Karen Black died last week and she was my unlikely friend.
I say so because all the conventional markers could not have predicted it. I am an atheist, a feminist and a film director and Karen was none of those things. I plan fastidiously with storyboards and shotlists in pursuit of the dramatic truth. Karen sought the same truth, but through jarringly different means.
Read MoreI sound like some old man on a little front porch, springing back and forth in a creaky old rocking chair, pontificating between bull’s-eyes in a spittoon when I begin a sentence with “When I was a kid...” In truth I’m disturbed by my feelings and observations, since I am still a relatively young mother of three, and the world is indeed in a precarious state. I am not blind to the rolling back eyes of my cheeky teenagers who try to escape the room when I begin to express my disgust with what I witness on the evening “news.” However, things being what they are, I find myself in allegiance with that decidedly homespun American image of wisdom on a porch. And much to my children’s chagrin, I begin many a sentence these days with – “When I was a kid...”
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