Low Angles Read online

  Complacently: “Artists have their little quirks.”

  “Still, I don’t want to take her film away.”

  Welles’s voice softened. “I sympathize. I remember what they did to Ambersons.” Then the organ tones deepened with bitterness. “But, my pusillanimous friend, that is film making: as dirty as any business but prostitution. And as the whore perhaps remembers love, the director may remember art. The shame in both memories is similar.”

  “This script is not reminiscent of art.”

  “Then stuff the script and make the film you want to make.”

  “How do I explain that to Greystoke?”

  Reaching beneath his coat, Welles withdrew a pack of cards and fanned it with one hand. Every card showing was red. He shuffled the deck with negligent grace and fanned it again. Now all the cards were black. “Like that.”

  “I don’t quite see...”

  “And neither does anyone else. Your ignorant employer is watching the dailies shot-by-shot, and, like most producers, he lacks the brains to assemble them in his head.” Thick fingers flew again as Welles shuffled and fanned the deck. Now red and black were alternated. “By the time the film is cut, it will be too late to change, and you will have exalted utter shit to the level of harmless trash.”

  “Some achievement.”

  “You do the best you can with what you’ve got. I based my whole career on that.” Welles made a couple of passes with his hands and the cards disappeared. “And now I fancy some dinner.”

  “Two hours early?”

  “Close enough, and I’m feeling a bit peckish; so with your kind permission, I’ll conclude our little chat.”

  With a theatrical pop and a puff of smoke, the immense magician vanished, leaving his huge voice floating like the rumble of a passing storm: “Whatever you must turn your hand to, Winston, be a pro!” The voice cross-faded into engine noise, but a satanic trace of ozone lingered in the car.

  At that point, the metropolis of Calisher jiggled into view: a string of seedy structures offering gas, provisions, and car repairs. A gray cat limped in the dusty street as if the sunshine hurt its feet.

  The Riverview Motel would be that musty stucco building on the left, though what river it viewed was unclear. Its faded sign said NO in brave neon, but vacancy was a remnant of broken tubing. It was owned by the bikers’ club, which had rented it to the film company for the duration. The club seemed to own half the town too: the stores and houses used as sets, the bikers’ Harleys even the ramshackle vans pressed into service for hauling, dressing rooms, and makeup.

  As the Beetle wheezed obediently up the gravel driveway I inspected my home for the next three weeks with pardonable foreboding.

  * * * *

  Sitting in the dank motel cubicle I’d inherited from the departed production manager, I fought to digest the wieners and beans laid on for the company’s supper in the motel coffee shop a defunct enterprise revived temporarily for this production. The whole motel was swarming with cast and crew, sharing the musty bedrooms in couples that recombined nightly, as film folk tend to do.

  Firing up my trusty Mac to do some writing, I opened my word processor and started typing:

  Cycles From Hell

  Revised Synopsis

  It had come to me during dinner - an epiphany brought on by rancid hotdogs - that the departure of Sean to Newhall Hospital was a blessing: without the cliché biker hero, I could take the script in a different direction: make the protagonist a thoughtful slob, a walking oxymoron to stand the plot on its ear.

  And I knew just the slob to bring it off - if I could convince Greystoke and if I could get through Diane LaMotta’s instant dislike of me, dislike that was admittedly mutual.

  Half an hour of frenzied typing and retyping, two minutes while my little printer spat pages at me, then off to beard the lioness.

  Hard, clear mountain air with a starry sparkle that recalled what people breathed before cars, as I left my seedy chamber at the back of the motel, circled the peeling building, and knocked on the door that Stogie had pointed out to me after dinner.

  “Who is it?” Diane’s throaty voice was weary.

  “Stoney Winston.”

  “Bringing my pink slip?”

  “I’d like to talk about your movie.”

  “Oh, now that it’s dead, it’s my movie again.”

  “It’s not dead at all.” Silence. “Can I explain?”

  A beat, then Diane opened the door and stood there, hands on hips. She’d changed to jeans and button-down shirt, under a light windbreaker.

