Family Tree by SUSAN WIGGS

Author:SUSAN WIGGS
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

14

Then

In the autumn of her senior year at NYU, Annie walked through her favorite sections of Washington Square Park, looking to shoot something. She had signed out a state-of-the-art cinema camera from the film school lab in order to film a documentary. The assignment was to incorporate video and still photography, voice-over narration, and an interview. It would be her most important project to date—the senior thesis.

She wanted to nail it. But she lacked one glaring, critical factor—a topic. She had been racking her brain for weeks. Her classmates and the members of her study group all seemed totally inspired and driven. They were working on global warming. The vaccination controversy. Returning veterans. Ground Zero, so eerily close to campus.

“Don’t pay attention to the others,” Professor Rosen told her. “Pay attention to you. What’s the big thing that you want?”

Everything. But of course, that wasn’t helpful. She was going to have to narrow it down.

Professor Rosen, who happened to be her senior thesis adviser, was known to be exacting, demanding, critical, and fiercely intelligent. He had a Pulitzer, a Peabody, an Oscar, and a temper. He was also honest and, unlike a lot of his colleagues, unafraid of sentiment in film. His essay arguing that It’s a Wonderful Life was a better film than Citizen Kane was one of the most controversial and inspiring pieces he had published.

“Tell me your five favorite films, and I’ll tell you who you are.” Those were his first words to the students in the first class Annie had taken from him. Most students cited the titles they thought he wanted to hear—Birth of a Nation, Rules of the Game, Tokyo Story, Battleship Potemkin, Das Boot—the kind of films that made Annie’s eyes glaze over.

To her surprise, Rosen had challenged those choices. “Don’t tell me what’s important or influential or groundbreaking. I want to know what you love. What moves you. What makes you want this path.”

After hearing that, Annie had not hesitated. The Wizard of Oz. Last of the Mohicans. The Shawshank Redemption. Ratatouille. Chocolat.

“I applaud your candor, if not your taste,” he had said, looking up at her from the pit of the lecture hall. “You’re a hopeless romantic who loves food, and believes in striving, and who doesn’t listen closely enough to the one voice that matters.”

“What voice is that?” she’d asked. “Yours?”

“Very funny,” he said. “Yours.”

That exchange had garnered chuckles from the gallery and ignited a blush in her cheeks. Ever since that moment, Professor Rosen had been her mentor. He was cranky, for sure, but under his guidance, she brought out work so good she surprised even herself.

Today, however, the magic wasn’t happening. She kept trying to figure out what she wanted to say with her senior project. Too often she couldn’t hear her own voice. Maybe she should go home, have a chat with Gran. Like Professor Rosen, Gran brought out the best in Annie, only she was a lot nicer about it.

Going home was problematic, though, because visiting Switchback meant seeing Fletcher.

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