Zeroville

by Steve Erickson

  “Mogambo. Grace Kelly is a princess now.”

  “Oui, chéri,” Maria says, changing the TV channel with the remote control, “she is forty kilometers down the coast if you want to go visit her. Watching the Mabom—”

  “Mogambo.”

  “Watching that second one, you think the same as in the first, why would Gable give up Ava Gardner for Grace Kelly? Mais bien sûr Gable and Kelly were fucking when they made the film, so how can one argue.” Searching the channels, she comes upon a porn film of two people fucking who don’t look very much like Clark Gable and Grace Kelly. “It is strange that no one seems to make a great film about sex.”

  “Last Tango,” says Vikar. “Realm of the Senses. Emmanuelle.”

  “Emmanuelle is shit,” Maria scoffs. “In Dernier Tango Brando is great but the film? The Japanese are interesting because about sex they are even more perturbé—crazy, nuts—than Americans. But I mean a film that makes audiences sexy.”

  “You mean that makes them feel sexy?”

  “That is what I said, non?”

  “I guess.”

  “That … turns them on? is the expression? As a porn but also dramatique. In America you have this idea that anything about sex is acceptable only if it absolutely is not, under any circumstances, sexy. It would be the same to say that a comedy is acceptable only if it absolutely is not funny. The Americans are too romantic to make such a film. They are in love with shame.”

  “The French are romantic.”

  Maria dismisses this with the flick of her fingers. “Quelle mythe! No one ever said in a French film, ‘We’ll always have Paris.’ Can you imagine Bogart fucking Bergman with a cube of butter on the Champs-Elysées as the Nazis march in?” For a few minutes they watch the two people having sex on TV. “The pornographer? He is concerned with what the characters do, while the artist, the artist is concerned with who the characters are. For the pornographer, sex is … spectacle humain sans consequence. It is as they say: you do not pay me—well, not you, in your case—the man does not pay me for the sex, he pays me to leave afterward. For the lack of consequence.”

  Vikar says, “He pays you to leave?”

  “This is what Brando believes will save him in Dernier Tango,” says Maria, “sex without consequence.”

  “You are paid to leave?”

  She changes the channel. “That is what destroys him, because there is no sex without consequence.”

  “Perhaps Last Tango in Paris isn’t just about sex.”

  “Chéri,” she laughs, “sex is never just about sex.”

  199.

  “Mon dieu,” she says to the TV. For the first time, her French sounds like she means it.

  “Positively the same dame!” says Vikar.

  “This film!” Maria says with the first delight Vikar has heard from her. On TV, Barbara Stanwyck says to Henry Fonda, “Why, Hopsi, you belong in a cage,” and begins stroking the befuddled Fonda’s hair. Maria curls up behind Vikar and begins stroking his bald head. “Preston Sturges invented a kiss-proof lipstick,” she says.

  “When?”

  “Before he began writing plays and cinema, before he became a director. He invented things.”

  “He invented lipstick?”

  “Kiss-proof lipstick.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “He should have made a film about that. Perhaps he did not see the humor in it.”

  “The humor?”

  “I heard a bizarre story,” she laughs, pointing at the TV, “about someone who went to see this because he had been told it was not a comedy. He sat through the entire film wondering why everyone was laughing.”

  Vikar is silent.

  “This is the brilliance of Sturges, that someone could sit through one of his films under the impression it is a tragedy.”

  “I own this movie,” he says.

  “You own it?”

  “I own a print of it, and prints of other movies.”

  “You own a print of this film?”

  “Many. Perhaps more than a hundred now. I keep getting more.”

  “How do you get these films?”

  He considers his response. “I steal them. Some of them. Some of them I’ve been allowed to steal. Can you say you actually stole something when you were allowed to steal it?”

  “Do you watch these films you stole?”

  “I don’t have a projector.”

  “So it is just to have them? Like your own theater but you cannot watch them?”

