WASHINGTON — Do you ever wish you could talk to your younger self? Or, for that matter, your older self? One man has managed to pull it off, on film at least.
In 1977, Peter “Stoney” Emshwiller, who was 18 at the time, decided he would interview his future self. He sat down with then-state-of-the-art video equipment, run by his father, filmmaker Ed Emshwiller, and conducted half of a conversation with his future self, asking about topics ranging from sex (of course), career success and family, among other topics. He filmed the questions as well as a range of reactions to the hypothetical answers. And for 38 years, he waited to edit in his older self’s responses.
He writes, “A recent health scare (happily a false alarm) made me realize I ain’t gonna live forever, and that it’s time to finish this project. So I’m finally going to (gulp) face my younger self and record the other half of the conversation.”
The result is “Later That Same Life,” and he’s looking for crowdsourced funding to put it all together. Toward that end, he’s released a few minutes of highlights. The Emshwillers’ “conversation” is by turns combative, sweet and funny. Be warned that there’s some R-rated language here; on the other hand, those are some of the funniest parts:
- At one point, the 56-year-old Emshwiller tells the teenager, “I’m old; I’m fat, and in your mind I’m a failure.” On the other hand, the question “Are you exceedingly rich?” elicits laughter from them both.
- Asked whether he marries, the older Emshwiller begins to rhapsodize about his wife. Then, when he realizes whom he’s “talking” to, he turns stern: “Oh my God, she’s 12 years old now. Stay away from her.”
- The most affecting part comes when the younger Emshwiller asks, “What’s happened to the family?” The elder version replies, “I don’t know what I should tell you.” After a long pause, he says quietly, “You should spend as much time as you can with them. Spend more time with Dad.” The teenage version stops, wipes his eyes and asks for the camera to be stopped.
On his Rockethub page, Emshwiller writes of some of the questions tackled in the film: “What is success? What is failure? Who decides how to judge a life? … And, while (we’re) chatting, what’s the deal with that beard, dude?”
Valid questions, each one.
h/t TIME
