Diary of a Film Read online

  2.

  Returning to the hotel I assumed some of my responsibilities. I met with Gabrijela and went over the final schedule. The press panel would now take place before the screening tomorrow, leaving only one interview with a trio of influential film writers that evening which was imperative that I attend alongside the actors. In no uncertain terms she made it clear that everything hung on the critical reception at the screening. I had worked with Gabi since my first film, and she knew better than to lecture me, but it was telling that her time spent at the festival so far, networking and seeing other films, had set a pessimistic mood over our makeshift office. Save this foolishness for the actors, I said. You’re telling me nothing useful. The climate around the festival this year . . she said, their buying patterns— This is just filling up empty air, I said, cutting her off more sharply than I liked. We make films without gimmicks, so they’ll have to decide whether that’s fashionable or not this year, I said. Why force the issue when it’s not your decision to make? All we can do is our job. You’re in charge of filling the premiere with buyers, so make it busy. What’s inside the canister is down to me. The print was awaiting my inspection, and I was bundled into a car that took me to the screening room ten minutes away from the hotel. It was where I had screened previous films, and on its approach I felt the force of conflicting emotions as I remembered both good times and bad. Gabi was right to prepare me. It was her job to keep me from walking naively into the competition when she had knowledge to share. She had read the runes and was nervous for our outcome. I was nervous also but realised that I would not be crippled by it. Whether this film played solely in this theatre or another thousand others, it existed in the world, shaped by my hand. As an artist this is all you can ask. Gabi’s role as the businesswoman would be to ask for something else, but that was not solely my meter. I would not be ripped off for the price of the work when the distribution offers came in, but nor would I compromise for the sake of a higher bid. At the cinema I went directly to the top room where I shook the projectionist’s hand, and answered her questions about the screening. As she prepared, I walked into the theatre and sat in the centre. There was a particular seat I always used for the process, both in the name of objectivity and as a charm. I was a man without superstition who still clung on to this particular seat. I texted Cosima and asked her if she wanted to see the film ahead of everyone else. You may be sick of me already, I wrote, but if you’re not, I’d value your opinion. What happened to your lions? came the reply. The lions are sleeping, I texted back. The energy that pulsed through my hand as those texts were sent and received. We had parted only an hour since, in a bashful acknowledgement that our time spent walking had been an unexpected one. I was in a particular state of shock as I walked away, one where I was dazed but still somehow alert, my senses heightened, so that the steps back to the hotel felt new to me. I worried that she would think I only wanted her there as a placebo; that having made it clear that she supported my work, she needed to continue her affirmations during the screening. A maestro who did not exist without his sycophants. It was down to me to dispel that and for her to understand that she must speak her mind. Only the weakest of artists had to be told what they needed to hear, and I was cut from a different cloth. You’ll have to rouse your lions, came her reply. I have to work this afternoon. Free from 6:00 pm if you still need another opinion. That was that. Three lines, friendly enough, which killed the dream. It stopped whatever was brewing and brought me down to earth. Work. The work. What was expected of me. We ran the first and last reel and nothing of my opinion changed. Picture and sound filled the theatre with the sensuality I’d hoped for; the performances themselves, luminous and truthful. People could decide what they wanted, but in that moment I was proud and content. When I returned to the top room, the projectionist stopped what she was doing and walked over to hug me. You’ve made something beautiful, she said, smiling. They’ll lap it up, trust me. I was elated by her response, and also guilty. Was this what I had wanted when I summoned Cosima? Or something more? Vain, foolish man that I was. At the hotel I relayed this to Gabi, which seemed to restore the confidence that was lacking earlier. I wondered what it was that had made her so gloomy, but did not dwell on it. When the spirits of the company are up, you must work hard to keep them so, no matter the spiritual expense to yourself. We hugged it out and both breathed. In the privacy of my room I spoke to my husband and child and told them that I loved them. My son replied that I was being hysterical and went back to playing ball in the backyard. My husband was sorting laundry and did not have much time to speak either. Why are you ringing in the middle of the day? he complained. Are things going that badly wrong? Call back later. The normality of their rejections filled me with pleasure. I’d