Snakes and Ladders

by Dirk Bogarde

  “Well, no one has exactly been banging on the door for some time, have they?”

  “So why should I go and do a telly commercial … there’s no panic.”

  “No money is a sort of panic, I should have thought.”

  “Well I’m buggered if I’m going to go running up and down the Spanish Steps in a pair of sun-glasses just because no one has asked me to do a film for a year.”

  “You’ll be buggered if you don’t.”

  “But why? You said the other day that the account was very healthy. You said so clearly.”

  “It is. But ninety per cent of what you have goes for tax.”

  “And what’s left after that?”

  “You’ll have eight thousand pounds left.”

  “I see.”

  “Look; I absolutely respect your No Compromise rule, believe me. But you can’t afford it any longer, that’s the fact of the matter.”

  “What shall I do …? I’m lost.”

  “Go to Rome, do the telly thing, it’s a lot of money, and they have agreed never to show it in England, and have a look round. You’ve been asked to work there often enough; no one wants you here, it seems, there are hardly any Studios left anyway, the Unions have seen to that. Start again; somewhere else.”

  I looked hopelessly round the gardens, the wind shaking the apple trees, the Downs hard against the early April sky.

  “I can’t chuck this all up, the family, England. I can’t, it’s been too long.”

  Forwood stooped down and pulled a long straggly plantain from the path. “You’re right. Far too long. Something’s got to give.”

  Chapter 12

  The Hassler hadn’t changed in eight years, I can’t imagine why I thought that it would; all good hotels, like the Connaught or the Lancaster or the Hassler never change. Everyone gets a little older over the years, they re-lay the carpets from time to time, re-paint a room, but otherwise everything is much as it was. Which is why one returns. Via Sistina still ran away to the left of my window, the Trinita dei Monti rose, crumbling, to the right, a little fig plant growing from a crack in the belfry now almost a sapling, and below flowed the Spanish Steps up and down which I was shortly to run, showing my elegance in sun-glasses, and my lack of pride in everything else I was doing. The only immediate change that I could see now was that instead of a rustling Christmas tree with a glittering star on top, giant azaleas in Tuscan pots tumbled down the wide steps, a splendid cascade of magenta, pink, and white. It was May; no longer cold December although my mood, for want of a better word, was still much as it had been then, strengthened, but still one of bewildered perplexity.

  The last time I had stood here I had coveted the dream of making a change in my cinematic existence and was desperate that the changing patterns swirling all around me like marsh gas will o’ the wisps would lead me into a smothering bog; I had longed for self-respect in my work. Well; in the eight-years’ interval I had fortunately achieved this, but how odd it was that it should lead me back to Rome, where, as someone once pointed out, all roads end (rather than lead), in the cinema of the day, and where I was about to become more commercial than ever before. Advertising sun-glasses for an American company. There was an irony somewhere. But if my dreams had to end where they had begun there seemed no pleasanter place for the quiet finale than this city jumbled below in umber, terracotta, saffron and blazing white; St Peter’s still hung serenely in the sky, the jelly mould almond green against the hard, clear blue. Familiar, reassuring; a great deal better than Earl’s Court. The Eternal City; only proving my own transience.

  I ran up and down the steps twenty or thirty times, inanely smiling, blacked-out by the sun-glasses which successfully concealed my face, mute, since I spoke no word, sweltering in a flannel suit and new shoes which slipped on the polished stone. It didn’t take very long, and was less shameful than I had imagined, and when I was back in the cool of the suite, and had changed into a shirt and slacks, Forwood came in and announced that while I had been labouring so too had he; or meddling might be a better phrase, for it had only meant a few well-placed telephone calls about the city to say, casually, that I was there. Not what I was doing, but just that I was, well, about, if anyone cared.

  Since the work Losey and I had done together a number of people in the Italian cinema did care, and I had only refused all the offers which temptingly came because I was loth to leave England, frightened to work in a foreign country and, truthfully, distrustful. Also, an important fact, the scripts, or the dialogue to be exact, of practically every subject offered was an appalling mixture of Hollywood and literal translation. Hollywood because all the scripts were translated by Roman refugee Americans, and literal translation because some bewildered secretary had sat at a desk with a dictionary and laboriously worked it all out. Since the Italians use a great many words to say anything at all, or nothing, the scripts were thicker than Whitaker’s Almanack, and as dense as Bradshaw. So I had declined.

