Emerald City (3 page)

MIKE
turns to
COLIN
.
COLIN
puts down Mike's outline and regards him with bemused disdain. Not quite red gum to the wood grub, but
COLIN
's manner does indicate that he feels comfortably superior to him.

COLIN
: Certainly full of action.

MIKE
: Based on fact.

COLIN
: Really?

MIKE
: Absolutely.

COLIN
: Shootouts?

MIKE
: Anything goes up in the Gulf. It's like the wild west.

COLIN
: Next time I eat a prawn I'll appreciate the drama behind it.

MIKE
: Structure's neat. Notice how when the seventeen-year-old spunk is hired as cook, she focusses all the tensions?

COLIN
: Yes. What are you going to call it?
Prawn Wars?

MIKE
: [
with a forced laugh
]
Night Boats
.

COLIN
:
Night Boats
.

MIKE
: Nothing's set in concrete. The girl doesn't have to be swallowed by the crocodile.

COLIN
: Saves her having to choose between the men.

MIKE
: How do you feel about the overall concept?

COLIN
: Sounds highly commercial.

MIKE
: Absolutely. Would you like to co-write it? You'd get first credit of course, and we'd produce it ourselves so that we make some money, and keep control. No slow pans over Gulf sunsets, and no Jack Thompson and Bryan Brown. The only bit of decent casting in an Australian movie was the horse in
Phar Lap
.

COLIN
: [
bristling
] I think the casting in my movies has been quite good.

MIKE
: Who thought of Stewart Egan as the lead in
Days of Wine and Whitlam?

COLIN
: Elaine Ross.

MIKE
: [
nodding knowingly
] Stewart Egan looks okay on rock clips, but he was a disaster on film.

COLIN
: [
coldly
] I didn't think he was bad.

MIKE
: Producers who cast
names
instead of good
actors
and think it'll earn them megabucks, don't know the business they're in. Egan might've been a big rock star, but the public know he can't
act
, so they stayed away in droves.

COLIN
: [
coldly
] Stayed away in droves?

MIKE
: I know it made its money back.

COLIN
: It made a healthy profit.

MIKE
: It could've made a
massive
profit. It was a great screenplay. Didn't it win the best screenplay at…?

COLIN
: Berlin.

MIKE
: [
nodding
] Not best actor. Not best director. Best screenplay. One of the best that's ever been written in this country, but the public stayed away in droves because Elaine Knucklehead Ross cast a lead actor who'd make your average corpse look as if it was tap dancing. And why the hell did she let Scranton direct it?

COLIN
: [
defensively
] He's not my favourite director but he did a competent enough job.

MIKE
: Scranton can barely direct shit from his arsehole. Your script
made
him, if you call success screwing up historical epics in Hollywood. Your scripts have
made
Elaine Ross too.

COLIN
: I wouldn't say that.

MIKE
: She's the one living in splendour in Darling Point. You're stuck here in a terrace in Paddington. Why should she have the harbour views? You're the one with the talent.
Night Boats
. What do you think?

COLIN
: I'm not sure it's my type of project.

MIKE
: I don't need an answer straight away. Sleep on it. It's got colour, action, tension, pathos, romance. What were you working on again? Recent history, wasn't it?

COLIN
: Yes.

MIKE
: Second World War?

COLIN
: [
looking up sharply
] Why?

MIKE
: You know Gary McBride at Channel Ten?

COLIN
: No.

MIKE
: Gary's a mate of mine. Says Second World War always rates. What angle are you taking?

COLIN
: [
reluctantly
] Coastwatchers.

MIKE
: Coastwatchers?

COLIN
: The men who stayed behind on Jap-occupied islands and reported Jap ship movements by radio. They saved us from a full-scale invasion.

MIKE
: We could get this one up, mate. Gary said that if I ever had anything Second World War to come straight to him.

COLIN
: I'm developing it for film.

MIKE
: [
shaking his head
] Second World War doesn't rate on the big screen, mate. This is television. Six-hour, eight-hour mini-series. I could get a pre-sale from Gary within a week, go straight to a merchant bank for underwriting, and we'd be shooting by August.

COLIN
: I'd rather see it as a movie.

MIKE
: It's an epic story, mate. How could you tell it in two hours?

MIKE
exits.
COLIN
crosses to discuss his future with
ELAINE
.

ELAINE
: Television?

COLIN
: A six-hour or eight-hour mini-series.

ELAINE
: Colin, I know how passionate you are about this, and I truly want to believe, but I keep on stumbling over the fact that coastwatchers basically watched coasts. I can't see eight hours of television.

COLIN
: [
passionately
] They fought guerrilla actions, they were always on the run—they ran incredible risks! My uncle used to tell me the stories when I was a kid.

ELAINE
: Colin, the impact an uncle can have on a young kid is one thing. If we go the television route I've got to sell the concept to network executives with sloping foreheads and Neanderthal brows who are living proof that we share ninety-nine percent of our DNA with the higher apes, and they only ever ask one question: ‘Why in the hell would Mr and Mrs Western Suburbs want to watch that shit?' Which is an odd question when the opposition channel is featuring a wrestling bout between King Kong Bundy and Junkyard Dog, but they still ask it.

COLIN
: Surely you can sell them quality occasionally?

ELAINE
: There are executives in our networks, who, if asked to name an American intellectual would answer, ‘Sylvester Stallone'. Colin, if you want to go in a new direction, I've got the perfect project for you. Have you heard the name Tony Sanzari?

COLIN
: Yes, but I can't remember the context.

ELAINE
: He's the father of the two boys killed in that fun park accident.

COLIN
nods without enthusiasm.

COLIN
: Ah. Yes.

ELAINE
: He's waged an incredible one-man war against the authorities to prove it wasn't an accident.