returned to my foundations, settled and ready for what would follow. I pulled off my shoes and lay on the bed, where I slept uninterrupted for an hour. It was as restful a sleep as I’d had since the final edit began. It was an all-encompassing blackness without anxieties or dreams. I fell into oblivion without fear of where I would land; the freedom of nothing, bar silence and warmth. When I entered Lorien and Tom’s interview suite shortly afterwards, I felt restored and childishly eager to be reunited. The adoration required for your actors is immeasurable; the desire you must have for them. If you could not fall in love with your ciphers you were merely pushing chess pieces around a set, wooden and replaceable, reflecting all that was closed inside you. This was not in my nature, for my films needed to be flesh-and-blood realisations of what was on the page. I would fight for the people I wanted until I got my way. I flattered and protected them, giving all the freedom and encouragement needed to allow truthful performances to emerge. Lorien and Tom were babies, pliant but sometimes unwilling to dig as deep as necessary, and I was tough in those instances, asking for more in take after take, until they mined the reserves I knew they innately held. I never asked actors to give what I knew I could not. So while sometimes they may have felt the yardstick driving them, they surely knew that my faith in them came first, even if they were less aware of how it destroyed me afterwards. How consuming the attention to detail in the hours before and after they were on set; my passion expressed through lighting, honing the script, arranging and rearranging props, and later in the edit suite, brokering the silence between words and actions. Those bastards have torn you apart, my husband said, on seeing me when I returned home after shooting wrapped. They’ve taken everything but your flesh, and even that’s in a sorry state. Only my husband knew what it took to build me back up; the patience needed to nurse me back to health. I had spent half of my career not knowing how to look after myself, crashing from film to film, and explaining away my sadness as one of the pitfalls of the job. I worked without significant breaks, fearful of what would happen should I stop: that either my name would be forgotten or my ideas would vanish into nothing. The pressure you put on yourself at a young age to keep going was something I wanted to shield my actors from. I encouraged them to think carefully about the parts they were offered and to be wary of taking on more commitments than they could handle. Pissing in the wind with the hungrier actors, but I tried. Look at the example I’m giving you, I wanted to say. There are only so many times that you can strip yourself away. A day will come when you will try only to find that everything you held has melted. Here he is! said the younger actor. Our genius has landed! I’d forgotten the feeling of Tom’s arms around me, the involuntary laugh that came as I kissed his cheek; he wanted to touch but the Midwestern boy in his genes fought it, still learning continental ways. I hear you got sneaky this afternoon, he said, and had yourself a screening without me. Would’ve been down like a shot if I’d have known about it. I heard you were talking about your other movie all afternoon, I said, otherwise I would’ve called you. How did those interviews go, by the way? They seemed to like the film, he said, blush spreading across his cheeks, his Midwestern modesty. It’s had two screenings since Tuesday. People are fighting to see it. Congratulations, I said. You must be happy. I am, maestro. I’ll be happier when I see our collaboration, though. It’s what I’m most excited for. It does you proud, I said. You’ll see. I’ll have to take your word for it, he said, for now. The trust in his eyes assailed me; the unconditional love of a child. He trusted me because I had not humiliated him; how he had been listened to on set, pushed, praised. He’d been made to feel safe, never criticised for trying, only for perceived laziness, zipping through scenes when he was tired and thought it would do. Through all this he had grown, Lorien also. They were not the same young men who’d arrived in Europe ten months ago. What they had learned would not leave them, from packing and canning fruit, to pressing olives, how to kiss another man on camera and show their truth. I was emotional, for I knew that it was simply another stage they had to pass. They would learn from other directors and experiences and grow in new ways. There was a connection between us that was lasting, but those firsts could never be replicated, as their minds processed those rituals that were unknown to them. We hugged again, and like all parents I swallowed it down, my mixture of pride, love and the regret at time passing. Parenthood was the tension between the exhilaration of the present and grief for the past; the future too, both hoped for and feared. I thought of my own boy and how his face would change in even this short time away from him; his hair and nails longer, and something different in his mannerisms whether it was a new catchphrase or interest. I ached for my family at home, to be rooted within them, but this was my family too, whose needs could never be neglected. Where’s Lorien? I asked. He’s upstairs getting a haircut. Been on a hippy vibe since the film wrapped. Working on projects where he looked like a bum. You wouldn’t approve! Dress how you want to dress, I said. The film’s finished. I don’t govern you the way they do in
