Happy Endings
by Silvian Rochester
I hope for your own benefit that you never awaken as I have in a faux chateau bedroom perched on a cliff above one of Europe’s mightier rivers. The deafening roar of surging water! The strange surroundings. The eerie gray light. Not. Recommended. In fact, quite assuredly guaranteed to produce a panic attack. All right, if not a full-on panic, at least an anxiety attack. There! Satisfied? Are you trying to ruin my whole day? I think it was Evelyn Waugh, bless him, describing the effect of World War I, who said: “Before the war, if one thing went wrong, your entire day was ruined. After the war, if one thing went right, your day was made.”
And to think that just two weeks ago, I covered our beloved Comic-Con in San Diego! Dressed as the most adorable Rich Uncle Pennybags from the board game Monopoly, sporting a fine black top hat upon my head and spats. Sanguine, no? Oh, posh!
No, the raison I’m here on a fetchingly frigid mountain top is to cover The Vivex Film Festival. Whenever I say those four words, I hear a voice in my head — suspiciously like that of Anthony Hopkins— chanting, “Good old Vivex! Lacking the notoriety of Cannes, without the vigor of Sundance.”
I was met at the airport by troops in green uniform toting rifles, as well as barbed wire barricades, so I knew instantly that a terrorist alert is underway!
To paraphrase Lewis & Clark, “Location, location, location.” These festival organizers aren’t stupid. A European film festival, we’re as equidistant to Stockholm in the north as we are to Istanbul in the south. It’s as far west to Lisbon as it is east to Odessa. We’re in Germany, the Schwarzwald, home of the Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. Black Forest cherry-cake. Specifically, Baden-Wurttemberg, famous for the aerial tramway in Nußloch, ten kilometers south of Heidelberg. Cross the Rhine and you’re in one of the more boring parts of France, the industrial northeast. The very fact that the European Union felt compelled to choose Strasbourg as one of its capitals indicates a capitulation to grim reality, making still another vain attempt to breathe new life into an economic crater. Even if Strasbourg is French, it’s still a disaster. On our side of the river, the nearest metropolis is Freiburg. We all agree that it’s a great place to recover from a heart attack. That kind of exhausts its list of attractions. To the east, Würzburg, Nürnberg and Munich get all the kitsch. We get movies.
I don’t know why they let me write for The Atlanta Sentinel. I hope that’s an honest enough confession for you, dear readers! I grew up in Antwerp in Jefferson County, New York. Population, less than 2,000. Perhaps because I was solitary and film crazy, my childhood made me a critic in embryo. I wrote for our high school newspaper, critiquing dances, plays, the cafeteria slop, my classmates’ clothes, girls’ make-up. And movies. Naturally, I ended up penning an advice column. Under the pseudonym “Dear Gwendolyn”! Good Lordy, I was glad I graduated! I went to Tulane, in New Orleans, on a football scholarship. Eventually, I gravitated to Atlanta. I have a nice house, nothing precious, across the river in Marietta. Three cats— a Siamese and two hapa mixed breed shelter cats— whom the neighborhood children insist on petting and feeding when I’m away. Probably because I pay them! The children, of course, not the cats.
A quick search on the Net and you’ll see our website, theatlantasentinel.com, ostentatiously featuring portraits of the Rideau brothers, Robert and Roger, owners of our fine news sheet. How amidst the dire demise of so many other fine newspapers has our daily managed to blithely sail ever onward? Serendipity. Ranking as America’s fortieth largest city, our rag escaped any voracious hostile takeover bids by Knight Ridder or the Times Mirror Company. Remaining a family-owned enterprise, Robert and Roger avoid the pitfall of greedy nieces and nephews by carefully doling out shares. Let members of the Rideau extended family work in other professions. If they find themselves over-extended— as they often do— Robert and Roger might arrange a loan through the Rideau Commerce Bank, but the newspaper stock remains inviolate.
None of that would matter if we were located in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. Many perfectly adequate journalistic enterprises have bitten the dust in those locales despite careful and considerate stewardship. No, Atlanta is special… AND DON’T WE KNOW IT! Slide a copy of The Atlanta Sentinel across the table and examine it. Notice the internationalist front page, chockablock with news of the world. Those stories continue inside the A Section, but otherwise, the entire remaining first section is dedicated solely to news of Atlanta. The second section ends with the comics, of course. Before that, however, you have ten choice pages chronicling high society, appropriately entitled The Social Scene. The Atlanta Sentinel is not ashamed to hold high aloft the torch of propriety! Private lunches, dinners, fundraisers, charity occasions and cotillions fill our column inches, proudly celebrating Atlanta’s heritage. Blacks are still referred to as Mr. (Last name) and Miss (Last name). By never including a given first name, we signal place without giving offense. These things take breeding.
The third section, on Thursdays, is simply labeled The Flea Market and contains as many classified ads as people have paid for.
I know, plus royal que le roi. Being an outsider, I am steadfastly more patriotic than the locals who take all this color for granted.
