One of our favorite directors on Homicide was a young man named Nick Gomez. Nick was 30 at the time he directed his first episode. Thirty! At thirty he shows up in Baltimore, for his first television gig.
He was younger than all of us. What the hell could he bring?
Pah! That’s me just tap dancing. Because I know what he brought and I know that he would go on to direct more features and TV shows and five more episodes of Homicide and each time grow into a confident and more assured director whose vision, over those years, unfolded in new and exciting ways.
He was also, as I thought the minute I saw him, “A perfect Homicide director.”
But, that’s not really why I’m writing about Nick. I only bring up Nick to rant and rave about his first feature, Laws of Gravity. I film which came out in 1992, a year before Homicide: Life on the Street burst on the scene. At the time, it was a film that young actors pointed to as a pinnacle of Indie filmmaking. Even if you hadn’t seen it, which I hadn’t, you spoke of LOG in reverent tones.
But, this isn’t even about Laws of Gravity or Nick Gomez. It’s more about the possibility of film: why we watch and what it can produce in us. Not if we call it a good or bad film, but by what path and with what technique did it affect our nervous system and as such alter the way we look at life.
This film, to me, can’t be put into one of those neat categories. Believe me, if I could give it a blithely, full-throated “See it - NOW!” review, I would, but… a) it’s kinda weird to say that about a film made in 1992, and b) it’s just not that type of film. I respect it too much. So yes, watch it, but I would be remiss not to at least add, “Be prepared”.
I would love it if people saw LOG and gave me their take on it, so we’d be in the same club. But, have your headgear and mouthguard at hand, and grab a beer as you’ll be stepping into the ring for 100 minutes with a very determined fighter.
It’s a master class in ferocious filmmaking.
And it got the best of me.
It was only one hundred minutes?! I could do that standing on my head. That is, 100 x 60 = (grabs calculator), uh, 6,000 fucking seconds. That I lasted probably 4800 seconds* (see below) with 1200 left to go? What the hell? I love Nick, I’m stunned by the film, but I just couldn’t hang out in that neighborhood, figuratively or literally, for another second.
The film smashed and pummeled me till my legs were jello. I hit Power Off. I stumbled away from my comfy chair anxious, angry, jittery, jealous, scared, and damn, didn’t I have other things to do with my life?
Apparently not for those 4800 seconds.
I looked around. No longer in all-pervading Williamsburg, I was safe in my happy home.
In short: the film completed its mission. It easily got me into a state I wasn’t expecting to be in, didn’t appreciate being in, and kept returning me to that state over and over with little time to breathe. The question for me around second 4508, was, “How much more can I tolerate? And why don’t those guys just try something different?”
Maybe they do by the end. I won’t say that I hope so, or I hope not* (again, see below). LOG succeeds in snapping your head around by employing a certain repetitious build, with nearly every scene, with only slight iterations, and no break from the characters or the situations they’ve gotten themselves into* (*twiddles thumbs*see below). The character’s limited ability to change, handle conflict, or break free from a certain viewpoint on life never takes the easy path that my movie-minded brain seeks. They are not false in that way, and will not grant us that easy satisfaction, as we get very little relief from the daily grind that these fractured creatures experience.
As an aside - story, and plot are not what’s foregrounded here. As I see it, it’s character! character! character! much like Homicide was not about murder cases, the cases were just an excuse to get to know the people.
Watching from on high, in my comfy chair in Los Angeles, circa 2024, with my Prime Video $3.99 purchase, I wondered why? Why had I never seen this 1992 movie? Why did I continue watching now? Why oh why?
Oh, and, how did these actors survive this movie?
Survive, meaning, not just come out the other end alive - but what psychic place does this film hold in their lives? Did they move forward and what real estate did this film hold in their heads?
However, during my viewing of Laws of Gravity, I wasn’t thinking any of that. I had regressed to my younger, adventurous, actor self. I wanted to be there! That’s the kind of filmmaking I wanted to do. Those are the types of committed actors and directors I wanted to be around back then.
I also felt both defensive and deathly afraid of how they achieved their mission. Knowing what I know from doing Homicide - Laws of Gravity seems like Homicide on elephant-grade amphetamines! Would I have survived? Would I have had the courage to go toe-to-toe with those juggernauts?
The big recognizable name actor who came out of that film is Edie Falco, of The Sopranos and Nurse Jackie fame. I say actor, but only use that term because it’s obviously a film, which I’ve paid to watch, But she doesn’t seem to be acting. None of them do and they’re all fantastic! Not Adam Trese, not Paul Schulze, and certainly not Peter Greene (who, it could be argued, should have launched like the DeNiro of Mean Streets after this, and probably deserves his own story).
Instead, like their characters, they seem to just be doing their best to survive.
The great cameraman, Jean deSegonsac - yes, of Homicide fame - captured it all in I believe 12 days. It’ll look very familiar, as he uses the same handheld, in-your-face documentary, frenetic shooting style, with long, uninterrupted cuts and crossing lines which makes it feel like you’re an interloper who’s crashed landed into every scene.
In my fantasy it feels like this: Jean’s been hanging around outside a locked door where actors have been improvising and beating the crap out of each other for hours. He’s been chewing his nails to the nub, itching what’s left of a scalp. Nick bursts out of the room, he’s bloodied head to toe - the room is about to go up in flames - he throws a 16 mm on Jean’s bony shoulder and says, “Get it there NOW, motherfucker, NOW!!!” He shoves him into the glowing room. Slams the door behind him, flames now flicking through the gaps, “Jesus Christ, what have I done?” Nick mumbles to himself. Panting. Listening. Waiting.