Hollywood. You said it, maestro. It’s down to his agent. She saw some pictures of him at the festival yesterday and hit the roof. Major burn, he laughed. He’ll be the slickest dude you see tonight, but he’ll hate every minute of it. Let’s go for a walk instead of waiting around, I suggested. Yes please, he said. There’s a crazy good coffee bar I found that made me think of you. I can’t wait to see maestro’s face when he tastes how good these espressos are, I was saying to Lorien. How so? I asked. They’re as good as we had at your place, he said. Maybe better! You should see the machine they use. It’s a beast! We took a car along the seafront and then through a maze of backstreets that bordered the Duomo. How did you find this place? I asked. A girl who’s been translating for us, he said. We walked here the morning after last. I think her parents have a place nearby. The bar was modern in a rustic style of stripped floors and exposed walls, wooden beams and chic lighting. He probably had similar spots in New York and LA, and possibly one in the gentrified part of his Rust Belt hometown, introduced to him by similar girls on similarly enchanted mornings. He was a young actor. Let him live this way. The coffee blend was sound, but the barista rushed the tamp, recognising Tom and becoming self-conscious. It tastes of chocolate, doesn’t it, he said, and some kind of fruit that I don’t know the name of. When I agreed he glowed with pleasure. In time, he would learn to hold back feelings from showing on his face, but this was now, and the beauty of it was overwhelming. He would become a better actor simply by learning how better to hide. No other director would capture the same essence because our summer could never return. I was both bullish and aggrieved by it. It’s a busy time for you, and yet you look so relaxed, I said. I feel comfortable here, he replied. The noise. The smells. I come from a town of cornfields, a bowling alley and a cinema. It’s a working town but everyone’s asleep. Zombies harvesting the fields and preaching in church. I’m alive here, in a way that I don’t feel in the US. It’s like being switched on to a different way of doing things. My senses. Everything’s in Technicolor, even the insults and dog shit. Remember that restaurant you took us to outside Genoa? Looked like a hut in the middle of nowhere. In the hills? I said. The place where we ate for literally five hours straight, he replied. Made us eat like proper Italians, rather than people who have to work out twice a day. This place made me think of the hut. Same integrity, even though it’s a flashier spot. So you’re feeling like a local now, I teased, knowing the good places from the bad. No, maestro, he said. More that I’m beginning to understand what travel does to me. How it shapes what I see. In my first meeting with Tom, he gave similar sparks of self-reflection and loathing. He was unafraid to show his sensitivity or his ignorance. He hungered for the script and the chance to make it real; bursting with ambition and open to possibility. I loved him from that first meeting and loved him now. I thought of drinking espresso with my son in the same bar when the time came, whether he would be so open; and wondered if he would look at me with guile or contempt. Was the power of Tom in that he would not judge me in the way my own child would ten years from now? I was cushioning myself for the reality I deserved, the reality all parents faced; running like a coward when I should’ve been at home with my flesh-and-blood boy. You think I came from this, I said, gesturing around. I made discoveries, same as you are now. The world is happy to stay closed to you if you let it. You’ll not be satisfied with that, I can see. The espresso, making new friends in different cities. You’re on quite an adventure. No more so than now, he said. Anyway, I’m happy that the three of us get to spend some time together these next few days. He was playful as he downed the remains of his cup. Let’s take a stroll around the block before we head back, he said. Been cooped up in that rabbit hutch all day. Need to stretch my legs. We’ll be late, I said. If we keep them waiting they’ll be furious. Since when did you follow the rules, maestro? he said. The man who pulled his film the night before he was meant to show it? Who once punched a critic on La Croisette? We can sneak ten minutes. Do you have any cigarettes? I don’t want you smoking, Tom, I said. When in Rome, man, he said. I’ve had one or two so far. Nothing I can’t handle, so you don’t have to look at me so disapprovingly! OK, I said, you make the decisions. I’m no policeman. I’ll treat you to a pack. That’s what I was hoping you’d say, he said. I didn’t bring any cash with me, as usual. The coffee bar was converted from the ground floor of a townhouse, situated in a tree-filled square. It was overlooked by houses on three sides, with the wall from the structure on the neighbouring street enclosing it. The square itself was