Memphis Movie (32 page)

“I'm sorry, Eric,” Hope said. Her voice was honey. “I don't recall meeting her.”

“Yes,” Eric said. “I see. I see now.”

In his distraction, he even called Dan's women. Sue Pine hung up on him. Somehow he found a number he didn't know he had. A young woman named Dudu Orr. He thought Dan had given him the number, had promised her a part.

“Hi!” Dudu said, brightly. Easily the most friendly response Eric had gotten.

“Hi, listen,” Eric said. This woman sounded like a child. She probably was a child. “I am no longer working on the movie.”

“Oh,” Dudu said. Her disappointment was palpable. “Me neither,” she said.

“Right. Listen. Do you remember a woman whom I was seen with occasionally, pale skin, beautiful eyes—oh damn, wait. This is impossible. Her name was Mimsy. Mimsy Borogoves.”

“Sure, I know Mimsy,” Dudu said.

Good God. Eric hesitated. He felt closer now.

“You do?” he said, warily.

“Of course. Beautiful chick.”

“Yes!” Eric said.

“Why do you want her?” The child's voice had a sharpie's inflection to it.

“I need to see her. I will be leaving soon, going back to California. I need to let her know where I'll be.”

“Back to Hollywood, huh?”

“Yes.”

“What's it worth to you, this Mimsy's whereabouts?”

What was this, some kind of negotiation?

“Worth to me?”

“What is in it for Dudu? I want to go to Hollywood.”

Eric was up against it.

“Of course you do,” he said.

“You'll take me with you?”

“Of course,” Eric said. “Please—just tell me where she is.”

“You remember me, right? You know I'm one beautiful chick. I'm prettier than Mimsy even. I've got a body men love. Dan Yumont said I had tits like Marilyn Monroe. I could be a movie star.”

“You could,” Eric said.

Now there was silence. He wasn't playing her right. He'd forgotten how to do these things.

“You're not taking me to Hollywood,” Dudu said.

“I would do what I can, really,” Eric said. “My power is limited, of course—”

“Right,” Dudu said. He had lost her.

“Dudu—please, Mimsy. Tell me, please.”

“I've never heard of no fucking Mimsy Merigrove,” she said. And ended the call.

Eric had one last chance. He called Dan.

“Hey, man,” Dan said. “First of all, before you say anything, you got a raw deal, Buddy. When I get back to the coast I'm gonna see about it. Of course I've got one more shoot after this, so, it might be a while.”

“Thanks, Dan. You're good people. Listen,” Eric took a deep breath. “Do you remember a woman named Mimsy Borogoves, a lovely pale-skinned brunette I was seeing during the shoot? She worked with Linn Sitler.”

“You were seeing someone during the shoot?”

“Yes,” Eric said. He could see it crumbling. His hope.

“You were cheating on Sandy?”

It was ridiculous, of course. He almost sounded disapproving.

“Yes, in a sense. Do you remember her?”

“No, Buddy, sorry. I don't know her.”

“Ok,” Eric said.

Why was Dan's ignorance the final stroke? Eric turned off all the lights. The house in Midtown Memphis, which would soon pass out of his hands, was dark. In the dark Eric saw shapes he didn't want to see. Cast members past, characters from his early movies, they all passed in judgment of him. But, unlike his father's ghost, they did not speak to him. They passed silently by, a once-glittering entourage, now reduced to shadows.

What had he lost? Everything. What had he not lost? Mimsy Borogoves. He had not lost her. He never had her. Not in the old sense of a bird that he kept caged but in the sense that he never had her because she did not exist. She was a product of his
Memphis Movie
endgame. She was special effects, the kind of high-gloss, Spielbergian faker that he eschewed in his films, the kind of Hollywood humbuggery he hated. She was broken pieces of mirror that simulated water.

And where was he to go now? Hollywood, that expensive set, that wasteland, did not welcome him. He had come to Memphis to die, he now realized. Like poor Suze Everingham. Like Camel. He would lie down and die. He would welcome the closing of the light, the shutting down of the movie of his life. The dressed set undressed, the hot set cooling and ticking in its abandonment. He saw a sign clearly: filming winds today. His final credits would roll and he would not be there to see them.

But then he remembered that his Beckett was gone and he thought, I cannot die. Tonight I cannot die. And the dark rolled on like the waves of celluloid, dreamed and procreated.

Yes, in the dark, Eric saw much that he did not want to see. But he saw one thing that was comforting to him and this one
thing saved his life. Eric didn't want to die. He didn't really think his life was over because his career was over. This one thing made Eric sit up and take stock. He turned on a light. Its glow was weak, a yellow glim in the fusc. But, in that glow, he saw it clearly.

