Broken Timelines

Part 1

Nightmare

Lighthouse -
It is raining heavily. The forest and the lighthouse pathway are lit up momentarily by lightning flashes. Max is lying on the ground with her eyes closed. She slowly opens her eyes and starts to look around.

Max: (thinking) Where am I? What's happening? [gets up] I'm trapped in a storm? How did I get here? ...and where is "here"?

Max notices the lighthouse in the distance.

Max: (thinking) Wait... There's the lighthouse... I'll be safe if I can make it there... I hope... Please let me make it there...

Max lifts up her left arm to protect herself from the wind as she walks up the path. She reaches the lighthouse and sees the tornado approaching Arcadia Bay.

Max: Holy shit.

The tornado blows up a boat, which hits the lighthouse and breaks it in two. The upper portion starts to fall on Max.

Max: Whoa! No!

Blackwell

Art Class -
Jefferson's Lecture

Max wakes up and examines her surroundings.

Max: (thinking) Whoa! That was so surreal.

Mr. Jefferson: Alfred Hitchcock famously called film, "little pieces of time" but he could be talking about photography, as he likely was.

Max: (thinking) Okay... I'm in class...

Stella's pen falls on the floor and she reaches down to pick it up.

Max: (thinking) Everything's cool... I'm okay...

Mr. Jefferson: These pieces of time can frame us in our glory and our sorrow; from light to shadow; from color to chiaroscuro...

Taylor throws a paper ball at Kate.

Mr. Jefferson: Now, can you give me an example of a photographer who perfectly captured the human condition in black and white? Anybody? Bueller?

Victoria's phone vibrates.

Max: (thinking) I didn't fall asleep, and... that sure didn't feel like a dream... Weird.

Victoria: Diane Arbus.

Mr. Jefferson: There you go, Victoria! Why Arbus?

Victoria: Because of her images of hopeless faces. You feel like, totally haunted by the eyes of those sad mothers and children.

Mr. Jefferson: She saw humanity as tortured, right? And frankly, it's bullshit. Shh, keep that to yourself. Seriously though, I could frame any one of you in a dark corner, and capture you in a moment of desperation. And any one of you could do that to me. Isn't that too easy? Too obvious? What if Arbus chose to capture people at the height of their beauty or innocence? She had a brilliant eye, so she could have taken another approach.

Victoria: I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of her work. I prefer... Robert Frank.

Mr. Jefferson: Me too, Victoria. He captured the essence of post-war, beat America. And there was honesty about the economic conditions of the era, but a beauty in the struggle. You don't have beauty without a beat. Which explains why Frank was Kerouac's photographic muse and both were the great chroniclers of the 1950's. Well... We've all seen that iconic shot of Kerouac on the balcony—and if you haven't, shame, shame—capturing the romantic urban solitude of the 20th century poet. You dig? Now, contrast Frank's stark Americana, with Salvador Dali's surrealist photographs. Like Cocteau, he was a true renaissance man, and his famous self-portraits are famous early examples of that truly awful word you pesky kids love so much, the "selfie"... And it's a great tradition, and I wholeheartedly fight for your right to self-expression. Or selfie-expression. Heh, sorry, I know. So if anybody wants to question the portrait as modern narcissism, they could go back hundreds of years to blame society. Speaking of questions, I bet you thought I'd talk all the way until the bell rang. It's your turn to lecture us. Now, based on the chapters I have no doubt you all memorized, who can tell me the name of the actual process that led to the birth of the self-portrait? Anybody? ... This does not bode well. Just jump right in with an answer. This was in the chapters you read. You did read the chapters, right? Your silence is deafening. If this were a photo, I'd call it a still life.