Zeroville (25 page)

In the car afterward, driving Vikar back to his house as he stares out the window at a Los Angeles he almost never sees from a vantage point lower than a bus, and which now seems to him less suspended in space than floating on a billowing dark sea, Molly says, “Mitch should have been there, I don’t know why he wasn’t but it doesn’t matter. The good thing is you don’t have to deal with the pre-production crap setting up a picture that you might if you were trying to make it independently, Mirron will work some of that out with UA though I would think you’d want to be involved in some of these decisions, your choice of D.P., for instance, there’s this guy over in Europe who’s shot some of the new pictures coming out of Germany,
Kings of the Road
,
American Friend
, you might take a look at what he’s doing, it’s lyrical while still being raw and having some intensity, what do I mean to say—?”

“Punk,” says Vikar.

“—well, yes, that’s one word for it I guess, it might be perfect for what we’re doing, on our end the priorities are to get a workable script, who knows at this point if this writer can pull it off but I thought it made sense for you two to meet tonight, and then to work with the casting director finding the right lead who’s willing to work with a first-time director, UA wants a star, it’s part of what they’re spending the three-point-seven-five on, Clint and Jack and Redford you can’t afford and they aren’t right for it anyway, too American, Newman is too old and it’s not widely known but McQueen is sick, Pacino is about two hundred thousand out of our price range and Dreyfuss is impossible to work with even when he’s not around the bend on coke, De Niro would be great and at the moment may even be affordable but has projects lined up for as far as the eye can see, just went into a boxing picture with Scorsese that’s really Bobby’s baby and even if we were willing to wait he won’t be affordable by the time we get to him, a Depardieu seems obvious but less so if we update the story and UA won’t think he’s bankable as far as American audiences are concerned, and it’s also probably not too soon to start thinking about the female lead,” Molly pauses for a moment as if suddenly realizing she’s wandered into dangerous territory but it’s too late so she forges ahead, “even though she’s not really a lead but there’s this one actress coming up now with a name out of a Dickens novel who’s everywhere in everything, she was in
Julia
and Woody’s new one and was in the Cimino and now is making this divorce picture with Dustin Hoffman where everyone says she’s phenomenal and going to win the Academy Award—though for our thing she might be a little, I don’t know, cerebral? maybe not quite, I don’t know, erotic enough? Vikar?”

At the corner of Sunset and Clark, a throng of kids waits outside the Whisky. The marquee reads

X

DEVO

BLASTERS

and Vikar opens the car door. “I’ll get out here,” he says. “Thank you for the ride.”

One evening Vikar meets Zazi at the Fine Arts on Wilshire Boulevard just west of La Cienega to see
A Place in the Sun
, which premiered at the same theater nearly thirty years before.

The line circles the theater and up the side street. Inside, every seat is full. Vikar buys popcorn and Cokes and talks to Zazi with more excitement about the movie they’re going to see than about his own movie. He doesn’t ask about her mother or Rondell. She carries a guitar case; when someone takes the seat next to her, she holds the case between her legs. Vikar asks if she plays guitar and she says it’s a bass. He doesn’t know the difference between a guitar and a bass guitar.

The movie begins and when Montgomery Clift says, “I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you. I guess maybe I loved you before I saw you,” and Elizabeth Taylor answers, “Tell mama. Tell mama all,” the audience laughs, including Zazi. Since it’s not in Vikar’s DNA to feel rage toward Zazi, devastation is his only option. “I guess it’s O.K.,” Zazi says afterward, “sometimes it seemed kind of silly. And what’s with that ending? Did he mean to kill the pregnant chick or not? And if he didn’t, why does he seem so, you know, blissed out at the end, when he’s going to be executed? It sort of doesn’t make sense—not that it has to make sense, I guess. But.” She shrugs. “He seemed kind of gay, too,” she tosses it off, and then, to the crestfallen look on Vikar’s face, “sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Vikar answers hollowly. But they don’t talk about movies anymore.

On the radio, an English band sings about Montgomery Clift.

