We're All Dying, Aren't We? (7)

Fade Out

Of course an actor must create a role,
but in a sense, the role will shape the actor.
How do we, then, identify the factors
which forge a human being's spiritual pole?
A work of art their only outward goal,
a group of people sought the open range.
So, did they undergo subliminal change,
or were they damaged goods before? The whole
ordeal of desert filming may, in fact,
have served to force the cracks apart, but cracked
they were, already. As with Howard Hughes,

perhaps the artifice and real life fused,
though life was bleeding out as Miller typed.
A swirl of desert dust serves as a "wipe".