Flicker (41 page)

There was just one tantalizing loose end left over from my stay at the museum. Among its acquisitions, the archives had turned up an untitled thirty-five-millimeter reel of film that was credited to Castle, but contained nothing Arlene Fleischer or anybody else could connect with the man. The first time I viewed it I also drew a blank. It seemed to be a crudely spliced miscellany of overexposed film with no sound track. Obvious waste. Why had it been saved at all?

It wasn't until I'd run the reel a second time and very nearly peered
a hole through the screen that I spotted something familiar. The image was quite dim: a woman's head turning slowly this way and that, striking various angles as if this might be a makeup check. The camera came in closer, masking out most of her face, leaving only the eyes—but these I recognized. They were the two marvelously melancholy eyes of Sylvia Sidney. Zip Lipsky's words came back to me: “Who's got the best eyes next after Garbo?” I recalled what he'd told me about a session he and Castle had once arranged with the actress as part of one of Castle's abortive independent productions. They'd been after her eyes, just her eyes. And here they were, serving as part of some nearly imperceptible montage that involved a long line of marching people, a hooded figure at their head leading them across a vast, featureless plain. The film went blank for several seconds; when it returned, it seemed that the people (they now looked like children) were being gunned down by the masked figure in some terrible slaughter. All the while, Sylvia Sidney's disembodied eyes floated above the scene, watching in mute angelic sorrow.

I had no idea what to make of this grim scene; I couldn't connect it with any of Castle's films. I was ready to write it off as a dead end until I looked to see where this odd scrap of film came from. The museum's files listed the acquisition as a gift from a private collector. Her name was Olga Tell. And there was an address in Amsterdam.

I got off a letter at once, asking for whatever Olga might have to tell me about the material the museum had purchased, and about Max Castle in general. Several weeks later, after I'd returned to California, I received a warm reply written in a gorgeous flowing script: purple ink on scented beige stationery. Olga began with an apology. She knew that the reel of film she'd donated to the museum was largely worthless. She'd been holding it all these years for its sentimental value. Then, the previous summer, she'd met Clarissa Swann at a film festival in Copenhagen. To her surprise, Miss Swann had commented on her performance in
Feast of the Undead
—one of her later and lesser roles—and had gone on to quiz her about her relationship with Castle. In the course of the conversation, Olga had mentioned some reels of unfinished film Castle once gave her. It was Clare who suggested that she donate the material to the museum. So she had—but not all of it.

There was another reel she owned; she described it as “an unfinished film.” This she'd kept because it included material of personal importance: her last movie work, performed as a favor for Max. She
wouldn't let the reel out of her possession, but if I ever came visiting, she'd be pleased to let me view it. I should, however, bear in mind (she warned) that this was one of Max's “serious efforts, nothing at all like the things you may be familiar with.”

I checked her story out with Clare, who reluctantly admitted that she'd also sat through the reel of waste footage I'd seen. “Not much of any value there,” I remarked. “I can see why Olga was willing to give it away.”

Clare agreed. “She's holding back.”

“Holding
what
back?”

“Heart of Darkness.
That's mainly what we talked about when we met. Or, rather, it's what I
tried
to talk about—without much luck. Some kind of block there. It'd be interesting to know what it is. I suspect more nastiness on Herr Castle's part. Anyway, she's got a piece of the movie. That much I found out. You should visit the lady, Jonny. She's quite a looker for her age. Hell, I wish I looked that good now. Turn on that boyish charm. Maybe she'll show you what she's got—cinematically speaking, that is.”

Had I the time and money just then, I would have been aboard the next plane to the Netherlands. As it turned out, that visit had to wait for another year. And when at last I made the trip, it was for nothing as inviting as a chance to meet Olga Tell.

Even after I'd translated the title, I couldn't understand what it meant. But I knew intuitively that the drab little journal I held in my hand was a bombshell.

In French, it read
Les Effets Psychologiques de I'Appareil Cinématographique de Base dans les Films de Max Castle: Une Analyse Neurosémiologique.
The closest I could come in English was “The Psychological Effects of Basic Cinematic Apparatus in the Films of
Max Castle: A Neurosemiological Analysis.” The article that followed ran to some forty densely packed pages in a French periodical called
Zoetrope.
It had arrived with a card that bore the message: “Looks as if you've been scooped, Jonny. Condolences, Clare.”