*
I remember as a child watching a subtitled East German or Russian film. They made my hair stand on end! When I see those same films today on Netflix, they seem both dated and excruciatingly slow.
As fewer and fewer American moviegoers find themselves with a surplus of coin to spend on movie theater attendance, Hollywood’s fixation on the “first big weekend box office” has given way to a longer view. Gone are the days when a motion picture recouped its entire production costs several times over within its first three days at the multiplex. Don’t get me wrong, pictures still compete for big box office bucks. They still make money the first weekend, only not THAT kind of money. Misfires continue to occur, too, of course. Some rockets barely lift off the pad. In such an environment, the importance of European and DVD revenue increases dramatically. Just witness the corporate brass attending festivals in Cannes, Berlin and even here at Vivex.
In our programs, a bright red sheet of A4 typing paper announces, “Achtung! Heightened Security! Pls Pay Attention!!!” We are told to be aware of our surroundings, to report suspicious activity to the proper authorities, not to try to intervene ourselves and, lastly, we are given five different phone numbers we can call: National Defense Military HQ, Regional Defense Command Central, Local Police, the Film Festival Administration and 911. Whew! They haven’t even told me what’s going on and already I’m getting heart palpitations.
The precarious position of the Euro has made us Americans the rich siblings of Europe. Such a pleasant change! In the old days, the Deutsche Mark was so schneidig, it all but decimated my yearly expense account.
“All I’m saying,” Otto von Bonn insists, “is that Iron Man 3 displays decidedly fascist tendencies.” Also known as Otto Bonn, he’s a radio correspondent on Norddeutscher Rundfunk.
“Balderdash!” I retort. We film critics are seated at lunch in a bistro in the center of town: Marjorie Richard from Paris, James Metcalf from London, Otto and me.
Everyone has their favorite place in Europa. Mine is Deutschland, where I can add to my collection of Willy Brandt memorabilia. I especially like Osnabrück in Saxony, because the girls have such pretty faces and the physique of Sherman tanks. Once you break through their icy demeanor, the heat from their bodies leaves scorch marks. They’re not so much uneducated as world-weary, living in the European equivalent of Katmandu, a city at a crossroad of the world. I always make it a point to visit Osnabrück, if only to get laid.
“You stupid…” Otto mutters, head down among the wine glasses, before straightening up and flashing his bifocals at me rambunctiously. “All I’m saying is, take your screener copy, sit down on the couch in your room and watch the film in peace and quiet. Hitlerian propaganda, ist das wahr oder nicht?”
After viewing the film in my room, far from the madding crowd, I admit that the movie may not be the most brilliant screen adaptation of a comic book character ever made. I much prefer Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock Holmes. But fascist propaganda? Pul-lease! I think my German colleague had one glass too many of the excellent champagne.
*
Any TV guru will tell you the prime demographic for American television is the 18- to 34-year-olds. This is such a Madison Avenue drum beat, its percussive blast reaches all the way across the country to Los Angeles. The Hollywood film industry makes films that are palatable to 13-year-olds. PG-13-year-olds. Parental Guidance suggested. One instance of swearing per film. Otherwise, Hollywood takes no responsibility for action content. Guns blazing, cars somersaulting, fireballs reaching to the heavens, it’s all movie magic!
Hollywood isn’t dumbing down so much as keeping things simple. There’s complex language and then there’s movie dialogue, two very different species. Just as you can’t tell a book publisher squat since they’ve been grinding out books since Gutenburg (1390 – 1468), Hollywood has been honing film language ever since the days of silent two-reelers and title cards.
Today’s audiences are “pre-sold”— they’re comic book enthusiasts, video gamers or fanboys and fangirls who are familiar with the characters, plot and environment of a film and have invested an emotional stake in that franchise. Always risk-averse, the studios much prefer to greenlight productions based on these already tried-and-true formulas. Bandwagons are bigger than ever, as an endless series of zombies and werewolves battle mutants, narcotics agents, super heroes and space invaders for dominance over your local movie screen.
*
If you like blondes, you’ll never come closer to a perfect “10” than 23-year-old Aija Barkava. The amazing thatch of golden hair, the perfectly round chin, high cheekbones and of course the perky little ski jump nose leave her resembling some Überblondine from Valhalla. I land an interview through her agent. They’re flacking her latest pic, Pro-Choice Werewolves vs Vampires of Diversity.
“So very blond!” I blurt, plopping my digital recorder on the table and stumbling against a metal chair.
“Whoa, tiger!” she exclaims in a voice as peepy as a canary. Smiling ruefully, she asks, “Are you nervous?”
Forcing myself to visibly slow down, I never-the-less scrape the chair along the terra cotta floor. “This restaurant is a minefield!” I bitch.
“Temper, temper,” says Aija, wagging a tiny finger in my face teasingly. Her little white teeth resemble a pearl necklace.
