I am oblique; I think that has to do with my own nature. I like

Host: The cinema was empty except for the flicker of the projector and the faint hum of the reel spinning in the dark. The screen glowed with fragments of an old black-and-white film, the kind where silence spoke louder than sound. The dust in the beam of light drifted like the ghosts of forgotten audiences, shimmering softly in the air.

Jack sat in the middle row, his coat draped over the seat beside him, a solitary figure swallowed by the darkness. Jeeny sat a few seats away, her face illuminated by the flicker of the screen — a kaleidoscope of light and shadow, thought and emotion shifting across her features.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Alan J. Pakula once said, ‘I am oblique; I think that has to do with my own nature. I like trying to do things which work on many levels, because I think it’s terribly important to give an audience a lot of things they might not get as well as those they will.’ That’s such an elegant way to describe art, isn’t it? Something layered. Something alive.”

Jack: (leans back, his voice low and husky) “Oblique, huh? That’s just another way of saying unclear. Artists use complexity to hide confusion. The audience shouldn’t need a decoder ring to feel something.”

Host: The projector light flickered, cutting a silver line through the dark. The screen showed a man standing in rain — motionless, lost. The rain on the film looked like falling mercury.

Jeeny: “But mystery is part of beauty, Jack. Pakula wasn’t talking about confusion; he was talking about texture. The difference between being told and being invited to think. Between being shown a door — and being trusted to open it.”

Jack: “Or left staring at a wall. Not everyone wants to be challenged, Jeeny. Sometimes art should just speak. Direct. Honest. No riddles.”

Jeeny: “Directness has its place. But honesty doesn’t always wear clarity. Sometimes the truth hides because it has to — because the soul can’t face it head-on. Obliqueness isn’t deceit; it’s mercy.”

Host: A silence settled. The film on the screen changed scenes — a woman walking down a corridor, her shadow longer than her body, stretching like a memory she couldn’t outrun. The music was faint, the kind that lingers between notes.

Jack: “So you prefer art that whispers instead of shouts? You think ambiguity is more powerful than meaning?”

Jeeny: “No. I think meaning lives in ambiguity. The best art — the best stories — make you feel before you understand. Pakula’s films were like that. All the President’s Men, Klute, The Parallax View — they didn’t just tell you a truth. They unfolded it, layer by layer, until you started to see your own reflection inside the story.”

Jack: “Yeah, and half the audience walked out not sure what they saw.”

Jeeny: “But the other half never forgot it.”

Host: Her eyes caught the light, glowing with conviction. Jack stared at the screen, at the silent faces flickering before him — ghosts of actors long gone, trapped forever in moments of doubt, fear, and revelation.

Jack: “You make ambiguity sound romantic. But it’s dangerous too. People interpret what they want to see. Truth gets diluted. That’s how lies survive — hidden in artful language and clever metaphors.”

Jeeny: “And yet, art without ambiguity becomes propaganda. Look at history — every regime that feared freedom simplified art. They wanted stories to mean only one thing: theirs.”

Host: The film reel clicked, momentarily faltering, the image trembling on the screen. The soundtrack crackled. For a moment, the two sat suspended in that trembling light, caught between reality and the illusion of it.

Jack: “You really think the audience wants to work that hard? To decode every layer? People come to forget, Jeeny — not to solve riddles.”

Jeeny: “But forgetting is a kind of death, Jack. People need art that reminds them they’re thinking creatures. Feeling creatures. That their minds aren’t just receivers — they’re participants. The artist doesn’t hand them truth; they hand them the tools to find it.”

Host: A beam of light flared from the projector, hitting a streak of dust like falling stars. Jack’s eyes followed it, deep and distant.

Jack: “So the artist becomes a god, then? Crafting meaning, guiding minds?”

Jeeny: “No. The artist becomes a mirror. And the audience becomes the god — because they give it life.”

Jack: (after a pause) “That’s dangerous power to hand over.”

Jeeny: “It’s the only kind worth giving. Once art leaves the artist’s hands, it belongs to everyone. That’s why it needs layers — so every soul can find something different within it.”

Host: The film reached its climax — a close-up of two hands parting in slow motion. The frame froze, then faded to white. The light bathed them both, soft and ghostly.

Jack: “You know, I used to make documentaries. I thought truth was just pointing the camera at reality. But maybe that’s too easy. Maybe reality’s just another script.”

Jeeny: “It always is. What matters is not what you show, but what you hide. Pakula knew that. The tension between what’s revealed and what’s withheld — that’s where the soul of a story lives.”

Host: Her voice softened, yet the air between them felt charged — a current of shared memory, shared longing for meaning in a world too loud with simplicity.

Jack: “So that’s what you chase — complexity for its own sake?”

Jeeny: “Not for its own sake. For its truth. Life is layered. Pain, joy, love, guilt — they don’t exist on one level. Why should art pretend they do?”

Jack: “And yet, people crave answers.”

Jeeny: “Then let them crave. Craving keeps them human.”

Host: The screen went dark. Only the projector’s beam remained — a white column slicing through the dust-lit air. Jack turned toward Jeeny, and for a long moment, neither spoke.

Jack: “You know… maybe I envy the oblique. People like Pakula, like you — you find poetry in what others find puzzling.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “And maybe I envy the straightforward — people like you. You see the world in hard lines. But even hard lines cast soft shadows, Jack.”

Host: Her hand moved to the projector switch, but she didn’t flip it yet. The silence around them deepened — a heavy, holy quiet filled with the hum of film cooling, of thought settling.

Jack: (quietly) “So what you’re saying is — the world isn’t meant to be understood, just experienced.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Art is the same. You don’t need to grasp every layer to be moved by it. You just need to let it happen to you.”

Host: She switched off the projector. The beam vanished, and the room fell into near darkness. But outside, through the glass doors, the city lights shimmered — fractured, scattered, yet somehow whole.

Jack stood, pulling his coat around him. His voice was softer now, contemplative.

Jack: “Maybe clarity is overrated. Maybe mystery is what keeps us coming back — trying to see more, feel more.”

Jeeny: “Maybe mystery is clarity, Jack. Just not the kind that fits neatly in a sentence.”

Host: They stepped out into the night, the rain beginning to fall — thin, delicate, like the whisper of a reel winding down. The streetlights blurred into halos, each drop catching fragments of light and breaking it open into color.

For a moment, the city itself seemed oblique — layered with meaning, beautiful and unknowable. And in that ambiguity, there was a strange, quiet peace.

Host: Because perhaps, as Pakula believed, art — like life — isn’t meant to be explained. It’s meant to be felt, in fragments, in echoes, in the spaces between what we understand and what still remains to be discovered.