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And someone told me that the full quote is "The tragedy of life is that everyone has their reasons." It's just so unbearable, that comment. It sums up everything.

A lot of your movie seems to be about David Gold confronting his nostalgia about his hometown.

Michael Sragow Michael Sragow's column appears every Thursday in Arts & Entertainment + Archives

This film, I hope, is not nostalgic, but is about people coming to terms with their lives at the moment, the lives they thought they were going to have, the lives they wish they had. That feels like nostalgia, but it's the active form of that.

The funny thing is, I wanted to treat this place, which has been so maligned, the suburbs, in the way that I understood it. You look back on your personal history, and you think, "Well, my grandparents immigrated here, and they were the such-and-such family, and they married into this lousy family, but then they became this family, and I was born." That to me has as much importance to me, and as much weight, as going through the dynasties of ancient Egypt. Your own personal family history is complete with back-stabbing and injustices and romantic love and failed hopes and dreams -- to me that's no different than following the rise of Tutankhamen and the story of civilization.

What was the creative start of "Judy Berlin"?

Here's what I tried to do. Without censoring myself, without looking at what was in theaters right now, I tried to amass a group of things, that for no other reason but instinct, seemed to go together. And I didn't want to explain it to myself, and I didn't want to explain it to anybody else. I just thought if I get it on gut level, maybe somebody else will. The chance you take as a writer is that no one else will. But that's OK; I'd rather chance it and fail than do something understandable from the start, without any attempt at personal integrity.

And so, for a year, I collected things that went together. A small suburban town that was homely and homey and filled with these worlds-within-worlds: the elementary school on the second day of school, the housewives who stay at home, the return of teachers to a familiar classroom, the frightening aspect of going to school, the feeling of autumn -- with melancholy and hope -- and this bizarre, unexplained, fairly science-fiction event of an eclipse.

You don't refer to the suburban-Jewish nature of the story all that explicitly. I was knocked off-kilter when David told Judy he couldn't understand why she hung out with a tough crowd because Jewish girls aren't tough. Yet there's something in the intense mingling of humor and sadness that reminded me of stories by Bernard Malamud.

The story is a fable. I'm a big fan of the kind of simple elegance of Isaac Bashevis Singer; when he talks about a little farm shtetl the emotional truth is there and it rings true. But I wanted it to be specific. I would hate it if someone would leave the film and say, "Well now I know about suburban Jews." Nobody comes out of "The Wizard of Oz" and says, "Kansas life has been explained to me now." I hope nobody ends up reading the poems of Robert Frost and says, "God, those hicks!"

Speaking of poetry, there seem to be rhyme schemes in the action and the dialogue. David's age, 30, gets mistaken twice, once by his dad, once by Judy; he and Sue Berlin both voice bitter truths, then apologize. Was this kind of mirroring part of your molding of the film?

I'd be lying if I said so. Somebody had to point out to me that the film begins with a montage, the finale of which is the lights going out. "Isn't that interesting," he said, "that's what your whole film is about -- the lights going out." Now, that makes it sound as if a real person made this film! That makes it sound like something out of a film book! But I certainly couldn't have told you that was there.

When I was a little boy, and used to study painting all the time, I read something about a painting by Delacroix -- I think it was "Horse Frightened by a Storm." It said that above his head was a cloud, which if you looked carefully formed a yin-yang symbol. And obviously with Delacroix and his association to Orientalism, this was pretty heavy symbolism. And I remember saying to my brother, "Should I start putting symbolism in my work?" Because I was a kid who drew all the time. And he said don't worry about it. I never did from that point, so I'm always surprised when people find stuff.

I've taken my cue in later life from Edie Falco, who works from a visceral, gut instinct kind of way. There was nothing intellectual about the way we discussed it.

Could you give an example?

We were talking about why it was inappropriate for Judy to say a line. Edie couldn't say why on intellectual terms. She just started talking emotionally. She said, "I don't think Judy is ashamed of anything. She's showing a little bit of retraction in that sentence, as if she realized what she said and she's ashamed. I just don't see Judy being ashamed."

And her character functions that way in the film: Her sureness in her dream to be an actress is what David doesn't have.

One argument that always goes on in my head is, should we think this through or just go on instinct? I've always been pleased when I just go on instinct.

Part of the reason this year has been so difficult was taking the film around and listening to what money people and distribution people and agent people say. It threatens instinct. But now I remember what it was that I liked about writing: Oh yeah, you get to have everyone sit there for a while and pound home your point of view and convince them of something you believe wholeheartedly. Which is what I wanted to do with "Judy Berlin." The pounding had to come from a tiny toy hammer because of the nature of what I was talking about -- but still, I pound home the delicacy, and when people leave the theater I hope they understand my feelings about what it takes to get through the day.

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