Memphis Movie Read online

  MEMPHIS MOVIE

  COREY MESLER

  Copyright © Corey Mesler 2015

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mesler, Corey.

  Memphis movie: a novel / Corey Mesler.

  pages; cm

  1. Motion picture producers and directors—Tennessee—Memphis—Fiction. 2. Motion pictures—Tennessee—Memphis—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3613.E789M46 2015

  813’.6—dc23

  2014048925

  Cover art by Jeane Umbreit

  Interior design by Elyse Strongin, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.

  SOFT SKULL PRESS

  An imprint of COUNTERPOINT

  2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

  Berkeley, CA 94710

  www.counterpointpress.com

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  10987654321

  e-book ISBN 978-1-61902-626-1

  CONTENTS

  REEL ONE: ARRIVAL

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  REEL TWO: UNFAITHFULNESS

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  REEL THREE: THE GUN GOES OFF

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  EPILOGUE

  DELETED SCENES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  BOOKS BY COREY MESLER

  for Cheryl, Toby and Chloe

  and for Craig Brewer, Ira Sachs, and Linn Sitler

  and

  Willie, David, and Ed

  and

  BLACK LODGE VIDEO

  The events and characters in this photoplay are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  ERIC WARBERG FILMOGRAPHY

  Shlomo Stern, Boy Mystic (1981) (student film)

  The Hen Man (1983) (writer only)

  Situations Defined as Normal (1983) (Assistant Director)

  Strangers in Love (1985)

  Titanic Opera (1990) (not released)

  After You I Almost Disappeared (1994)

  Sunset Striptease (1995)

  When I See Beverly (1997)

  Dog Soup (1998)

  The “Hill” Trilogy:

  Huck and Hominy (1999)

  Cracker Hobgoblin (2000)

  Diddy-Wah-Diddy (2002)

  She and He in a Swivet (2003)

  Spondulicks (British title: What, Ducks?) (2005)

  Memphis Movie (working title) (2007 . . . in progress)

  CAST

  THE DIRECTOR: Eric Warberg

  THE WRITER: Sandy Shoars

  THE ACTORS: Dan Yumont, Hope Davis (as herself), Ike Bana, Suze Everingham, Deni Kohut, Kimberly Winks (a local), Sue (Lying Sue) Pine

  STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: Ricky Lime

  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Rica Sash

  A.D.: Reuben Wickring

  SET DECORATOR: Kay Tell

  LOCALS: Dudu Orr, Ray Verbely, Bandy Lyle Most, Mimsy Borogoves, Sean Meezen

  THE DRIVER: Hassle Cooley

  A LOCATION SCOUT: Jimbo Cole

  A MOVIE CRITIC: Luke Apenail

  A LOCAL WRITER: Camel Jeremy Eros

  A SPRITE: Lorax

  A BORDER COLLIE: Fido

  VARIOUS GHOSTS

  “You can’t banish the world by decree if it’s in you. Is that it, Joseph?”

  “How can you? You have gone to its schools and seen its movies, listened to its radios, read its magazines. What if you declare you are alienated, you say you reject the Hollywood dream, the soap opera, the cheap thriller? The very denial implicates you.”

  —SAUL BELLOW, from Dangling Man

  We live two lives—one with our eyes open and one with them closed. Eyes open are for perceiving the exterior universe. Eyes shut are for exploring the inner cosmos. I spend all day with my eyes shut bumping into people and things.

  —FEDERICO FELLINI

  It meant nothing that Hollywood was filled with great musicians, poets and philosophers. It was also filled with spiritualists, religious nuts and swindlers. It devoured everyone, and whoever was unable to save himself in time, would lose his identity, whether he thought so himself or not.

  —ERICH MARIA REMARQUE

  Are ghosts dreadful because they bring toward us from the future some component . . . of our own deaths? Are they partially defectively, our own dead selves, thrust back, in recoil from the mirrorface at the end, to haunt us?

  —THOMAS PYNCHON

  REEL ONE: ARRIVAL

  Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

  —Jean-Luc Godard

  1.

  Q:So you’ve come back to Memphis to make a movie.

  A:Yes. Is that it? Is that all you want to know?

  Q:Ha, no. Why Memphis? Why now?

  A:Well, Donald, I’ll tell you. Memphis is ground zero for me, that is, emotionally. It is, obviously, where I came from, but it is also where my heart goes when I am in need of solace, reparation, succor.

  Q:I see. Plus your last movie in Hollywood tanked.

  A:Yes. Yes, it did.

  Q:What happened? You were being hailed as the next—

  A:Don’t say it.

  Q:Tarantino.

  A:Shit. Yeah, I know. I got that, the next Tarantino. It’s like being the
next Dylan, you know? Like they called Springsteen that when he started. And, first, he had to live that down. First, he had to kill that spiritual father before he could become whatever it is he was to become.