  “Fast. I’m busy packing.”

  “May I come in?” She cocked an eyebrow. “You can leave the door open.”

  “Your sense of humor’s just as winning as the rest of you.” She wheeled around and stalked over to a table strewn with shooting breakdowns and a planning board full of colored strips. Her thick hair hung loose around her shoulders.

  I sat on the swaybacked bed eight feet away. “I don’t exactly fly around your flame either. But that’s not the point.”

  She flounced onto the chair beside the table and struck a pose of exaggerated interest. “But you’re going to enlighten me.”

  “Diane....” This woman had a genius for abrading me. I groped for self control and tried again: “Give me five minutes and I’ll go.”

  “The clock is running.”

  I tried to keep my dislike out of my face and voice. “I was ordered to do what’s necessary to help the picture. Based on today’s shoot and the rushes I saw, the direction needs no help whatever.”

  Diane addressed an imaginary listener across the table: “First we soften her up.”

  “Please. I have no intention of directing, ghost-directing, criticizing, or offering helpful suggestions. You’re the director.”

  “And what’s the price?”

  I ignored that. “But you can’t run the shoot at the same time. Since I’m officially your new production manager, I’ll run it. I’ll organize the daily schedule, wrangle the crew, honcho the shoot.”

  “I know what has to be shot.”

  “I know you know it. I’m talking about the scut work. You tell me what you want to do and I’ll run around and set it up for you. That way, you can focus on directing.”

  She looked at the planning litter on her table as if the offer was not unattractive. “You have experience?”

  I spared her my tedious credit list. “Stogie can get twice as much out of his crew I’ve seen him do it before. As for camera, I can go around the fat lush in charge. You’re picking all the setups anyway and the lighting’s simple.”

  She shrugged. “With our equipment it has to be.”

  “I can work with the gaffer; he’s a good man.”

  Diane’s mouth tightened again. “You mean, he’s a man.”

  “I work with women all the time.”

  “Oh? Rescuing fair maidens is your specialty?”

  Enough was enough; my voice went dry: “You’re only middling fair, I’d say, and whether you’re a maiden is your business.”

  She flushed under her dark tan. “The clock’s still running.”

  “The other problem is the script.”

  “Just full of insights, aren’t you?”

  “The structure creaks, the dialogue has moss on it, and the emphasis is skewed. I can fix all that.”

  She consulted the cracked ceiling: “I should have guessed. And how many scripts have you sold?”

  “Look at my rewrite and make your own decision. It won’t cost anything.”

  She flicked a hand at the planning board on the table. “Do you know the kind of schedule we’re on?”

  “I have word processing and a fast printer.”

  She sat still and looked through me, considering the plan. Finally, she stood up. “All right, it might be worth a try.” Then her sour look returned. “Except for one small thing.”

  I nodded. “Sean.”

  “Oh, you got that far. He’s in a hip
cast for two months, kaput; and I have a week’s film in the can with him at the center of it.”

  “I’ll write him out.”

  “Great! Then the rest of the gang can just mill around for seven reels.” She pulled a thin brown cigarette out of a pack and lit it with a paper match. But now her anger seemed directed more at the situation than at me.

  “Look: your footage is all from the first part of the picture.”

  “We didn’t shoot in sequence, but yeah, it’s roughly chronological.”

  “Then we keep the plot the same until the rebel biker meets an unexpected death.”

  “And then, the lady asked, breathlessly?” Despite the snide addition, I heard a thread of hope in her tone.

  “And then we make a different film.”

  “Why?”

  “Diane, I can’t believe you like this kind of crap.”

  “It’s a start.”

  “It’s also mindless garbage.”

  She had the grace to look embarrassed. “Okay, what’s your idea?”

  I showed her the outline I’d bashed out on my Mac. The gist of it was that the gang is taken over by its biggest, ugliest specimen. He tries to honor the dead leader’s wish for vengeance on the villagers, but when he encounters them as individuals, he hasn’t the heart for it.

  “Then why’s he a biker in the first place?”

