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Authors: Johannes Mario Simmel
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our misery remains."
"Nice proverb. Thanks a lot."
"A false proverb, Mr. Jordan. Those people are not miserable any more. They have freed themselves. Soon they will be independent." Natasha reached for a tissue and dried my eyes. Indeed the tears stopped after the gentle, no, strangely tender touch. "Your miserv will disappear when 3'ou free yourself of your need to drink."
I looked at her.
"You think you cannot manage your life. That is why you drink. But if you change your way of livine you will be able to live normally. Then you will make movies
again, have confidence and be happy. And remember what I said. Please, turn over on your side ..."
She gave me the injection, shook my hand, smiled reassuringly and left. I felt myself growing tired. The storm continued to howl, the rain to beat down. And shp-ping into this chemically induced sleep I had only one thought.
And if I have to commit a crime to get that insurance coverage, and if they have to take me to the studio every morning on a stretcher, and if I die before the cameras—^I am going to make this movie. I, no one else. Now and not later. Addicted to alcohol, yes, and ill, yes—^now, not when I may be cured—yes, I'm going to make this movie. My movie. Now.
You, Professor Pontevivo, can probably easily imagine what a man, his existence threatened by destruction, is capable of. Your beautiful young assistant could probably understand the worst deed a woman would do if another one took her love. But neither of you, dear Professor Pontevivo, can imagine (not in the least and not in your wildest dreams!) what an actor, whose last chance of acting, after waiting half a lifetime for it, is likely to do.
Actors are not ordinary people. Their profession alone (surely that of writers too) is a continual provocation to any psychiatrist. Does an ordinary person take on a thousand different faces, does a normal person feel a thousand curious pains and desires, impulses and thoughts, speak convincingly the words another wrote, is a thousand different people in one but never himself?
The actor's profession demands that he be schizoid. And what of him who is prevented from acting?
I have seen, in Hollywood and elsewhere, what happens when those players, those actors are kept away from the studio, from the stage. I am my best example. I began to drink. Others became criminal, addicted to drugs, insane. Some killed themselves. A beautiful woman— celebrated star of the Roaring Twenties, finished with the
advent of sound movies—undressed at large parties and gave herself to anyone who reached out for her, and everybody had to watch, evervbndv. She was not given any part to play. She then created her own role. Appear in public! To have an audience! Being seen! The most shameless whore does not possess one thousandth the urge of exhibition which even the most insignificant actor has.
I was an actor. And mv existence was nullified if I did not make this movie. And mv love was destroyed. Did I make myself quite clear. Professor Pontevivo? Can you measure the decree of detprmination to make this movie, even if it would mean mv death, or if I had to commit a crime to secure insurance roverpge for our DT^oduction? I was determined. All I did not know was: Determined to do whpt'' "^welve hours b^*"^ T v^ew—t^hanks to a white-haired old lady by the name of Gottesdiener.
The Second Tape
The moment I stepped through the open plate-glass doors of the hotel, floodlights were switched on; a camera attached to the roof of a car swung toward me and about a hundred people, many of them women and teenagers, began to scream, wave and applaud. They were held back by police forming a barrier on the other side of the street. Surprised, I stood motionless.
It was six o'clock in the evening. The rain had stopped but it was still stormy. The sky, a few stars already visible, was sea-green and cloudless in the twilight. I was blinded by the floodlights. The crowd broke through the
"Nice proverb. Thanks a lot."
"A false proverb, Mr. Jordan. Those people are not miserable any more. They have freed themselves. Soon they will be independent." Natasha reached for a tissue and dried my eyes. Indeed the tears stopped after the gentle, no, strangely tender touch. "Your miserv will disappear when 3'ou free yourself of your need to drink."
I looked at her.
"You think you cannot manage your life. That is why you drink. But if you change your way of livine you will be able to live normally. Then you will make movies
again, have confidence and be happy. And remember what I said. Please, turn over on your side ..."
She gave me the injection, shook my hand, smiled reassuringly and left. I felt myself growing tired. The storm continued to howl, the rain to beat down. And shp-ping into this chemically induced sleep I had only one thought.
And if I have to commit a crime to get that insurance coverage, and if they have to take me to the studio every morning on a stretcher, and if I die before the cameras—^I am going to make this movie. I, no one else. Now and not later. Addicted to alcohol, yes, and ill, yes—^now, not when I may be cured—yes, I'm going to make this movie. My movie. Now.
You, Professor Pontevivo, can probably easily imagine what a man, his existence threatened by destruction, is capable of. Your beautiful young assistant could probably understand the worst deed a woman would do if another one took her love. But neither of you, dear Professor Pontevivo, can imagine (not in the least and not in your wildest dreams!) what an actor, whose last chance of acting, after waiting half a lifetime for it, is likely to do.
Actors are not ordinary people. Their profession alone (surely that of writers too) is a continual provocation to any psychiatrist. Does an ordinary person take on a thousand different faces, does a normal person feel a thousand curious pains and desires, impulses and thoughts, speak convincingly the words another wrote, is a thousand different people in one but never himself?
The actor's profession demands that he be schizoid. And what of him who is prevented from acting?
I have seen, in Hollywood and elsewhere, what happens when those players, those actors are kept away from the studio, from the stage. I am my best example. I began to drink. Others became criminal, addicted to drugs, insane. Some killed themselves. A beautiful woman— celebrated star of the Roaring Twenties, finished with the
advent of sound movies—undressed at large parties and gave herself to anyone who reached out for her, and everybody had to watch, evervbndv. She was not given any part to play. She then created her own role. Appear in public! To have an audience! Being seen! The most shameless whore does not possess one thousandth the urge of exhibition which even the most insignificant actor has.
I was an actor. And mv existence was nullified if I did not make this movie. And mv love was destroyed. Did I make myself quite clear. Professor Pontevivo? Can you measure the decree of detprmination to make this movie, even if it would mean mv death, or if I had to commit a crime to secure insurance roverpge for our DT^oduction? I was determined. All I did not know was: Determined to do whpt'' "^welve hours b^*"^ T v^ew—t^hanks to a white-haired old lady by the name of Gottesdiener.
The Second Tape
The moment I stepped through the open plate-glass doors of the hotel, floodlights were switched on; a camera attached to the roof of a car swung toward me and about a hundred people, many of them women and teenagers, began to scream, wave and applaud. They were held back by police forming a barrier on the other side of the street. Surprised, I stood motionless.
It was six o'clock in the evening. The rain had stopped but it was still stormy. The sky, a few stars already visible, was sea-green and cloudless in the twilight. I was blinded by the floodlights. The crowd broke through the
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