  Q:Would you say you’re the Springsteen of movies?

  A:Huh. But, Tarantino, you know, at first I thought Tarantino wanted to be Robert Altman—now it’s clear he always wanted to be St. Spielberg. It’s the same gee-whiz, eternal-child, look-at-me, everything-is-nostalgic shtick. It makes one want to throw up one’s pabulum.

  Q:You had a falling out.

  A:No, no, I’ve never met the man. The whole Tarantino tag began and ended with movie critics. I think it was Premiere who first threw that one out there.

  Q:Would you say this has been a long gap between films, a longer than usual—

  A:You know, Donald, after 9/11 I found it very hard to work. Forget whether the world was waiting anxiously for another film from me. But 9/11 just blew me out of the water, creatively. I imagine other artists found themselves in similar straits—why create? The attack was the last artistic statement in a way. A negation statement. It made null future art. Or so I felt at the time. Then, someone said something to me that kicked me back into gear.

  Q:That if you don’t make this movie the terrorists have won?

  A:No. No, not that. That was tired the second time I heard it. If you don’t shop the terrorists have won. If you don’t buy this car the terrorists have won. If you don’t eat steak, if you don’t go to the laundromat—anyway—

  Q:So what was said to you?

  A:A friend of mine, a writer, who was working in Prague at the time, said, Eric, buck up, you little bastard.

  Q:That’s it.

  A:Well, I admit, as pith it lacks a certain elegance. Still, as a kick in the ass it was sufficient.

  Q:Ok. So, the last movie—

  A:You can call it by name. I’m not ashamed of it.

  Q:Spondulicks.

  A:A title only its progenitor could love.

  Q:What does it mean?

  A:Didn’t you read the crabby press? Money, it means money. A subject in Hollywood more taboo than incest or child molestation.

  Q:You think you opened some sores—

  A:Yes, that’s one way of putting it. Hollywood, even more so than Las Vegas, is a city built on greed, on making money. Say all you want about Dream Factories and such. The dollar rules. And, the irony is, that there is more money in Hollywood than in the mob’s secret stashes. Pocket money out there is measured in the thousands. Tens of thousands.

  Q:And your movie—

  A:Besides being disrespectful to the dream, it was disrespectful of the banks. Of the deep pockets.

  Q:Chris, in the movie, the character played by Peter Riegert, he seems a product of Hollywood rather than a man who dreams independently.

  A:Yes, I think so. Chris, with eye on the prize, thought that if he made one more movie, one more stab at contemporary angst, he would hit it big. He was seduced by the city, by the idea that a movie could both be provocative and profitable.

  Q:And his end is tragic, don’t you think?

  A:Tragic and inevitable.

  Q:Inevitably tragic.

  A:Right.

  Q:So how much of Chris is you?

  A:Ah, that question. I’d say about 26 percent.

  Q:Ha. So, it’s a question that bedevils you, one you have grown weary of.

  A:Well, a friend of mine sent me a T-shirt that read, I AM NOT CHRIS.

  Q:Uh-huh.

  A:So, yeah, you know. I am not Chris. But I am, too. I am that piece of the dream.

  Q:Do you see your end as tragic?

  A:Well, I hope I haven’t reached the end.

  Q:No, no, I meant, in Hollywood. Do you—

  A:Think I’m washed up in Hollywood? For today. You know it’s also a city where a comeback is pre-programmed and expected. They count you out only to wish you to rise again someday, renewed, reinvented, the Phoenix from the flameout.

  Q:Hm.

  A:You know, Donald. The thing is that most filmmakers have to do the Hollywood thing once or they don’t feel validated. But, really, the reality is that today, with digital, with co-ops, with every state offering film companies incentives to work there, it’s all so diverse, spread out, dispersed.

  Q:Do you see that as a healthy thing?

  A:Well, as an independent I have to. I would be a fool not to celebrate it.

  Q:Because it benefits you.

  A:Yes.

  Q:So, at the height of your Hollywood fame, you made . . .

  A:Titanic Opera.

  Q:Wha—I don’t have that in my notes. Titanic Opera?

  A:Well, it’s become a personal in-joke.

  Q:How so?

  A:Well, I made this film, this epic, three and a half hours. It was gonna be my—my—

  Q:Heaven’s Gate.

  A:

  Q:Sorry.

  A:My magnum opus. It was great, I mean really great. The cast was superb: Jon Voigt, Gene Hackman, Ellen Green, Halle Berry, Faith Glory, Blue Positive. And the photography—my God, Haskell Wexler, some of his best late work—and a sprawling, multigenerational tale, loosely based on Nabokov’s Ada, but set in the San Fernando Valley.

  Q:It sounds incredible. What happened to it?

  A:It disappeared. Poof. Cut down so small, bit by bit, both sides, studio and artistic, though I was left out and given no reason, snipping, snipping, so that eventually it was shown for the first and last time between features on IFC. About four and a half minutes, I think was the final run time.

