While we chatted about the movie, William glanced past me and noticed a framed photograph hanging on the kitchen wall. The picture is of me standing by a handsome, fit, mustachioed guy who has his arm around my shoulders. The guy is my firefighter brother, Marty, but William didn't know this. Much later, I found out William's thoughts: Ahhh, there's the boyfriend. And he looks like the Brawny paper towel guy.
Will you be able to come to the set? I asked. I suddenly wanted him around all the time. I was scared and he wasn't.
Do you mean I have the job?
Have the job? Of course you have the job. You're perfect and you get what I'm trying to do, you get it. Yes, yes, yes.
Great, but I have one weekend when I'll be away.
Oh?
Yeah, a college friend's wedding. He said this with a slightly disgusted sigh.
Sounds fun.
They're dropping like flies.
You're not into marriage?
Nope.
Now, on the page, this should have flagged: perfect for you. Instead, even me? fluttered through my brain like a trapped butterfly. I'd already handily slithered my way through two disastrous marriages and more boyfriends than anyone should be forced to add up to their therapist. My issues of commitment were not garden-variety. I could commit to living with a fellow and marrying him. My inability rested in a lack of commitment to the person. I liked the institution. Loved the concept. The homey, secure-ness of it, but I wanted the "husband" in the equation to stay in another room. This was my fifty of the fifty-fifty responsibility of failure in those relationships. After much angst, I needed exile to figure this out and went for it. I had to learn to drop my romance with marriage. Thus, no dating. My dating drought would be a self-imposed time-out. Certainly that's how I liked to think of it. I'd taken a necessary sabbatical and I learned this fact: I was better off single.
However, nobody asked. No one asked.
Dinner? Lunch? Coffee? Movie?
No. One. Asked.
This was a bruising truth. So much for self-discipline. But I could stomach the truth of this after steadfastly weeping through years of therapy and, once on the other side, I appreciated single life. A lot. William's dark view of marriage shouldn't have mattered to me one bit. But then why did I perk up in interest? Why did my gaze leave the papers on that dining table and rise to meet his? Why did I feel instantly threatened? I shouldn't have been bugged in the least at his opinions on marriage. I should have stuck to the tasks at hand, namely making the movie.
Never? I pursued.
Can't see that happening.
Even me? I thought again.
He disengaged our eye-lock and returned to the pages on the table. He doesn’t seem gay, I puzzled. I forced myself back to the work. The film. The fears.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 2)
William and I were two months into our romance when I started eyeing my Nikes in the corner. Confidence bubbled up when I remembered there was always the possibility of a run for the hills. I was good at this. I was fast and never regretted a single exit because what I was really good at was a life alone. I was better single than not. More productive, more at peace, and quite possibly saner.
We met when I was in the midst of a busy no-dating period of four years. He arrived on my doorstep to discuss his possible involvement as an editor on a short film I was directing and producing. After years of an acting career, I'd set my sights on a new goal: making movies. I was accepted into a women's directing program at the American Film Institute and faced the daunting tasks of raising cash and putting together a cast and crew willing to work for free.
When I opened my apartment door that July morning in 1998, I knew two things about William. One, that he'd worked on huge studio movies as an assistant editor, and two, that he loved my script and wanted to cut my movie. There is nothing a director wants to hear more than I love your script and I want to work on your movie. As far as I was concerned, he was the guy, he had the job, and we would work together.
I opened my apartment door to this male, Chinese-American version of myself. We both wore blue jeans and T-shirts. We were both small of stature and sporting very short dark hair. At five-foot-four inches, I was about an inch taller than him. We shook hands. He later told me his thoughts consisted of: She's pretty. She's a director. She should grow her hair.
I thought he was nice-looking but didn't pay a lot of attention to that because my focus was to seal the deal and get him onboard to cut my movie. He was the third editor I'd tried to rope in and I was getting desperate. I lost the previous candidates to paying jobs and was nervous about the entire enterprise of making a movie, even a short one.
I hustled William over to my dining table to show him shot lists. I had ideas I wanted to share with him. I wanted to talk about camera angles and insert shots. He leaned in close to read my scribbles and study my camera set-ups.