Securely seated, clamping my pen spastically, I check to confirm that the red diode is lit on my recorder. “You are so very blond, my dear,” I try again, taking it from the beginning. “Is there an origins story I have missed?”
“You don’t read the movie mags?” she asks archly.
“I’m sorry, I confess, I do not.”
“I’m Latvian. This latest project is a Latvian-Swedish-German-Italian co-production. We got access to some great countryside here in the Black Forest and, of course, all the island stuff was filmed on Sardinia. Sweden provided tech support. Studios, the soundstage in Trollhätten, equipment and laboratories.”
She is not what I expected. Personable, totally sincere, extremely professional. Impressed, I tell her that.
Sipping from a glass of ice water with lemon, she carefully modulates her voice, very angry. “I grew up in this little town and all the boys went ape over me. All the adults called me ‘Our own little Marilyn.’ I thought to myself, ‘Fuck it, it’s pre-ordained.’ And I love acting. I was in all our school plays. They always had me play the Virgin Mary at our annual Christmas pageant. So I learned to act. If you know your Baltic, Estonia is like 90% blond and we’re not so far behind. Even Finland is evenly split between blond and brunette. You go to Murmansk in Russia, the women each have one set of clothes and dress like fashion models. Very blond. No one expects anything less. It’s in our genes. I come south and I get treated like an idiot because I have big boobs!”
I refrain from lustily exclaiming, Yes, you do!” Just barely. “Yet the werewolves are pro women’s rights and the vampires are all Hispanic,” I point out instead. “Why is that?”
“Have you seen our little film?” she asks suspiciously.
“I popped in a screener. How many languages are they speaking?”
“Well, you’re doing a lot better than most of the people who’ve interviewed me. Five. It’s all subtitled. I once saw a Polish film with subtitles in English, French and German. You could barely see the actors between all the white text,” she laughs. “The vampiros speak Spanish, the villagers speak Sicilian, the international forensic team is actually Doctors Without Borders so they speak French, the Indian U.N. Peacekeepers speak Hindi and the news media people speak Euro-English. That’s a simple form of English based on 150 common words. The werewolves are mute.”
“Yes, I got it,” I bleat, scribbling notes frenetically, my head reeling. Jesus, Mary and all the saints! Blond bimbo??? I spend the next 20 minutes in a cold sweat, trying to keep up.
*
Of course, you know me in quite another capacity. No, no, not as a gag-writer for Seth MacFarlane, although a gig like that would assure me additional income for life. Hello-o, I’m told I have a sterling sense of humor, Seth! No, of course, you know me as Leon Rakhmanov’s official biographer. Of course you do! I am THE EXPERT. Assistant to Sergei Eisenstein’s cinematographer Eduard Tisse on the epic film The Battleship Potemkin (1925), the stormy life and loves of Leon (orig. Lev) Rakhmanov (1897 – 1951) resulted in my exhaustively all-encompassing monograph The Stormy Life and Loves of Leon Rakhmanov. The man was a fighter! His military exploits during the Revolution saw him fighting with everybody, his commanding officers, his tent mates, even the cooks. Later, married, a belligerent drunk, he fought with his wife Irina and son Georgy. Only the infinitely patient Tisse could get quality work out of his old comrade. Leon also assisted Tisse on Ten Days That Shook the World (a k a October or Oktyabr, 1927). And Alexander Nevsky (1938). And Ivan The Terrible (1944 – 1946). They were so busy filming this two-part masterpiece, it’s like World War II never happened! Fittingly, Leon died in a drunken brawl. The Rakhmanov dacha in the woods was no scene of domestic tranquility, I can assure you. And I do. For 328 exquisite pages of superlative prose. Sixteen black and white photographs. Full index and end notes. Published by Dalecarlia Press. $29.95 at fine bookstores everywhere!
Tip: If you wish to make your way in the world of academia, establish your credentials by selecting some obscure but accessible cultural figure and become the go-to guy on all things relating to that person’s career, family, lifestyle, ideology, religion and belief system. If your subject threw bones and secretly thought mankind was controlled by bats, rats or ghosts, that helps! Like me, you’ll become a sought-after lecturer, panel discussion debater and dignitary in foreign lands. “Oh,” people say in a multiplicity of tongues, “that’s Silvian Rochester, he’s the well-known authority on Sergei Eisenstein’s cinematographer Eduard Tisse’s assistant Leon Rakhmanov.” You’ll be able to afford your own summer dacha in the woods! Or at least a timeshare in Florida. You’ll be able to own Fabergé-style hand-blown glass eggs hand-engraved by Russian artisans with the double-headed Romanov eagle. I myself own two! And they cost almost $100 each. Choose well! Good luck! Sorry, Leon R. is taken.
*
I never thought with my starched cuffs and 1920’s mannerisms that a bona fide Hollywood actress would give me a second glance. Which is not to say I live a monk’s life at festivals, only that my female accompaniment usually consists of Italian movie actresses. “Multo bene. Dormi da solo?… Sì, io continuare a scrivere.”
