Cayle Chernin's Blog
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I became an actress at 11, an actor at 21 (I actually have a comp shot from that time that says ACTOR), and that was way before it was declared so, and an artist at 31, independent/artist access video daze in the 80’s. By the 90's I was a documentary film maker, mostly because it was the cheapest way to make films (I include video as making films) - some Ontario Arts Council Grants, some nickel and dime money-raising, a few substantial grants, Independent Film and Video, Telefilm, Vision TV, SCN Sask etc.
Cayle Chernin's turning point
Worked it until I made I AM HOME about my Russian relatives and closed the door on docs when it didn’t get into Hot Docs. Acting was always there, the first and main love, along with the constant companion, who changed with the decades, completely, but that’s another story. Or maybe it isn’t – the medium is the message, self exposing is the path Humanity has taken to off-set alien nation. Was a time on the Subway, when I, all glammed up for an early a.m. audition (ugh), was the only one in full wardrobe and make up.
Cayle Chernin considers inner vs outer beauty
Now everybody is the star of their own (secret) movie, creator of their own universe, breaking their legs and their noses, so they can ‘deserve’ it. As a ‘girl’ in my 20’s, I suffered from one-dimensionalism: that is I would feel unreal if you, the observer, the watcher, my reflection, mirrored anything less than ‘all of me’ – I would feel abbreviated, a cartoon version of my real self, fragmented.
When a lovely shop-keeper in the Old City in Jerusalem said my smile was God’s painting and another handsome Sabra told me I was beautiful and that it was clear with me that my beauty comes from within - this is not about me being good-looking or not, it is about how I learned to respect what’s important.
I have learned in my struggles through life to not be dependent on the mirror outside of me. It has made me a better actor. I have become unselfconscious, and hence conscious and able to tell a clear story. David Duchovny said “it’s how you tell your story” on The Actors Studio, another venue that shows how “all the World’s” become “a Stage”. There was a point for me when watching "real people" on TV was fascinating from an acting perspective. After all, a lot of what one uses to understand is observation of others, but self conscious others with no verisimilitude or ‘sense of truth’ what one works on as an actor to develop and hone, what is essential, can be missing from a ‘realty’ program - it’s just bad acting.
Cayle Chernin's media choices
I choose carefully what I go to see in the cinema because of time and money, but also because I try to be careful what I consume. I won’t pick up a Jacky Susanne novel because I wouldn’t be able to out it down, not because it’s good but like junk food, it’s satisfying in the immediate and allows for unconscious consumption, like eating chips.
Cayle Chernin and Anais Nin
I heard a marvelous Story from Estelle Latchman about Anais Nin: in New York where Nin emigrated from the war racked France during WW! – Estelle might have met her even later than that, when Anais lived in Silver Lake, California with Rupert Pole and in New York with her husband Hugo who didn’t know about Rupert. Anais was a Piscean, she swam both ways. Estelle recalls a night after the Theatre when Anais invited her companions to her rooms for “wine and ships” in her Spanish/French accent.
Why do I think of this now, as I watch The Way We Were and prepare to go to see the King of Scotland, Dwight and my, Valentines Gift to ourselves.
Cayle Chernin on time
Time, layers and elements, time as defined by age and space, real time and as Joan Baez sang: “Time, Time what a drag drag, you’ve got me on the rag, rag” - time on our hands, and not enough time in this very short stay–gosh, I can begin to recognize on a very visceral level my own mortality. How much more time do I have if I’m lucky?..20/30, will the bod hold out to keep up with the mind.
I used to regret my artistic poverty, but now I embrace it as the struggle most people have, and that I as an artist of my time, responsible to respond and create artifacts from my living, breathing research.
Cayle Chernin fulfils her potential
Stupid as it is, I feel I have fulfilled one aspect of my potential. I have because of the years I spent studying and practicing acting, writing, editing, I was able to create a few documentaries that are out there enough that they may survive and live on past my physical existence.
That’s not arrogance, I don’t expect that it is my brilliance, so to speak or my capabilty to do my work that will survive, but just the odds that might be on my side. A few archival hits, enough copies out there and maybe there’ll be preservation of my attempts to create The story of The Chernin family on a very emotional level – because as an actor, the job is to emote, the fabric is the emotional journey, the understanding of what is going on in the person’s feelings so that we can present a portrait of a ‘real’ person – so different from a real person.
What matters and seeks transformation, while holding on tightly for Dear Life.
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