Anna North - The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

And then, in the top drawer of my desk, I found something I’d forgotten: her journal. I opened it — at the top of the first page were the words “The Life and Death of Sophie Stark.” And then a list of names, a cast and crew. I saw Allison’s name, Jacob’s, my own. I started reading, and then I got out my phone to call Allison. I didn’t want to talk to her, but I needed to tell her that Sophie was gone and that she’d left something for us to do.

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

I had no desire to appear in The Life and Death of Sophie Stark . When I heard of her death, I felt — even more strongly, I’m ashamed to say, than sorrow — a sense of mingled guilt and embarrassment. I felt guilty for giving the last film she ever directed a bad review and for contributing, in any way, to whatever she was feeling at the end of her life. At the same time, I felt embarrassed for thinking that anything I did could have mattered to her. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about Sophie Stark; I wanted to be left alone.

For almost a year prior to that, I’d been concerned that I was wasting my life. I’d always been liberated by the feeling that no one was really paying attention to my writing; it didn’t matter if my opinions were stupid, because they didn’t matter anyway. Then, finally, I was in a position where they did matter, and I felt like a terrible fraud. Writing about movies had always been fun to me, a way to play with ideas, an escape from whatever was lonely and unsatisfying about my life. I knew that I could see the same movie on two different days and have two totally different opinions, and that what I thought said less about the movie than about me and how tired or sad or angry or nostalgic I was when I walked into the theater. Then, suddenly, I was the film critic for the Star . I kept writing up my unreliable, could’ve-been-different-if-I’d-had-a-better-breakfast-that-day opinions, but now people quoted them on movie posters or cited them as evidence that someone’s career was going south. Both made me feel horrible. My review of Isabella bothered me especially — I’d tried to psychoanalyze Stark, and it was clear after her death that I’d known nothing whatsoever about her. But all my reviews, toward the end, disgusted me. I asked to be transferred to the foreign desk, and my editors generously agreed.

I was in Mexico City when I got Robbie’s e-mail. I was shocked that Sophie would want me to be in a movie about her life, and then I was disturbed — if she’d been thinking of me at the end, it couldn’t have been good. I wondered if it was some sort of trick, a way to humiliate me somehow. I wondered if I was crazy to think this. Ultimately I just said no — I was abroad, I told him, and I wouldn’t be able to get back for filming. I also told him I’d quit criticism, hoping that would stand in for an apology.

Over the next few months, though, it ate at me. I felt guilty — here was a way to do something for her, the only thing I could possibly do, and I was pushing it away. Also, I’ll admit that I was curious — Sophie Stark had made me want to watch movies for a living in the first place, but I knew I hadn’t fully understood her as a director or as a human being. I thought if I agreed to be in the movie, if I met and talked to all the people who loved her, then I might get a better idea of what was going on inside her head.

Still, I might have put it off forever if I hadn’t gone to a party for a reporter who was moving back to the States. There were a lot of Americans there, and one woman recognized my name and wanted to talk about Sophie Stark.

“It’s sad, of course,” she said, “but it was bound to happen.”

Usually I excused myself when Stark came up, as she did from time to time, her death having significantly increased her fame. But I had had a couple of beers and some good ceviche, and I was feeling generous.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, she just saw people so clearly, you know? You can tell from the work. She saw people for what they really are, and I think if you’re that perceptive, you just can’t live in the world for very long.”

I thought maybe if I didn’t say anything, she would stop. I took another sip of beer.

“Think about it,” she went on. “To see the truth of life the way she did — it would become unbearable.”

I called Robbie as soon as I got home. If I could keep people from reducing Sophie Stark to some kind of magical prophet — a tendency fed, to some degree, by my earlier work — I was willing to do whatever it took.

I’m not sure that I succeeded. Those who have seen the film know it’s essentially a documentary. Stark left behind detailed instructions for lighting (those for lighting and styling Allison Mieskowski run several pages), location, and editing and outlined some events she wanted us — myself, Robbie, Allison, Jacob O’Hare, Daniel Vollker, and the producer-turned-director George Campos — to address. I, in what may have been a cruel joke, was tasked with reading my reviews of Stark’s films aloud on camera. I tried to make this a little easier on myself by offering commentary on Stark and on my relationship to the films, much of which George (or Robbie, who assumed a lot of directing duties, even though his sister hadn’t asked him to) chose to cut. I find my portions of the film unbearable to watch; others I return to often.

As a whole the film did not dispel the notion of Stark as prophet — it remains all too common, especially among her younger fans. Nor, I think, does the film enable the viewer to understand Stark. I appeared in it and spent months talking to the people Stark loved most, and I still don’t understand her — that is, I don’t feel I know what she was thinking at any point in her life. This continues to worry me; when I watch her films now, I’m always looking for clues.

I’ve tried to find the photographer from whom, at least according to Campos, Stark took her name. I haven’t had any luck. I suppose it’s possible that she made the whole thing up. Stark wasn’t above feeding her own myth when it suited her, and she may have created a fake origin story just for the sake of misdirection. Or maybe cooking up a false namesake made her feel better about the way her life had gone. Whether she meant to or not, Emily Buckley created a character that was Sophie Stark, and while that character made brilliant movies, she also caused a great deal of pain. Maybe she wanted to offload the responsibility for the name at least onto somebody else. Ultimately, though, I believe the story about the photograph, even though I can’t find any evidence for it. I believe that Stark told Campos the truth; especially as she got older, I believe she wanted to be known.

And despite its limitations, I feel The Life and Death of Sophie Stark served a purpose. Forcing your loved ones to tell your life story after you commit suicide seems, on the face of it, like an act of unforgivable hubris, and in a way it was. But I think it was an act of generosity, too. Sophie was so often accused — rightly, in many cases — of stealing other people’s stories, and now she was letting us tell hers. In a way she left herself to us.

In retrospect most of Robbie’s cuts to my commentary were good decisions. But there’s one story I wish he’d left in — the story of the last time I saw Sophie. It was 2016, after my Conversation profile came out but before Isabella . She was at Sundance, by herself, drinking whiskey and dressed all in white. I was standing directly behind her, trying to think of something polite to say, when she wheeled around and said my name.