Entry 15:

Dear Geoff,

First let me say what a pleasure it's been to play this game of e-mail tennis with you. I love what you said about favorite documentaries filmed in other centuries, such as the Rossellini history movies or Rivette's Joan of Arc (which I also admire). Your point about the interconnectedness of fantasy and documentary is very well taken. As Godard said a long time ago, the Lumière Brothers are fantasy, and Méliès, documentary.

I've been thinking about how Bush sent 40 Russian envoys home in retaliation for our FBI guy, Hanssen, selling secrets to the Russkies all these years. I can't subscribe to that sort of indignant response as long as the United States continues to employ spies abroad. Do you think Hanssen  would make a good subject for a movie? A friend of mine, Lorenzo Semple, once wrote a terrific script about Aldrich Ames, but then it turned out there was another film a little further ahead in production about Aldrich, so it got tabled. Maybe Lorenzo can retool it for Hanssen.

Yes, the hollowness of triumphalism. Ivan Morris wrote a beautiful book called The Nobility of Failure arguing that failures were looked up to in the Japanese tradition. It's sort of what I tried to do in my novel The Rug Merchant. Sunday on Oscar Night we get to applaud the ignobly successful. Well, I must go and rehearse my acceptance speech. See you soon.

Best, Phillip