Barbara Guest: Motion pictures

American Poetry Review, The, Jan/Feb 1997 by Guest, Barbara

Motion Pictures: 10

They were in Alexandria filming The Vanished Library. This film was assigned originally to Petaluma, but she was in Minneapolis making The Life of Hiawatha. She kept faxing suggestions to the new director who was already intimidated by her. In a re-run of the first reel of the film there was a curious rush of water "like the Mississippi," someone said.

The film was barely off the ground when the wardrobe head decided to redesign the costumes of Aristotle and Pliny. The film began to act as if it was haunted when the crew was forced to destroy the plywood copy of the Library which an historian told them was incorrect. And there were too many ships in the harbor. Another consultant from MIT recommended an Egyptian director.

They put in an emergency call for an historian from Princeton who happened to be on a dig in Turkey and this historian when he arrived on the set laughed brutishly. He told them the scholarly debate as not over the size of the library. It was whether the Iliad and the Odyssey had both been written by Homer; He reminded them that the library had been burned several times. What they were working with now was a false copy of the second burning of the library.

By this time the crew and the actors had decided Alexandria. resembled Los Angeles. Why didn't they take the picture back to the sound studio in Culver City where they could live at home comfortable and mosquitoless. Los Angeles had a burned library an Art Foundation that could supply them with drawings of historical costumes. The sea of Los Angeles was also poisoned like the waters of Alexandria. It as decided to move back home.

Petaluma had completed her work in Minneapolis and was reassigned to the film. It turned out that midway into Hiawatha she had converted to Social Realism. Despite groans from the accountancy department which had approved The Vanished Library as a "prestigious" property, she announced she was not going to make another ART FILM.

With her fabulous eye for detail, she now focused on the illiteracy of the populace. "Starving" extras now filled the streets, in rags the locals wept. The Stars weep also for the fragile gowns they cannot wear and the especially cut jewels are forbidden. The actors sigh for the silk and fur of their cloaks and the flagons of wine now missing.

Then begins the actual conflagration when the library like a mighty ship keels, its marble columns felled, the precious literature destroyed. Historical records burn. Petaluma jumps up and down tearing her hair clothes skin throwing volume after volume of books in the fire urging the extras to carry more books: MORE FIRE MORE FIRE BURN MORE books BOOKS BURN MORE BOOKS MOREBOOKS she is all over the set screaming and strangely laughing as one by one the books fall into the flames

MORE MORE FLAMES! MORE! BURN THEM! GET RID OF BOOKS!

Motion Pictures: 11

The film was about nuns shedding their "Habits," it was supposed to be a documentary with a close-up in the cloister of one nun walking in the new dress of a nun. "Something simple in cotton or wool with a cardigan and low shoes" were the orders given to the wardrobe department. The other nun was supposed to be wearing the discarded nun habit with rosary at the waist. Unfortunately the wardrobe department had packed away or sold the original habits and had not ordered any replacements.

The film was about to be cancelled when the director had the idea of taking his crew over to a convent and filming his picture there. At this point an argument began about where they would find a convent. A member of the crew told them the nuns lived on church grounds, or so he thought, and why didn't they move their equipment to a neighborhood Catholic Church.

Then an argument broke out about whether they should use the actresses who had already been chosen after much delay and search, or if the nuns in the Church that was yet to be located would permit themselves to be filmed. The nuns, of course, would add more authenticity to what was going to be a documentary and not a motion picture. At this point the actresses said they would sue the company, because their contracts were already signed. It was also mentioned that there might be a clause in the contracts of nuns that did not permit them to be filmed for commercial purposes.

"Commercial purposes" was familiar to the production department and after no more than an hour word came from the head office saying the department would be delighted to make a gift to the "church of choice" if one were selected as soon as possible as the production manager was already annoyed at the delay.

The director, who found himself idle during these conversations, retired to his van to read "The Counterfeiters" while he sipped his afternoon vodka with orange juice. His assistant climbed into the van and they began to discuss Andre Gide and how seldom in French letters did one find a writer who was a Protestant. The Director remarked it was quite a coincidence that he, the son of a Protestant minister, should be making a documentary about nuns.