I see a car smashed at night

Cut the applause and dim the light

Monty’s face broken on a wheel

Is he alive? Can he still feel?

and listening to the song, Vikar stands before the windows on the top floor of his house staring out at the night, his reflection in the glass, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift floating above the city in the golden glow of the house lamp. The city tumbles out at his feet, a grand catacomb of neurons. Vikar turns his head from side to side, from profile to profile in the reflection: which profile was it that Monty broke on the steering wheel? Was it the profile that revealed his light, or the profile that revealed his dark? If Vikar were in the editing room choosing one over the other, would he choose Monty’s beauty over his truth, if in fact it was the profile of truth that was shattered? And if the profile of truth happened in fact also to be the profile that was still beautiful, still unbroken, what did the light lose to no longer have the dark?

Variety
, June 3, 1980: “LOS ANGELES—Principal photography is set to begin this summer on
God’s Worst Nightmare
, it was announced today by Mirron Productions.

“Starring Harvey Keitel and based on a 19th-century French novel that reportedly has been updated to a local punk milieu by screenwriter Michel Sarre,
God’s Worst Nightmare
marks the directorial debut of Academy Award-nominated editor Vikar Jerome (
Your Pale Blue Eyes
).

“The Mirron announcement follows a year of delays on the project due to script and casting problems. Outsiders note that, today’s announcement aside, a more precise starting date has not been set, indicating the possibility of still unresolved issues particularly in the face of next month’s pending SAG strike. Mirron has scheduled the picture for release in May 1981 and competition at next spring’s 34th Cannes film festival, coinciding with wide domestic and overseas distribution by United Artists.”

Vikar sees a movie about New York. The narrator talks about how it’s his city and always will be. To a crescendo of romantic music, fireworks explode above the park and the buildings that line it. Vikar doesn’t remember fireworks exploding over the park when he lived in New York, although he had a suite that overlooked the park for months. He doesn’t remember New York so gleaming or the contrasts of light and dark so beautiful. He remembers the city as shades of gray. This is a science-fiction New York, Vikar realizes, a fantasy New York of people who are not very practical about the real world, unlike Hollywood. Perhaps there’s a movie about Los Angeles where fireworks explode to a crescendo above the Hollywood Sign, but Vikar has never seen it.

A week later, Vikar is still thinking about the New York movie at a pre-pro meeting in the Thalberg Building on the Columbia lot. Two worried-looking associate producers, a slightly pinched costume designer and several faceless production assistants, as well as a production designer with long hair who wears an open leather vest, sit around a conference table with Vikar and Molly Fairbanks. Mitch Rondell is not there. In these meetings, Vikar says nothing and Molly functions in Rondell’s place as a kind of production coordinator and translator of Vikar’s wishes, or what she supposes to be Vikar’s wishes.

The conversation turns from one subject to the next. “The punk-club set looks great,” one of the production assistants flatters the production designer, “I don’t know if you’ve seen it,” not certain whether she should be saying this to Vikar or Molly.

“Is our D.P. here yet?” asks the production designer.

“Do we have a D.P. yet?” tentatively asks the other assistant.

“Robby Müller,” says Molly.

“Who’s Robby Müller?” the production designer says.

“He’s the best cinematographer to come out of Germany since Von Sternberg,” Molly says forcefully, “and he’s ready to fly in from Berlin when we’re ready for him. It would be nice,” she adds, “if that’s before he gets locked in on another Wim Wenders picture.”

“Who’s Wim Wenders?”

“Wasn’t,” asks an assistant, “Von Sternberg a director?”

“I meant whoever shot Von Sternberg’s pictures,” says Molly.

“We’ve got a small window in terms of Harvey’s schedule,” says the associate producer. “He’s got a Nic Roeg project on tap and Tony Richardson after that.”

“We’re not pay-or-play with him,” someone else says, “are we?” Vikar wonders how it is he can love the movies so much and still not understand anything anyone in Hollywood says.

“No,” Molly answers, “but that’s not to say he can’t decide to do something else if this takes too long.”

“Well,” says the production designer, “a completed script would be nice too. As long as we’re talking about things that would be nice.”

