Nottingham. The walled city, 1193, reign of King Richard, captured in Austria, held for the biggest ransom in history. His brother John collects taxes, but doesn't intend to pay the ransom. Let Richard rot in prison, declare him dead, ascend to the throne.
Dean Martin, "Why Did Janie Blow My Best Friend Joe?" featured in the 1959 film, Mendacious Twins
(Jumeaux mensongers) a peculiar film directed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jerry Lewis. Martin plays Ken Martin, a movie star, acting in a Robin Hood Technicolor musical, costarring Glynis Johns. Martin boozes, gives dating advice to President Eisenhower (Frederic March). Nuclear war is averted by a song, "Make love, Not Radioactivity." Jerry Lewis plays a thief with the rim of a broken Assyrian pot around his neck for half of the film.
Godard's early experimenting with jump cuts infuriates Dean Martin. He approaches Godard at the premiere, drink in hand, cigarette hanging from his lip.
"Frenchie! I'm calling you out!"
Godard's quiet speaking voice doesn't cut through the well-dressed throng's babble.
Dean comes near, sways: "You've got a lot of nerve trying out your Pablo Picasso weirdness on my movie!"
"Fuck you, I'm the co-director, and I cleared the jump cuts technique with Jerry Lewis."
"That little weasel!"
Martin goes off in search of Jerry.
Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray directed Dean Martin next, in 1960's Strum My Sitar, Please. Dean plays Raji Martin, his skin browned to resemble an Indian. He talks like an Indian, it's hilarious. Marilyn Monroe as Kali Monroe covered with jet black makeup, blood red lips, blood red rouge on her exposed areoles and nipples, her pubic hair is golden and a gold streak goes through her black hair. She sings and dances, has a pet cobra, sleeps in a gold-framed bed, sound of songbirds when she's on screen. Dean never makes it with her.
Gore Vidal's Kalki, never read it, nor have I read Burr. I read a book he wrote about his correspondence with Timothy McVeigh, the accused Oklahoma City bomber of April 19, 1995. Vidal ended up having doubts about the official version. McVeigh struck him as an intelligent man, and if he was involved up to his ears in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, it was also a complex story, pointing to possible Federal involvement for the purpose of justifying domestic terror legislation, signed by Bill Clinton into law in 1996, paving the way for the civil rights violations of the Patriot Act of 2001.
Vidal, I remember, was in Fellini Roma, a semi-documentary. The author in his scene does the raconteur thing, like Orson Welles. The experienced filmmaker or writer sits back, nine people around him, women in evening gowns, gloves, smoking cigarettes, Welles with a cigar, he just spent two weeks in the Dominican Republic filming scenes for his radical interpretation of Treasure Island. He mostly shoots the film in a string of studios on five continents, 1953 to 1971, never finishes it. Errol Flynn is Long John Silver. Gore Vidal narrates the final assembled product from 1987. The ending never having been shot, the movie ends abruptly, the boy looking out to sea, still on the island.
Welles in Bucharest, 1981. "The theme of remaining on the island, staying with Earth. Earth is the island because you have earth underneath your feet, surrounded by another classical element, water, under sky, classical element air, sun burning your cheeks brown, classical element fire. Island man, Robinson Crusoe, oh have I considered that novel as a film, yes. But Buñuel's version can't be topped for its artistry. I'll let it be. However, I may attack Pamela. Richardson's novel of 1740. Letters. How to make that cinematic? Ignore them entirely. There is no postal service in my Pamela. Widescreen, color, perfect costumes, historically researched and accurate, what are their toilet habits? Explore that, why not? It's 1981. I think we can watch an actress in 18th century garb pee. I know I'm ready for it. Another property I'd like to develop is Bus Stop, a remake of the Monroe version, get some bodacious blonde babe to play Cherie, and a dumb cowboy type to play the Don Murray role. Hell, we could have Don Murray play Arthur O'Connell's part, couldn't we? And what about some sex scenes and nudity. Full frontal with the Marilyn actress. Who can we get for that? Deneuve? Moreau? Streep? Claudia Jennings would've been perfect, but alas, she's dead. What's that? Kathleen Turner? Yes, I think that might work. But I also want to make a film depicting trench warfare, get into the slime of it, the filth, the guts and eyeballs shot out, the shelling, the epic nightmare of perpetual death in the mud, in bloody pools--are we enjoying our dinner? Mr. Ceaucescu offered to pay for our meal, isn't that nice? Kathleen Turner, yes, Man With Two Brains, she was good in that, dynamic, sexy. Steve Martin since The Jerk has branched out. I look forward to more of his film work.