Mel, I've worked on a lot of movies, and only the best directors are prepared like this.
For a nervous, freshman filmmaker, these words were gold. I felt calm drape over me like a sheet of satin.
I think I could love this guy.
We met when I was in the midst of a busy no-dating period of four years. He arrived on my doorstep to discuss his possible involvement as an editor on a short film I was directing and producing. After years of an acting career, I'd set my sights on a new goal: making movies. I was accepted into a women's directing program at the American Film Institute and faced the daunting tasks of raising cash and putting together a cast and crew willing to work for free.
When I opened my apartment door that July morning in 1998, I knew two things about William. One, that he'd worked on huge studio movies as an assistant editor, and two, that he loved my script and wanted to cut my movie. There is nothing a director wants to hear more than I love your script and I want to work on your movie. As far as I was concerned, he was the guy, he had the job, and we would work together.
I opened my apartment door to this male, Chinese-American version of myself. We both wore blue jeans and T-shirts. We were both small of stature and sporting very short dark hair. At five-foot-four inches, I was about an inch taller than him. We shook hands. He later told me his thoughts consisted of: She's pretty. She's a director. She should grow her hair.
I thought he was nice-looking but didn't pay a lot of attention to that because my focus was to seal the deal and get him onboard to cut my movie. He was the third editor I'd tried to rope in and I was getting desperate. I lost the previous candidates to paying jobs and was nervous about the entire enterprise of making a movie, even a short one.
I hustled William over to my dining table to show him shot lists. I had ideas I wanted to share with him. I wanted to talk about camera angles and insert shots. He leaned in close to read my scribbles and study my camera set-ups.
Mel, I've worked on a lot of movies, and only the best directors are prepared like this.
For a nervous, freshman filmmaker, these words were gold. I felt calm drape over me like a sheet of satin.
I think I could love this guy.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 1)
Don’t you sabotage this....Don't do that.
William rested his hands on my shoulders. His dark brown eyes stared hard into my tear-filled ones.
The mind can wander off so quickly. I considered that word, sabotage, and my brain took a stroll to another time.
I once had a boss, a wicked young woman who took pleasure in humiliating her staff in front of clients. Specifically, she enjoyed singling me out. I was a struggling actress in New York City, teaching four aerobic classes a day in her exercise studio. One afternoon, I crawled out from under her microscopic glare at the end of a class and entered her tiny office for another ream-out scream-out for — I suppose — not teaching to her specifics or using music she didn't care for or — God knows what —
Are you trying to savotage me?
Savotage? Did she really say that?
I couldn't resist and whispered, I don't know what you mean.
Really?
She widened her baby blues and tossed her highlighted blond tresses with such an abrupt jerk I feared for her neck.
You're supposed to be some kind of great, educated actress and you don't know what savotage means?
For months I'd allowed myself to be terrorized publicly and privately by...an idiot. As I taught a room of jumping students, my boss cruised the outer edges, shouting out criticisms. And why do we keep our heels pressed down, Mel? Explain why, please!
This please was never used how please is supposed to be used.
Are you trying to savotage me? How was I to answer a superior who was so clearly stupid, but owned me because I needed the job?
The irony of her ignorance landed on me like a gift from heaven. I didn't run out the door that particular day because there were bills to pay, but I was no longer in her grip. Freed by the knowledge that she had so little of it, a few months later when I did quit, I bit my tongue, hard. I wanted to scream savotage, savotage into her pale, pinched face but held myself back.
Lo, many years later, I lifted my wet eyes to William's serene surety. Would I really savotage this gift? Would I be that stupid?
William rested his hands on my shoulders. His dark brown eyes stared hard into my tear-filled ones.
The mind can wander off so quickly. I considered that word, sabotage, and my brain took a stroll to another time.
I once had a boss, a wicked young woman who took pleasure in humiliating her staff in front of clients. Specifically, she enjoyed singling me out. I was a struggling actress in New York City, teaching four aerobic classes a day in her exercise studio. One afternoon, I crawled out from under her microscopic glare at the end of a class and entered her tiny office for another ream-out scream-out for — I suppose — not teaching to her specifics or using music she didn't care for or — God knows what —
Are you trying to savotage me?