So when Pamela Mercer (née Gromulko) approaches me at the bar, I’m unsure what to do. I know her curriculum vitae: Twenty-eight years old. She’s been making movies since some lady talent agent in SoCal latched onto her at age sweet 16. On average, Pamela has made two films a year. You check her filmography, that’s 24 films to her credit. The lady is also 100% American born and raised. Even my antecedents include a British mother.
“Buy me a drink,” says Pamela, pulling cigarettes from her purse and lighting up with a gold lighter. A sexy demeanor and a Chicago accent so refined, it could curdle milk.
“What would you like?”
“Glenlivet on the rocks.”
I don’t even need to ask. Ricardo raises his eyebrows knowingly and fills a glass with ice, pulls down the bottle from a glass shelf over the bar lined with various brands of Irish and American whisky and pours Pamela’s drink. Putting a napkin on the mahogany finish of the bar, he places her glass just so.
“Perfectissimo!” I remark.
“Muchas gracias,” says Ricardo.
The kind of money we’re paying, good service is included.
Pamela and I talk scripts. “I dunno,” she suggests, “it’s another spy movie or a sci-fi piece of shit from outer space. I’m pretty tired of this. If I do another sci-fi epic, I run the risk of getting typecast. Why don’t I ever get the Jen Aniston or Aston Kutcher romantic comedies?”
“Talk to your agent,” I say off-handedly. Earning me a punch on the shoulder.
Pamela jumps off her stool. “Nice knowing you!”
“Well, wait a minute!” I plead. “Sit back down here. Look in the mirror behind the bar, Pam. Look at that face. That’s a shark’s face. That’s a femme fatale. Come on, people have told you this before!”
“Of course,” she chortles. “I just wanted to hear it from you! We’re not on Jay Leno. We haven’t practiced our talking points beforehand.”
“Take your drink and come with me out front,” I say, collecting my Clausthaler in one hand and beer glass in the other. We sit on the front steps of the hotel, the roar of the water ringing in our ears.
“GREAT PLACE TO TALK!” she shouts.
“THIS WAY YOU HAVE TO SNUGGLE UP AND SPEAK WITH YOUR LIPS PRESSED TO MY EAR!”
Laughing richly, she entwines my arm in hers, presses close and whispers sweet nothings in my ear.
Over dinner— in the hotel dining room, to keep it simple— Pam suggests I relocate to L.A. and become a screenwriter. “Or something.” Looking at me.
We order “Victory Salad,” a Caesar salad with blue cheese dressing. The fall of Communism never tasted more tart.
Unable to ignore the smirk, the eyebrows, the twinkle in her eye, I ask, “Aren’t you together with anybody? I don’t keep up with the tabloids.”
“Was. Not now.”
I make a face, considering it. “Well… hey, I’m honored!” I stammer.
“My room or yours?”
“Either one! I’m sure they’re identical.”
“Actually, yours would be better,” Pam says, considering. “I have people in my suite.”
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my room key and hand it to her over the table. I watch as she memorizes the number and hands it back. The waiter brings us complimentary cognac in small, round glasses.
Lying next to her in bed, I watch a mouse climb the wall and disappear into the bottom of the decorative cuckoo clock. “If I ever meet Anthony Weiner,” I muse, “I’ll say what Nick Carraway told Jay Gatsby. ‘They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together’!”
“Who’s Anthony Weiner?”
“Ha ha!”
“Don’t laugh! Do you know where I’ve been filming for the last eight weeks?!”
“I’m sorry, I apologize,” I reply and bring her up to date on New York politics.
*
Pam’s on the first floor and has an entire suite. I’m on the third floor in a cubbyhole. I pick her up next morning and we do breakfast. Then she spends the next few hours back on the first floor, granting interviews. I sit upstairs writing, researching the Net and browsing through screeners. At 12 noon, I pick Pam up and we do lunch in the hotel dining room. I didn’t realize how lonely I was until I’m no longer alone!
At one o’clock, we go down to the conference center for the day’s event. What the French call le Spectacle. We get patted down by members of the Bundeswehr. The stocky, blue-eyed, blond Valkyrie running her gruff hands over my body sends me into an instant erection. “Bitte! ” she insists. “I save you cost of one pill Viagra, ja?”
“Jawohl, das ist richtig,” I flirt.
“Next!” she shouts, pushing me along.
There are glam shots on the walls of the Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran left over from previous conventions. Boy, do I ever get a different reception with Pam Mercer by my side! Striding into the jammed foyer, Mr. Invisible suddenly becomes visible!
Pam introduces me to her crew. “This is my friend Silvian. He writes for the The Atlanta Sentinel.”
The young Asian bodyguard types shake my hand and nod.
“Oh, you’re a journalist!” declares R. Scott “Scottie” O’Rourke, greatly relieved, shaking my hand. “I was worried you were another movie director horning in on my territory!”
