He did not sleep that night. The image of the Eel with the fringe and the Hitler moustache lay in wait like a starving cat. He reviewed the speeches Hitler had made when he carried all the world before him and wondered what his legacy to posterity would have been if history had not ruined it. He thought of the scale models of the Berlin Olympiad which the architect Speer had given Hitler for his birthday. He recalled the arresting opening scenes of Leni Riefenstahl’s two classic documentaries and sensed that this was the key. The finished motorways and the stadiums for the World Cup were equal to the ambition of Speer’s scale models. What was needed to complete the picture was a film like Riefenstahl’s, an enduring work of art which would tour the world, singing the glories of Argentina, which would carry off the prizes at Cannes, at Venice, at the Oscars. It needed a great opening and a great director. He thought of the unforgettable opening images of Olympia depicting the ruins of the greatness of Greek civilisation; he imagined thousands of balloons and doves rising in the late-afternoon air as a providential plane crossed the sky, a reference to Triumph of the Will where the Führer’s plane comes in to land at Nuremberg. The problem was the Eel did not have the gravitas of Hitler; he was scrawny, surly and the moment he opened his mouth he sounded like a barracks sergeant. This was something that could be dealt with later: using body doubles and long-distance shots. Right now he needed to think of a director capable of the same epic feat as Riefenstahl, someone who was already famous and respected.
He had met Orson Welles in the bullring in Toledo. He had only the vaguest idea of what Welles had done, but he knew that his first film, Citizen Kane, was considered by critics to be the finest in the history of cinema. That was enough for him. He didn’t need to see Citizen, all he needed was to find out a little more about the man himself. He had been a prodigy and at the age of thirty had married Rita Hayworth. He was not egotistical – his failures had cured him of his pride. If Welles was prepared to follow his orders, this documentary about Argentina would go down in history as the bible of cinema. The more he thought about the project, the more convinced he was that it could not fail. The characters would be heroes like those in Greek mythology. And the plot, ah, the plot – he would have to fashion it carefully. It would depict battles of the stature of War and Peace, Moby-Dick, the Iliad but played out on the football field. He would have liked to call the film Gods of the Stadium, but this was the Spanish title of Riefenstahl’s Olympiad.
The Welles he had met in Toledo was an educated man, more a jaded ox than a fighting bull. And, according to his informants, after Toledo, things had not gone well for him. He was constantly in need of money, constantly fighting with producers who mutilated his works of art.
That won’t happen with me, thought Dupuy, I speak the same language as he does. He had first seen him before the bullfight which was Antonio Bienvenida’s farewell to the bullring. He had been lying on a red velvet sofa, in a waiting room outside the matador’s dressing room, wreathed in the smoke from his huge cigar. Dupuy had had no idea who he was. He had never seen him act, did not know the man was famous. These were things he realised only later. Taking him to be a bullfighting critic, he greeted him respectfully: ‘Hail Mary, most pure.’18 Welles looked him up and down without answering. ‘You’re not Catholic?’ the doctor said, surprised. A good Catholic would respond ‘Conceived without sin’. Welles smiled haughtily. ‘Please, don’t talk about my private life, señor,’ he said in impeccable Spanish. ‘Are you or aren’t you?’ Dupuy insisted. ‘I don’t know. Let me put it another way: once a Catholic, always a Catholic.’ ‘I certainly believe so,’ the doctor agreed. ‘That is the catechism.’
Bienvenida emerged from the dressing room wearing the bullfighter’s traditional ‘suit of lights’. He was a gentleman of melancholy disposition and he was nervous. The bulls that afternoon were the last he would face in his life. ‘I hope you get to see a good fight,’ he said. ‘By the grace of God,’ Dupuy corrected him. Then he turned back to Welles who had looked up. ‘Come now, hombre, say something. What are you waiting for? Wish the man luck.’ Welles did not say a word, but held out his hand to Bienvenida and stubbed out his cigar.
