In the town of St. Gabriel, in the Autonomous Province of Michigan, a beautiful still life of economies and privilege on the verge of ruin through the forces of folly, a documentary filmmaker is videotaping members of a local theater group as they create an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In the process of making his documentary, his film becomes enmeshed in stories of conspiracy and murder revolving around an old man suffering from dementia, his son, and his grandson. Simultaneously, within both the town and the old man, the spirits of Halloween and Christmas are running together. Strange scenes are being acted out in a series of masquerades, an ongoing festival season of mourning and excess being mysteriously presided over by an enigmatic figure, seemingly part human, part angel, and part trickster.
That was a synopsis, but what was it a synopsis of?
Masks in the Sun was not simply a movie in the traditional sense. It used film to lead a theater audience to encounter feelings common to those with dementia on one hand, and the folly of algorithm-driven, melancholic conspiracy culture on the other. It remains a moving portrait of this culture from a time when it was said to be libertarian and before it had discovered its true self.
Here is a review from the local paper in which the journalist was open and fair to what she had seen. It was published in the week before the first screening.
Click here to see this local review.
Added to the audience’s experience after watching the 2-hour, 20-minute film, there were masked figures at theater exits handing those leaving a letter written by an adversary of the director, telling them they had all been fooled.
Click here to see this letter.
Among the audience members was a local woman who insisted she was offended for aesthetic rather than political reasons. Her response via an editorial says quite a bit about a culture that was outwardly becoming increasingly suspicious, cruel and committed to destructive folly, but at its heart was (and remains) full of dangerous melancholia.
Click here to see this editorial rant.
The Film
The Filmmaker
As to who did the writing, the lighting, sound, shooting,editing, and directing—it was Gabriel Embeha. Yet, nobody really need care who made the film.
Trailers
This is preliminary sketch of the casting call, meant to explain the film to potential actors and volunteers. It contains a plot summary, the film”s structure, and character descriptions.
“The main story line of this film has two interwoven parts: (1) the “real life
story” about a group of actors creating a play, and (2) the play they are
constructing itself. The film’s screenplay will require three actors to play
two separate roles, one as a “real life story” character, and the other as a
character in the play his or her character is helping produce.”
This is a very early version of the script. If one has seen the film, one can see changes made.
The film”s wardrobe was aided by a local woman who worked for different local theater groups. To help her and to help the director choose shooting sites, a color layout was made. In terms of location of stage and some other shots, the colors were meant to resemble some of the later work on Rembrandt and his school.
With the help of the film’s producer, many people offered their houses as shooting locations. In addition to this, more sound-stage-like spaces were provided by a local bank, a local theater, and the town newspaper.
Video Studies
In the years before shooting various small video pieces were made, some of which show characters and setting types that would eventually appear in the film. One particular kind of shot was done in a car moving around the town. This was to make up a significant number of scenes in the film, but needed to be changed due to changes in the script.
Production Positions – Volunteers
Many of the roles from this preliminary list were carried out by Embeha and his assistant Jordan Cuatt.
Local Donors
Kraft Services Coordinator Ann Moulin
Kraft services assistant-Steven Lake
Food suppliers:
Pastrami Joe’s, Rollo’s Mancino’s Pizza, Charlie’s Grill and BBQ, John Merucci (company name?),
RoMa’s Corner Café, Marshall Moonraker, Speedy Chick
Costuming- Nancy King, Judy Edsall, Barbara Walker
Hair and Make-up – Dian Sykora
Sound stage- Southern Michigan Bank and Trust, Marshall Branch
Marshall, Michigan locations: Home of Bob & Michelle, Meese, apartments of Michael Sullivan, The Imperial Motel, Marshall Framing Studio, Harold Brooks Memorial Fountain, home of Barb and Drew Walker, apartment of Donna Daines, McClellan Arms Apartments, apartment of Carl Gibson, home of Charles and Mary Duckwall, warehouse of Marshall Ad-visor & Chronicle. Monarch Community Bank, Great Escape Stage Company, Stuart’s Landing, acreage of Richard Lindsey.
Locations
The Larson Mansion
Jean “John” Birken’s House
The Dark Apartment
The Bright Apartment
Lisa Birken Brannigan’s House
Nick and Allison Carter’s House
Nursing Home
The Great Escape Theater
The Fountain in the Town Square
The Kosovo Hotel
The Lakeside
The Loft Scene in Interviews with Gabriel Grab
The Main Street of St. Gabriel
The Autonomous Province of Michigan
St. Gabriel
Detroit
The Federal Center
The Back Alley with Nound Spooks
The Kosovo Field
The Kosovo Swimming Pool
The Streets
The Frame Shop
A Character
Pam Wells, 25-35, is an administrative assistant for the US Department of Defense Logistics Service based in Battle Creek, MI. Along with Marla Larson and the others working on the adaptation of A Christmas Carol, she is basing her character on Mrs. Dilber, the housemaid of Ebenezer Scrooge via the character of Tammy Carter. Pam is a single mother, recently divorced and raising two young boys. The boys’ father and her ex-husband, Danny Wells, is the son of attorney Jack Wells. Pam is romantically interested in Mike Brannigan, the ex-husband of her husband’s cousin Lisa Birken.
