Shaquille O’Neal Descends Even Deeper Into the Cinematic Arts
At this point, what might have been called Shaquille O'Neal's lifelong, ongoing, public art homage to Terrence Malick is veering into outright felonious pilfery. You can see it in everything Shaq has ever done. His hardscrabble upbringing in Waco, Texas. His studying of philosophy at Harvard. His meticulous translation of Martin Heidegger's "Vom Wesen des Grundes." His obsession with compassionate dinosaurs. His tendency to spend hours upon hours staring at wheat. At first it was charming. But now it's just derivative, a once-promising artist too timid to charge forward with his own vision, choosing instead to hide behind the titan shoulders of another. It's almost tragic.
This is the last straw: As if all that weren't enough, Shaq has now decided to become a film director, according to TMZ.
Shaq is about to complete the Filmmaking Conservatory at the New York Film Academy's branch at Universal Studios Hollywood. Shaq's been very hands-on during directing and cinematography classes -- walking his crew through stunts (above photo) ... and shooting on the studio's famous back lot.
"Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main." -- Shaquille O'Neal (later quoted by Emily Bronte)
What you could have been, Shaq, what you could have been ... had you not just followed, like a lemming, the well-beaten paths of those who came before.
Let us remember Shaq for the vibrant, essential artist he once was, and not the relentless, pathetic, cowardly plagiarist he became.