“No, no, adjacent on the field.”
“Pardon?” asks Scottie, still gripping my hand warmly.
“I’m adjacent to you on the field. You produce the pictures and I write about them.”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” says Scottie. A modern Busby Berkeley, he adapts Broadway shows. His credits include Broadway Bobby Brown, Lights Over LaGuardia, Flat In Flatbush and Hiking The Great Wall of China.
“Scott,” I ask, since he’s still gripping my hand in both his, “why don’t you— ”
“Pardon?! Call me Scottie!”
“Why don’t you reduce your film titles to single words? Broadway, LaGuardia, Flatbush, China! ”
“And…?”
“It’s so much more forceful!”
“Says who? Google Earth? National Geo? That’s a stupid suggestion,” he says, releasing my hand. So at least I got something out of it.
“We go din-din later,” an Asian boy in a black leather jacket, white shirt and slacks tells me. “You in-vi-ted. My name Chen. You come! Six o’clock.”
“Um. Will Pam be there? ‘Cause I sorta…”
“Of course! You Pam Crew Member now.”
“Oh! So cool!” I remark, lustily pumping his hand.
The Vivex Film Festival was founded in 1973. God save us! They are still having the same panel discussion — dissecting the identical topic— as they did 40 years ago! “The Future of European Film.” Again!!!
The Spaniards and Hungarians complain about not having any money. The Italians say they don’t have any money and they don’t care— they make their product solely for the Italian market. If the British or the Swedes want to show an Italian film on TV, they’ll gladly take their money. The Swiss complain that Swiss comedy doesn’t translate. “No one wants to watch our films,” the Swiss rep exclaims dourly.
Mickey Shapiro, who’s had more blockbuster hits than you can shake a stick at, contributes the American view: “Even if we witness online ticket sales flatlining, the popularity of streaming video on-demand opens up still another revenue stream. Every bit helps! Count your pennies before you count your dollars! Considering what rampant technology has done to the world of book, newspaper and magazine publishing, the film industry is way ahead of the curve.”
Time to hear from the Parisian, Monsieur LeGrand! He speaks to us in French like we are an auditorium full of third graders: “On emploie préférablement la langue française dans le monde diplomatique et le monde postal. Je ne comprends pas pourquoi les autres pays préferent d’employer l’anglais dans ses films.”
“Monsieur LeGrand,” answers British filmmaking icon Harry Butterfield, “the answer is as plain as the box office receipts in your cash register. L’anglais, English, is the lingua franca of world commerce. You use it in films because everyone speaks it! Outside of France and the Benelux countries, of course, and certain Caribbean islands.”
“Here! Here!” shout the Brits.
“Boo!” bellow the Haitians.
“These people are crazy,” whispers Pam. “I’m going to find a bar.”
“There’s one in the foyer,” I tell her quietly. “I have to stay for this— ”
“Sure, sweetie,” she says, kissing me on the nose. Once she’s left, I suddenly realize that— mirrorless— I probably have a giant ruby smear of lipstick on my schnoz!
I go to an afternoon viewing, but truth be told, a lot of the footage is the same summer blockbusters I can see Stateside. I cannot help it that so many films are in worldwide release. In the 1980’s, the studios used to release films in America and then ship the same prints to Europe three months later for a second run. Now the American and European versions aren’t even necessarily identical. So I’m stuck: Why review an American film at Vivex when I can review it in Atlanta? I limit my focus to European and Asian films. Wow!
I highly recommend Danny Boyle’s Trance, a heist film in which the thief cannot remember where he has stashed the goods! Hiring a hypnotist, his troubles are only beginning. Currently available Stateside.
*
Film director Scottie O’Rourke gets very drunk at dinner. His lamentation: “Twenty years of schoolin’ and they put me on the day shift! Foreign markets account for two-thirds of our revenue, so we’re reduced to three lines of dialogue and 87 minutes of car chases and things blowing up. Iron Man 3 has a Chinese version with a chink doctor and nurse supposedly helping Willie Stark survive. This especially produced extra Chinese footage was necessitated in order to get the vehicle passed by the Chinese Film Board.
“The Lone Ranger was a disaster. That film went nowhere! White House Down, the biggest film of the year, right? Forget Olympus Has Fallen, nobody fucks with Roland Emmerich… It did zilch! Nada! Not a particularly strong contender.
“We’re facing a total Sharknado, people! It’s the end of Hollywood as we know it!”
“Wait a minute,” I object. Pamela smirks. “In 1972, economists, film executives and the general public all declared Hollywood deader than the dodo bird. ‘Nothing works! Hollywood has lost its way. American film dominance is at an end!’ So said the pundits and everyone agreed. This went on for five years! Then along came George Lucas’s Star Wars and Hollywood could do no wrong! These things take time.
