Jean-Jacques begins his drinking orgy early in the morning. By noon he's soused to the gills. His tricks and buffoonery become insupportable by nightfall. One has to keep an eye out for him. One never knows when he's out to play some sort of trick on someone, and some of them can be cruel
The scenes in today's schedule were set in an upstairs bedroom of the mansion. For the work done in the morning the auxiliary cameramen had taken over and Jean-Jacques wasn't around . The sequence was 10 minutes long and there were several takes.
Complete silence reigned throughout the house. Bastid was directing the actors in the rendition of a transparently obscene tableau showing Anouk Ferjac having a nightmare followed by Daniel Ghelin administering comfort to her in bed.
"La Belle Au Bois Mourant" is being shot concurrently in French and English versions. The idea is that, even though the dialogue will be dubbed in later, the lip motions will be in sync. Therefore their English can be poorly spoken , but it must look like they're speaking the language - that's my responsibility. Besides translating Marten's dialogue for the eventual dubbing, I have to coach the actors in speaking their lines.
The scene itself was ludicrous. The following lines are representative of Michel's feeling for dialogue:
CLARA : I'm afraid - I'm afraid it's starting all over again - I saw ANN in the garden!
CHARLES : No - You've had a nightmare - You see the things you imagine - like ANN's handbag!
(Imagine an accompaniment of fulsome hugging, pawing and moaning.) In its heavily French-accented transmission it sounded something like this:
CLARA : Aihm ufRaid! Aihm ufRaid eet eez startYNG ALLoverzuhgen _ Aih zAW ANN in ze GARden!
CHARLES : No . Yoovh 'add uh naightMARE. Yoo Zee ze Zingz Hyoo HymAGEENE - H'laik H'ANN'z 'ANDbaG!
After 4 takes Bastid announced that he was satisfied. The morning's work was finished and we were all going out for lunch. As Shakmundes (one of the crew members and young film-maker) opened the door to the street we were all greeted by the glorious sight of the burly contours of Jean-Jacques naked ass displayed by him down on all fours! So! When Jean-Jacques isn't the center of attention one can be certain that he will be there as an afterthought.
Well, it may appear that a number of the personalities in our cozy group aren't too pleasant. Others aren't necessarily born to please us: the world is filled with so many people, all trying to live!
Yet it's fascinating to watch the making of a film. It's almost entirely engineering. For this film the artistic materials are shoddy. There's been a bit of a conflict abou the reasons for making it. One has the general impression that Lange, Bastid and Martens are deliberately aiming at the production of a crass product to make the money to invest in a serious effort. But then again one will hear Jean-Pierre talking about his artistic innovations as if they were an advance over Jean-Luc Godard. He will evoke a serious, sometimes depressingly serious, subtext to justify the apparent superficiality of the action. Lange rebukes Jean-Pierre for what he calls slip-shod artistry, while every word that Martens puts to paper is steeped in tributes to Herman Melville, Shakespeare, Moliere, Hitchcock, Edgar Allen Poe.......
NOTE: In 1988 I got together with Jean-Pierre for a number of friendly visits to his studio and house. He'd developed into a translator and fiction writer of real talent. One of his best books is "Mechoui Massacre" (Barbecue Massacre) which fulfilled his dream to write about the people of the Auvergne in their own patois. I have not seen his recent films but imagine that their basic level has risen in step with his advances in other areas.
I lost track of Michel Martens after 1972.
Henri Lange has made some good films, although my impression when we had lunch together in 1988 is that he's still drawn to sub-standard fare that he hopes will produce the bucks to produce films of real substance. I hope he's right.
My experience with him in the 60's is that he's far from being a financial genius: a succession of checks bouncing 3 times in a row was enough to confirm that impression. Other members of the crew, staff and cast were all too eager to characterize him as a crook, but I think that was unfair. He was just a lousy businessman. Being myself the offspring of an academic family I well understand how the traits of practicality are almost impossible to acquire in adulthood. Everyone got paid, but it might take a year or more before one saw the money.In 1972 Henri put up the money for my "carte de sejour" and "carte du travail" without a moment's hesitation.