Savotage? Did she really say that?
I couldn't resist and whispered, I don't know what you mean.
Really?
She widened her baby blues and tossed her highlighted blond tresses with such an abrupt jerk I feared for her neck.
You're supposed to be some kind of great, educated actress and you don't know what savotage means?
For months I'd allowed myself to be terrorized publicly and privately by...an idiot. As I taught a room of jumping students, my boss cruised the outer edges, shouting out criticisms. And why do we keep our heels pressed down, Mel? Explain why, please!
This please was never used how please is supposed to be used.
Are you trying to savotage me? How was I to answer a superior who was so clearly stupid, but owned me because I needed the job?
The irony of her ignorance landed on me like a gift from heaven. I didn't run out the door that particular day because there were bills to pay, but I was no longer in her grip. Freed by the knowledge that she had so little of it, a few months later when I did quit, I bit my tongue, hard. I wanted to scream savotage, savotage into her pale, pinched face but held myself back.
Lo, many years later, I lifted my wet eyes to William's serene surety. Would I really savotage this gift? Would I be that stupid?
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Prologue
EXT. LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - AUGUST, 2003
Worn and sorely in need of an upgrade, the airport belies its glamorous city. Exhausted travelers straggle out automated doors and blink in the smoggy, early morning sunshine.
Camera pans upward, as if escaping the airport’s dreariness, and follows an airbus in take-off.
Camera follows the plane as it crosses behind a street lamp. Camera holds and slowly pans down.
EXT. AIRPORT COURTHOUSE PARKING LOT - CONTINUOUS
A 1993 Nissan Altima parked on black pavement has its passenger door open. A gleaming high-rise courthouse with blue-green glass overlooks the car.
Heat rays shimmer off the pavement, and from the car's CD player we HEAR Stevie Wonder singing "Overjoyed."
Over time, I’ve been building my castle of love
Just for two, though you never knew you were my reason
I’ve gone much too far for you now to say
That I’ve got to throw my castle away
Spinning in a slow circle, a man and woman dance with foreheads pressed together.
WILLIAM, Asian American, dressed in khakis and a linen shirt, holds MEL, Caucasian, dressed in a sleeveless white cotton dress with mid-calf ruffles skirting buckskin cowboy boots.
MEL
I’m so glad you found me.
WILLIAM
I’m so glad you found me.
And though you don’t believe that they do, they do come true
For did my dreams come true when I looked at you
And maybe too if you would believe
You too might be overjoyed, over loved, over me
DIRECTOR (O.S.)
Get casting on the phone.
Worn and sorely in need of an upgrade, the airport belies its glamorous city. Exhausted travelers straggle out automated doors and blink in the smoggy, early morning sunshine.
Camera pans upward, as if escaping the airport’s dreariness, and follows an airbus in take-off.
Camera follows the plane as it crosses behind a street lamp. Camera holds and slowly pans down.
EXT. AIRPORT COURTHOUSE PARKING LOT - CONTINUOUS
A 1993 Nissan Altima parked on black pavement has its passenger door open. A gleaming high-rise courthouse with blue-green glass overlooks the car.
Heat rays shimmer off the pavement, and from the car's CD player we HEAR Stevie Wonder singing "Overjoyed."
Just for two, though you never knew you were my reason
I’ve gone much too far for you now to say
That I’ve got to throw my castle away
Spinning in a slow circle, a man and woman dance with foreheads pressed together.
WILLIAM, Asian American, dressed in khakis and a linen shirt, holds MEL, Caucasian, dressed in a sleeveless white cotton dress with mid-calf ruffles skirting buckskin cowboy boots.
I’m so glad you found me.
WILLIAM
I’m so glad you found me.
For did my dreams come true when I looked at you
And maybe too if you would believe
You too might be overjoyed, over loved, over me
DIRECTOR (O.S.)
Get casting on the phone.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Glossary
FRENCH | Merde | |
GERMAN | Scheiße | |
CZECH | Hovno | |
POLISH | Filmu | |
NEW YORK | Shit | |
ARABIC | Shyt | |
ITALIAN | Merda | |
SPANISH | Mierda | |
CHINESE | Gou pi |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)