April, 2003
Filmmaker Tom Gilroy is not entirely comfortable with the idea that an artist's primary role is to impart a set of values, but it's hard to believe he doesn't have a little bit of the humanist in him. As the man behind the film Spring Forward - a story about blue-collar men in a New England town who come together through “civility, community, and intelligence” - Gilroy encourages his audience to inhabit those values.

“We're all part of this big soup, and you're throwing in your flavor, and that's what we're here to do. I do think art is about propagating your values, and some of mine are about being as free as possible, to actualize yourself as much as possible, to try to benefit the community, and to have a sense of humor.” On April 3, 2003, MacDowell Downtown will showcase the work of Tom Gilroy by presenting the first segment of Spring Forward with a Q&A to follow.

Gilroy, who is 42, has a restless energy, one that finds him pacing, sitting, and pumping his hands in one fluid motion. It's his kinetic, sometimes frenzied spirit that has also made him a triple-threat as an artist: Long before Spring Forward, his debut feature film, Gilroy wrote and acted on stage, television, and in film. In 1997, he even published a book about haiku poetry. “It's not about the discipline to me; it's about the story…how can I serve that story.”

Not surprisingly, it was storytelling that inspired Spring Forward. “When my mother got a lung transplant at Mass General, she went into a coma for ten days. It was me and my father living in a hotel room, only being allowed about ten minutes a day to visit her.” To fill the time, Gilroy and his dad would take walks around Boston and tell stories. But the stories weren't mere small talk. They uncovered generational values and ideologies that split the two men. In revealing the gaps between father and son, the stories began to offer a better understanding of where each literally and figuratively came from. “Sometimes we're lucky; at some point in life, the right person steps in,” says Gilroy.

Spring Forward describes a similar fortune. One of two main characters, Paul, played by Liev Schreiber, has just joined the parks department after serving time for a robbery; Murph, his older partner played by Ned Beatty, is about to retire. Told over the four seasons in long vignettes, the men seem to have entered each other's lives at a lucky juncture and connect in a way not often seen in “buddy” films. “I was pissed off as a writer about how male-bonding is depicted in film. It's either sports, misogyny, homophobia, or violence.” The notion that men can relate to each other without these may not sound radical until Gilroy inventories recent films with male protagonists. “Look at the stories we're telling: Kill the bad guy.”

It's reasonable to assume, then, that to change American culture it would be necessary to change its stories. For Gilroy, whose social conscience seems as active as his hands, that seems a probable mission, one that makes serving the story also about serving society. His father might agree. After all, he was the first to fund Spring Forward. Spring Forward, from which Tom Gilroy will show an excerpt, is rated R.