Dupuy smiled as he remembered the encounter. He had no doubts now. He would provide Welles with whatever he wanted, vast multitudes, fake cities like those in Hollywood; he would allow him to bring his own crew and would ensure that they lacked for nothing. He, Dupuy, would choose the music for the soundtrack. He would persuade Welles that they needed military marches, exuberant music and, especially, tangos. He would take him to meet Piazzolla, who had spent the past months writing a suite about the World Cup. He would tell Piazzola he had written the music for Last Tango in Paris, that he was a Richard Strauss, a Nino Rota. Orson would get down on his knees and thank him.
The following day he presented his idea to the comandantes. He spoke to each of them individually, because when they were together they constantly competed for control. The solution, he could convince them, was magnificent, but immortal? It would be difficult for a film – any film – to rival the Great Wall of China, nor was it as symbolic as the Obelisk of Buenos Aires. Wouldn’t it be possible to build another obelisk, they suggested to him, one twice as high with a football at the top? Dupuy wasted hours talking to them while they interrupted him, taking phone calls, signing decrees, consulting with the high command. The commander-in-chief of the navy said that he would agree to the idea if he could be filmed entering the stadium with Perón’s widow. The widow was in jail and the scene would have to be shot in secret. The commander-in-chief of the air force wanted the film to open with a fly-past of fighter planes. The Eel demanded that, instead of balloons and doves, Welles could make a speech asking for God’s blessing on Argentina. Dupuy said yes to all of them and suggested they let the director work in peace until it was finished. They were about to spend millions, he did not want to get embroiled in arguments before he had to. He phoned Welles’s agents and, shortly afterwards, flew to Los Angeles to firm up the details of what he was already calling the film of the century.
Orson, he was told, travelled a lot and it was extremely rare to find him at his home in Beverly Hills. Sometimes he would take the overnight flight to Boston and, the next day, fly to some godforsaken town in Arizona. He was working tirelessly on the filming of Othello, adapting a short story by Isak Dinesen and writing a screenplay based on a novel by Graham Greene. One of the agents repeated to Dupuy Welles’s comments when he was informed about the project. A film about Argentina? Flamenco and bullfights? I’m intrigued. Tell this man to come and see me. I’ve had Capone and Lucky Luciano and Costello hounding me to make films for them – I dealt with them and I’m still alive.
Welles was waiting for him on the terrace at the back of the house, next to a vast swimming pool shaped like a kidney. It was December, a strong breeze was blowing, whipping up eddies of yellow leaves. As in Toledo, the director was chewing on a fat cigar. There was no smoke this time. He chewed it and spat the dark tobacco fibres onto the ground. He was still physically imposing, but more bloated now and the fat around his belly fell in folds over his trousers. A liveried servant brought two whisky glasses and poured generous measures, though Welles did not seem to notice. He was engrossed in reading Dupuy’s business card (his name, phone numbers and the logo of the newspaper), and every now and then he would glance through the papers and photographs piled on the table. Scripts, Dupuy supposed, and photographs of actors. He doesn’t need to prove he’s a busy man. I know he is. He realised Welles did not remember him. It is hardly surprising, we only met briefly one afternoon, he thought. It will come back to him when he hears my offer, an offer bigger than Hollywood, than Spain, an offer (Dupuy repeated to himself, excited now) as big as the world. He spoke to Welles in Spanish. The director replied in English.
‘May I call you Orson?’ Dupuy said. ‘We met about ten years ago, in Antonio Bienvenida’s dressing room.’
‘Call me Orsten,’ said Welles, giving no sign that
he remembered Bienvenida. ‘That’s what Lucky Luciano called me, Orsten. I called him Charlie. Mind if I call you Charlie?’
‘If you like. Let me explain my project to you.’
