disconsolate, he pauses in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life — and is ironically charged for loitering and sentenced to three months in prison.
- “A Retrieved Reformation“, which tells the tale of safecracker Jimmy Valentine, recently freed from prison. He goes to a town bank to case it before he robs it. As he walks to the door, he catches the eye of the banker’s beautiful daughter. They immediately fall in love and Valentine decides to give up his criminal career. He moves into the town, taking up the identity of Ralph Spencer, a shoemaker. Just as he is about to leave to deliver his specialized tools to an old associate, a lawman who recognizes him arrives at the bank. Jimmy and his fiancée and her family are at the bank, inspecting a new safe, when a child accidentally gets locked inside the airtight vault. Knowing it will seal his fate, Valentine opens the safe to rescue the child. However, much to Valentine’s surprise, the lawman denies recognizing him and lets him go.
Some accounts say that The Four Million, published in 1906, was written while O. Henry was in prison, but others seem to incidicate that this particular short story was written in a place called Pete’s Tavern.
Not only does this short story come from a collection, but so does this short film: O. Henry’s Full House (1952) is a collection of five of O. Henry’s short stories put to film, and the following short film was one of the collection. Below you can find the full text of the short story. May you be ever-mindful of what is most important this holiday season.
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
by O. Henry
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”
The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling–something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.
Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.
So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: “Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”
“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.
“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.”
Down rippled the brown cascade.
“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
“Give it to me quick,” said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation–as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value–the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends–a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do–oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?”
At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two–and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow out again–you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice– what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”
“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my hair, ain’t I?”
Jim looked about the room curiously.
“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you–sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year–what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs–the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims–just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”
And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ‘em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”
The magi, as you know, were wise men–wonderfully wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
Originally posted 2010-12-24 10:38:50.