partly paved, and in its centre no more than a patch of scrubland where locals walked their dogs and couples met clandestinely when there were no other places to go. There was a statue of a general riding a horse which gave reason to the space, its name plaque, like the wall behind it, clouded with graffiti. We walked the perimeter twice under the general’s gaze, two inmates on exercise duty, making the most of their allotted hour of fresh air. Tom grinned at me as he took long drags from his cigarette, happy that this was something else we could share, but at the same time challenging me to say something. I didn’t. I’d seen his schedule for the week and knew how hard he was working; carrying these two films at such a young age and not buckling under the pressure. At twenty years old I was still daydreaming in my room, not knowing who I was. I would never have been so capable. These squares drive me crazy, he said. I think I find my dream house in every one I cross. His arm was loosely draped over me as we walked. His face was dreamlike but punctuated by seriousness. It was impossible not to see how the place filled him. He would never be an American as typically defined. He was changing and would continue to change. It’s the hidden magic of cities like these, I said. They’re willing you to be seduced. I come from a town similar to this one, but whose beauty escapes me in many ways. I hold too many grudges in each brick and rooftop. If you asked the people who live here they’d probably tell you the same thing. I hear that, he said. A magazine photographer came to my home last year to shoot me for a cover profile, and she was getting all teary-eyed and philosophical about my parents’ farm. If you knew the shit that went down on this farm, I wanted to tell her. The farm is still part of who you are, I said, same as me and my hated rooftops. Even if you never go back, its existence brought you here. What acting gave him was more than just the opportunity to escape. He was growing with every experience, soaking in his environment and choosing what to lose or keep. In two laps of the square alone, he seemed somehow changed. Again, it was something I both marvelled over and regretted, for my own opportunities for renewal were finite now, if they existed at all. Are you dressing Italian too? I asked. That scarf you’re wearing probably has a story behind it. Very chic. Lorien bought it for me yesterday, from Gucci, he said. Was yanking my chain about how I should try and fit in with the locals in my new espresso bar. He was being snarky because he couldn’t get his head around these fancy sneakers I was wearing that Vuitton sent me, but it’s actually a pretty good scarf, right? Yes, I said, it’s a good scarf. Your benefactor has taste. Don’t say it so seriously, maestro, he laughed. That makes me nervous! How would you want me to say it? I asked. The same way, I guess, he said. I’m just anxious for your approval. Like I am with so many things. I trust your judgement the way that you trust mine, I said. Lorien was still not ready when we returned, finishing a phone interview in the neighbouring suite. We shouted our greetings through the door, needing to make him aware of our presence, but he did not reply. The playfulness and urgency in our voices; impatient for him to be within our orbit. So this is our cage, I said, gesturing around the suite; oppression in the comfort of the sofas and the floral arrangements; something of our humanity robbed in the table of snacks and soft drinks, and in the presence of the publicist sitting outside. Our behaviour to be monitored and regulated by our keepers; how we were expected to be word perfect and ready to perform the moment our guests entered. I felt the pressure of the set, the click of the camera turning over, how that rang through the silence, followed by the snap of the clapper, thunderous, like a gun being fired at close range. What will you say, I asked, in these interviews? Same as I’ve been saying all week, he replied. That this is the kind of part you wait for, with a director you wait for, and a co-star you wait for. The truth, in other words. I’ll say that after this kind of film experience, a blessing in many ways, I’ll be lucky to find myself in the same situation again. That there are other films happening, and further films after that, directors I want to work with and stories I want to tell, but that none will touch the magic of making this movie, either personally or professionally. I’ll be the luckiest actor alive if it does. I’ll be the only man who’s been struck by lightning twice and lived to tell it. He was standing with his back to me, and in turning around as he finished speaking, I saw the brightness in his eyes, the conviction there. I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know, maestro, he said. I’d row the Atlantic single-handed for the chance to work with you again. I just need to make it plain to these folks. If you talk like that, I won’t have to say anything, I began. I’ll be lucky to get a word in. You’re just being spiky because I told you honestly, he said. Accept the compliment in the spirit that we always accept yours. I do, I said. I’m still a little fried from finishing the edit. I’d forgotten how much the machine demands from you once the film is ready to view. It’s honesty you have a problem with, maestro? No, never that, Tom, I said. It’s more about how much you need to give of yourself. Mentally you’ll be as spent as you might be on set. This is a set, of kinds, he said, just without the uncomfortable farm clothes. There are still lines to learn and marks to hit. Harder in a way, because you need to show yourself without giving too much away or finding yourself damaged by it afterwards. When I think about acting all I want is to strip myself away unti