Dupuy had to make several attempts. Welles knew nothing about football, had never heard of the World Cup, and his impression of Argentina was a vast horizon of pampas. He vaguely remembered Buenos Aires – he had been awarded a prize there for Citizen Kane in 1942. ‘I remember there was a fascist march protesting against my visit. Your country was sympathetic to fascism back then, wasn’t it, Charlie?’ The doctor said nothing, he did not want to get entangled in ideological explications. It was a potential quagmire. He, Dupuy, was a master of politics; Welles was barely a novice. On the other hand, it had been years since Dupuy had set foot in a cinema. ‘I won’t take up much of your time, Orsten. I’ve come to pitch a documentary with an unlimited budget, can you imagine? Obviously, the footage will be served to you on a plate, at least half the film would be taken up with the matches.’ This, he knew, was not true; Riefenstahl had had to painstakingly craft her film, but he did not want to discourage Welles. ‘It’s just a documentary, child’s play. We wouldn’t need much from you at all, Orsten, just your voice and your vision. And your name, Orson. When you’re done, you’ll have more than enough money to complete all the projects you left half finished. You’ll be able to go back to filming Don Quixote, King Lear, The Magic Mountain.’ ‘I’ve never been interested in The Magic Mountain,’ Welles corrected him, ‘and the things in my past will stay in my past.’ ‘Allow me to explain our documentary to you a little better,’ Dupuy insisted, ‘it will only take two minutes. What my government wants is for you to make a great film, something that will go down in history, a Citizen Kane of documentary film-making. Just imagine the opening for a moment, Orson. The blue sky, dappled clouds, thousands of birds, the excited voices of the crowds we cannot see yet. And a microphone descending from above, just like in The Magnificent Ambersons’ – his advisers had recommended that he not forget this point: the microphone, the stentorian voice, the commanding ego – ‘and then . . . and then, your voice as the screen opens up: “This is Orson Welles in Argentina. I wrote and directed this film.” What do you think?’
Welles stared at him, incredulous. ‘In the papers I have here it says that there are magicians in your country, Charlie, illusionists . . . is that true? As you know I am more of an illusionist than a director.’ Dupuy had been advised that Welles had recently released a film about forgery and magic, F for Fake. He had a copy in the screening room at La República, but had not had time to watch it. ‘You want to film magicians?’ Dupuy was surprised. ‘No problem,’ he said, ‘there are lots of them in Argentina. I’ll make sure you have everything you need.’ ‘Listen to me, Charlie, I read in here’ – Welles once again placed his huge hand on the files piled on the table – ‘the magicians in your government make people in the streets disappear.’ Dupuy began to panic. ‘Who told you that? They’re lies. Argentina has been the victim of a vicious smear campaign, a tissue of lies put about by subversive terrorists. Nobody is disappearing. There would be no need for you to address the matter in your film. We would prefer to show that ours is a peace-loving country and that our people are happy. We need to think positively, Orsten.’ He did not like this turn of the conversation, it was going off-track, and the longer it went on, the more difficult it would be to rectify. He needed to stop it before he or Welles lost their patience. He had been about to ask Welles to name his price. He restrained himself. The director was more astute and more refined than the intelligence services.
‘Maybe we can come to a deal, Charlie,’ said Welles. ‘As you probably know, many years ago I caused a panic in this country with a radio programme. I convinced two million people that Martians were invading New Jersey. People rushed out into the streets, crazed with terror. Art is illusion, Charlie, reality is illusion. Things exist only when we see them; in fact, you might say they are created by your senses. But what happens when this thing that doesn’t exist looks up and stares back at you? It ceases to be a something, it reveals its existence, rebels, it is a someone with density, with intensity. You cannot make that someone disappear because you might disappear too. Human beings are not illusions, Charlie. They are stories, memories, we are God’s imaginings just as God is our imagining. Erase a single point on that infinite line and you erase the whole line and we might all tumble into that black hole. Be careful, Charlie.’ Dupuy was confused, he couldn’t see what Welles was driving at. If he didn’t like the project, why didn’t he just say? There was no need to beat about the bush.
An icy wind whipped across the terrace. The director had a large black cloak and a scarf next to him, but he did not even look at them. He seemed impervious to the wind, to the gathering darkness, to the rusty December leaves that went on falling. He called for another whisky. ‘More than twenty years ago, I was asked to direct a documentary about Babe Ruth,’ he said. ‘You know who Babe Ruth was? A baseball legend the like of which has never been seen since. I didn’t like baseball, I’d never seen Babe in his glory days, but people worshipped him and I was interested in recording that idolisation on film. I took on the project and went to work. We shot a few scenes with him. He was a very sick man by then, throat cancer, so obviously he couldn’t talk much. I convinced the producers that we would invent Babe, that we would create a life for him. I wanted to show him shaking Roosevelt’s hand, touching Marlene Dietrich’s legs, playing dice with Gary Cooper. In cinema, you can create any reality you want, imagine things that don’t yet exist, freeze some moment in the past and move to a point in the future; the football matches can be reflected in anything, Charlie, they’re just smoke and air, the stadiums can be filled with crowds using special effects. Maybe we can come to some arrangement. Let’s make this documentary of yours, but there is no World Cup, there are no players, no football matches. There’s only magic. You stop seeing, you stop talking and everything disappears. It would be a great metaphor for your country.