COLIN
: [
bored
] He's a bit of a nut case, isn't he?

ELAINE
: [
quietly angry
] I think he's anything but a nut case. He's got very convincing proof that the so-called ‘accident' was organised by one of the country's biggest crims so he could get the park condemned and buy it up cheap for development. And there've been two serious attempts on his life while he was getting that proof.

COLIN
: If he's got proof, why don't the authorities do something?

ELAINE
: Because a lot of money has been spread around to make sure that they don't.

COLIN
: I can't get excited by corruption, Elaine, it's so bloody sordid.

ELAINE
: Can you get excited by the story of a father who's so shattered by the loss of his sons that he'd risk his own life to get the man responsible? You've got kids. Imagine how you'd feel?

COLIN
: Elaine!

ELAINE
: [
with a tough glint in her eye
] It's a powerful story and it should be told and I want you to tell it.

COLIN
: I'm sorry. It doesn't appeal.

ELAINE
: Colin, I've paid a fortune for the rights.

COLIN
: I want to do ‘Coastwatchers'.

ELAINE
: ‘Coastwatchers' is a turkey!

COLIN
: [
angrily
] How can you say that? It hasn't been written yet!

ELAINE
: Colin, it's a turkey!

COLIN
: Alright. I'll do it myself.

ELAINE
: Produce it?

COLIN
: Yes!

ELAINE
: Don't be ridiculous, Colin. What experience have you ever had in production?

COLIN
: It's about time I learned.

ELAINE
: Have you any idea what's involved?

COLIN
: Nothing that any intelligent person couldn't handle.

ELAINE
: Is that so?

COLIN
: It's time I started taking more responsibility for the key creative decisions.

ELAINE
: Are there any creative decisions
I
've
taken that you've been unhappy with?

COLIN
: [
averting his eyes
] One or two.

ELAINE
: Which ones?

COLIN
: Casting Stewart Egan in
Days of Wine and Whitlam
.

ELAINE
: [
incensed
] Egan was wonderful.

COLIN
: I felt he was wooden.

ELAINE
: Wooden?

COLIN
: Mahogany, teak. Possibly even jarrah.

ELAINE
: I'm sorry you didn't mention your doubts about him when I showed you the screen tests—you didn't seem to have any of these polished wood anxieties then. In fact you told me he was the only possible choice.

COLIN
: [
averting his eyes
] I didn't want to rock the boat.

ELAINE
: You told me you couldn't believe it was the same man who did the rock clips.

COLIN
: [
embarrassed
] I can't remember saying that.

ELAINE
: You did.

COLIN
: Everybody gets a bit over-optimistic when a film is coming together.

ELAINE
: [
coldly furious
] Are there any other mistakes you think I've made?

COLIN
: [
backing off
] This isn't the time to nitpick over old grievances.

ELAINE
: What are the others?

COLIN
: I don't think this is the time—

ELAINE
: [
intermixing
] Richard Scranton as director? I suppose I made a mistake there too?

COLIN
: I wasn't entirely happy—

ELAINE
: [
interrupting
] I don't believe it. The man is now a top Hollywood talent. Has Hollywood been over here begging you to get on the plane?

COLIN
: [
stung
] If I was prepared to write mindless genre pieces they probably would be.

ELAINE
: [
with Arctic coldness
] I'm sorry you won't do the Sanzari story, Colin. I think it's going to make the writer who does do it very famous.

COLIN
: [
to the audience
] That's a threat that chills any writer to the marrow of their bones. A dozen other writers I'd hate to see collecting a bronze statuette flashed before my eyes, but for once in my life I stuck to my guns. Why was I so obsessed with ‘Coastwatchers'? Dogged loyalty to the memory of Uncle Jimmy. I was a lonely kid whose own parents devoted all their energies to bitter marital warfare, and Jimmy, whose own marriage had been a childless disaster, made me the son he was never going to have. I idolised him. His coastwatcher stories became sagas of infinite importance to me, and I questioned him about every rock, every tree, every close encounter, and every death. I wanted answers to the most urgent, chilling and unsettling questions in my young mind. How does one face death and how can one man kill another? Jimmy told me something he'd never told anyone else. He'd killed a Japanese soldier who'd come to the edge of a clearing in the moonlight. At first he couldn't shoot, then the soldier began to urinate and Jimmy felt a wave of disgust and pulled the trigger and had had nightmares ever since. How could he kill a man for urinating in the open when he himself had done it half an hour before? ‘Coastwatchers' had to answer that question. It was a shrine I was building to the memory of Uncle Jimmy.

MIKE
enters.

MIKE
: [
to the audience
] ‘Coastwatchers'? I hated every minute of it, but the writing was the worst. The status difference between us stood out like a hooker in the lobby of the Hyatt Hilton. I sat there, grub-like, over the typewriter while red gum strode up and down dictating the thing word for word. When I got so pissed off I couldn't stand it any longer I'd throw in a suggestion and there'd be a frozen silence and he'd look up at the ceiling and say, [
imitating
COLIN
] ‘Nooo, I don't think so'. Then he'd stare at me. We'd eyeball to eyeball for about a sixteenth of a second and I'd go back to my typing. And the subject? Coastwatchers, quite frankly, interested me about as much as going to bed with a six-foot, fourteen-stone lesbian, which I have done under odd circumstances I won't bore you with. But an odd thing happened. I started reading the words I was typing out of sheer boredom, and found that this arrogant prick, striding up and down like Napoleon plus growth hormones, was telling a story that was getting me in. Guys taking incredible risks under appalling conditions so that fat little babies like myself slept on undisturbed. In the world I see around me where everyone is out for number one, this sort of behaviour gives you an odd jolt. The turd had the odd knack of making his characters live. He didn't have my visual sense, though, and towards the end I started sneaking in some of my images.