The actors however are not fooled. They treat the script with unfailing disrespect. They scan their lines half an hour before going onto the set. They devote most of their attention to the profile they cast in front of the camera. There's very little acting per se, since the roles are all stereotypes: the "manly Hemingway type", the "old doctor", the "seducer", the "other woman", the "psychotic killer", etc.
The script itself is infantile, One suspects that the scenarist, Michel Martens, who is decidedly more intelligent than the garbage he is turning out, has deliberately set his sights as low as possible based on a cynical, yet perhaps accurate, opinion of the market. Of course some planning and blocking does occur for each scene, but it appears quite rudimentary. No one cares if the way the chessboard is arranged has nothing to do with chess, if the wineglass is dirty even if the wine bottle is full, if the cuts in the script make a particular situation incomprehensible. The power of the image is expected to carry the day. Given the mental laziness of contemporary film audiences, they may be right.
Yet .... there is the engineering. Ah; that's another story. At this level one makes the discovery that there are indeed some genuine artists at work here: the sound men, camera men, the makeup artists. This is not to deny the talents of people like Jean-Pierre Bastid and Anouk Ferjac, just that their efforts are directed towards the creation of a base product. The technicians are privileged to avoid all moral or cultural involvement with its content!
Thursday, August 15
The moment has come to speak of the star of "Belle Au Bois", the idol of screen and stage, the monument to infatuation in the hearts of millions of French teenagers and daydreaming housewives: Daniel Ghelin.
Ghelin, a handsome man in his 50's, with greying curls and wrinkling skin, arrived on the set last Sunday afternoon. His entrance into the mansion was obstructed by herds of autograph seekers. By now he's given his autograph to all the children in the village. At least once a day inmates from La Colonie Familiale come to ask him for his autograph. On the set he is respected as an actor, though there are no illusions about him as a person.
One is immediately struck by his over-weaning vanity. He's friendly enough and can be kind. Yet under the cloak of ribaldry and good humor there crouches a conceited boorishness that can turn malicious. No doubt he's soft as jelly within and one shouldn't imagine that there is any venom in his unrelenting ridicule of everything and everyone. At least he treats us all with the same measure of disrespect.
That said and done, it must be conceded that he isn't a terribly intelligent man. His jokes, ( and he is always joking, even when on the set in the middle of a take) , are low, vulgar and slapstick. He has made no effort whatsoever to learn his lines. Certainly he can't be bothered with the indignity of memorizing the English-language script I've prepared for him! I doubt that he puts aside 5 minutes a day for rehearsing.
His rationale, and he's probably right, is that Maya Films is paying for the name "Ghelin", and that this will be the principal sellling point of the film to the general public. His studied insolence is intended to drive home the point that Maya Films is working for him and not the other way around.
Briefly stated, he's been horribly spoiled. I would go so far as to say that as a human being he's been more or less ruined. He's become a certain kind of prima donna, essentially a gifted actor of a genuine artistic sensibility, not without cultivation despite his air of boorishness, who exploits his status as prime cut of marketable glamor meat for all that it's worth. His self-love is but the thinnest of veneers over his self-loathing, which he drowns in a dedicated alcoholism that is so much a part of his personality that one could not imagine him otherwise.
Before he showed up a sex-obsessed , virtually mute, pathologically devoted groupie in her late teens was in the wings waiting for him. Jacqueline is pretty, about 18, with short straight brown hair, large Keene baby eyeballs, dressed in a blue khaki shorts and a blouse that was always half-opened. She'd somehow learned the location of our production, and the fact that Daniel Ghelin was to be its star. A few days before his arrival she hitch-hiked here from Paris.
