‘‘These hounding calls from Old Dad are becoming too much, man!’ says the Young American. I love that!!
‘OK, then: ‘What do you say? How do you say?’ quoth the crone in cracked Inglisch, which proves that she still has at least one fossilizd brane cel hooked up. ‘Yu speighk zi Anglish?’
‘‘Why, why yes. Yes I do,’ speaks B’bugs.
‘‘Just done’t schpeak zeh bad Frentsch evere agane in ze my praissance!’
‘‘Wee! I mean! Nay! I will not!’ declares the sincere young fellow, upright even now, brought so low by this bad-ass creep who preys on Youngamericans with so much – hell – abandon.
‘‘Off you go, thenn,’ shrieks Madame Picpus.
‘Huh? Whattaya think of the jarring change? See? It’s cool, huh? All that, then – BAM! OK then, Butterbugs is able to meet his friends, very nearly according to plan, and he is only about two minutes late. They are cool, and they say, ‘No big deal.’
‘He tells his pals, as an excuse: ‘But, I collapsed on the street, and my legs wouldn’t work!’ And on and on. Whatever it takes to explain things.
‘Butterbugs then proceeds to do a lot of other stuff in Paris.
‘OK, that’s it.’
Silence, both in Paris and at the other end of the line.
‘So, Sonny, whaddaya think? Crazy, or what? Get your upstairs maid to spell the Frog words better than I can, before it goes into treatment, huh? Can we make a picture out of it, or should I just stuff it in as a postlude to the St. Sullpus-s-s Diptick? You can always just say ‘Let’s go Video Game’ and I’ll follow along like a good little puppy, content with ‘Created By’ credit, and a 45% owned-’n’-operated-by. You know my Nohkeea drill… SO!’
Sonny had hung up. Quite some time ago.
65.
Salted Perris Poarck
‘Salted Paris Pork! Salted Paris Pork!’ rang out the cry (here in translation) of the salted Paris-style porc vendors, all along the Quai Smart-Aleck, in the 7th, at dawn.
Butterbugs loved to stroll on these rocky cubes at this time of day. It was as if, in this light, no one had ever discovered Paris. It was so devoid of observers, of lovers, of derelicts, that he had the place to himself. One time he did run into Toots Thielmans though, as the mouth-harper was strolling the paved avenue ’twixt Seine and bleached stone from the catacombs.
‘Monsieur?’ was all the Belgian said in greeting to the actor. And they moved along.
And in Mo-martre: now a den of thieves, pimps, money-grubbers, peep-show presenters (e.g. a rather different type of ‘Monsieur?’ greeting), and assorted ruffians.
‘Heck! Sounds like nothing’s changed!’ said an envious Sonny over the mobile, ‘Moolonn Rooj! And by the way, don’t let me talk to that Barrel joker again. Changed my number. Here it is…’
So there it was, in the can:
Jean-Paul Sarte’s ‘St. Sulpice Diptych’. Director: Robert ‘Bob’ Garnier-Pibichtoff. Camera: Jean Bourgoin. Music direction: Pierre Boulez and Maurice Jarre.
1) ‘Widor’ – Bb plays the long-lived composer/organist, who dwells at the keyboard, but has one of the fullest lives that any Parisien has a right to live!
2) ‘Vierne’ – Bb plays the blind composer/organist, who dies at the keyboard (actually in Notre Dame, but the kids in the audience wouldn’t care), who carries on the grand tradition of making extraordinary music, all on his own.
The Diptych was a heroic failure, but it played big in La Belle France, Japan, and Estonia. Nevertheless, Pathé was absolutely delighted. These cinematic oddities were the type of picture that mattered, especially in the long run. The producers, Hyacinthe Lévy-Gold and Serge Soulle-Vujejhystein (descendants of Vichy victims and Holocaust survivors), knew the Diptych was one art-set that would make a huge comeback, to be rediscovered by viewers who were invitational at kicking themselves into action. Surely the two films would be discovered by new audiences, who would marvel that such things had ever been accomplished, and wonder why they, as an audience, even deserved such a divine gift.
