Art Food

Trauma As Fuel For Creation

By Knuckles Runyon
Staff Writer

I watched this clip from 2001 the other day in which actor Gene Hackman, who died late last month, is asked about his father, who left the family when Hackman was still a boy.

The interview takes place on "Inside the Actors Studio." The first version that came through my feed was 59 seconds long; that version ended right after Hackman, gathering himself from retelling the emotional memory, says, "It's only been 65 years or so."

Those fifty-nine seconds moved me; I went to find the original. This is when I found the one-minute-and-forty-seven-second version posted here.

So my first experience is with the version in which Hackman reveals his trauma (not his word) and that is all. Since he was such an accomplished actor, my mind filled in some blanks; he — like more than a few artists — may have used his emotional pain as fodder for art. In fact, the person who posted the 59-second version (a person who, almost certainly, had no direct relation with Hackman) introduced the clip with such a remark, and so I held that thought bubble as I watched and listened.

It was, then, on a subsequent viewing in which I first hear Hackman make a similar point. That is, Hackman suggests he may have used the anger / grief / despair / confusion / probably a dozen emotions as fuel for a career that has some smart people say with straight-faces that he was one of the best actors in modern American film.

The distinction between the two viewings is significant to me. In the first, blanks are filled by a stranger's comment and my own limited knowledge. In the second, Hackman's view.

The point itself is not a new idea. Many artists (or their biographers) cite past trauma as part and parcel for the capacity to create comedy, drama, literature, and the like. In fact, even in this short clip the interviewer suggests the type of experience Hackman had as a boy is not unlike the experience of at least some of the other actors who sat in the same chair. We need not summarize the history of the "tortured artist." No references to Van Gogh's ear are needed here.

"I was down the street playing with some guys and he drove by and kind of waved ..."

What strikes is the way Hackman says what he says. The trauma "makes you a better actor." Again, I had watched the 59-second clip a couple of times; I wasn't expecting this remark. I therefore heard this second part in isolation. Did Hackman really believe that? He doesn't seem to be lying. But is the view he shares truth or received wisdom? (We're all susceptible to popular narrative explanations; we do it in our heads all day long, even for matters much less poignant than the betrayal of a parent.) No one could fault Hackman for pivoting away from his own emotion; this wasn't a private moment; this wasn't a therapy session; he was on television in front of a live audience.

It's not hard to see that maybe in the last 48 seconds of this "longer" version he's doing what actors do: playing to the crowd. Again, I don't mean to suggest he had an intent to deceive. But, remember, he is an actor. I can't help but notice that the positioning of his chair isn't directly toward the interviewer; it's more toward the audience. Maybe this is for the television camera; maybe he had no choice in the matter; I don't make a habit of watching this show.

Hackman seems sincere — why this snippet from a 24-year-old interview lingers with me days later. He does, after all, garner laughs for his remark about how "it's only been 65 years or so." You can see his face lift as the crowd guffaws when he says, "I don't advocate that." This must have been easier ground to stand on in this particular moment. (All of which might say more about me than Hackman; by his 70s, which he would have been during this interview, he clearly had gotten comfortable with being vulnerable in front of a mass of strangers.)

The point about trauma's role in the creation of art, on its face, seems valid. To play dramatic characters is to convey the vast range of human emotion. Can a person create characters of complexity and depth if he or she doesn't themselves know profound pathos?

A counter argument to this line of thinking is that the history of stage and film is filled with outstanding performances by children. At least some of these children haven't suffered trauma (at least not by the time of their roles; wait until fame does it thing) and, even if they have relevant personal experience, would not have the wherewithal to integrate and channel their depths.

Famous actors get a lot of attention in our culture. We might fairly say they get oversized attention. To play another person isn't magic; it's a craft. Not everyone can do it but many people can. We've seen too many credible cross-over performances from musicians and athletes and the like to know that many people can be taught to act. It's also the case there are great artists who come from well-adjusted backgrounds of no comparable tragedy.

Of course, not all thespians are of equal gifts and not everyone can take on the most challenging roles. The Academy Awards were last Sunday night. I didn't watch them. But, presumably, not everyone walked away with a trophy. Hackman is revered because he performed as few others have. When he was on the screen you couldn't not watch him. He embodied the complex characters he portrayed. I have not watched every Gene Hackman film, or close to it, but he stars in my all-time favorite movie, Hoosiers, and I recently took in The Conversation (1974), and one of the things that stands out about Hackman's skill is that he does nuance really well. His characters emerge in subtle ways.

One thing that interests me is why do some people use their trauma and many others (most others?) do not?

Maybe the better question is why can some people use their trauma and many others (most others?) cannot?

For every Gene Hackman in the world there must be scores who don't try to make art from their trauma. And many of those who do try fail. It's not easy to sit with emotions of the sort that stay with you a lifetime. We don't call them wounds for nothing.

I don't have answers here. Certainly, no tricks. I would say that one thing that I have observed about people who do great things — and I don't give a wit about fame; it's just that well-known people provide accessible examples — is that they have a capacity to look straight at their "flaws." Not just once but over and over again. We might also say they have the instinct to sit with them. Make friends with them.

I was struck by the final plays of Tom Brady's football career when, at age 45, after an interception — another failed drive in a blowout loss — he didn't walk off the field with his head down; he didn't yell at himself or others; he didn't do any of the things I find natural when I experience disappointment. What he did was look up at the scoreboard to immediately see a replay of the failure. After 23 seasons and 10 Super Bowls. In his last game. He did this. His instinct was to look at his failure, his embarrassment, his shame, his disappointment (whatever he was feeling it wasn't what he felt when he won seven Super Bowls) rather than away.

I love the saying — it's not original to me but I do not know to whom to bestow with proper attribution — that our wounds show us our gifts. As Gene Hackman says, I don't "advocate" for his boyhood abandonment. Yet grief and despair are part of the human experience. Many, many people endure them. If in different ways and at different times in life. What happened, happened. One can only use one's wounds if we can really look at them. Maybe even befriend them. You don't do this easily or with cold reason alone. It's hard, hard emotional work to take your worst day and make it your most important day.

I don't know anything more about Hackman's trauma than I observed in this clip. And, after giving it some days, I'm not certain that what I am seeing isn't at least partly a man born to act who can't flip the switch off, not entirely. All of life is a performance (even for many of us who never make the movies).

Yet this distinction is beside the point. Either way, he did use this trauma. It's right there in the clip: he literally uses the re-telling of his trauma to make an audience think, feel (empathy, sadness, grief, nostalgia, love) and laugh all in a matter of seconds. The wound as gift on display.