Jack O'Connell - The Skin Palace

“Put the goddamn camera down.”

Jakob refuses. He keeps the Seitz filming and comes back to a closeup of his cousin, who’s now holding a longbarrel revolver straight out, pointed at the camera.

“All right,” Felix says, “have it your way. Film the whole thing. Your first and last feature, you stupid little son of a bitch.”

“Please,” Jakob says, “put your gun away.”

Felix jerks the pistol into the air and pulls the trigger. A shot explodes, echoes across the train yard, fills the air with a trace of burnt powder.

“It’s not a prop, dickhead. It’s the real goddamn thing. It’s a beauty, isn’t it? And there’s a bullet in every chamber. You know who gave me the gun, Jakob? Uncle Hermann. Your goddamn Papa who’s coddled your wheezing ass since the day we hit this city. You know where it came from, Jakob? Any idea? Huh?”

Jakob stays silent.

“It belonged to the commandant who murdered my mother and father. A man named Teige. One of the great zealots of the July Sweep. Before we left Maisel, Uncle Hermann paid more money than you can imagine to get next to Teige. Then he took out his Schonborn and strangled the bastard, came close to taking the man’s head off his shoulders. Literally separating the head. He told me he’s never pulled that hard in his life. He hit bone, Jakob. Can you imagine what that feels like, cousin? To pull wire through the skin, through the cartilage and the arteries?

“Uncle Hermann gave me the commandant’s gun, Jakob. He gave you your camera there. Belonged to some great director, right? He gave me the pistol that killed my mother and father.”

“Felix,” Jakob says, “should you hurt me in any way, Papa will manage to bury your head a block away from your body.”

“You idiot,” Felix’s voice dropping low. “Can you imagine how you’ve disappointed him? I told you the video store was your last chance. I tried to help you. You were in there talking to that freak. You were inside talking about movies. My God. You should have seen Hermann’s face when I told him.”

“Felix, I’m begging you …”

The Seitz catches Hunk Hrabal, in fuzzy back-focus, taking a step up behind Felix.

Felix levels the gun back at Jakob and says, “I promise we’ll bury you with the camera, cousin.”

Jakob pulls out to a medium shot and watches Hrabal bring a truncheon down on Felix’s arm as the pistol explodes again, this time planting the bullet in the ground. The arm snaps. A quick zoom to show the shock spreading across the cousin’s face. Huck throws a kidney punch and Felix crumbles to his knees. Vera Gottwald comes forward, picks up the pistol and carries it to Jakob who puts it in his pocket. The Roaches yank Felix back to his feet. He starts to struggle and Huck saps him in the back of the head.

Jakob detaches a shoulder strap from the camera and tosses it to Huck, then he turns the Seitz over to Vera, saying, “Remember, just keep the red button pressed.”

He walks toward his cousin, extends his arms out at his sides, smiles and says to the whole congregation, “I’m as bad as Hitchcock. I promise this will be my only cameo.”

He comes face-to-cafe with Felix, stares into the incredulous eyes, bites back the pity and slaps his cousin across the face, drawing blood that steams in the cold air.

“But how—” is all Felix can manage.

“It’s not your fault,” Jakob says. “It’s vanity and greed. It will always blind you in the end. Your problem is you haven’t seen enough movies.”

He nods to Huck Hrabal and the Roaches force their former leader to his knees, then Hrabal fashions the shoulder strap into a kind of collar and twists it around his deposed boss’s throat.

“I spoke with Huck yesterday,” Jakob says. “I explained to him that it made much more sense to back Hermann Kinsky’s only son rather than his idiot nephew. And, of course, I’ve promised all the Roaches walk-ons in the film and small gross participation. They’ll each get half a point of the distribution deal. We win some prizes at the Sundance Festival, these guys can buy some new suits.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jakob sees the Roaches all smiling at one another.

“Huck is to be my screen face, Felix. Do you approve? I think he’ll make a fine alter ego. All the true auteurs need one, you realize. Ford had Wayne. Fellini had Mastroianni. Scorsese had De Niro. Lynch—”

“Jakob,” Felix yells, licking frantically at his wound. He’s scrambling, dizzy with the reversal. He stammers, “Don’t do this, please, think of the film. This climax, beaten to death by the angry mob, it’s derivative.”

Jakob laughs, pats his cousin’s cheek, looks around to the Roaches.

“Didn’t I tell you, people? Everyone’s a critic.”

He turns back to his cousin.

“You’re a lowbrow schmuck, Felix. I’m a postmodern artist. I know all the images and I steal from the pool. It’s all collage, cuz. Juxtaposition. Besides, if all else fails, the snuff market is making a big comeback these days.”

Jakob leans down and kisses Felix softly on the cheek, whispers in his ear, “You know, I was going to play this part myself. But I’m glad I reconsidered. You’re so much better in the role.”

He straightens and turns to Huck.

“Now remember people, we’ll only get one take here. We’ve got to make it work the first time. He’s the anti-hero at the end of the road. I’m going for tight close-ups here, so don’t anyone block the face. I need to see the real terror as his fate dawns upon him.”

He steps back, frames Felix’s head between his hands and whispers, “You look absolutely doomed, Felix. You’re such a natural.”

Then he claps the hands together, turns to Vera Gottwald, nods and yells, “Annnnd. Action.”

TIGHT SHOT — HEAD OF THE DOOMED MAN

as it turns side to side, struggling futilely against the garrote, the eyes beginning to bulge, a gurgling noise beginning to emit from the tortured hole that is the mouth.

MED SHOT — THE TRAIN YARD

as the leader of the angry villagers, the self-appointed AUTEURCUTIONER, pulls a pistol from his pocket and erupts in a horrible laugh that echoes across the landscape. Several villagers shudder. The Doomed Man begins to convulse but is held on his knees by the hands of the crowd.

TIGHT SHOT — THE HAND OF THE AUTEURCUTIONER — SLOW MOTION

as it lifts the pistol through the smokey night air and brings the barrel to rest against the bulging right eye of the Doomed Man. Intercut the various sound tracks — the diseased lung, the July Sweep sirens, the cries of the little girl lost — all played at half-speed.

TIGHTEST SHOT — EYES OF THE DOOMED MAN SLOW MOTION

as the auteurcutioner pulls the trigger and a bullet discharges from the pistol barrel and tears into the eyeball, through the cornea, through the anterior chamber, the lens, through the jellylike lake of vitreous humor, tearing through the retina and the sclera, and finally exploding the optic nerve itself. The end of vision. The obliteration of perception.

BLACK SCREEN

NO CREDITS

Sylvia walks through the drizzle with this vague, semiconscious understanding that she’s heading, eventually, toward the Skin Palace. And she tries not to focus on the fact that the walk holds at least some resemblance to the way she’s come to live her life, to the way she perpetually pivots and drifts once she has a glimpse of her general direction. No matter what that direction might be.

For over twenty years, since memories began, since she developed whatever neurons or language skills image-storing capacity necessary for remembrance, she’s let events wash over her, take her and turn her. And then in the calm after the wake, she’s always accepted her new position. She’s continued to move, with a little thought, in whatever direction she ended up facing. As if there was never another choice. As if she’s suffered a forgotten virus at one time, maybe in infancy, that destroyed any idea of free will.