Looming: the essential imminence: Victor Hugo’s inevitable ‘Toilers of the Sea’!
At last, the great individualistic saga was reaching the wide, modern screen. The treatment was so thorough, so boiled-down to essence, that it would set the trend in literary adaptations for the foreseeable future. This was because the filmmakers were at last able to recognize original authors as the true visionaries in the story to be told, and any subsequent staff, whether it be director or scriptor, must tow the line – as a screen composer might do – not out of subservience, but out of necessity in creating definitive screen adaptations. As a result, original-source cinema became more… original. So, there was a provision for ego incentive from living filmmakers, in lieu of dead original authors. This chemistry tended to work in exciting new ways of creative ignition, because as filmmakers with smarts discovered, enough material was right there in the original text to serve as momentum toward any original piece of cinema that would result. Instead of being a regressive approach, this handling of existing properties tended to liberate the re-creators, who now had more liberal forces behind them when confronting the limitations that producers tended to lay upon them. Producers became the wimps in the face of the on-set filmmakers’ truth-by-committee. Plus, because of box office success with new truthful depictions, money men fell in with the new stream, mainly because it was sensible to do so.
In cinema, money always follows art.
Butterbugs’ role in this evolution should never, ever, be underestimated nor overlooked. And in point of fact, it wasn’t. Progress in the transformation of Hollywood’s choices in production may be duly noted at this point in his career. It was not solely the b.o. receipts that convinced power players of new ideas and directions, it was also a sense of what was right, be they jaded by their disproportionate sense of profit production, or not.
This was all change, and Butterbugs was leading the charge.
‘Toilers’ was filmed with great import, accompanied by immense publicity, mostly unsolicited, though eminently welcomed. In other words, the buzz and its execution was overwhelmingly positive. In Europe, it was the most keenly-anticipated production of the decade, and that was saying a lot. When the public is promised something they truly desire, there can be no more steadfast ally, and thus, a guarantor of success, or, more perversely, of profits, than a public which is literate.
Remembering his zeroing-in on that particular volume of Hugo in his own personal library at his own Æyrie, way back in the Parlor McKenna days, Butterbugs thought:
‘I am in Paris, land of V. Hugo. Land of ‘Toilers’ (well, just off the coast on isles held by perfidious Albion). But, why not take the great story and give it all we’ve got?’
He approached DFZ, Michael Salkind, Italo Zingarelli, Saul Zaenz, Carlo Ponti, Leon Alastray, and Jacques Bar as a group, when they were all gathered in the bar of the Hotel de Pince-Nez. The timing was brilliant. The actor-star strolled into their midst and played his role to the fullest. All being heavyweights, and all possessing more bravado than the next, they all accepted his proposal without further equivocation, forming a production company, ‘Société de Sept Macho Dudes’, on the spot.
Fortunately, all concerned forces came together in the holy mission of doing justice to the great tale, according to the precepts of Butterbugs’ evolving spearhead of action into new adaptation techniques.
Funding was no problem. It came out of nowhere. All of the Francophone world panted for this, a previously unthought-of dream-project, a film they’d always wanted to see. But as they’d gotten used to it being passed by, no expectation of its realization ever developed. Hail then, this American sensitivist, to point out, to the home-front, the essentials that made up said front. Like Chopin, out-Frenching the French, and, Frenchness being big enough to admit it, the outsider was embraced and welcomed as one of their own. Nevertheless, an English-language version would be filmed simultaneously (à la ‘Oklahoma’ (
Magna, 1955), though both versions would be in the same Todd-AO 70mm process).
The Channel Island locales were absolutely the place to be, that season. The Riviera was forgotten. Anybody who was anybody booked their stakes at Guernsey, to partake in the chic excitement of making the scene behind-the-scenes.
The hair-raising Phosphorescent Sea sequence was one of the most celebrated location shoots ever. DC-powered electroluminescent strips and plates, kilometers and kilometers of them, ran throughout the calm sea that night, and the cumulative effect was like nothing ever seen before. The triple-ace team of cameramen, Sven Nykvist, Bob Surtees, and John Alcott each manned a crew, and it was as if Géricault, Delacroix and Richard Bergh were there, painting it all in plein air.
