Joshua Mattson - A Short Film About Disappointment

I made a film to illustrate my position. I screened it for Osvald and Isabel on a tablecloth in the park, after promising fifty dollars apiece if they showed up at the agreed time. Neither did. I didn’t bring the money along.

Hanging Isvald opens in a cell. Isvald, conjoined twins, are sentenced to die at noon. They are not concerned. Isvald contemplates the pond of sunlight rippling on the dirt of their cell. The jailer requests they send a sign from the void. To get the jailer to leave, Isvald agrees to spin their weather vane on the second of October.

The priest enters, myself. I ask Isvald to repent. They decline. The priest describes the torments of hell awaiting Isvald. Isvald knows saying words will not change their destination either way, for they hold no superstitions on the vigor of language. The priest, having delivered his promise of torture, departs.

They say, It is a radiant day to give praise.

Back to the puddle of sun. Amazing how it—

Knock, knock. Isvald’s mother. She has come to deliver absolution before they swing on the gallows.

They say, See ya, Mom.

Second to last is Isvald’s lover, also played by myself. Isvald does not speak. Nothing to be said to the person. What is a kiss? What are words? All words have the same price. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. The sun has reached Isvald in chains. Isvald will be in light. The door opens and the guard leads Isvald outside, to the cheer of the crowd.

The primary set for Altarpiece is completed. Bellono’s studio sits on an acre fifteen miles southwest of the township of Deer Eye. It’s twenty miles from the nearest node into the Hub. Location scouting took weeks. Before settling on the field, we toured a barn, an asylum, a defunct AlmostPeople service facility. The unattached heads of William and Melinda models shouted encouragement to us from the factory workbench.

William said, A body is the repository of our dreams.

Melinda said, Mobility is the basis of freedom.

William said, Perhaps you could attach me to yonder body, my friend.

Melinda said, No, that model is a woman’s. It’s for me.

William said, I have an open mind. Don’t be prescriptive, Melinda. Any body is a good body.

We brought our equipment into the spaces to shoot tests. On film, the light curdled.

The acre outside Deer Eye was different. We liked how the land lay in a depression underneath a lagoon of sunlight. The bronze stalks of wheat covering the field burned at sunset, when I jogged through with a smoldering branch following a route I’d planned so a blimp or a bored god saw, passing overhead at the right moment, my initials scrawled in flame.

Jonson hired a known firm to build the set. He plans to convert it into a distillery when shooting wraps.

He said, This corn should be put to better use.

I said, Like cornbread.

He said, Spirits. I’ll call it Jonson’s Country Reserve.

We inspected the set this morning, as the builders left. The fellow ducking into the town car was Malthus, the architect, who had once nodded to Osvald in the firm’s foyer, believing him to be the kept man of Constantin Grigori.

I am within the set, a glass cube. I am the flaw. The night sky is boysenberry chenille stained with drips of bleach. The cement floor ruined the effect, so I shoveled dirt on top.

Scrub pines hunker across the road, ashamed of their thin limbs. I have books on oil technique. Provender is laid by. The husks of devoured Chocodiles, Nougators, and Carameldo Dragons litter the studio, where Bellono will paint the triptych. One good canvas will buy his freedom from the tedium of painting. He can return to his casseroles and his duvet. I am wearing an itchy wool tunic. On my feet are pointed shoes of inky synth-leather.

Bellono bantered with his god, having no proof of nihility but pain. I wag my brush on the isabelline canvas, practicing the gesture of painting, not ready to commit myself to the oils Jonson has ordered from Perugia. Addressing a god as Bellono might. Bringing up vexing spicules of theology. Petitioning to have my venereal diseases healed. Asking for the power to forgive. Why the platypus?

In me Osvald. I wouldn’t have noticed the eloquence of the steel columns, matching the grace of the mullions, drawing the eye to the ceiling, crisscrossed by thin girders, the appearance of the golden ratio, without Osvald’s help. Yes, he likes this place. Awakening on the mornings when the set inflates with light, he descends the cantilevered slab stairs to dig his toes into the charred soil, and he imagines possibilities for the film, the delicious conflagrations.

Osvald identified with Dr. Pinkglass in The Floating House , who, when shown graphs and measurements by Dr. Rousseau proving the house is on the ground, continues to insist it hovers inches above the foundation.

Dr. Pinkglass says, I trust my eyes. My eyes serve me. Logic does not necessarily.

The records of my misbehavior. Osvald had a thick portfolio of complaints to draw on to justify his theft of my wife.

I wasn’t clean, broke dishes. I threw a piano bench in the vicinity of but not at Osvald, ate the Neapolitan, lost his keys. I lost his forks, wallet, pump, jack, stereo cords, chip, Swiss Army knife, sweaters, Pinger, replacement Pinger, loaner Pinger, monogrammed socks, sextant, ballpoint pen, ball-peen hammer, ball cap, ball glove, ball gag, drafting dots, distance meter, bike saddle, tailored trousers, birth certificate, spare tire, electric drill, floss, scarab in resin, waffle iron.

What else? I popped a favored volleyball. I kissed a woman he liked and lied to spare his feelings. I didn’t kiss a woman he liked and lied to hurt his feelings. I did not worship Isabel, made fun of his turtlenecks. I woke him in the middle of the night with the terror of illness. I cooked and forgot dinner, left locks unlocked, derided his paltry tips at restaurants, took contrary positions on principle. I needed and adored Osvald. His romantic, aesthetic, and spiritual aims I was determined to frustrate but not defeat outright.

All this was for his benefit. I was ensuring he remained entertained. We neglect our duty to delight our friends. We treat them as floating ears. To entertain is to torment.

Difficulty pruning the ramiform possibilities from Jonson’s conception of Altarpiece . His pings every ten minutes. No wonder he couldn’t get a date before he met Lucretia.

This morning’s:

what if sets were monochrome /

how about u wear a mask /

dance number /

dream sequence /

i got a logline for you /

let’s rent a fog machine /

pricing bear trainers /

how bout a swordfight /

2nd act could be punchier /

pls respond to ping tuesday 5pm, subj fabric swatches black n white /

feelin rack focusing /

what is duke’s motivation /

What is anyone’s? I nudged The Art of Dramaturgy off of his balcony while he fussed over the espresso service. Formulas won’t save us. Jonson is not a passionate reader. His mind ambulates on crutches. His book is accessorized with a plate of snacks, a pastis tomate , highlighters. Trying to understand the significance of the clothes described, of the invented weather, of the bland dialogue. Trying to induce in himself feelings.

To reject all of Jonson’s suggestions would be undiplomatic.