  “Sometimes,” he says, “I believe I stole them for another reason I don’t know yet.” Together they watch The Lady Eve in silence and then she says, “You should sleep. You have your press conference.”

  “I don’t want a press conference.”

  “It is not for you, it is for the press and your company. Well, it is for you, too.”

  “That’s not my name and I don’t know what to say.”

  “That is what you say. ‘That was not my name, this is my name, I wish to discuss it no more.’ By the time you leave France, everyone will know your true name.”

  “Setting the record straight,” says Vikar.

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  Vikar frowns. “Were you paid to leave?”

  “Forget about that, chéri. I will stay or go as you like.”

  “I would like you to stay.”

  “As you like then,” she says, and turns off the TV.

  Before he falls asleep, he says, “I don’t know where Falconetti is buried.”

  “She is not buried,” comes the answer in the dark, “she was cremated. Fitting, non, for someone who played Joan of Arc?”

  198.

  Two hours later, Vikar wakes suddenly and turns on the lamp next to the bed.

  He staggers over to the small writing table in the corner of the suite and grabs a small pad of paper and pen. He sits on the bed next to the lamp. “Do you want me to leave now?” Maria murmurs half asleep from her pillow.

  He doesn’t answer, absorbed in his transcription.

  She raises her head long enough to look. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry to wake you,” he says.

  “Qu’est-ce c’est?” says Maria.

  “For a long time now,” Vikar answers, “ever since I saw my first movie, I’ve had this dream. Every time, there’s an ancient writing.” He shows Maria the pad of paper on which he’s transcribed the ancient scrawl. “I’ve seen it many times, and this time when I woke I could still see it in my head.”

  She glances at the paper. “It is Hebrew,” she says, plopping her head back down on the pillow.

  Vikar looks at it. “Are you sure?”

  “I do not know what it says,” she answers into the pillow, “I cannot read it and I do not understand it. But I know it is Hebrew.”

  197.

  Vikar arrives at the press conference in the Palais’ grande salon the next morning a little before ten o’clock. Because he has no other clothes, he still wears his black tux pants and open white shirt. He’s greeted by the same barrage of flash bulbs as on the Red Steps the night before; already Mitch Rondell and a translator are seated onstage behind a gold-clothed table with a bank of microphones. Lining the edge of the stage before the table is a row of small potted greens that seem out of place, and behind the stage hangs a large crimson banner that reads FESTIVAL DE CANNES. Rondell says to Vikar, “You’re late.”

  196.

  Vikar says, “I don’t want a press conference.” Four hundred seats are filled and as many reporters stand around the room and at the back.

  “Monsieur, we will begin now?” the translator on the other side of Vikar says, and then says something into the microphone in French. The new onslaught of camera flashes is accompanied by an outburst of exclamations in other languages. The translator raises his hands as though trying to impose order, which only provokes a new wave of questions.

  195.

  One rises from the din. “Monsi
eur asks,” the translator relays to Vikar, “what is your reaction to the special award to you, and …” pausing to follow the question with another, “… what is your response to those who disagree with it?”

  “I’m setting the record straight,” says Vikar. “My name is Vikar, with a k. That other name is not mine. I wish to discuss it no more.”

  Only when it’s clear to the translator that Vikar is finished does he translate what Vikar has said. He turns to Vikar. “But about the question asked?”

  “By the time I leave France, everyone will know my true name,” Vikar says into the microphone. “I’m setting the record straight.”

  A momentary silence is followed by more questions. “Uh, it is asked,” says the translator, “what is your philosophe—philosophy—of mise-en-scène?”

  “What?”

  “Mise-en-scène.”

  “I don’t have any philosophy like that.” Vikar turns to Rondell. “Should I tell them about how all time is in the movie?”

  Rondell seems dazed. He doesn’t answer, nervously chewing his lip as other questions explode around them. Gleaning one from the racket, the translator asks, “How do you feel about the attention from the festival, and how do you feel about the journalists and all their questions?”