  Q:Incredible.

  A:Yes, I think it’s some kind of record.

  Q:Hm.

  A:Yes.

  Q:Ok, so, the new film. Let’s talk about that.

  A:Of course.

  Q:What is its working title?

  A:Curiology.

  Q:What is that?

  A:It means picture writing. So, an obvious pun.

  Q:Do you think that will be the final title?

  A:No, I learned my lesson with Spondulicks. We have also discussed Potemkin Village.

  Q:Tell me why, what does that mean? An Eisenstein reference—

  A:It’s a city that appears as an impressive showy facade designed to mask undesirable facts.

  Q:A city with dark secrets.

  A:Yes, dark city secrets down its dark streets.

  Q:Is this another Hollywood metaphor?

  A:No, not this time.

  Q:Then—

  A:Well, running the risk of ruffling feathers, it’s Memphis that is the dark end of the street.

  Q:That’s Dan Penn, our homeboy.

  A:Of course.

  Q:So you think that title will stick?

  A:Don’t know. The working title is, simply, Memphis Movie. Sandy wanted it to be called S Is for Symbolism.

  Q:That’s Sandy Shoars, your wife and collaborator.

  A:We’re not married, but, yes. My collaborator and paramour. She has written every one of my movies.

  Q:And received an Independent Spirit Award for After You I Almost Disappeared.

  A:A nomination.

  Q:She didn’t win?

  A:No, that was the year Sleeping in a Box won everything.

  Q:Oh, right.

  A:Sandy’s new script, that is, for this movie set in Memphis, is the best thing she’s ever done.

  Q:That’s very exciting.

  A:Yes, it is. It is how we get the actors we want, the power of her words. Actors relish good scripts, as they should.

  Q:Hope Davis.

  A:Exactly. My first choice for all my movies, but this is the first time we’ll be working together. She’s the right stuff.

  Q:And lovely.

  A:Yes.

  Q:Elena Musick, Ike Bana, Suze Everingham. It’s quite a cast.

  A:Yes, we’re very lucky.

  Q:Trinka Dukes, Deni Kohut.

  A:Yes.

  Q:And this is the first time you’ll be working with Dan Yumont.

&
nbsp; A:Yes, it is.

  Q:His reputation precedes him. How do you think he’ll be to work with?

  A:I don’t anticipate any problems.

  Q:Yet, upon his arrival in Memphis for preliminary meetings he was arrested at the airport.

  A:A misunderstanding.

  Q:They found a box cutter and a roach clip in his pockets.

  A:He explained that.

  Q:Ok.

  A:Dan is a complex man, a thinking man’s actor. He is this generation’s De Niro.

  Q:Some papers have compared him to Sean Penn—

  A:Or this generation’s Sean Penn, an actor of the first water—

  Q:Sean Penn, of the Madonna era, I was going to say. The spitting at paparazzi, the antagonism with the press.

  A:The press . . . well, best I keep myself to myself. Let’s talk about the new movie—the soundtrack—

  Q:And the soundtrack, you—

  A:Will be all Stax.

  Q:Stax—whatever—the whole Stax canon?

  A:Yes.

  Q:One would have thought you’d come to Memphis and use Memphis music. Is it too predictable, do you think?

  A:One doesn’t use unpredictability just to be unpredictable. Maybe I’ll switch to a klezmer band, that suit you?

  Q:Ok.

  A:Donald, don’t print that. I’ll come off as an asshole. I love Memphis music. You know, my other films are peppered with it. Scott Bomar helped with Sunset Striptease. That’s his deconstructed version of “Eight Miles High” at the end. There’s the “Big Star” song in Cracker Hobgoblin. I used “Your Eyes May Shine” as the opening theme for Huck and Hominy. Uh, John Kilzer and Rob Jungklas in She and He in a Swivet. And in After You I Almost Disappeared that’s Reverend Al covering “Big Ass Truck.” How’s that for Memphis mojo?

  Q:I guess I didn’t realize—

  A:Right.

  Q:Hm.

  A:Amy LaVere.

  Q:What about her?

  A:I just wanted to say her name because I have a crush on her. Anyway. The music—

  Q:Memphis is there—

  A:In every film, yes. I have been, over the years, going home again and again. And now—

  Q:You’re literally here.

  A:Yes.

  Q:Let’s talk about the movie.

  A:Fair enough.

  Q:You said in a recent interview that you were coming back to Memphis to make your next film because its themes were Southern. What did you mean by that?

  A:Well, again, I don’t want to give too much away. But the story concerns a man who comes up against the racism in his own family and has to make a choice between the people he came from and what his future may possibly hold, which includes a beautiful woman from New York. That’s Hope Davis. She represents for him what he’s never had, what he’s dreamed of.