  “There is a new revision of that ‘Macbeth’ thing which you got from Visconti,” said Forwood, being English in the Roman heat with a pot of tea. “I said that you might have time to read it again, if they wished, before you left. I did not commit you,” he added quickly, seeing my alarm.

  “The first script was pretty dreadful. The part was so wet. I’m really not very interested.”

  He slopped the detestable tea-bags into an ash tray. “Well, just read it … maybe they’ve made some changes; no skin off your nose if you still say ‘no’. Where do you want to eat tonight? Passeto?”

  It was a much better version as it happened. I almost rather liked it. The part was still wet; Macbeth is, I have always thought, unless in a Master’s hands. However, this version was clearly based on the Krupp family, and the parallel was intriguing. So, it had to be faced, was Visconti, even though, at this moment, he was slightly in the shadows softly cast by Fellini’s rising moon. I agreed that we should meet and discuss the project before again rejecting it out of hand. It would have been a high-handed thing to do; and I had absolutely no intention of making another commercial, for no matter what, ever.

  I offered to go and see Signor Visconti at his office whenever he so wished. I should have known better, of course; Signor Visconti did not possess an office nor would he, it appeared, have been seen dead in one; the message would, however, be relayed to him, could I repeat my name once again?

  Just as I was about to leave for Passeto, hand on the light switch, a telephone call to say that Signor Visconti was dining in my part of the city and would find it possible to come to my hotel; would I please expect him within twenty minutes? And he drank, they assured me confidentially, Johnny Walker Black Label and soda water. No ice.

  He was punctual, taller than I had imagined, immaculately groomed for his later appointment, steel hair, dark, steady eyes, weary but alert, beautiful hands which he waved towards his companion, a slight man in grey flannel, his hands primly folded before him, like a cardinal in mufti.

  “Signor Notarianni; he will translate.”

  He wandered slowly to the windows and looked out. “Molto bene … c’est charmant … calm … eh, Notarianni? Molto bello …” He took his whisky and we sat in a sort of semicircle. He raised his glass. “Cin Cin.” We drank in a restrained silence.

  “You like the new scenario, eh?”

  “It is much better than before.”

  His falcon’s eyes were immediately hooded, he leant back in his chair.

  “Once it was enough if I asked an actor to work with me; enough, you know? To be with Visconti. But now …,” he shrugged resignedly, “now they all demand a script to read.” He picked up the blue-covered copy and weighed it in his hand. “They do not like the part, they do not like the words, they do not like not anything. They do not know.” Heclattereditonto the table as if he had found it sullied in a lavatory. “You imagine I will make this … merde? Vous comprenez le mot merde, j’imagine?”

  “Oui.”

  “Pas
très jolie. Not polite. Pas du tout polite. But it is so. I do not shoot that. Never. Is for the actors to refuse, for the American agents to understand, for the financiers to read and give us money.” He sighed and stared at me solemnly. “But you think is better this new merde, eh?”

  “Much!”

  “You think the role of Friedrich is good.”

  “No, truthfully no. He is so … wet, still.”

  The eyebrows raised fractionally. He turned to the Cardinal. “Non capisco …”

  “Morbido,” murmured the Cardinal, his eyes on the floral carpet.

  “Ah so!” Visconti took a long drink from his glass, and placed it on the table by the blue folder. “Macbeth, you know this man? He is … morbido also? Macbeth is weak, a weak man, is Lady Macbeth who is the strong one. Is true, is not true?”

  “True.”

  “Ecco! So?” His eyebrows questioned more than his word.

  “I have to play so many weak men.”

  “Maybe you play them well? ‘Accident’ is weak, the man Stephen, and the Pappa with all the children; Clayton’s so beautiful film.”

  “ ‘Our Mother’s House’?”