The card sent a small twinge of anxiety along my backbone; after I dipped into the article, I began to feel sick with panic. I
had
been scooped. Not only had the author preempted all the Max Castle moviemaking secrets I knew about, but he'd found
more.
That much I could tell from a cursory survey of the article. What was more alarming: after two more painstaking readings, I found myself totally unable to make sense of the ornate philosophical framework that surrounded these discoveries. It's one thing to lose your scholarly priority; another to be left feeling like a total boob, especially when the boobishness reveals an intellectual soft spot you've been trying your best to conceal for years.

I should explain that, although I'm fluent in French (thanks to Clare, one of her many intellectual gifts), there are realms of French film theory that speak a language all their own and even seem to delight in practicing a self-imposed ethnic isolationism. Thus far in my career, I'd studiously respected their exclusivity. That was the easy way out. Semiology, Structuralism, Deconstructionism … one simply waved at these in passing, observing that they were “all very French.” Even one's professors went along with that; it was the easy way out for them too. In my case, I felt licensed to dismiss these schools of thought because Clare dismissed them, insisting as a matter of principle that film criticism should stay in touch with the vocabulary of everyday life. In contrast, the currents of thought that had taken hold of French critics and film students swept them away into murky waters where aesthetics, Freudian psychology, and Marxist politics blended into choking ideological vapors.

The monograph I held in my hand was a prize example of the style. The author was one Victor Saint-Cyr, Professor of Cinematic Theory at L'Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques. It contained a great deal of highly technical material on the physiology of the eye, including a mathematical treatment of the visual fusion frequencies of the frog and the cat. There followed pages of abstruse calculations having to do with retinal refraction indices, light intensities, and aspect ratios. The paper abounded with graphs and tables. Whatever “Neurosemiology” was, it had nothing to do with the discussion of film as I'd learned it from Clare. This was more like a chilly laboratory
report. That much I could in good conscience have ignored as simply an alien academic exercise. But in presenting his obscure thesis, Saint-Cyr had taken Max Castle's subliminal filmmaking methods (my life's work, mind you!) as his case in point, and then dealt with them in a gallingly offhanded way, as if they were of only secondary interest to him, a minor part of some far larger study. At one point he even called them “cheap tricks” used purely for diversionary purposes to mislead superficial analysts—which meant, of course,
me.
What, then, lay beyond them? Saint-Cyr didn't say. This monograph, he explained, was no more than a preliminary treatise on Castle; his definitive analysis would appear in the near future.

For days afterward I was numb with despair. Finally, I swallowed my pride and put in a call to Clare. What could she tell me about Saint-Cyr? Her reply jolted me. She knew the man personally! “We met years ago at the Cinémathèque when he was a smarty-ass little twerp—which I'm sure he remains.” Since then their paths had crossed at a few film festivals, but they really weren't on speaking terms. She regarded him as a distinctly minor figure, hot worth prolonged attention. Yes, she'd picked up rumors that he was studying Castle, but she never realized how seriously. Some friends had first mentioned the fact several years back—about the time she and I met.

I remembered! The French couple at Moishe's Deli. That was the first time I'd heard Castle's name. “But why didn't you ever tell me about Saint-Cyr?”

“Why should I?”

“Because he and I … we're in the same special field. You might have guessed I'd want to know what he's doing. It could be important.”

“Oh, don't be so bloody scholarly. Nothing Victor's doing can be important. Just pretentious. Besides I never expected him to produce anything. He's not the type. He doesn't publish; he holds forth—hour after hour to adoring students who don't understand a word he's saying.
Nobody
understands what Victor's saying.
Victor
doesn't understand what Victor's saying. That's why it would have been a waste of time to bring him up. Believe me, there's more solid intellectual meat in one chapter of your dissertation than in everything Victor will ever write on Castle. Put together.”

But of course
my
dissertation was at least seven-eighths Clare's work. When is a compliment not a compliment? “Have you read his monograph?”