  “Because he’s a fat, hairy, messy slob. Bikers are the only people who value that. Did you know they hold contests for the best beer belly?”

  Diane looked skeptical. “How does this pussycat reveal his true nature?”

  “He falls in love.”

  “Aw shucks.”

  “A plain woman; thirty-five - Hallie Sykes’s part. She sees something in him, so she treats him decently.”

  “She’s queer for hairy, messy slobs.”

  I shook my head. “Not at all, but he thinks she loves him. So when the bikers start tearing up the village, he turns against them and drives them out of town. But when he starts to show his feelings for the woman, she gets uneasy. After all, he’s still a slob.”

  “So she rejects him kindly but finally.”

  “He’s an embarrassment to her and a vague sort of threat.”

  Diane nodded thoughtfully: “Well, that’s a little better.”

  “At the end of the film, he’s left in limbo: no longer part of his subculture, but still unaccepted in the mainstream.”

  Diane looked at me without seeing me; then focused on my face. “Most of it isn’t too original.”

  “True, but any story reduced to a hundred words is unoriginal. There just aren’t that many basic plots.”

  “Anyway, it’s an improvement.”

  “And you can still get all the action Greystoke wants without exploiting the violence.”

  “Possibly.”

  “And what about the women? Bikers are among the worst pigs around. Are their women really slaves or do they have their own kind of power? It could be fun to work out.”

  She stared past my shoulder, her face full of ideas. “Okay, but you haven’t directed these bozos and I have. Who have we got to play it?”

  “Nathaniel Hawthorne Fenster.”

  “Who?”

  “Scuzzy Fenster: three hundred pounds of gentle scholar who pays his rent by playing heavies. He’s sensitive, talented, experienced, and very bright. And the sight of him in costume would make Attila wet his pants.”

  “Can we get him?”

  “Without him, the film’s a dead loss. Greystoke will have to agree to it.”

  Diane walked briskly to the still-open door. “Then let’s get on it.”

  “Jawohl, mein Führer.” But my tone was mild.

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  I nodded, pleasantly, I hoped.

  As I started past her out the door, Diane said, “Uh...” and then stopped. I waited. “What was your first name again?”

  “Stoney.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Spenser Churchill Winston, but don’t ask me to explain.”

  She paused for several beats, then looked at me. “Can you see to it?”

  “I’ll get on the phone.”

  A nod. “Okay; thanks, um, Stoney.” She shut the door behind me.

  * * * *

  Staring at a K-Mart seascape above my motel room bed, I placed my second call to L.A. The first had been surprisingly easy. I’d told Greystoke that his star was hors de combat and recommended Fenster to replace him. All he’d said was “As long as I don’t pay twice, what’s the difference?” When I’d ventured that I would need to make some, ah, trifling adjustments to the script, he’d shown no interest. I arranged for Shannon to phone Simmons and tell him about the new developments.

  Now my second call was answered: “Hello?”

  “Nathaniel Fenster, this is the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

  “Spare me your gentile mythology, Winston; how are you?”

  “The question, Scuzzy, is how are you? Poor, I trust.”

  “Teaching afterschool Hebrew in Burbank. What do you think?”

  “Splendid. How would you like a lead?”

  “Not another bike picture?”

  “Yes, but the lead; the starring role.”

  “All is vanity and a vexation of the spirit.”

  “When did you switch to the King James Version? Listen: there isn’t much money, friend, but it’s a fat part.”

  “Well that’s typecasting; tell me about it.” I read him my outline, filling out his character as attractively as possible. When I finished, the phone was silent.

  “What do you think?”

  “Kind of a cliché, Limey. Beauty and the Beast is old.”

  “It’s what we can do with it what you can do.”

  “When do we start?”

  “Yesterday, as usual. Can you drive up in the morning?”

  “Okay.”

  “And come in costume. I can’t sell you if you look your saintly self.”

  “I know what to do.”

  I filled in the details, gave him directions, thanked him, and rang off. What a treat to work again with Fenster, who looks like a living garbage scow and radiates sheer goodness in great psychic waves.