Gore Vidal in Rome in 1971 or 1970. Fellini is hard to follow, a whirlwind of energy, looking here, looking there, adjusting a hair on a wig and then looking through the camera and correcting something with his cinematographer. Vidal approaches the master.
"Signor Fellini. Shall I give my talk on fear of the number thirteen?"
"Eh? Mister Vidal, simply talk, you know how to talk. You're so good at what you do, please take your place and start talking."
Vidal sits with four people, two of them countesses, one of them a male model, the other a French female university student visiting friends in Rome. Fellini's camera swings around twice, catching a few words coming from Vidal. He ended up speaking about unexpected situations and how to react to them. His audience didn't know know what he was saying or wasn't paying attention.
Vidal, to Fellini's surprise, isn't pleased with his Fellini film experience.
"Now you've worked on a Fellini film, what's the problem?"
"Such a brief time in the film."
"You're not in the film yet. I have to edit you into the film for you to be in the film."
"You're going to edit me into the film, are you not?"
"Sure, probably, it looked good what I shot when I got to your table."
"All of this waiting around, it's twenty minutes to twelve, I've lost an evening of writing. I'm working on a short book about Keats."
"You must send me an autographed copy. Now, I have a film to make. Thank you for your participation."
Gore Vidal never wrote his Keats book. Keats lived in Rome by a set of steps. He died young. He wrote about a Greek urn. Shelley wrote a great poem inspired by Keats's death, Adonais.
Did I misspeak? Around the urn words in Greek script, key at urn's bottom, key to &Y*gh0.
What Keats meant by that remains a mystery. Ampersand Y Asterisk gh-zero. It's my responsibility to make something of that mystery. To resolve it. The knocking in the wall was Grandpa Charlie's corpse. The horse had brown paint over his distinctive nose pattern. Yes, Doyle is a different writer. If his Holmes mysteries had never been resolved, where Holmes is thwarted every time, would he stay in the game? Ill luck, Watson, next time, I envision with the help of my cocaine, a better result.
No, I don't write those kinds of mysteries. My type of mystery is one where the mystery is never solved, because the mystery is not the main point of the story. The main point of the story is the characters, their interactions, how they propel the story; they are the plot. Gore Vidal here is my character, as is John Keats. I know nothing substantial about these men. I know what Gore Vidal sounds like, I don't know what John Keats sounded like, I can't even picture him. I can picture Gore Vidal, Vidal in Fellini Roma, a movie beginning with a shot on top of a bus entering Roma. Circus that is a Fellini set coming to town.
Gore Vidal trips watching and listening to the Velvet Underground. Lou Reed with dark glasses, guitar howling. Lights. Oh this fractures my consciousness. Pretty lures all about me in the blue brine. Don't grab that hook, keep mouth shut, if speak, you will say stupid things and people think you're fucked up. I am fucked up. Shut up! You're fine! Shift position, move casually to the stage, endure the noise blast. Holy shit this is loud! Lou, your guitar is a shrieking thing! Back off, Commando, I know a trick or two!
Gore Vidal wasn't aware he was dancing, making karate chop moves, eyes half closed, starting to drool. Lou Reed signals to two venue security men. They escort Gore Vidal off the floor to a chair in a corridor off the concert hall. He can still hear the music, but he sees gray wall and the backs of two security men.
Nothing saying he can't just leave. He lifts himself quietly from his chair and creeps away, turns a corner and walks at a good clip to the exit, enters cold Manhattan night air, ten minutes to eleven. He checks to see if he has money. Memory not good. He hails a taxi, tells him to go to his apartment building, he remembers that at least. Gore gives the man a fine tip, keys himself into his building, trudges up a flight of stairs. The entire second floor is his, a sprawling space, polished light-colored wood floors, his office a dark cave, small, a desk, manual typewriter, paper, envelopes, his library is in the biggest room, also serving as the living room. Gore makes himself a drink, something he hopes will steady his nerves. He sits on his white couch, reflecting on the night, how the CIA man must've put the LSD mickey in Gore's drink. Best thing to do, he thinks, is turn out the light, and trip with my eyes closed.
And that's how Myra Breckinridge came about.
Vic Neptune
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