Sad moment in Hudson County

 

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

 

Jack Shaw died last night.

He was one of those characters who has haunted my life since I became a political columnist in 1999, and someone with a dubious past that came to light when federal authorities charged him with taking bribes on behalf of a Jersey City mayoral campaign.

He came from Chicago several decades ago, part of a change of culture there that no longer required hardnosed political operatives of the old school.

In Hudson County, he worked to help elect Robert Janiszewski as county executive in 1987, and survived the political ups and downs to see Janiszewski fall in a massive corruption sting in 2001.

I talked to Shaw frequently in those days, and thinking of him, I still feel the same massive sense of abrupt change I felt when I learned Janiszewski had been charged.

This happened a week prior to 9/11 so that I’m still waiting for something else as terrible as 9/11 as an aftermath to the latest scandal that has seen 44 people arrested and with the potential for many times more.

Perhaps Shaw felt the same dread. Some say his death was suicide. Some say he might have been faced with serious problems in regard to who he knew and what he might have spilled if the feds pressed him.

While I know nearly all of those charged, the person I feel closest to and most disappointed by is the mayor of Secaucus, Dennis Elwell, who resigned yesterday, one more disgraced political figure in Hudson County’s long history of shame.

I first met him on election night 1992 when he was elected councilman, leading a reform ticket against the dominating Democrats. During the next seven years, he would win and lose, but always remained on the reform side – until 1999, when the Democrats made him an offer he could not refuse, asking him to run on a splinter ticket in the Democrat primary.

After that, he changed. He got to meet important people and got to do important things, and he seemed to forget the roots of his own reform, and the memory of his dead son that seemed to have inspired his move to do public good.

I should not feel disappointed at this since I became one of those seeking to uncover his activities over the years, but I still believe deep inside Dennis Elwell, the reformer remains, hidden like a scared child.

 

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I’ve decided to do a shot by shot study of Crystal Skull – partly because I need a model for my own work, but also because it is visually one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time, and I want to look more closely at each image.

I’ve already learned something about Spielberg’s methods that surprises me. He doesn’t always work off a master shot, but often shoots shot to shot, staging each as if setting up a painting. People move from one position to another, are halted, then repositioned for the next shot, and then move off spot to the next assigned position. This is a revolutionary way of thinking for me. And it creates questions that only an insider on the sets could tell me. For instance, does he shoot a master shot first, then come back and stage the inserts based on what he saw? That’s the way I would have to work because to do it shot by shot without a road map would drive me out of my freakin mind.

I’ve also noticed other things that I’ll be going into as a break down each scene in the movie – such as how he managed to mix and match shots that are green screen, live action and shots done on a sound stage.

More later.