  “Certo! The Pappa is weak, but is different weakness. You have a big range; ‘Il Servio’ is weak, I am right?”

  “Weak-strong … yes.”

  “Non capisco.”

  “Si,” said the Cardinal quickly.

  Visconti opened his arms wide to the whole of Rome. “So? Is a problem to be a weak man? I must have a strong actor to play a weak man, not a weak actor. I have Lady Macbeth for you … molto forte, stupenda …”

  “Who?”

  “Thulin. Ingrid Thulin. You know her work?”

  “Yes.”

  “You like this work?”

  “Yes, very much. Is it sure, Thulin?”

  He looked at the Cardinal questioningly. The Cardinal nodded his head slowly. “Since this morning we have Thulin,” he said.

  Visconti raised his glass to his lips. “Ah! Bene … bene. Signatura?”

  “Si, si,” assented the Cardinal comfortably. “Signatura.”

  “I asked this Vanessa Redgrave to be my Lady Macbeth … but she too did not like the scenario.” He shrugged again, spread his hands as if to count his nails. “Finally, it is good, I think. Too tall for you. Friedrich would be weak and short. Not good.”

  “No,” I agreed, “not good. When do you start to shoot?”

  “We will shoot all in English. Very terrible for me, I cannot understand, but we must be international.” His voice heavy with sarcasm. “And we will work all in Germany … very terrible for me, I am Italian you know, in Essen, in Unterach, in all the places where it happened. It will be molto pericoloso.”

  “Yes, Signor, but when?”

  “When I have found my Friedrich finally. Then.”

  “I will be him.”

  I heard Forwood clear his throat softly.

  Visconti made a little nod in my direction. “Molto bene,” he said.

  * * *

  Later in Passeto Forwood smiled across the table and laid his fork on his plate.

  “You didn’t waste much time.”

  “No … it was instant. The moment he came into that room I knew. I don’t know quite what I knew. But I did. He had such power about him. Like an Assyrian bull, a Tartar Prince, something tremendous.”

  “He is a Prince.”

  “I know that; but it was a feeling of such determination, such assurance, I know he knows what he is doing. It’s very …” I pushed the salt cellar about the table hunting for the word which I could not find … “very un-domestic, very un-Gerrard’s Cross. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I do. I don’t know if anyone else would.”

  “Royal. I suppose.” The salt cellar tumbled and hit my glass. “A sort of Emperor really.”

  “I understand actors very well,” he had said on his third Black Label and soda. “Actors are surface. I prefer to use people in my work. People who become the personage on the screen. Most actors are surface creatures. Self-absorbed. Is not for me. In opera yes; that is different. You saw Callas in my ‘Traviata’, certo? Ah no? So … generally actors are like horses; you know? I was a trainer; you must be very, very careful with them … if they are to win for you. When they leave the travelling box some will come down very confidently, head high, eyes wide, very sure … others step very timid down, they test the ground, scent the air, ears flat, unsure, nervous, very tense … you must take the greatest care of him. He must be controlled, loved, treated very, very gently for he will win the race … usually he will win; but you must be aware all the time; a director is like a trainer, ecco … actor is like a horse.” He had smiled for the first time suddenly. “You do not mind to be a horse?”

  “Not if it means that you expect me to ‘become’ instead of to act only?”

  “I expect you to become Friedrich … not put him on like a coat … it is too easy … not real … I think that you become in all the work I see of you … which one is the one you think is best? We play a little game now? Which part you feel you had become?”

  “Stephen in ‘Accident’.”

  “Exact. Certo. Parfait. Why?”

  “Because he was absolutely nothing to do with the man I am. I will speak slowly.”

  “Please.”

