Even the masters faced a cold, soul-killing reception at the start of their lives.
To the second question, however, "Cold Souls" has an exact answer; namely, a credit card.
The most likely art house hit, shown at Sundance, is Sophie Barthes's comedy "Cold Souls".
"Cold Souls" turns into a delicious fable of international metaphysical espionage.
The film's writer-director, Sophie Barthes, wrote "Cold Souls" based on a dream she had in which Woody Allen's extracted soul resembled a chickpea.
"Cold Souls" has its flaws, and it threatens to sag into a Paul-like morbidity, but Giamatti's anxious mien and unspectacular shamblings have never been better deployed.
Ms. Bryant appeared on television in episodes of Oz, Law and Order, Third Watch and Max Bickford and also had a role in the 2009 film Cold Souls starring Paul Giamatti.
Arriving at a moment when smart, pointed humor in movies is in short supply, "Cold Souls" could never be described as social realist.
This means that "Cold Souls" will leave many viewers deflated, especially those who believe, like Aristotle, that the soul is an animating life force, or who pride themselves on its grandeur.
In the film "Cold Souls," which opens next month, he plays an actor named Paul Giamatti, who, burdened by nameless anxieties, has his soul extracted by an outfit called the Soul Storage Company.
In its portrait of an ordinary man struggling to refresh his disappointments, "Cold Souls," for all its futuristic gizmos, pays fonder tribute to Chekhov than anything since Louis Malle's radiant "Vanya on 42nd Street," of 1994.