Jacqueline has been accepted from the start as a legitimate part of the production, though having no role in it beyond the supplying of creature comforts to its principal attraction. In the interim she wandered about the mansion or sat around bored, wishing perhaps that - faut de mieux - one of the crew men would take her under the sheets.
10 minutes after his arrival Daniel Ghelin was screwing her in the filthy watercloset of Roger's restaurant. As he put it, much to the salacious amusement of cast and crew, it was the quickest fuck in his 25 years in the trade. A little too quick as it turned out: within an hour Jacqueline had suffered a hysterical seizure. An ambulance arrived, she was given an injection and taken to the hospital. The next dat she was back, none the worse for wear.
From that moment on Jacqueline and Ghelin might be found at any time screwing in every watercloset and back alley in Ainay-le-Chateau. They go at it relentlessly, and are the scandal of the village. Their activities extend even to the actors' dressing-rooms. Perhaps this is just another means by which Ghelin can assert his arrogant contempt, not only for the production but for so-called civilization as well. As he's almost always drunk, perhaps he just doesn't know what he's doing( let alone why he's doing it.)
If the call goes out for Daniel Ghelin to be on the set and he does not respond right away, there's an excellent chance that he can be found somewhere in downtown Ainay floundering inside Jacqueline's body. Not a single person involved with the production, (save perhaps Henri Lange who only comes down from Paris every few days to check up on us) ,is upset or angry by his flagrant irresponsibility. It has become incorporated into the general atmosphere of farce surrounding the making of "Belle Au Bois": Ghelin fucking when he's supposed to be acting is so comic that not even the technical crews, who customarily grumble about everything no matter how trivial, who sometimes have to wait an hour or more while people are dispatched to find Ghelin and ( leaving poor Jacqueline panting and on the verge of another crisis) drag him almost literally by the scruff of the neck to location, articulate any complaints.
Jacqueline wants Ghelin to love her, but when he's finished with her he just wants to forget her. She never opens her mouth except to whine somewhat peevishly. Her smile is as large as a slice of watermelon, ( an apt description as well of the dimensions of her rear quarters), a sad adolescent with piercing brown star-struck eyes and a slavish devotion to her lover. For his part, Ghelin appears to tolerate her without any display of real affection. When he feels the urge, which can happen at any time of the day or night, he takes it out on Jacqueline; as she tags alongside him all over the set, she is always conveniently available for that purpose. One should not imagine that Ghelin would ever deliberately hurt her feelings. He doesn't order her to go away or leave him alone; and once in awhile he flashes his chromium dentures in her direction.
Friday, August 16th
Ghelin's contempt for the script is outspoken. He ridicules it on all opportune occasions, particularly in the presence of the script-writer, Michel Martens. It should be stated right away that as a writer Martens, though both intelligent and personable, can best be described as a dedicated hack. He has a shrewd knowledge of the market, which he totally confuses with literary worth. He really would like to be taken seriously as a writer. Let's hope he suceeds.
Every character and setting of "Belle au Bois" is supported by some parallel scene in the canon of great literature. The police inspector is modeled after Porfiry in "Crime and Punishment". The priest is, (as he will be the first to tell you), speaks phrases directly out of the works of Georges Bernanos and Léon Bloy. It is explicitely indicated in the filmscript that the first encounter of "George" and "Clara" is modelled on the first encounter in André Breton's "Nadja".
The other night he decided that his story, despite its other virtues, lacked a certain depth. He locked himself in his room (Martens, Bastid and Ghelin are staying in Golub's hotel. ). This morning he showed up with 7 new pages of typescript : a "dinner scene" involving all 5 major characters. The dinner conversation is designed to emanate subtle insights into the mysteries of their souls. This conversation dribbles out as halting phrases with little inner connection, but with subtle "innuendos" the size of a lumberjack's spiked boots.
Charles (Daniel Ghelin), the host, is seated with his mistress Clara ( Anouk Ferjac) , his brother Alfred (Jean-Claude Bercq) , a friend of the family( Georgs Beller) , and the country doctor (Chauffard) .