The thousands of spectator boats that held many times more watchers were cast aglow with the weird midnight pre-storm light, and there was no person there that night who did not feel they were on the threshold of something extraordinary, not just because of the artifice and its signal effects, but because of the soul backing it up. It was as if Hugo himself were somewhere on the set, guiding everything in the right direction.
Maybe he was.
Benny Herrmann composed and conducted the score, a myriad of wonders. Nothing was overlooked, whether the heart-rending ‘For you – when you marry’ theme, or the octopus fight, an incredible fugue, with ostinato wildness and persistence, in the great Herrmannian tradition. The music was one of the elements that was so harmonious with Butterbugs’ portrayal that all the picture’s ingredients and contributions were inseparable from the other. Each hip was joined at the next hip, and so a great film came into being.
In fact, Benny was on or near the set all through the location shooting. He wasn’t cranky or crabby at all. In fact, he was like a little kid playing with boats in a bathtub. He and Butterbugs had an ongoing debate on whether rubber duckies should somehow be worked into the picture.
‘Aw c’maan Buttahbugs! Ya know that’s what Hugo’d waant…!’ he ragged.
No small credit was due to the auteur, Luc-Thierry Montaillou, who was, on the strength of ‘Toilers’, immediately catapulted into the pantheon of genius directors now working in film.
It preemed, naturally enough, at the Palais Garnier, at the very head of Place de l’Opéra. The old Lumière Brothers picture show setup was intact, and the Abel Gance Polyvision projectors worked exquisitely in gloriously conveying the immense BKV Chrétien-anamorphic stock through the white-hot aperture.
Butterbugs had never seen such a majestic scene. Crowds filled the Ave. de l’Opera all the way past the Audi dealer, and on up to Printemps. He paused on the loggia that overlooked the Rue Auber, as the sky dimmed its houselights for the great presentation to begin.
‘They come,’ he thought in deep meditation. ‘To see me represent them. They come this far because they care. Not for my sake, certainly, nor even for M. Hugo’s. They come for the story. To derive something from it, or as a whole. We are the ones who provide it. They witness what we have done, and then they go home. I hope they retain it, think about it, discuss it. I can hope for nothing more.’
This elementary thinking was good. After such an interruptive mind-rape as the Isaac Davis interlude and the physical trauma of its destruction, seeing the simple assembly of the masses below was akin to bead-stringing or basket-weaving: therapy for the return of the rational soul. Jean-Paul had told him to expect it, any day now. It was a moment like this in which the simplicity of the ideal was thrust home. The moment in which the evidence of perceived reality cancels out erroneous personal interpretations. What was in front of him was inarguable, and, at that moment, his healing was complete.
Faun approached him at the balustrade. Her strapless gown was no more extensive than a bathing costume – except for a significantly phosphorescent meter-long tail of wiggly taffeta that spurted out playfully from her dear little derriere cheeks. She was the most stunning woman there that night, and she put her hand on his shoulder.
‘Monsieur,’ she said softly, ‘as Gilliatt, would you show me your ‘aquarium of the night’? We are all waiting. Will you play the ‘bugpipe’ for me, no?’
They were running jokes throughout the production.
Butterbugs glanced at her fancy tail, raised ’n’ lowered his eyebrows Groucho-fashion, did a kazoo imitation, then, buoyed by his girlfriend, he turned to the many below and raised his hand in a humble greeting, fingers curved and apart. The masses saw him way up in the great window’s opening, and cheered. Then the star and his consort went down amongst the people and conversed until the great gong rang, and they who had appeared in and made this picture went into the salle and saw its completed perfection unfold before a spellbound audience.
When the flamboyantly painted drape rose, the lead actor felt an ecstasy well up inside him. He was back in the thickest of things, and so glad of it that he almost passed out when he indeed saw the 20th-Fox logo appear on the screen, and for the first time he realized that he was there when it was shot, and he was in the shot, and everything made more sense in his life than it ever had up to then.