I wish I had been in that room; I grieve not having been there. Yet it frightens me to think about it. Nick chose these brave actors, most of whom he had met in college at SUNY Purchase, and put it all together through improvisations, great belief, foolishness, and the volcanic passions of his cast and crew. There were fist fights, love affairs, drugs, and drinking: it sounds very Homicide friendly.
In a nutshell: my dream gig.
It was an intense short shoot with a beginning, middle, and thank god, an end. I’m still wondering if I could have done it or if I would have made it through.
It bears mentioning if you do decide to watch this, as backstory, that Nick was an only child. Like all of us, he grew up with a certain view of what families are. As a filmmaker, he brought that sensibility to his work, making the artistic leap of making the unconscious, conscious. He shot this film in his Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, with all the shady activities that happened in the film actually happening around them. Nick said he was a young knucklehead filmmaker who was sensitive to the underbelly of society, and he just wanted to make a film that looked like a documentary and give these actors the freedom they needed to live out his vision.
Check.
By his own admission, he was still figuring out how to work with actors, and he was exploring how to structure a narrative film in a documentary style. To me, that became the perfect landscape to incorporate this repetitive technique. Usually, a scene goes something like this: two people want different things, there’s conflict, and whoever has the stronger desire takes the lead (wins). The resolution to a scene comes as the other character in the scene must evolve or concede to move forward. Usually, the main character with the big desire may learn something along the way, and by the end of the film, though he/she may remain the same, they’ve learned a valuable lesson - or saved the neighborhood. In those films, things usually resolve, not devolve with no end in sight.
Nick’s film subverted those rules. They were all there. But, just when you thought someone learned something…nope! Just when you thought someone might break out of the cycle of doom….nope. Like in life, these characters have numerous opportunities to change or make a different choice. Hence the feeling of repetition.
And I say; fuck yeah! He got a deep visceral response out of this viewer. I felt the claustrophobia of having to live with and be around the same people every day - your criminal friends, your girlfriend, your ex-girlfriend, the best friend’s girlfriend who’s hitting on you, the guy you owe money to, and the dipshit maniac who comes back to the hood introducing guns and more desperation into an already dangerous and needy land.
Nick brought out the manic energy; the yearning and the hopelessness; the loyalty and the love of this group of family and friends. In this world, with those personalities, things can only devolve into chaos - and Nick remained true to that impulse all the way through.
It’s not hyperbole to say that the Homicide style and spirit exist in great part because of Laws of Gravity and Nick’s influence.
He was brought into the Homicide fold because of his film. Because of that movie’s energy, the camerawork, and the economics of shooting it. You didn’t need anything but a handheld camera, a couple of lights, and actors willing to punch it out, hang in, and go the distance for some grain of truth.
He directed our fourth episode - THE FOURTH EPISODE! In some ways, Homicide was still exploring. Still finding its legs, looking to bring all the disparate pieces together.
What was going to accomplish that?
Was that going to be Nick? Or, Jimmy Yoshimura’s first script? Was it going to be the actors getting more comfortable with the style and tone and dropping into their characters? Likely, all of that, through a highly imperfect calculus of fitting pieces together. It would be two more episodes till Three Men and Adena, the one where most people agree the series began to really gel.
With Yosh’s first TV script, which was exposition-heavy, Nick got to deal with about 83 storylines. Yet, the script had just enough humor, darkness, and pathos that hinted at Yosh’s greatness and something better to come. Nick found his groove in the small moments and also in some of the larger scenes. He was finding his way and learning the ropes of a large production.
He also went from small-scale to large-scale dysfunction, with more toys to play with, bigger issues to be resolved with cast and crew, and more shit completely out of his control. His other cast had prepared him, and he probably learned just enough to stay out of the way of the blowback.
His intuition, street smarts, and intelligence carried him through - he survived that first episode and would live to fight another. And another.
Nick has moved on to direct a range of vastly different shows, with huge tonal shifts and challenges. He has done it intentionally because he’s never liked being pigeonholed as one type of director: From The Sopranos to Supergirl, From Ray Donovan to Daredevil, Sneaky Pete to Dexter, Queen of the South to Lizzie Borden. The guy always had a restless, artistic imagination and from what I know continues to learn, absorb and get better at what he does.
If you’re reading this, I love you Nick, and wish you all the best. Thanks for your huge contributions to our show and for being such a positive force on the set.
*WARNING: Yeah, it’s a spoiler alert!
Ok, so we’re finally here in ‘*see below’ land…
I DID IT! I watched the rest of LOG two nights ago. I feared the ending. I could feel that energy, the inevitable building towards whatever. That hopeless voice in me murmuring, “These fucking people.”
You know those films where you’re almost screaming at the screen, “Do NOT go in there!!!” cuz there are monsters or a killer? The final scenes at the bar, are so intense, so brutal, and inevitable. It seems like there should be no way the two guys would ever get to each other because there are too many bodies between them. But they are willing themselves towards a tragic end. The frustration of watching that confrontation and its resolution is beyond outrageous.
The grace note is that Nick goes to black, allowing the final dialogue and screams to emerge from dark. There’s something fine in that choice. Some kindness that didn’t seem available to this viewer until that moment. We’re still left with a mess to clean up, but there is now some thankful distance with that particular choice of ending.
A truly fulfilling, and devastating experience.
Whew. Glad for the comfy chair.
BTW - Nick will be a guest on Homicide: Life on Repeat later in the season. He has a TON to share. Keep yer eyes glued.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kylesecor/p/homicide-stories-nick-gomez?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web