“Skimmed it. Which is all the time it's worth. You know I don't read academic bullshit like that.”

I envied Clare her easy contempt. I could hardly afford to be so cavalier. I was the one who had to show up at department meetings and sherry parties where colleagues—especially American versions of pushy young “smarty-ass twerps,” more and more of whom were spelunking in these dark Gallic caverns lately—might soon corner me to ask, “… and what do you think of Saint-Cyr's work on Castle?”

“Victor,” Clare went on, “is brilliant the way all French semiotic
poseurs
are brilliant. They're in the nature of
idiots-savants,
nutty little kids who can put funny big words together in more or less grammatical order. So who cares? They're not talking to anybody but themselves. Anyway, why don't you get in touch and find out what he knows? You won't understand him, but at least you can tell your colleagues—that's what you're worried about, isn't it?—that you've met Saint-Cyr and discussed his theories and blah-blah-blah. From there on, just fake it. Because, believe me, nobody you meet over here is going to know what Victor is talking about over there. Even in Paris they don't know. They just know how to fake it better than you.” She sensed my reluctance to approach Saint-Cyr. “Come on, Jonny,” she chided, “don't let the Frenchies shit you.
Courage, mon ami.”
Then, knowing it would prop up my sagging self-esteem, “Incidentally, he's lousy in bed. Tell him I said so.”

Using Clare's name by way of introduction, I fired off a letter and a copy of my retrospective brochure to Saint-Cyr care of his school. No answer. Weeks later, months later, still no answer to a second and a third letter. He might have been traveling, he might have been sick, he might have been dead. But my threatened ego wasn't allowing for any such benign possibilities. The man's unresponsiveness irked me, leaving me torn between embarrassment and anger. I imagined him gloating over my work, wondering “Who the hell is
this
to be bothering me with such an infantile effort?” On the other hand, who the hell was he to be snubbing me?

Very well, my foundation grant included money for travel. I would travel. I was long overdue to take up Castle's obscure European trail. Now was my chance. First to Paris to beard the intimidating Saint-Cyr in his den. Then (more enjoyably, I hoped) to Amsterdam to accept Olga Tell's long-deferred invitation. Finally, if it could be arranged, a visit to Zurich to meet the mysterious Orphans of the Storm face to face. There might even be time to scout out a few
collectors along the way who might be holding a Castle film or two.

My summer break arrived and I was off to France. Well warned by Clare, I approached my encounter with Saint-Cyr expecting a rough time. Hoping to make the trip something more than a trial by intellectual ordeal, I budgeted a week of purely frivolous Parisian sights, sounds, and flavors. If I'd allowed myself a year, not all the many beauties of the great city would have been enough to offset what followed. Even when one expects to be treated like dirt, it isn't easy to accept the experience. But I had only myself to blame; I went to a lot of trouble to be humiliated. It took me three pleading phone calls with Saint-Cyr to win the favor of a brief audience at a café where, I gathered, he regularly held court. In the course of each call, he tried to accelerate his French beyond my comprehension, but I stuck with him. Maybe that impressed him, or maybe my constant references to Clare made the difference. He finally relented and agreed to squeeze me into his busy schedule. Even so, he kept me waiting at the café for over an hour and arrived without apology.

Boning up for the meeting, I'd learned that Saint-Cyr was the center of an insurgent intellectual clique in the French film community, the latest hot item. Such currents of opinion come and go in France with a regular rhythm, each more audacious, and frequently more recondite, than the last. Even after as much reading as I could do on short notice, I had only the most miserably minimal idea of what Neurosemiology was: jargon surrounded by numbers was all I could make of it. Saint-Cyr brought an unusual background to his film studies; he'd been trained in medicine, mainly neurology. His scientized language showed that influence, along with the fascination for computer calculations. Three paragraphs into any piece of Neurosemiological literature and you were out of sight of anything that sounded remotely like a discussion of the movies. The stars were gone, the stories were gone. But there might be a lot of stuff on frogs. Or pigeons. Or monkeys. And how they saw things. Sometimes human beings were mentioned.