  “Mussolini was a journalist,” Vikar says.

  This doesn’t seem to need translation. There’s a stir among the crowd. “What do you think,” the slightly agitated translator interprets another question, “of the other films that won prizes …?”

  “I believe everyone in Cannes knows of cinema,” says Vikar. “I met a nice woman last night who knows more of cinema than anyone. I believe the monkey movie sounds like a very good movie though I didn’t see it. I believe Italians like to make movies about bicycles and shoes.”

  The translator stares at Vikar as though a challenging mathematical equation has formed on his forehead. He translates what Vikar has said, which seems to inspire more confusion out among the lights; Vikar is happy to hear a question in English. “What do you think”—he can’t actually see the questioner—“about the American film industry’s new preoccupation with expensive escapism, such as outer-space movies and blockbusters about monster sharks and comic-book supermen who fly?” The translator seems relieved not to have to translate to Vikar, but he translates the question into French for the other reporters.

  “I want to see the flying superman one,” says Vikar. His thoughts drift back to a night at the beach years before. “It has a girl I know, the crazy one with the tits.”

  There’s a smattering of laughter but mainly more confusion. Vikar can make out in the next question something about “place in the sun.” Slightly shell-shocked, the translator says, “How do you feel about A Place in the Sun?”

  “I believe it’s a very good movie.”

  Another question. “Monsieur asks,” says the translator, “what are your favorite films?”

  “I believe The Lady Eve is a very good movie. I believe Belle de Jour is a very good movie. I believe Now, Voyager is a very good movie. I believe The Battle of Algiers is a very good movie. I believe Written on the Wind is a very good movie. I believe The Devil is a Woman is a very good movie. I believe Detour is a very good movie, and Kiss Me Deadly. I believe Splendor in the Grass and Strangers When We Meet and Pretty Poison are very good movies, and the actresses in them are very attractive. I believe The Third Man and The Shop Around the Corner are sublime movies that existed before they were made. I believe the movie about the car keys is very good. I believe the movie where the attractive Japanese actress says ‘Beast needs beast’ is very good. I believe My Darling Clementine is a very good movie. I believe The Searchers is a wicked bad-ass movie whenever my man the Duke is on screen, evil white racist honky pigfucker though he may be. Emmanuelle is shit, though Emmanuelle 2, Emmanuelle ’77 and Goodbye, Emmanuelle may be very good movies. I believe The Long Goodbye is a very good movie.”

  Someone in English calls out, “Are you going to direct a film of your own?”

  “There’s a book. It’s called Là-Bas,” says Vikar. “I’ve read it many times.”

  “This is a somewhat notorious book in France,” the translator says. “They want to know why an American filmmaker would make into a film this book.”

  “Americans are in love with shame,” Vikar says. “Can you imagine Bogart fucking Bergman with a cube of butter on the Champs-Elysées? This movie will be”—a small pandemonium now seems to surge from the back of the salon—“about the right hand of Joan of Arc who became the greatest child killer of all time, next to God. This movie will expose the child-killer God in all His profiles. It will set the record straight on God.” It’s unclear to Vikar whether the translator actually has finished translating before the press conference appears to collapse into chaos. As the shouts and demands wash over them, Vikar turns to Rondell, whose face is buried in his hands. “Do you think,” says Vikar, “they understood the part about my name?”

  194.

  That evening in his suite at the Carlton, the phone rings. “God love you, vicar,” comes the voice on the other end, “don’t you know all that business about saving the movie in the editing room is just one of the great urban legends of film? Nobody ever really saves the movie in the editing room. That’s one of the excuses they have for taking movies away from directors, that they can save the fucking thing in the editing room. Now you’ve gone and actually saved a movie in the editing room and there will be no end to it. You’ve created a lot of trouble.”

  193.