  * * * *

  I didn’t emerge until ten the next morning, after six hours’ sleep and two more spent cranking out scenes to retrofit the Scuzzy character into sequences already filmed; so I arrived at the shoot just in time to see a 1966 Rambler make its feeble way into the parking area.

  I put enough diaphragm under my voice so it would carry: “That will be our new leading man.” People stopped and turned to watch as the Rambler door squeaked open and a figure emerged, heavy enough so that the car rose perceptibly on its springs.

  It was Scuzzy Fenster in full drag: greasy curls snaking to his vast shoulders, black beard sprouting wildly from nose to chest, great hairy belly bulging naked under a studded leather vest and over a four-inch death’s head belt buckle, blue jeans strained by sequoia thighs, leather wristlets like mastiff collars. As he thudded forward in his size fifteen boots, you could almost feel the ground shake.

  When he glanced in my direction, I inclined my head toward Diane LaMotta beside me. He lumbered up until his six and one half feet towered over both of us and cocked his hands on his hips so that biceps boiled in his arms.

  “I’m Fenster.” His voice was a perfect fit: a dismaying thunder from a burning bush.

  Diane studied him in silence for a long moment, then: “You pass.” She thrust out an abrupt hand and I flinched involuntarily at what his paw could do to it.

  “Thank you.” Scuzzy relaxed into a wide grin, unveiling three gold teeth in the process, and benign vibrations washed the company. Several people exhaled audibly. “Are you the director?”

  “Diane LaMotta. Do they really call you Scuzzy to your face?”

  Another Gargantuan smile as he gently shook her hand: “If the shoe fits...”

  “Stoney says you do Old Testament.” She lo
oked at the bangle hanging from his fireplug neck: “Do you usually wear that swastika?”

  “A role’s a role. I’d play Hitler if I looked the part.”

  “I don’t want it in my film.”

  Scuzzy snapped the quarter-inch chain as negligently as if stripping a Band-Aid. “I’m going to like it here.”

  I shook hands too. “Scuzz, you’re working right away, so I need to get you ready. Makeup’s behind that truck over there.”

  As Scuzzy rumbled off, Diane looked after the moving mountain, wearing the first happy expression I’d seen on her. “Not too much pancake, Stoney; I love the broken veins on his nose.”

  * * * *

  They spent the day reshooting reaction shots to include Scuzzy, then staged Sean’s “death” by rebuilding the trash midden on the lip of a thirty-foot hole a mile away. They dressed the gully with Sean’s bike, now more spectacularly “wrecked” by the property master, and took shots of a facedown double in Sean’s costume. Cut to match the footage of Sean’s suborbital flight, the new scene would appear to be in the same location as the old.

  They could get along without me, so I spent the day clacketing out the new script on my Mac. To save time, I wrote just a scenario and key dialogue, trusting Diane and Scuzzy at least, to flesh it out.

  * * * *

  My role as replacement production manager had been accepted without comment, so I wasn’t surprised when the assistant cameraman hunted me up, late in the day. He was a bright, slender Korean kid and usually chipper as a scrub jay, but now his face was sick: “I just got a call from the lab: half of yesterday’s footage is ruined.”

  “Which half, Lee?”

  “The early stuff: moving shots of the gang riding along. They said it was light-struck - like someone opened the cans.”

  “Hm.”

  “That can’t be!” Like most assistant cameramen, he was a fanatic about protecting his film. “I put every roll in a black plastic bag and taped it shut. Taped every can too.”

  “What about your changing bag?” A cameraman loads film in a sealed, multilayered sack, like a black straitjacket with sleeves, into which he thrusts his arms from the outside a tiny, portable darkroom.

  “I left a test strip in it for an hour; it developed clear.”

  “So the bag’s okay. Could the lab have done it?”

  He shrugged miserably. “They’re as good as the big guys.”

  “Not your fault.” He brightened somewhat. “We reshot those scenes anyway to include Fenster. But keep it quiet.”

  He nodded gratefully and trudged toward the waiting camera.