“Every 20 years, there’s a dip in sales and the Hollywood execs— who should know better, but are plagued by night sweats— visit Jerusalem and wail at The Wailing Wall, ‘Woe is us! Our time is over!’ I cover the industry and I don’t buy it! Hollywood has very large bones. It will take a meteor shower of mammoth proportion to kill off this dinosaur.”
“Bravo!” shouts Pam, toasting me with her wine glass. The sommelier has steered her to a good Riesling from a local vintner. “Serves you right, Scottie, for making me film eight weeks in Colombia!”
I’m not sure our complement of Asian boys understands the drift. They sit talking Thai or Cantonese among themselves.
*
For one brief, shining moment in the Spring of 2013, it seemed like the European sensibility might win out. Juan Diego Solanas’ Upside Down, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy and Lars von Trier’s Melancholia cast long shadows. But then Zero Dark Thirty, The Hunger Games, Red Dawn and Looper brushed aside all competition, reestablishing American hegemony.
Happily jumping into bed on our second night, I’m amazed when Pam succinctly knees me in the nuts. Groaning, I exclaim through gritted teeth, “Was that an accident or what?!”
“What’s that, honey?” she asks, all big-eyed innocence, caressing my cheek with her hand.
I remind myself to arrange my end runs in the future far enough afield to avoid the lady’s obtrusive kneecaps.
Produced in 2012, the Swedish film Call Girl hit European theaters in April 2013. Based on true events, you don’t want to miss this one. A well-meaning hooker finds herself with the wrong clientele and all hell breaks loose. Basically free of CGI, it touts production values of the highest order. An eye-opener!
One of the major perks of film festivals is getting to schmooze with producers. Not only do they describe the reasoning behind this season’s storylines, art direction and acting choices, they also function as crystal balls, allowing us to glimpse what is ahead in 2014 and beyond!
“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” Pam chuckles as I approach the lunch table. “Tiny Nutworth!”
This might sound harsh coming, in public, from my so-called girlfriend, but Pam is under a lot of pressure. She’s young and insecure, still in pursuit of her true self. First impressions count, however. She’s obviously been ridiculing my sexual prowess. During my afternoon of pearl diving— “Please share with me some of your pearls of wisdom, Mr. Weintraub!”— I get left in the shallows.
My digital recorder sits clearly on the table among the water glasses. Let’s look at the transcript:
Tony Hassler: “When amusement parks offer fireballs as part of the roller coaster experience, synergy has gone too far.”
Brian Keating: “Now you’re chattering! One enforces the other.”
Jerry Fleming: “Speaking of chatter. The government monitors al-Qaeda’s chatter, but most of the really meaningless chatter is on TV. Talk is cheap, but simply by chattering, al-Qaeda sends America into a defensive crouch and paroxysms of paranoia.”
D: “We should shut down the U.S. government in protest.”
Jerry Fleming: “So far al-Qaeda has not targeted the film industry, but if we’re as wussy as the Obama administration, al-Qaeda may smell blood in the water. Don’t wave red meat!”
D: “We should shut down the U.S. government in protest!”
Tony Hassler: “You’re telling me the NSA needs to monitor my 14-year-old daughter’s Twitter account?”
“You’re over-reacting,” says a Swiss voice.
“You’re under-reacting,” says the Spaniard whose country experienced a train derailment in the previous month.
Jerry Fleming: ” How about this new president of Iran? ‘I want to say the following… I wish to say the following… I want the Americans to follow what I tell my followers!’ This guy is so camera-ready for Twitter.”
Brian Keating: “Here’s the kind of personal information the NSA is seeking: Have you ever had sex with an underage, minority prostitute? If yes, was it here at this conclave? If yes, what’s her phone number? Is she available for ‘interrogation’ and maybe a little ‘torture’?”
Tony Hassler: “I refuse to believe that women politicians don’t engage in sexual hanky-panky!”
Pamela Mercer: “If they do, it’s because their husbands are unable to fulfill their sexual needs.”
Jerry Fleming: “You’re only saying that, Pam, because you own shares in Viagra.”
Tony Hassler: “Yada, yada, yada, everything happens in Glamerica! Let’s do a post-apocalyptic epic where all you see is dust and ruin for 90 minutes! Oblivion without the plot. No people, no animals, no narration, nothing. You heard me! A feature film where absolutely nothing happens! That would be interesting.”
Brian Keating: “I hate to tell you, Tony, but you just described most of last year’s French feature films.”
“That’s not fair!” says a Swiss voice.
D: “We should shut down the U.S. government in protest!”
In the background, a kind of Saturday Night Live version of a Euro rap song fills the gaps between the diners’ conversation:
Don’ get bitchy, Nicole Richie!
Enemies, you can stay seated.
Osama, I be overheated.
Butt out, Paris Hilton!
Obama, you need to BE somebody.
Frenemies, I need to be needed!
Jay-Z it is not. It’s not even Ke$ha. More like Nicki Minaj.