  Vikar says, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s a joke, vicar,” Viking Man says, after the usual transatlantic lag. Vikar hasn’t heard from or spoken to Viking Man in three years. “Well, sort of, anyway. The trades over here are all trying to figure out whether anyone ever has gotten an award at Cannes for editing, or montage or mise-en-scène or whatever fancy word they’re using.”

  “I heard one of those words this morning. There was a press conference.”

  “Yeah, that’s the other thing they’re all a-twitter about here.”

  “It was only this morning.”

  “News travels fast, vicar.”

  “They called me by the wrong name. I had to set the record straight.”

  “You set the record straight all right.”

  “It’s important that in Hollywood they’re straight on the name.”

  “I think in Hollywood what they’re straight on at the moment, vicar, is that you’re a lunatic. But then they just don’t know you like I do, and I suppose it could be worse—a lunatic means no one can figure out what you might do next, and since it might be something phenomenal and they don’t want to miss out on it, it can make them irritable in a potentially productive way.”

  “We’ll make it work for us.”

  “I’m not sure you should have said that thing about John Wayne.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “I have to take exception there, vicar.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “I mean, the man is dying. Vicar, you still there?”

  “Can you hear me?”

  “There you are … hey, vicar, listen—”

  “Have you seen Zazi and Soledad?” Their voices cross.

  “How’s that?”

  “Zazi and Soledad?”

  “Last I heard she was in New York on your movie there …”

  “No …”

  “… thought that’s what I heard. What?”

  “I need to find them.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “We’ll get together and drink tequila, amigo, scope out the local wenches who become more creatures of the Devil’s seed with every passing day. But listen.” A pause. “Vicar?”

  Vikar has a momentary impulse to tell Viking Man how his film about the Berber chieftain wound up in a film about the death of the assassin the Generalissimo.

  “Give Dot a c
all sometime. I know she would love to hear from you. She’s got to be peeing in her rubber panties about this Cannes thing.”

  192.

  Back in Los Angeles, Vikar no longer has room in his apartment on its secret boulevard for all the movies he’s stolen. With the money from Your Pale Blue Eyes, he rents a house further west in the Hollywood Hills, which he could barely see from room 939 of the Roosevelt Hotel nine years before, if he had known to look for it.

  191.

  It’s an old house for Los Angeles, dating back to the thirties. It cascades down the side of the hill in three levels, the large windows on the top level staring out at a panorama of trees and little houses and little cars driving up winding roads that seem to drop off in midair. As on a fjord of galvanized stardust, the house sits on the edge of the city, overlooking a vast shadowless sundial.

  190.

  The top floor of the house, at street level, is the living room with the kitchen. It’s shaped like a half moon, walled in white brick with a wooden floor and fireplace, circled by the large bare windows with window seats. On the second level below are two bedrooms; Vikar’s has a window facing east. The one large room at the foot of the stairs, on the third and bottom floor, becomes the film library, with a small console for editing and enlarging stills. Large canisters line all four walls, except where a small window faces south.

  In the distance to the southeast, Vikar can see downtown. Directly below the house and the hill, occasionally blurting into view between the knolls and gullies, is Sunset Boulevard, now an asphalt timeline with not simply geographical addresses but temporal ones, from the classic forties, when glamour ran like silver sewage, to the utopian sixties, when hippies rampaged the gutters, to the anarchic present at the boulevard’s far eastern end where a Sound grows, not unlike what Vikar heard in the Bowery.

  189.

  Vikar goes to see a new movie by Buñuel. It’s a remake of Von Sternberg’s The Devil is a Woman and takes place near Soledad’s hometown of Seville. At first Vikar believes the movie is about a middle-aged widower in love with two women who share the same name, until he realizes, halfway through, that in fact two different actresses are playing one and the same woman. Buñuel knows about the profiles, Vikar realizes. He has taken it farther than anyone, actually showing each profile as played by an entirely different person. In one incarnation the woman dances flamenco, as Soledad did when she was a small girl.