89.
Vikar telephones Margie Ruth at the beach house. “Not here,” a male voice on the other end of the line says, “she’s gone to New York to make Brian’s movie. Who’s this?” and Vikar hangs up.
90.
Vikar has been working in production and set design at Paramount nearly a year, and is freelancing on a job at United Artists, when the art director of a Don Quixote musical comes to see him.
“I’ve been looking at some of your sketches,” the art director says in a heavily accented English that reminds Vikar of Soledad. He’s an Italian in his late forties with a background in opera. “You have mixed several elements in this set,” he points at the draft.
“Yes,” Vikar agrees.
“It …” The art director thinks. “It is an interesting effect but these elements do not go well. They are taken from different time periods.”
“Yes.”
91.
The art director looks at Vikar. “Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Yes,” Vikar says, pointing at the design, “this arch doesn’t go with the time period of the façade in back.”
“That’s it,” the other man nods, relieved.
“This arch is from twenty-three years later,” Vikar says.
The art director looks at the draft and back at Vikar. “Twenty-three years?”
“Yes.”
The two men look at each other. “But you see the problem, yes?” the art director finally asks.
“No.”
“You do not see the problem.”
“No.”
“You do not see the problem with the same building, uh,” he gropes for the language, “from different time periods.”
“No. This arch is from twenty-three years later, when the character of the prostitute Dulcinea will die here from consumption.”
“Excuse?” says the art director.
“The prostitute will die here of consumption in twenty-three years.”
Some panic seems to take hold of the art director. “There has been a change in the script?” He grabs a nearby telephone and dials. After a moment he says, “Elvira, it is Luciano. Have I received the, uh, last changes in the La Mancha script?”
“It’s not in the script,” says Vikar.
“Perhaps I should speak with Arthur,” Luciano says to Elvira on the other end of the phone.
“It’s not in the script,” Vikar repeats.
“Excuse,” Luciano says to Elvira, then to Vikar, “what?”
“I don’t believe it’s a very good movie,” Vikar says.
“Elvira, I will call you back.” Luciano hangs up the phone. “It is not in the script?”
“It’s twenty-three years after the script ends,” says Vikar, “she dies of consumption …” He taps the drawing. “… here.”
“Who says this?”
“Under this arch.”
“Who says she dies of consumption?”
“Every building has a back story and future story,” Vikar says. “Like an actor’s character.”
“This building is in the present.”
“The building is in all times. Every building is in all times and all times are in the building.”
92.
Dotty Langer says, “I hear you’re vexing them in set design over at UA.”
“I vex people,” Vikar acknowledges. “Have you ever heard of someone named Trane?”
They’re in an editing room on the Paramount lot. Dotty has about her a slightly boozy air, and a Jack Daniels bottle sits next to the moviola as before. “Is he in set design?” Dotty says. She opens a canister of film and begins spooling it through the moviola; she starts a cigarette. “Cut the light, will you?”
Vikar reaches over and turns out the light. In a moment, Montgomery Clift is on the small screen of the moviola, standing by the road trying to hitch a ride. Franz Waxman’s music rises up behind him over the moviola’s rattle.
93.
Montgomery Clift comes to town, the poor relation of a rich family that finds him a job at the local factory, where he meets and sleeps with Shelley Winters despite stern orders not to fraternize with the other workers. At a party he sees Elizabeth Taylor, the most beautiful of the local rich girls.
After twenty minutes, Dotty finally speaks. “Now watch this here,” she says. In the scene, Taylor and Clift dance. “Do you know what an editor does on a picture?” she turns to Vikar.
“Puts the scenes in order because they’ve been shot out of order.”
“That’s the first thing,” says Dotty. She stops the camera, Taylor and Clift mid-dance. “The editor also chooses which shot to use. In this scene here,” she waves her cigarette at Taylor and Clift, “something is happening that hasn’t happened in this picture until now.”
Vikar stares at the image. “A close-up,” he says.
“Very good.”
“I had to think about it awhile.”
She says, “It’s not something most people are aware of no matter how long they think about it — when the camera is close and when it’s far away. Those are the kinds of choices an editor makes.”
“Doesn’t the director make them?”
“It depends on the director. Most directors in pictures, up until the last ten or fifteen years, started off as writers or in the theater, so they concentrated on the actors and story. Your Mr. Preminger started in theater, Lubitsch and Welles started in theater. Sturges and Wilder started as writers — they really became directors just so they could protect their scripts from idiots. But Hitchcock was an art director early on, so he knew what he wanted his pictures to look like, and Von Sternberg and David Lean were, guess what, editors, so the same thing. Kubrick was a magazine photographer. Mr. Stevens started as a photographer too — though his parents were actors — then he was a cinematographer. He shot a lot of early Laurel and Hardy, of all things. You see what’s unusual here?”
“They’re dancing and we’re not seeing their bodies.”
“I’m impressed. The audience may not know it, but this picture’s been keeping them at arm’s length all this time. Monty has even slept with Shelley Winters from a distance. But as soon as Monty and Liz lay eyes on each other, the camera is pulling at the leash, it wants to get close. And now they’re dancing and we’re going crazy with the liquid dissolves, one image dissolving into the next. We’re getting tighter and tighter on their faces. No picture ever used close-ups like this one.”
“The first movie I saw in Los Angeles was a silent movie that’s all close-ups. An actress named Falconetti played Joan who’s burned at the stake.”
“O.K., smart guy,” she rolls her eyes, “no Hollywood picture.” She looks at him and says, “What happens next here?”
“Elizabeth Taylor stops and says they’re being watched.”
“And looks right at us when she says it. That’s how close we’ve gotten. The picture has crossed a line it hasn’t crossed before now — we’ve intruded. So Liz and Monty run out onto the terrace to get away from us. But they don’t get away from us, do they?”
Taylor and Clift are on the terrace in each other’s arms. In the background, all the other dancers and partygoers seem to fall away. The camera moves in so close on the lovers it can’t get all of their heads in the frame. “I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you,” Clift says. “I guess maybe I loved you before I saw you.”
“Tell mama,” Taylor says. “Tell mama all.” Dotty stops the film, freezing it on an image similar to the one on Vikar’s head. She stares at it and pours a glass of bourbon, takes a drink and says, “Jesus, is this the sexiest moment in the history of movies?”