“Not to get too ahead of ourselves,” says the associate producer, “but as long as we’re waiting anyway, should we be thinking in terms of who’s going to score, who’s going to edit …?”

“Vik is editing,” Molly answers, “it’s in the deal memo. As for the script, I spoke to Michel this morning. We’re almost there with the script.”

“Are you sure that’s what he said?” the production designer snorts. “He stutters.” All the Los Angeles movies, Vikar believes, still gazing at the commissary outside, are about fathers who have sex with their daughters and friends who betray friends and men and women strangling each other with phone cords. “Well,” the production designer continues, “the set is ready, so we can at least start, if need be, go ahead and shoot the club scenes, keep the continuity straight—”

“Fuck continuity,” says Vikar.

Silence falls over the meeting. This is the first thing that anyone in any meeting has heard Vikar say.

“The scenes of a movie,” Vikar says, “can be shot out of sequence not because it’s more convenient, but because all the scenes of a movie are really happening at the same time. No scene really leads to the next, all scenes lead to each other. No scene is really shot out of order. It’s a false concern that a scene must anticipate another scene that follows, even if it’s not been shot yet, or that a scene must reflect a scene that precedes it, even if it’s not been shot yet, because all scenes anticipate and reflect each other. Scenes reflect what has not yet happened, scenes anticipate what has already happened.” Vikar rises from his chair. Los Angeles is the City of the Real, whose stories are as old as time, where people go to hide from God, unlike the more hopeful, childlike people of New York. “Scenes that have not yet happened,” he explains to those around the table, “have.” New York makes sense to Vikar now—as he leaves the room, everyone staring after him—in a way it never did when he was there.

The soundstage on the Columbia lot looks like a punk club as envisioned by somebody who’s never been in one. It glistens, an Asian fantasia like the bordello of Von Sternberg’s
Shanghai Gesture
, several slabs of wall replaced with mirrors. Lights and scaffolding line the walls; on the ground, two laid dolly tracks meet at a vortex. Grips, gaffers and various production personnel wander in and out.

“It’s very nice,” Vikar says to the production designer.

“Thank you,” answers the production designer with the long hair and leather vest.

“No,” Vikar says, “it’s
very nice
.” He tries not to be too vexing. The two men stand in the middle of the set looking at each other.

Comprehension visits the production designer. “You mean it’s
too
nice,” he says, seething. “What about all those places in Chinatown? Aren’t those punk clubs?”

“Have you ever been inside them?”

“I didn’t realize we’re into an authenticity thing here.”

“Please take out the mirrors.”

“The audience needs something to look at. A little dazzle.”

“Dazzle?” Vikar stares into one of the mirrors and has a notion that disappears from his mind before he can grasp it; but that night, at home, once again he’s staring out the windows of his living room, turning his head again and peering at his reflection in the glass, when again the notion flits across his brain. It returns as he stands before the bathroom mirror shaving, trying to negotiate the tattooed teardrop beneath his left eye, which always bleeds whenever he nicks it:

that what he’s always believed was his left side in fact is his right, and that what he’s always believed was his right side is his left. That what he’s always believed was his true side in fact is his false. That what he’s believed was his good side in fact is his evil, what he’s believed was the Monty lobe of his tattooed brain in fact is the Liz.

Molly is on the phone. “The strike is on,” she says wearily, “the actors have walked. This is what video has wrought. Everyone wants more money and the hell of it is they’re right, but the Mitch Rondells of the world won’t see it that way.” She says, “I wish I could tell you it will be over next week, but I have a feeling it may be more like two or three months.”

“It’s all right.”

“I must say you sound remarkably sanguine.”

“Yes, I’m sanguine.”

“I almost wish you were less so. Are you sure your head is in this?”

“No,” Vikar says, hanging up. On the cork bulletin board next to the telephone, he’s tacked the original copy of the ancient writing from his dream in Cannes. After he phones Professor Cohn to no answer, he walks down the long hill to Sunset and takes the bus back to UCLA.

Standing in the office doorway and looking at the professor’s head, Vikar puts a hand on his own and says, “You didn’t do it.”