Pam has just come out of a difficult marriage with Danny who had spent years in Afghanistan, leaving her to raise their two boys. During this time she and Danny were divorced. When he finally came home and was able to be find work in the same area, Danny took another job in Tampa and left the boys again. While her overbearing, handsome and narcissist Marine husband did little for her or her boys’ self esteem over the years of their relationship, the boys were also dealt a blow when he recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances. While Pam never had a close relationship with either Danny’s step-parents, the Birkens, or with Danny’s natural father Jack Wells, she did attend their family gatherings now and again so they could see their grandkids.
Recently, the situation with the Birken’s had gotten even stranger than Pam had thought possible. Just before Danny’s disappearance, his half-brother Jon Birken and his nephew Cody, the cousin of Pam’s two boys, were found shot to death in what looked like a murder-suicide brought on by a custody battle between Pam’s ex-mother-in-law and her son.
In what appears to be a kind of sudden impulse to distract herself from many things, and encouraged by her new love interest Mike Brannigan, Pam has taken on the task of recreating a role alongside him and the rest of Marla’s group. Pam’s character, Tammy Carter, is a niece of Gene Carter as well as his legal guardian. After the idea seems to be planted in her head by Marla, Pam appears to become more and more curious about the allure of Lisa in Mike’s eyes, and how she might use this experience of character creation to transform herself into someone he desires even more.
In the end, though, Pam is in no way the simple and innocent person she appears. She too has a past that, if known, would not make it so easy for Marla to assume that Pam is not aware of the many strange goings on around them.
Masks in the Sun Days
Masks in the Sun Days was an installation in the window of an empty downtown storefront. It was in place for around three week prior to the first showing.
Music
The score was built around a song called the Lyke Wake Dirge. It is a 14th-century traditional Northern English funeral song/chant detailing the soul’s perilous journey through purgatory after death, specifically crossing Whinny Moor. Whinny Moor is primarily known as a place in Northern English folklore as a thorny, difficult land the soul must cross after death. It signifies a purgatorial landscape, often associated with historical corpse roads down which bodies would carried after death to distant churchyards for burial. The title translates to “corpse-watch” (lyke = corpse, wake = watch).
The composer of the score is Elden Kelly. I met him through a mutual acquaintance who worked with him in a music store. Kelly is a guitarist who works in the intersection of jazz, classical and world music. He also works as singer-songwriter, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist. He graduated from Boston’s prestigious New England Conservatory of Music with a degree in Contemporary Improvisation in 2008. After that, he was based in the Lansing, Michigan area for over a decade. He moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 2023 when his wife, classical oboist Lani Kelly, joined the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. His playing style is distinctive. Kelly plays a modified, fully hollow-body nylon-string guitar and also plays fretless guitar.
The following is a list of parts from the score that Kelly composed and played:
1837
110 society #1
110 Society #2
110 Society #3
110 Society #5
Closing In End Theme Mix 1 (stereo strings)
Dance of Mike’s Dream
Darkness in St. Gabriel
Ending Music Short Mix 1
Gene’s Dinner
Giving Up the Ghost 2
Giving Up the Ghost 2 1
Interlude 1
Interlude 2
John’s 2nd Theme
Lyke Wake Variation Ambient
Lyke Wake Chimes 2
Lyke Wake Variations
Lyke Wake Voice Solo
Lisa_judge Phone Call_1
Marla’s 2nd Theme
Masks End 2 Theme Mix 1
Masks End Theme Mix 2
Mystery of the Masks Background
Narrative 4 Ring Mod
Narrative 7
Narrative 8
Narratives 2
Narratives 3 Gtr No Verb
Noun Spooks 4 Mix 2
Party Pam Stands Up
Party Scene 1
Spirits-3 Visitors Variation Mix
St. Gabriel’s Theme 1
St. Gabriel’s Theme 2
The Meeting #1
The Players_ Masks
Victims 2
Waiting #2 Less Reverb
Is Masks in the Sun an essay, or can it be taken as an essay? If so, it is an essay about depiction according to the series of thoughts described in this way:
Which Audience Member Are You?
This is playful and experimental sketch of how one might be related to dementia when watching what I call the diagnostic screening of the film as scene in its one and only showing.
The Press Kit is a mishmash of perspectives that served as a preliminary way of describing the film as a stand-alone, feature film, which it never could be. The film was never submitted to any sort of film festival, as it would not fit into any of them..
Music for Dementia Care
The proceeds for the film’s screening were dedicated to providing i- Pods, songs, and headphones for those impoverished and living with dementia in a local long term care facility.
Familyker Scene
Masks Persons (with Fish Gyphs)