A Film by Spencer Ludwig. David Flusfeder

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      Mary has a cold and she is looking for something from him that will make her feel better. Mary has a direct relationship to the world that usually involves acquisition.

      ‘Daddy. Will you get me an iPod?’

      ‘No honey. I won’t get you an iPod.’

      ‘Why not? You’re in America. You’re in New York’

      ‘You’re ten years old. You don’t need an iPod.’

      He does not need to listen to the list of her friends who own iPods, the Roses and Lilys and Poppys and all the others, who stand out, pink skinned, yellow haired, floral named, from the Shinequas and Taaliyahs and Chanels at her primary school (and who, presumably, do not own iPods or iTouches or iTastes). Unspoken but loudly declared in the list she reels off are all the indignities and unfairnesses of her life, and the precarious-ness of her loyalty to Spencer.

      ‘Spencer! Gribitz!’

      ‘Yes yes. I know. Look, honey. I have to go in a moment. I’m taking Papa Jimmy to his proctologist.’

      She does not ask what a proctologist is, because Mary, like her mother, does not wish to appear unknowledgeable about any subject. But showing off his vocabulary of fancy medical terms will not protect him from his daughter’s needs or scorn.

      His daughter does not have to stay loyal to him. There is another man in her world, whose name is Doug. Mary’s mother has demonstrated her preference for Doug over Spencer so why shouldn’t Mary feel the same way? She lives with him and Doug has money, so Doug can buy her an i-anything if only she would ask him—it is a tattered piece of loyalty that impels her to persist with Spencer anyway. And she has a headache. And her stomach hurts. She is off school and Mummy has said that she may not go to Grace’s party, which is unfair.

      ‘Not if you’re sick, honey,’ Spencer says, nobly resisting the opportunity to join forces with his daughter against her mother.

      Spencer had tried to be a family man. He had done what he thought was his best at making a go of it, family Christmases, family holidays, but he had not convinced anyone of his sincerity, least of all himself.

      Mary’s mother made more money than Spencer did and she saw the world rather as Spencer’s father did, a straightforward place where value was measurable by money, in which the person who owned the most things was the winner.

      ‘Errol Flynn said that if he left behind any money after he died then his life would have been a failure.’

      ‘Who’s Errol Flynn?’

      And Spencer’s stepmother continues to stamp around. Gribitz…Dad…appointment…Car! ‘A movie star, baby,’ Spencer says.

      ‘I’ve never heard of him,’ says Mary, dismissing Errol Flynn utterly and perhaps with him the entire Hollywood Golden Age.

      When Mary was born, Spencer made the mistake of announcing that he had received his emotional pension plan, here was someone who would look after him when he was old and friendless. Sometimes he aroused the maternal instinct in her, often they had fun, usually they could make each other laugh. But at other times she was like a highly strung puppy made peevish and insecure by the ineffectualness of its owner.

      ‘I’ve got a stomach ache. Will you get me an iPod?’

      Generously, she is giving him a final chance, and how he wants to say yes, a part of a father’s job is to protect a child’s innocence, and why shouldn’t he pretend along with her that buying luxury goods is a cure for most conditions?

      ‘Look. I—’

      But his stepmother finally intervenes. She can bear this no longer. Her world is manageable only when she is charge of all of its details, and to her this is unbearable, that her nebbish of a stepson is enjoying himself on the telephone when the routine demands he now be making the call to the garage to release the car.

      ‘The doctor! The garage! Dad’s appointment! Gribitz!’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Spencer says (and how he hates himself for making an apology, even such an unreflective one). ‘I’m talking to my daughter. She’s sick.’

      His stepmother inhales and exhales rather dramatically before speaking. She looks magnificently triumphant.

      ‘Well we’re sicker!’

      ‘I’m sorry, honey, I’d better go. I’m taking Papa Jimmy to his doctor.’

      ‘I hate you! You’re rubbish!’

      ‘Oh,’ he says, but he is talking to air.

      Jacksie is moving his hands ineffectually into and out of his pockets. Spencer’s stepmother is carrying small plastic bags containing a variety of small coloured objects. Spencer’s father is struggling into his jacket, refusing any assistance. And how Spencer wants to film this. Obtaining the release might be problematical but people are vain, and usually want to be on screen, regardless of the circumstances.

      He hasn’t allowed himself any equipment. Usually Spencer carries a small camera with him. Recently, between jobs (Michelle, his sometimes producer, has been calling, but Spencer can’t talk to her), he has been gathering autobiographical footage to use in a speculative future film, in which he supposes that images ripped away from context (physical, emotional) will be montaged with stock footage, crowd scenes, moments of intimacy or war. But his most recent girlfriend, Abbie, had grown tired of this. She had been one of his students and he had failed her on the course just to prove that this was not some clichéd master-servant relationship. This had made her angry. You think it’s because you’re some kind of artist, and some others even think so too. But I’m not fooled any more. It’s because you’re frightened of real life, you need to put something between you and real life.

      Expertly, rather cruelly, he had demolished her childish notions of real life. But all the same, as he packed to leave for the airport, he deliberately left his camera behind. He would show her that he had no need for filtering or mediating experience. And he would prove it so well that he would have no need to report his triumph back to Abbie.

      Spencer has almost given up on his ambition to produce a single great film. If he were to be honest with himself, which sometimes he is, then he would have to admit that he has not entirely given up believing this might be possible, that the films of Ludwig could join the team, Ruttman, Vertov, Fassbinder, Reed, Lang, some Marker, Ray, Dreyer, Ford, Buñuel, Bresson, Hawks, Wilder. The list could go on; but even if his films were doomed never to join the A-list, he would want at least a shot or two to enter the minds of his audience and be installed there, a single glorious image, with all the vividness of lived experience or unforgettable dream.

      Man without a movie camera went to New York. Images that have interested him along the way he has recorded with his telephone. He will allow himself this, he decided. Just as long as nothing is altered or arranged for the picture.

      His father disentangles himself from his oxygen machine, and crumblingly attaches himself to one of his portable cylinders.

      ‘Let’s get out of this shithole,’ he says.

      There is silence and then some confusion in the room.

      ‘What СКАЧАТЬ