l all you see is the character. Interviews are a halfway version of that, only it’s a strip without the anaesthetic. You don’t have the luxury of being in a fog as you stand next to your scene partner and the cameras start to roll. You’re wide awake and fighting harder to protect yourself. I find a way, though. Always find a way. But you show so much on your face, I thought. You are incapable of guile, until I realised a barely perceptible shift in his tone. He was no longer speaking to me as Tom in the local square. Tom, the actor was coming forward, honest and affable, but defined in solely their terms – the expectations of Gabi and our financial backers. I’d seen older actors transform in previous junkets, but in more heavy-handed ways: a series of exhalations and a toss of their mane in the corridor outside before they stepped into the room. The more spiritual of them requesting twenty minutes of alone time in the bathroom without disturbance. Tom’s change was instant; it flowed with his breath and heartbeat. And as if to challenge me, with the next pulse he was back to Tom again, the one I truly knew, with nothing to hide. We’re going to get dinner after this, right? he asked. Gabi said there was somewhere you wanted to take us that would blow our minds. I know a little place, I admitted with a laugh. Just what I wanted to hear, he said. Why do you think I’ve been living on espresso and salads since I got into town? Been saving myself for the pasta mountain facing us tonight. You made the right preparations, I said. If you hurt tomorrow, I don’t want to be blamed for it. Ha! I’m ready, maestro, he said. Bring it! If our bellies are bulging over the tabletop at the panels tomorrow, then so be it. I could probably do with getting a little thicker. How’s Lorien in interviews? I asked. As you’d expect, he said. He nails it. There’s something in sitting with someone who’s been around a little longer. How sharp he is. I’ve learned a lot, just from the few preinterviews we’ve already had this week. He gives me confidence when I’m unsure about things. You gave me a brother when you put us together for this film, you know that, right? He’d say the same about you, I replied. Only in a more grouchy way, Tom laughed. And that’s OK, he said. A grouch I can take, so long as he’s mine. The air-conditioning picked up and with it the tension in the room heightened. I felt a series of knots twisting through my stomach, limiting blood flow and squeezing the life from my vital organs. The first scene on a film, the same feeling: that what had been endlessly planned for had finally arrived; how what would follow was down to both the extent of that preparation and what you held that was unknown. Lorien’s and Tom’s first scene had been together and their preparedness showed in their body language, in the nodded affirmations as they took their marks, the wave of their heads as the set was cleared. Just a flash in the eye contact between them, in acknowledgement of their nerves along with their willingness to fight for the other; brotherhood forming in that moment, irretrievably blended so that they would not break. Hey, maestro, you’re starting to look tense, said Tom. Lighten up! I’d say run a lap of the room or something, but if we start getting all sweaty now the publicist will murder us. They’ll murder us anyway, I said. There’s always one thing or another that we’ll forget or fluff up. You almost sound scared of them, he said. These are people you hired, after all. In this case, we hired them to be ferocious, I explained, to us as much as everyone else. I told myself that I was not scared but the fear would not dissipate. I was still so exposed from the newness of the film. There had been no time to grow a skin as my actors had, shedding something of the farm as they went to work on other roles. For me, this was all I had: one ship to helm and keep afloat. I was still in the water while my captaincy was judged. All the logic I could conjure paled in the strength of my primal responses, a reminder that what was cultivated had lesser strength than the blackness that festered deep in my marrow. The essence that had driven me to make films in the first place: a union of what I’d learned with what I felt. I breathed slowly, a reminder that fears could be harnessed if I collected myself. Life was a series of harnessing and unharnessing, riding and falling. In film I had fallen many times, yet I was still here. How dependable history was in the signs that it gave you. I accepted the fatalism of the moment. The three of us would talk of the film for the first time, and it would be the marker of how we spoke of it afterwards. It would be what it was, and looking into Tom’s eyes, I nodded that I was ready.