  “When we finished, after three months’ work, I was dead. Really dead. We stopped shooting by the river at Oxford one afternoon. At three o’clock I was still him, still Stephen; at three-thirty it was over and he had gone. My body and my mind were a vacuum; he had left. I could not return to myself. I drove to my home and I wept like a small boy for the man I had lost. I put all the clothes he wore in a suitcase and locked them away; it took me many weeks to get back to my body. I’m sorry, I bore you.” He shook his fine great head vigorously, “Not bore. Not bore. It is correct. Is what I want. So.” He rose and looked at his Cardinal, who had looked at his watch unreproachfully. “So. We go now …” He put out his hand. “You remember one thing very important. I make the cinema like I make my operas. It is big, how I work, bigger than life … it is very hard but it is my way. This film …” he waved his hand disdainfully towards the blue-covered script, “this merde is ‘Götterdämmerung’, that is opera, no? Grand opera, like Germany in 1932. You will go to Essen, you will see the Krupp house, what folie! Quelle horreur! You will see the house in which you lived. You will become. You will be poor, morbido, Friedrich. It will be amusing, no? Ciao, Bogarde.” He had smiled quietly and I saw him to the elevator and in a trance had gone to dinner.

  Plans were rapidly altered, and I stayed on in Rome longer than I had intended. Fittings, make-up tests, the deal itself; all this took time. It was May and the film was to commence in early July. Just time enough for me to go back to England and make the arrangements to be away from home until October at least; I would miss the summer, but a summer in Rome would not be untenable, especially since I would be working at something I really wished to do; dragging my heels around Sussex, weeding the shallots, removing tendrils from the sweet peas, bedding out geraniums, picking mint and playing cheerful host on Sundays had started to lose its pleasure. (Ingrid Bergman, staying at Nore while she was playing in “A Month in the Country” at Guildford, was constantly amused by my evening walk down to the vegetable gardens to pick the mint for supper. As she set off for her theatre, so I set off for my mint bed. It became, for both of us, a symbol of unemployment … a far more agreeable phrase than just out of work and one which we have used together ever since.)

  There were many other more exciting and stimulating things to do—like going to the Krupp villa in Essen, as appalling as he had suggested, and meeting Joseph Strick, a devoutly esoteric director, who arrived the day before I was due to leave Rome with a first script of Lawrence Durrell’s “Alexandria Quartet” which he persuaded me to do with him, playing the role of Purse-warden. It would start, he said, in November in Tunis; then studio work in Paris, and Anouk Aimée ha
d already agreed to be his Justine.

  After so much indifference in England this attention went, slightly, to my head. I had not had a single offer from a British Studio, apart from the job I did with Jack Clayton which Arnold and Zelda had so cunningly contrived for me, since “Accident” with Losey in 1966. It would appear that I had overstayed my welcome there to some degree, and nineteen years was a long time in which to have stayed anywhere. Too long. I had been exceedingly fortunate; I had had my training and had chosen my path. I was unable to go backwards now; the doors had all shut behind me, but the corridor went on and other doors were flying open in the welcome which was being extended to me now from Abroad. The temptation was much too strong to resist; the alternatives were unattractive, and the British film industry was showing such distressing signs of malaise that it could only be a matter of time before a final diagnosis would prove the malady to be terminal and the only thing that I could possibly be asked to do was to attend at its funeral; a prospect which filled me with the keenest sadness after such a long, fortunate, battling innings.

  I had worked as hard as I knew how to help the industry. I had not exactly bled it white, and with Losey, Dearden, Clayton and earlier with Asquith, we had tried to give the audiences a better meal, so to speak. The fact that our audiences now were feeding at the breast of television and could not accept our richer diet was our bad luck. But at least we had tried; nothing wrong with trying until you fail. I was nearly fifty; I had overstayed my time; the only future I could see for me now was Abroad.

  * * *

  “Do you see what I mean?” I must have sounded desperate because Forwood stopped eating and looked up, he cupped his ear with one hand.

  “Speak up. When in Rome …”

  “Do you see what I mean? About leaving …”

  “Yes. Yes, I do. But just because you have got two films to do in Foreign Parts doesn’t seem to constitute a good reason for tearing up your roots and emigrating …”

  “I think it does, it’s not just two films in Foreign Parts either. There’s another to follow if I like with Fliano. Resnais has asked me to work for him; Jean Renoir and Truffaut; all abroad. Now Visconti and Strick. It is going to my head; I want to work. I want to work with these directors. Do you realise that the last thing I was asked to do in England was a half-hour narration for the Forestry Commission?”