Steve Erickson - Zeroville

“They booed in Cannes.”

“I know, and the reviews here were a little mixed too, but the good reviews were very good, and strange as it may sound, being booed at Cannes is not always bad, if you’re booed for the right reasons. Or maybe I mean the wrong reasons. Sometimes when people don’t like a picture for the right reasons, it makes other people want to see the picture, and studios appreciate that. They booed L’Avventura at Cannes, too.”

Vikar likes the way she talks. She sounds young and friendly, and he completely understands everything she says. He wonders if she’s related to Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. “I completely understand everything you say.”

“I don’t want to press you, but I can make inquiries for you among the various studios and production companies and represent you in trying to get this off the ground.”

“Thank you.”

“I would go to UA first and to Mitch Rondell, who’s started his own independent company and is no longer working for UA in the same capacity, although they maintain a partnership.”

“It sounds confusing,” Vikar says.

“He’s in L.A. now.”

“Is he on vacation?”

“He’s living with someone and has moved his work here.”

“I haven’t heard from him.”

“Your situation with the telephone, maybe.”

“Maybe.”

She says, “I’m sure he would have called otherwise.”

182.

We bury our parents on our own, said Viking Man, and one afternoon Vikar picks up the telephone and dials the entire number and doesn’t hang up until it rings on the other end. He has no idea if his father or mother are alive or dead. He puts the phone back before anyone answers. This is why I should have the phone taken out.

He came to Los Angeles as a Traveler hurtling through space toward infinity, vestiges of childhood falling away like dimensions.

One morning he walks down the hill to Sunset and takes the bus heading west. It continues along the boulevard through Beverly Hills to UCLA. Vikar crosses the street and through the film school and into the Structure Garden; slightly overwhelmed, he finally stumbles into the campus art gallery which directs him elsewhere. For an hour he wanders from one school to the other until he winds up in a large flat black building everyone calls the Waffle that looks more to Vikar like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey , except bigger and with windows. On the eighth floor is the School for the Study of Biblical Languages.

181.

The man in the office behind the desk doesn’t look like a professor of Biblical languages. He’s in his early forties and wears a black T-shirt and his head is shaved; looking at Vikar, he says, “I have to get me one of those.”

Vikar puts his hand on his head like he does sometimes, as if he’s just finding it. “Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift,” he nods, “ A Place in the Sun . Are you Professor Cohen?”

“Cohn, without the e.”

“I’m Vikar, with a k.”

“Vikar with a k,” he says, putting things in a briefcase, “what can I do for you?”

Vikar takes from his back pocket a piece of paper and unfolds it on the desk.

180.

Standing up behind the desk, the professor looks at the paper and frowns. “May I?” he says, picking it up and examining it more closely. “Can I ask where you got this?”

“I would rather not tell you yet,” Vikar says. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. It just would help me to know where you got it.”

“I don’t believe it would help you. Do you know what it says?”

“Not really. It’s a kind of Hebraic.”

“Does that mean it’s Hebrew?”

“Yeah …” The professor sits back down in his chair still looking at the piece of paper from the Carlton Hotel. “It’s like, there’s Chaucer’s English and late twentieth-century American English. They’re the same language but they’re not.”

“So, it’s an old language.”

“It’s a very old language, maybe pre-Aramaic. Carrying out the analogy, it’s not Chaucer, it’s, I don’t know, early Celtic Dark Ages, for all I know about the Celtic Dark Ages, which should teach me not to make analogies. It may be the oldest form of Hebraic I’ve seen, but at this point I can’t even be sure about that. Can you leave it with me?” Vikar hesitates. “Let me make a xerox.”

“All right.”

Making the xerox, the professor examines Vikar’s head again. “What movie did you say again?”

“ A Place in the Sun .”

He nods and rubs his own head. “I’m thinking maybe Dylan in Don’t Look Back .”

179.

Your Pale Blue Eyes loses the Academy Award for editing. Vikar regrets not attending when he learns the presenter — though he would not have been the one presented to — is Kim Novak, with whom he cheated on Elizabeth Taylor long ago.

178.

Variety , May 25, 1979: “NEW YORK — Following protracted negotiations, Mirron Productions has signed Academy Award-nominated editor Vikar Jerome to direct God’s Worst Nightmare , based on the 19th-century French novel Là-Bas , for possible release in fall 1980 by United Artists.

“Jerome received an Oscar nod this year for his work on UA’s Your Pale Blue Eyes , under the supervision of Mitchell Rondell, who recently left his position as a production executive at UA to launch Mirron. Insiders say the budget of God’s Worst Nightmare has been set at $3.75 million, with the stipulation that a lead with box-office draw is attached.

“‘At that cost,’ says one unnamed participant in brokering the deal, ‘which may not be blockbuster but isn’t paltry for a feature by a first-time director, UA must be planning to spend close to a million on a star — maybe not a Redford or Eastwood or Nicholson, who are out of that price range, but someone of the next rank.’ Names mentioned include Robert De Niro, Richard Dreyfuss and Kris Kristofferson (provided a speedy completion of UA’s Heaven’s Gate , which began shooting in Montana last month).

“Written by Belgian author J. K. Huysmans, Là-Bas (Down There) is the story of a writer who becomes obsessed with the possibly historical figure of Gilles de Rais, a trusted lieutenant of Joan of Arc who may have massacred hundreds or even thousands of children. Over the course of the writer’s investigations, he becomes involved with a mysterious, perhaps demonic woman. It’s not clear whether Huysmans’ story will be updated for God’s Worst Nightmare or remain a period piece.

“Mirron’s announcement is taking some by surprise in the industry, where there are concerns about the experience and even stability of the untested director, particularly following behavior at last year’s Cannes festival — where Your Pale Blue Eyes received a special jury award — that varying reports characterized as ‘unhinged’ and ‘retarded.’

“Responds Molly Fairbanks, Jerome’s agent at CAA: ‘Everyone understands Vikar Jerome is an unusual individual but also an original, perhaps singular talent.’ Denying rumors that Mirron and UA resisted the deal until other companies such as the newly formed Orion indicated interest, Rondell personally issued a statement expressing ‘extraordinary enthusiasm and passion’ for the project and calling Jerome ‘potentially the most interesting American director since Scorsese, if not Welles.’ When contacted about Jerome’s alleged eccentricities, Rondell answered, ‘We’ll make them work for us.’

“Rondell offered no comment on widely circulating stories of contingency plans that include a back-up director such as Alan Pakula, William Friedkin or John Milius.”