‘Charlie, take off your watch and give it to me for a minute,’ said Welles. It was a $20,000 Patek Philippe. Welles held it in front of his eyes and told Dupuy to pay careful attention. Then he threw it on the ground and stamped on it. The inner workings of the watch went flying everywhere. The doctor was speechless. ‘Don’t worry, Charlie,’ said Welles, ‘you’ll get it back. It will be identical to the watch you had before, but it won’t be the same because we have to pluck it from the unreality where it is now. Stamping on the watch did it no damage, but in the seconds that have passed since you gave it to me, the watch has been transformed. Here you are, Charlie.’ The director opened his fist and the Patek Philippe reappeared exactly as it had been before he threw it on the ground, or at least it seemed to be. Welles had recovered his good humour and Dupuy his hopes. He was not going to go back to Buenos Aires empty-handed, but now he was not sure that entrusting the documentary to Welles was a good idea. He felt that he was dealing with a madman.
‘Orsten, could you explain a little more?’ he said. ‘Talk to me about the documentary. What do you think of the opening shots, the sky, the birds, the microphone?’
‘Maybe,’ said Welles. ‘What’s next?’
Dupuy unfolded the speech he had written during the long flight and began to read. ‘In the film, it will be your voice, Orsten. It’s in Spanish, but I’ll have it translated for you. “My name is Orson Welles, I’m speaking from the River Plate Monumental Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We share the excitement of this righteous, humane country, one of whose greatest feats had been to organise and host the 1978 World Cup, defying the sceptics who said, ‘They’ll never succeed.’ Here, stadiums, motorways and airports have been built in record time. Here, the people love life and live in peace.” What do you think, Orsten?’
‘It’s not my style, Charlie, it’s too eloquent. Get Robert Mitchum to read it. He has a more compelling voice.’
‘Whatever you say, Orsten,’ said D
upuy. ‘We’ll hire Mitchum, whatever it costs.’
‘How much were you thinking of spending, Charlie?’
‘Whatever we need to. The budget for the World Cup is four hundred million dollars. We could put fifty or sixty million towards the film, whatever you need.’
‘Don’t be so extravagant, Charlie. The documentary I have in mind is going to cost you two million tops. Most of the budget will be spent on tricks, special effects, editing. There’s no need for stadiums, players, crowds. What we are going to create is illusion. Like in the radio play with the Martians. No political speeches, no patriotic eulogies, I don’t do that kind of thing.’
Dupuy was more confused than ever by Welles. How was he planning to make a World Cup documentary without the World Cup taking place? The trick with the Patek Philippe proved that the director was a master of illusion, that he could confound millions as he had confounded Dupuy. But I’m a rational man, thought Dupuy, I’m not about to sell the comandantes hot air. I need something solid, I need to know what this necromancer is getting at. Maybe what he’s thinking of is even more majestic than Albert Speer’s imperial Berlin in Olympia, maybe he wants to make a film as ineffable as the Great Mass in C minor by Mozart, an intangible glory, pure sound, maybe we need to think in terms like that. ‘Orsten,’ he said, ‘as you know, there can’t be a World Cup without an audience. Millions of people in hundreds of countries watch the matches on television. We have to show the pitch, the stands, the fans cheering the goals. We can’t have people screaming gooooooal if there are no goals. These are serious people. They’re not actors.’
Welles’s demeanour did not change. ‘The more we talk the less you seem to understand, Charlie,’ he said. ‘The matches will be broadcast on television, but that doesn’t mean there have to be any matches. People believe something happens when they are told that it’s happening. Did you believe I broke your watch?’
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