Attempting a pleasantry Alfred comments:
" Isn't it a shame Ann, ( Charles' wife) isn't here? She loves company." .This is a not-too-subtle reference to the fact that Ann, wife to Charles and enemy to Clara, isn't there.Charles replies:
" Have you decided to live here forever?" - A thinly veiled hint to Alfred that his presence is no longer welcome. Alfred makes another "subtle" dig about Ann, at which point Charles says, with withering malice:
"Ann! Ann! Always Ann! Carefree! Footloose! Just like you!"
Well, let's concede that Michel is not yet a writer. Not all of us are writers, just as we are not all surgeons or painters. Let's also concede that he does have a talent of a certain kind: most writers would not, or could not, write a script like "Belle Au Bois Mourant" - which will play in a million motion picture houses all over the world and make us all rich before the year is out.
Sunday, August 18th
This morning Daniel Ghelin was up early, eager to hold court on the stairwell of the mansion. He told us that he was going to show us the real interpretation of the text Martens had just given him. His audience included members of the cast and staff, (all of whom had had their fill of this production) ; several technicians ( who to a man consider themselves underpaid and, even by the terms of their lousy contract overworked), Jacqueline and myself. Ghelin was in what the French term, "bonne forme":
"Mes amis: cette script est Ridicule ! Deguellasse ! "
(For the sake of my readers, I transliterate into the heavily accented French Ghelin might use if he might speak English): "Clara, zhe walks onto zee balkon - Zhe iz in zee greepz uv uhn Angoisse Insupportable!!" As he says these words Ghelin set into motion theatrical tremors in all his limbs.
"Maybee .. he means zhis!! " Ghelin grabs his crotch and makes a series of gestures to indicate that he's scratching his balls ( Gales of laughter ):
"Sooddanly zhe stiffenz " Ghelin's freezes his body into the stance of a horrified gorilla: " Zhe is elec'treefied by oon crisp-a-tion tetanique! " , Ghelin rolls around on the steps grabbing his stomach. Everyone cracks up: "Crisp-a-tion tetanique!"
A tetanus fit! One can well imagine Clara, staring at the moon and trembling with anxiety, suddenly locking her jaws, giving her the aspect of a baboon, while contorting her arms like rubberman ! Ghelin gave a spectacular performance; his fame as an actor is not made of whole cloth. We were all laughing too hard to notice that Michel Martens was standing on the other side of the door, his body turned away from to hid a face red with shame. Ghelin continued. Picking himself up from the pavement he resumed his reading of the script:
"Clara, zhe beginz with a low moan, increasing in zee volyoom and zee ahntensitay , zhat becomes a SCREAM zhat soon becomes incroyable!:
ANNNE! ANNNNNNNE! ANNNNNNNNNE!"
Grabbing his balls firmly in his two hands Ghelin produced a remarkably literal rendition of the text:
" hu - hu - hU -hU -HU HUH! -HAH! -HLAH! - '"ALAAH! - 'ALAN!!! ANNNNNNNNNNE!!!"
The dike had collapsed; the floods of laughter poured in, vanquishing all resistence to his rude parody, despite the unhappy presence of Michel Martens helpless behind the door and forced to submit to it.
Ghelin's ridicule the script of this film may perhaps be excused on the grounds that he needs to release feelings he supresses while on the set. However he has a compulsive need to denigrate even the works of a mental invalid. A few days ago he made a public display of browsing through the magazine L'Echo of the local mental hospital, La Colonie Familiale. His eyes alighted on a long poem about the four seasons. He must have devoted half an hour to selecting and reciting morsels from this poem which everyone knew was awful, and hardly needed the talents of the great Ghelin to convince us .
