The Conversations (New Directions Paperbook) Read Free Page B

from modern civilization, a kind of noble savage, who suddenly sees himself involved in a sinister plot . . . Anyway, something more or less predictable, with just enough originality to justify making the movie, but not too much to scare off the audience. And it behooved him to take the role because it would give him opportunities to shine, as well as a temporary reprieve from the string of urban, yuppie, fashion-
police roles that he’d been playing for the last few years. In short: a renewal of his image, replete with the shaggy beard he would let grow, long hair, troglodyte garb; and his agent didn’t need to tell him, because he knew it all too well, that he would look fabulous in all of it, that his shaggy beard would be groomed by a hairdresser to the stars, and his rawhide garments would be fashioned by the best designer available.
    The actor was able to ascertain the potential for all these benefits a few days later when he read the screenplay they sent him. He read it in the enormous living room of his house, reclining in an armchair, with a large Portuguese water dog sleeping on the rug at his feet, in that light sleep animals enjoy: each time a page turned, there was just enough noise to make the ears of his loyal Bob twitch. I could picture the scene perfectly when I was describing it to my friend, and much better when I relived the conversation at night — so much better, that I no longer heard the words: I just saw what they evoked.
    That screenplay, I continued, was “fictional,” which meant that it told a story that had never taken place. It hadn’t taken place in reality, the proof of which was that at the moment it was being written, it could still have turned out to be something else: the story of a failed marriage, a robbery, an invasion
of extraterrestrials, the life of the pope, or the inventor of the microwave oven. But, no: out of the almost infinite combinations of possible situations, the one that had come into being was that of a goatherd . . . And we already knew the rest. This was the plot of the movie that was made. The production team traveled to Ukraine to find the right locations, and when everything was just about ready to be filmed, there went our heartthrob — in the meantime he had had time to let his hair and beard grow and to conscientiously study his role.
    It’s not that they couldn’t have filmed it in a studio in Los Angeles. Everything can be reproduced on a set with the right staging and a few editing tricks. If they wanted the real mountains, all they had to do was send a cameraman there and then insert those takes where they belonged. But the decision to film on location was the result of the producers’ well-reasoned policy, which took into account several concurrent factors, the first being financial, for the cost of living in Ukraine was exponentially less than in the United States, and the salaries of the people they’d hire in situ would allow them to significantly reduce their budget; moreover, the Ukrainian authorities showed interest in the project, which fit in with their own policy of attracting strategic investments; with the Ministry of Culture’s cooperation, they would be allowed to shoot interior spaces normally off limits to the public, thereby exhibiting to the world the country’s unknown artistic and architectural riches; finally, there was the famous quality of light in the mountains, which would give the film its own, unique atmosphere, which could not be reproduced by artificial means.
    In any case, there went the actor. Needless to say, he did not go alone; he took his secretary, bodyguards, assistants, a coach, and a personal trainer. Nor did he pack his own bags, also needless to say, for that’s what he paid his servants to do, but he did choose certain objects or items of clothing that he wanted to take with him. One of those objects was the watch. He opened his dresser drawer where he kept watches and jewelry, quickly thought out what he