Dream Factories and Radio Pictures by Howard Waldrop Read Free Book Online

asking too much! But your first suggestion, in the interest of saving time with the scenery. Yes. Yes, we could possibly do that! Thank you . . . as it is going now, the trial may very well be over before we even begin filming—if someone doesn’t shoot Dreyfus as he sits in court since his return from Devil’s Island even before that. Perhaps we shall try your idea . . .”
    “Just thinking aloud,” said Rousseau.
    * * *
    “Monsieur Director?” said Marcel.
    “Yes?”
    “Something puzzles me.”
    “Yes?”
    “I’ve seen few Lumièreoscopes—”
    “That name!” said Méliès, clamping his hands over his ears.
    “Sorry . . . I’ve seen few films, at any rate. But in each one (and it comes up here in the proposed scenario) that we have Dreyfus sitting in his cell, on one side, the cutaway set of the hut with him therein; then the guard walks up and pounds on the door. Dreyfus gets up, goes to the door, opens it, and the guard walks in and hands him the first letter he is allowed to receive from France.”
    “A fine scene!” said Méliès.
    “Hmmm. Yes. Another thing I have seen in all Lu—in moving pictures is that the actors are always filmed as if you were watching them on stage, their whole bodies from a distance of a few meters away.”
    “That is the only way it is done, my dear Marcel.”
    “Perhaps . . . perhaps we could do it another way. We see Dreyfus in his hut, in his chair. We show only his upper body, from waist to head. We could see the ravages of the ordeal upon him, the lines in his face, the circles under his eyes, the gray in his hair.”
    “But . . .”
    “Hear me, please. Then you show a fist, as if it were in your face, pounding on the door. From inside the hut Dreyfus gets up, turns, walks to the door. Then he is handed the letter. We see the letter itself, the words of comfort and despair . . .”
    Méliès was looking at him as if there were pinwheels sticking from his eye sockets.
    “ . . . can you imagine the effects on the viewer?” finished Marcel.
    “Oh yes!” said Méliès. “They would scream. Where are their legs? Where are their arms? What is this writing doing in my eye?!!!”
    “But think of the impact! The drama?”
    “Marcel, we are here to plead for justice, not frighten people away from the theater!”
    “Think of it! What better way to show the impact on Dreyfus than by putting the impact on the spectator?”
    “My head reels, Proust!”
    “Well, just a suggestion. Sleep on it.”
    “I shall have nightmares,” said Méliès.
    * * *
    Pablo continued to paint, eating a sandwich, drinking wine.
    * * *
    “Méliès?” said Jarry.
    “(Sigh) Yes?”
    “Enlighten us.”
    “In what manner?”
    “Our knowledge of motio-kineto-photograms is small, but one thing is a royal poser to us.”
    “Continue.”
    “In our wonderful scene of the nightmares . . . we are led to understand that Monsieur Rousseau’s fierce tigers are to be moved by wires, compressed air, and frantic stagehands?”
    “Yes.”
    “Our mind works overtime. The fierce tigers are wonderful, but such movement will be seen, let us say, like fierce tigers moved by wires, air, and stage-labor.”
    “A necessary convention of stage and cinematograph,” said Méliès. “One the spectator accepts.”
    “But we are not here to have the viewer accept anything but an intolerable injustice to a man.”
    “True, but pity . . .”
    “Méliès,” said Jarry. “We understand each click of the camera takes one frame of film. Many of these frames projected at a constant rate leads to the illusion of motion. But each is of itself but a single frame of film.”
    “The persistence of vision,” said Méliès.
    “We were thinking. What if we took a single click of the camera, taking one picture of our fierce tigers . . .”
    “But what would that accomplish?”
    “Ah . . . then, Méliès, our royal personage moves the tiger to a slightly different posture,