Thursday, August 22
Daniel Ghelin's wife showed up this morning on the train. Not the least put out, Jacqueline returned to Paris that afternoon. Legend has it that Ghelin keeps 6 mistresses, whome he visits regularly on some principle of crop rotation. It shouldn't be too difficult for him to accomodate a 7th.
Friday, August 23
Yesterday's work on the 'dinner conversation' scene took us until late into the night. Coordinating five actors, even when speaking such simple-minded lines, demands a mountain of work. Anouk Ferjac was supposed to bring the scene to an end by the release of a long hysterical scream ( This is not the same scream as the one previously described; she screams all through the film).Anouk rehearsed her scream half a dozen times, then the scene was shot. Although Bastid only required two takes in French and two in the English version, there were many mechanical problems and the job took over five hours. By that time Anouk was much more than a merely theatrical nervous wreck.
She was not the only person to feel and express outrage. Not only are the technicians underpaid but , although on this particular day they worked from dawn to past midnight, their contracts contain no provision for overtime. The actors were disgusted from having the replay the same contrived scene . Others, like myself, were in a foul mood because we'd sat around for over 5 hours doing nothing.
As we waited around Ghelin, Beller and Bercq relieved the boredom by exploiting a host of childish devices. Bercq and Beller improvised comic scenes à l'Américaine. Bercq strutted about like a bow-legged Texan cowboy while Bercq pretended to shoot off his fingers with a 6-shooter. By way of showing off his command of American English Beller yelled "Fuck You!" at everyone on the set. Ghelin, who all but attacked me everytime I tried to get him to recite his English dialogue, roared: "I eat my plate!" At least he knew what the phrase means: the assertion was accompanied by his mimicking the act of eating a plate!
Then Beller yelled "Give me a hot dog with lots of mustard!" This was acknowledged to be very funny. So much so that Martens and Bastid had a hell of a time getting them to all calm down long enough to rehearse the scene again for the fifth time. Once seated at the table, Ghelin invented another stunt: soup-slurping! Everybody began slurping their soup. The commotion died down, but not for long. It started up again when Chauffard, ( playing a senile and alcoholic country doctor) followed through on the instructions in his script and began slurping his soup!
As per usual Ghelin had deliberately lost his English script. Enduring many insults I had to coach him into reciting his lines. Anouk needed help too. She'd spent most of the day screaming and didn't have time to review the strange sounds she was expected to make as a simulacrum of English. As she drifted off into hysteria her screams at least became easier with each repeat of the scene.
The purpose of the above description has been to give one a sense of the state of mind of the crew and cast of "Belle Au Bois" as it entered the medieval precints of Roger's restaurant at 1 o'clock in the morning.This charming setting merits description.
In every direction from the center of town,( that is to say the clock-tower) , the remnants of this medieval fort-castle all appear to placed on downhill slopes. Roger's "Hotel Café Restaurant" is nestled in the confluence of half a dozen such slopes, ensconced within the village as in the coils of a boa constrictor.Descending the road leading off from the rue des Fosses (Moat Street) one enters a courtyard holding several sandpiles where, most afternoons, one finds children or adults playing the bowling game known as pétanque. Surrounding a broad garden plot is a whitewashed circular stone wall buried in massive incrustations of ivy. It extends to include Roger's Restaurant, whose its uneven construction , sagging windows, rooves clinging to the walls like worn feather -dusters, give evidence of its ancient construction.
One descends into the restaurant via a curving stairway at the extreme left. The dark wooden door is usually bolted. One therefore knocks and Roger or his wife or the strait-laced elderly waitress will open the door. One walks down into an antique, cheery chamber, sparkling with lights, electric bulbs concealed beneath red-tinted glass shades, and a sparkling chandelier. There is also a hearth, prominently installed yet obviously not used at this time of year;a shaggy shepherd dog would not be out of place here.
The room is unevenly shaped as a convex 6-sided polygon. Katy-corner to the hearth stands a high bar counter. During the day and evening there is always a clientele before the bar. Since we were coming in after 1 AM, the front room was deserted.