I had breakfast with Derek Cianfrance, director of Blue Valentine at Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood on May 25, 2010.  He was eating strawberries and wearing a light-blue T-shirt which read “Derek & Shannon” with two birds flying in the sky.  I asked him what his romance was.  He said, “my romance is silence and spaces.  Everything in between, one thing is happening.  Family and love.  The sun feels very aggressive to me.  The sun feels very scary to me.”   Then, I asked him if the sun had anything to do with romance.  He said, “yeah, that’s the light.  Maybe romance is what happens in the shadow.  Long time to train myself to look into the dark.  The sun is beating me up.  I need sunscreen basically.  The sun destroys you.  That’s humbling of the sun.  That’s romance.”