It was not one picture but a montage, something film excelled at, the melding of images, the sexy slide show. Like a trailer—the best bits illumined by polish and fairy light. There, in that rented house, in a home that was no one's, Eric saw this: he saw Cary Grant's dimple; he saw the Ferris wheel in
The Third Man
; he saw the light in Tuesday Weld's hair, McCabe dying in the snow, the child Napoleon's snowball fight, Chaplin's “Smile” fadeout. He saw Annie Hall's tennis game,
Blow-Up's
feigned tennis game, Bibi Andersson's luminous close-ups; he saw the sweat run down the nun's face in
Black Narcissus
. He saw Virginia Woolf writing
Mrs. Dalloway
. He saw Monica Vitti's smile, the solar eclipses of Anna Karina's eyes, Lee Marvin's silver nose. He saw Dr. Strangelove, the poet Morant, George Bailey, Aguirre, Amelie, Kane, Sally Bowles. He saw Baptiste, the mime; he saw Mabuse, the dacoit. He saw HAL's murderous red eye. He saw Marilyn playing the ukulele, Marcello Mastroianni floating upward on a tether, the Who exploding at Woodstock, Pamela Franklin's perfect fundament, George and Martha exploding in their living room, Monty Clift decking the Duke, Christina Ricci chained to a radiator. He saw King Arthur's coconut shell horses, Astaire and his firecrackers, Peter Sellers's unctuous Quilty, Jack Lemmon waiting for Shirley MacLaine outside the theater, Barbara Stanwyck's ankle bracelet. And he saw the Beatles explode into manic anarchy, their beautiful young faces caught for all time, frozen at a moment when the world was their own.

He saw it all and saw, not that it was good or meet or right or even inspiring. He saw that it was absurd. And as Camus said, the absurd is the first truth.

It made him laugh, the absurdity, the incongruous, somehow paranormal absurdity. Flickering images, that's all they are, that's what his life has been up to this point. Flickering images. Grainy photographs made of waves and particles, in the same way the world around us is not continuous but grainy. It made him laugh.

And it gave him rest. Just for now, it gave Eric some peace.

Epilogue

Q:
 
So, Sandy, welcome.
Memphis Movie
is a wrap, isn't that right?

A:
 
Yes, Donald, that's right. We have finished the film and most of us have moved on now to other projects.

Q:
 
Well, we appreciate you staying behind long enough to answer a few questions.

A:
 
My pleasure.

Q:
 
First, for all those who don't know, you were not the director when the film began shooting in Memphis.

A:
 
That's right. This film is really Eric Warberg's film. We finished it in honor of him.

Q:
 
And why was Eric unable to finish the film?

A:
 
It's complicated.

Q:
 
Give us a simple version.

A:
 
Well, there is no simple version. Eric is from Memphis. This became a burden to him as shooting went on. He was unable to create the necessary distance from the material an artist must master. Memphis became the subject of the film for Eric. And, for Eric, the subject of Memphis is, in a way, overwhelming. He became overwhelmed.

Q:
 
I don't quite understand.

A:
 
I told you it was complicated.

Q:
 
Where is Eric now?

A:
 
I don't know. I haven't talked to him in a week or so.

Q:
 
Will he be directing again?

A;
 
I have heard a rumor that he's already picked up another gig.

Q:
 
Can you tell us about that?

A:
 
Just a rumor, mind you, but talk is he was offered the new Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan comedy,
If This Is Heaven Then I Must Be Dead.

Q:
 
Isn't that a remake of—

A:
 
Yes,
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
.

Q:
 
I've heard it's been turned down by every A-list—

A:
 
No.

Q:
 
Ok. Ok. Let's see. How are you with working with actors? I have a quote here from you about a certain leading lady. You were quoted as saying, “She's a waste of good shampoo.”

A:
 
Ha-ha—no, no, that was certainly taken out of context.

Q:
 
So actors.

A:
 
Unlike Hitchcock I see them as collaborators, cohorts, cohabitants, coconspirators. There's probably a few more co's I'm missing.

Q:
 
This leading lady—

A:
 
Can we talk about
Memphis Movie
?

Q:
 
Of course. Tell me how you want this movie to be perceived. Tell me your vision of the movie, or for the movie.

A:
 
My vision? I don't know. It's a good picture. It's a story made of words, really, which, as you know, is a sticky wicket in film, it being an almost totally visual medium. What I wanted for the ending—at first—was this backward montage at double speed—triple speed—showing the story rewinding all the way back, scene by scene, backward—denouement to beginning, so the characters
undevelop
, back through to the opening scene, to the opening credits, and, finally, back through that
to the director in his—uh, her—chair, through the set, outside the set, zooming through the tunnel of the unconscious, and ending with the writer putting down his pen.”

Q:
 
Wow.

A:
 
But that didn't pan out, so to speak. I rewrote that.

Q:
 
You are a writer, correct? You also wrote the movie.

A:
 
Yes, I wrote it.

Q:
 
So, naturally, you are a word person.

A:
 
Unnaturally, perhaps. (She laughs.)

Q:
 
Tell us the storyline.

A:
 
Oh, a recounting of the storyline only bores. I'll leave it to the trailer people to capture it.

Q:
 
Rumors have it that the film is all about sex. That its sex scenes will surpass all previous sex scenes. This is hyperbole, I imagine.

A:
 
I sense a question in there. The sex in
Memphis Movie
? It's real, not in the sense that the actors engaged in actual intercourse on film, but in the sense that it is true.

Q:
 
And there is a lot of it?

A:
 
I don't know what a lot is. Listen. It is all about sex, filmmaking I mean. Hollywood breathes in sex and exhales sex. Every scene in every damn movie is about sex, about seduction, about man wanting woman and woman wanting man or man to man, woman to woman. Every scene. You get me?
E. T.
Watch it closely, it's about sex, desire.
Raiders of the Lost Ark, Romancing the Stone
. What are they in actual fact looking for? The old in-out. Consummation.
Bambi
.
Godzilla
. Sex is all Hollywood knows. Or, what's the biggest damn movie of the past decade,
Titanic
. Jesus, sex sex sex.
Ram that iceberg!
Hell, it may be an accurate representation of the world. Maybe sex is the only question and the only answer. In Hollywood everyone sits around watching themselves. You see?