Feeling sorry for me, Murray Weintraub throws me a bone: “We’re optioning a property by a writer who calls himself Mustafa al-Kuwaiti. Targeted release, 2015. The story of Jesus based on a new translation from the Aramaic. I’m thinking what Marty Scorsese did with The Last Temptation of Christ. We’ve been taught that Jesus was a carpenter. Mr. al-Kuwaiti believes we got a mistranslation. The sandalwood thing was sandal-maker. See, that explains Jesus’ foot fetish. Why Mary Magdalene washes his feet and all that biblical palaver. I’m thinking Jim Caviezel, if we can get him. Mel Gibson directs.
“There is no more moving moment when working on a movie idea than the battle cry, ‘What else is playing?’ It tells me to take a project out of turn-around hell and to shelve it permanently.”
Mr. Weintraub offers to pay for my lunch if between now and when the waiter brings the coffee, I can come up with a title and logline for a movie that interests him. Zipping my lip, I shake my head and put on my thinking cap. As the cappuccinos hit the table, I announce my idea. “Title: ‘Rolling’ — Confined to a wheelchair, Rocky Balboa becomes the bowling champ of his old folks’ home.”
“I’ll pay for lunch,” says Mr. W, “but in no way am I putting that idea into production. So Rocky succeeds. Where’s the hook, the irony, the unexpected?
“The favorite story of my youth was my Great Aunt Esther. A Frenchwoman and a Communist, she lived in Paris, defending Comrade Stalin’s reputation against all comers. Stalin starves the Kulaks, the Moscow show trials of the 1930’s, Aunt Esther always found a justification. Collectivization. Protecting the revolution against traitors like Trotsky. Finally, the day came when she boarded a train to Moscow for a private audience with Stalin. The NKVD Secret Police picked her up right on the platform, drove her across town to Yaroslavl Station and put her on a train to Siberia. She never even got to sightsee. Straight from Paris to a forced labor camp in the Urals. That’s irony for you. That’s the unexpected!”
*
Back at the hotel, it’s true I am rather sour in the elevator.
“What?!” demands Pam. I see her in front, side and back view in the wraparound mirrors. She looks like she’s been poured into that dress. Her beauty is so preposterously overpowering, it tends to put an end to any complaints. “What’s this?” she asks. “Are we having our first fight?”
“No, no,” I demur. “It was simply an uphill climb trying to counter your suggestion that I am an impotent eunuch.”
“Ha ha ha ha ha!” she laughs gaily, clutching my arm for support, a toothy, red-lipped smile cracking her face from ear to ear. “Really, Silvian honey, you can’t take our little joshing around the lunch table personally! I’m an actress, for God’s sake. Producers expect me to be catty.”
“Oh. Okay,” I admit, realizing that I’m a little out of my league hanging with an A-lister. “This is all quite new to me, you know!”
“Ah-h-h! Is the wittle boy feeling bwue?” she chortles, squeezing both my cheeks in a teasing grip before slamming her thumb against the “1” button. “I don’t have time t’ come up to your place,” she explains. “My afternoon schedule looks like something out of LAX.”
“I guess I’ll see you at dinner.” As I watch her exit the elevator, admiring her seductively swinging hips, I try really hard not to be judgmental, not to analyze or categorize. The two of us are friends, after all. I try not to think about whether or not I like Pamela, but rather, is our relationship a realistic pursuit? What are our chances of success when we are both busy career people? Neither has any right to be overly needy, possessive or demanding of the other.
Checking the Sentinel website, I find that Parade magazine has Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey on the cover. Celebrity, celebrity, celebrity. The two of them are starring in a movie about a White House butler. I can’t think of two people who are less in need of publicity.
German output in 2013 centers on Hannah Arendt, a movie about the lady journalist who covered the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and helped define the very nature of evil in modern society. Otherwise, it’s all comedies as far as the eye can see.
France. Young & Beautiful by Francois Ozon. Another wow, do not miss! movie. A young girl spirals into a vortex of Internet sex. Again, no CGI, but great production values.
After a year of successes, the Danes have come back strong in 2013 with The Hijacking by Tobias Lindholm. A story ripped from the headlines, the crew of a cargo ship gets hijacked by Somali pirates. A real nail-biter.
*
Dinner is fantastic. It’s at a Eurasian restaurant, five star quality. Giant wall hangings divide the room into four distinct dining areas. Food and drink, but not gratuity, go on the Weintraub account. Always the puritan, I’m gobsmacked at the vast amount of food and liquor consumed by our party. Chen and I work our way through several bottles of non-alcoholic beer, which leaves us at a slight disadvantage amidst the revelry. People say things like, “I threw up in the trash can in our hotel room!” and roar with laughter.
“Our taxi driver ran over a chicken. Imagine! A chicken! Ha ha ha ha ha! ”
“I found that 14-year-old minority prostitute you were asking about!”
“We’re putting in a $40,000 second-story redwood deck. California state law requires a loadbearing capacity of 90 lbs. per square inch.”
“We should shut down the U.S. government in protest!”