As the 267-minute picture unspooled, many moments caused elation, if not euphoria. The one summum bonum though, was the close-up of Butterbugs, as Gilliatt, when he is out on the reef, with dawn breaking, just as he turns around from securing his paunch. He regards the wrecked ship, up on the rocks. The sun suddenly illuminates it, exactly when the symphonic crescendo crashes. The audience in the Opéra exploded in extended cheers and applause, and there was enough subsequent time in the shot for jubilation to continue without significant interruption in the audience’s concentration.
To the right of him, Faun grasped Butterbugs’ hand and impulsively dug her nails in until blood spurted out. The star yelped, but when Faun realized what she’d done in the clash of the moment, and instantly salved the unintentional wound with her velveteen lips, Butterbugs broke new sensual ground by achieving a non-ejaculative orgasm.
The very next second, the actor leaned over to Sven Nykvist on his left and whispered, ‘Nice camerawork, Sven. I’m glad you were operating yourself, for that shot!’
This sort of spectacular audience response became a phenomenon wherever the picture played, even in Peoria. ‘Toilers’ had rock-solid staying power, and thus became cinematic legend. Uncounted patrons saw the picture numerous times just to experience the marvel of that single golden moment.
Janet Flanner (Genêt), the chronicler of Parisian culture and event, wrote:
‘If the sum of his existence could be boiled down to just one moment on the picture screen, it would be this: Gilliatt facing the dawn. But of course, Butterbugs must have countless lives to accommodate many other such moments. There cannot be only one.’
66.
And Then There’s ProwlerCat
Home!
The French interlude – over.
Indeed, it was time to resume the regime in Hollywood time. But Paris would never end. Much had been accomplished.
Butterbugs authored a broadside titled, ‘Critique d’Estats unis’, which tied together his thoughts of his native country from the Parisian point of advantage. It was published in Sartre’s ‘Journal’ and not only was it translated into everything from Czech to Telugu, the important thing was that its imperative (corporate and imitative greed as hornswogglers of the populace) was acceptingly acknowledged, and significant attention paid to it. How many trenchant tractists could lay claim to that? Both Bill Buckley and Noam Chomsky praised it, and made sure its thesis was adopted by their peers.
And when the star’s French Liner Lautréamont docked at Baltimore, there were not only the usual crowd of fans, but also new contingents of literati and academic luminaries present. At the head was a cheerful gang of fresh and radical writers, headed up by none other than Norman Mailer. Butterbugs was appropriately fêted at several different venues, with the ‘Welcome Home’ theme developed in ways ranging from grand to poignant. Even Bob Morley was there, to deliver his
famous ‘All is forgiven!’ line, and ‘Next time, come to Britain!’
‘Oh, but I will, Bob! If only to act act with you on stage, on set, or sharing a panto horse apparatus!’
At the end of the long afternoon, Butterbugs knew that he was well and truly welcomed back, his ‘exile’ was over, and it was time to get back to making pictures full-time and working with the old team again.
Dinner at John Waters’ place, naturally. The director implored him to hitchhike with him to LA, but the actor had to beg off, as his steamer trunks required responsible stewardship all the way home.
Later on, a torchlight parade, and upon crossing the border into Chinatown, a Lantern Festival. That night he slept on a cot, hard by the actual spot where Edgar Allan Poe collapsed on the street. He meditated profoundly and long on the great visionary. The next day he made sure to send a special email to Roger Corman. Thus was the groundwork laid for filming ‘King Pest’.
As his stainless steel-clad train sped towards its western terminus, Butterbugs called for a press conference in the Club Car.
A Nayland Gribgrib presentation.
All representatives from all media everywhere crammed themselves into the finite space. As grade-crossing bells came and went, as the metropolitan imminence grew, Butterbugs appeared, sat down at the Dabracote-topped table, and offered a cup of Good Morning America before waxing contemplative.
Forward to Glory Page 75