Hick

American life is so varied. Love, heartache, loss, survival, loneliness are universal themes, but we all come to terms with them through very different lenses and perspectives. America is a place where otherness can be both celebrated in one breathe and detested in the next.

This ‘otherness’ is my connection to Lorena Hickok (Hick). This project is my exploration into a woman’s history who influenced a nation from behind the scenes then died alone in her apartment. Yet, she lived her life to its fullest by her own terms.

During my research, I dove into the year 1932 to learn everything I could about what was going on around her during her time as a reporter. I wanted to understand her environment and what she’d been reporting on for newspapers before her close relationship to Eleanor Roosevelt.

I found she wittingly spoke her mind, enjoyed sarcasm, and was a conscious listener and observer. She knew how to be one of the guys and could crack a dirty joke with the best of them. It meant she know how to relate to others and it is what I think made her a great reporter. It is also why I choose to focus on her first and their relationship second.

I envision a film noir visual style for this movie which I establish from page one. I feel this style helps tell this story best because it takes place in a time period highly influenced by the roaring 20’s and the great depression. A time period that calls for grit, deep shadows, and not so happy endings.

My hope is that the readers and future audience of this movie take away from it what I learned about Lorena Hickok: to be unabashedly yourself, take chances, even the smallest rocks have a ripple effect, and to follow your heart wherever it takes you.

Sometimes the extraordinary lies hidden to be discovered by others. I found it in this relatively unknown piece of history. History which has failed to focus on Lorena Alice Hickok as the renowned reporter that she was, and my hope is for her story to be widely known.