“My wife’s a basket case. We’re still waiting for the next canyon fire, mudslide, earthquake or coyote attack.”
“That’s my California! Love it or leave it, but you’ll never defeat it.”
“How do you say ‘cuckoo’ in Indo-European?”
“Where’s the wine list?”
“Nice medal.”
“I arranged a co-production with the Greeks and they gave me this medal. I may as well wear it. We’ll be lucky to get back ten drachmas on the dollar.”
“There’s no charity in golf or the biz.”
“I saw Tiger Woods last night on TV. He’s gotten his game back at the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron. They’re six hours behind us.”
“Two zuzeem says he beats Jack Nicklaus‘s record.”
“I remember what my dad used to tell me. ‘Son, get a real job.’ He was an investment banker and he’s telling me to get a real job?”
We feast on Berlinertorte for dessert, thick slices of white cake decorated with striped icing to resemble sections of the Berlin Wall.
The lady on my right says, “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but we own property in The Hamptons.”
“Wow! Is that an invitation?” asks the long-haired, extremely young fellow one seat over.
“I would. Most definitely. But I can’t. A previous commitment. Our dog lives there.”
There are ten of us and it’s so noisy at our table, I am truly grateful for the wall hangings. Pamela sits as far from me as she can and still be dining together. We’re at polar opposite ends of the table, like north and south on a compass. Her perfect white teeth flash as she jokes with Mr. Weintraub and needles Scottie. Whenever I stare too long or too forlornly, she graces me with her middle finger, jabbing it at me for all to see.
“She like you,” Chen assures me.
“You’re kidding. She’s giving me the finger!”
“She pay a-tten-tion to you mean she like you,” he insists.
“Really?” He works for her, he would know.
“Oh, yes.”
I frown. He’s part of her entourage, he certainly knows her better than I do.
As we part company out on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, Pam yawns in my face and pushes me away. Well, everyone wants a piece of her, it should come as no surprise that she might be a bit standoffish! “I’m going with Scottie and Murray,” she says, pointing at Messieurs O’Rourke and Weintraub who are busy pressing bills into the palms of the parking attendants. Yawning again, Pam straightens my tie. “See y’all around sometime. It’s been great! ” She delivers this last line with gusto, grimacing ghoulishly.
“Is it something I said?”
“Well, well, loverboy, aren’t you the touchy one!” she laughs, doing her Audrey-Hepburn-in-Paris imitation. “So long, Charlie! Ha ha ha ha ha! ”
Obviously, she doesn’t mean to be mean. She’s not trying to hurt people. It’s only that the glare of the spotlight makes it imperative that Pamela focus on her own identity. Maintaining her personal sense of self rules out any wider commitments. She’s young.
Demurely, she allows Murray Weintraub to fold her into the passenger seat of his $120,000, hand-crafted, turbo-charged Italian chariot. It’s a classic!
That last salvo of laughter still grates in my ears, indicating the pratfall which awaits each of us when we get in over our heads. Celebrities aren’t like the rest of us, they have glamor and talent in endless abundance.
*
On the corner in front of the hotel, a night battle royal shakes the very ground under my feet. Standing on the steps watching, I find the noise ear-splitting, the smoke disorienting and the smell of gunpowder overpowering. Federal troops engage in gunfire with jihadist terrorists. I’m amused to see that the jihadists are dressed as tourists in Hawaiian shirts, dark slacks, multicolored crocs and sunhats. “Allahu Akbar! ” they scream, firing automatic weapons.
I grab a few quick photos before uniformed policemen rush down the steps and hurriedly usher the other bystanders and me inside. “Bitte! Gegenwart verboten! Please!” they say, which itself is confusing. I find myself shouting in pidgin Plattdeutsch, arguing about the inalienable rights of the Fourth Estate. To no avail. Up in my room, however, they cannot prevent me from hanging out my window to see what’s happening. Unfortunately, the angle gives me a clear view of tear gas or white smoke blowing across the grass and not much else. I use my digital recorder to document the sounds of battle for possible use at future symposia under the title “Full Frontal Attack On the Senses: When Movie Violence Meets the Street.” I can always get corresponding images from social media on the Net. Already, Twitter is in full cry, albeit in German.
Maybe this is the movie I seek, The Film Festival from Hell starring Ricky Gervais. Ta-ta!
*
Characters
(in order of appearance)
Silvian Rochester
BRD troops in uniform
Otto von Bonn
Marjorie Richard
James Metcalf
Aija Barkava
Pamela Mercer
Ricardo the bartender
Waiter
female officer, Bundeswehr
R. Scott “Scottie” O’Rourke
Chen
Mickey Shapiro
Monsieur LeGrand
Harry Butterfield
Murray Weintraub
Tony Hassler
Brian Keating
Jerry Fleming
D
Swiss man
Spaniard
lady at dinner
young man
two parking attendants
armed BRD troops
jihadist terrorists
police officers
yustyoking 
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