The Shadow Catcher

I take Beverly Glen, which means first I have to take the Winnetka exit to Ventura Boulevard which takes an added fifteen minutes because a Dodge Dart with a half-a-dozen 12-step decals plastered on it overheats on the exit ramp, its slogans asking What Would Jesus Do? which is not the existential exercise I need right now because, let’s face it, ain’t Jesus running late, Himself? What would Jesus take is what I want to know, and having called the Hotel Bel Air once already from the 101 to say I’ll be slightly delayed, I now call again to say I’ll be there in ten minutes but when I get to Beverly Glen I have to downshift into first behind a long slow line of similarly-minded-short-cut-takers and I inch uphill behind a Saturn with a vanity plate that reads UP4PART. And maybe it’s because at this point I’m already forty minutes late, maybe because at this point I’ve blown the possibility of salvaging this meeting at the Hotel Bel Air, that I entertain the very real possibility of DOING SOMETHING CRAZY, doing something crazier than sitting in traffic for two hours for the ridiculous proposition of AUDITIONING, because that’s what this meeting is: another Up 4 Part. Another loony desperate writer coondoggin’ the shiny penny, and maybe it’s because in my standard transmission vintage model PT Cruiser I can either go uphill or I can turn the AC on, but never both at the same time, which means I’ve been breathing fossil fuel exhaust for the better part of ninety minutes with the windows down and the sunroof gaping, or maybe it’s because there’s just something about THE WEST, the CALL OF THE WILD and the prospect of ANOTHER ARTIST screwing up, that suddenly I want less to know what Jesus would do than what would Dr. Gonzo do? The question What would Hunter S. Thompson do? presents itself as a reasonable fallback strategy as I take the turn into Stone Canyon at 40 mph, leave the keys with some kind of valet posing as a mariachi guy and rush (what’s this? a footbridge? are those swans?) through the full faux Alhambra of foliage into the faux provençal dining nook toward the table, breathless, rumpled and apologetic, with my hair all EINSTEINED, giving off its own exhaust, mascara/lipstick smeared and bargain Nordstrom Rack linen/rayon MADE IN INDONESIA jacket rutched across my tits to encounter THEM: two women in Armani, militantly trim and toned.

ME: So so sorry, I’m so late.

They smile and show their pearly whites. JON, my agent, signals I have lipstick on my teeth. STACEY, the producer for the star, has brought along MICHELLE, a young assistant They have finished eating their chopped greens. A WAITER comes to take my order and to take their plates away. I notice my manuscript lying between them, faceup. I can read the title upside down. THE SHADOW CATCHER. From her briefcase Stacey extracts a phonebook-thick paperback feathered with yellow Post-it notes. I know it well, this book, it’s the Taschen paperback edition of Edward S. Curtis’s COLLECTED WORKS.

“—what can I say?” she says. “EDWARD S. CURTIS. What passion! What personal courage!” She layers her palms on top of the book, as a NUN would, on a BREVIARY, and breathes, “There’s a movie in here!”

And she wants to turn it loose, I can tell, like an exorcist on call. That would be a great idea for a movie is only ever meant to be a compliment. Not only here in Tinseltown but all across America. It was like a movie always means something happened, you saw something happen right in front of you in an emotionally charged larger-than-life context. It was like a movie can only ever mean that you’re a camera. It can only ever mean that while you’re looking at what’s happening in front of you, you’ve also managed to step back from the experience, you’ve willed yourself into the position of spectator, you’ve willed yourself to be detached in the observance of performance. But There’s a movie in here means the stuff is still a little messy, too messy to be construed as entertainment. Too messy to offer up a possibility for profit, for a lesson or a parable. It’s not art. It’s life. And if you were Cartier-Bresson you’d move yourself into position, you’d align yourself along the arc of possibility and wait for a decisive moment when life, itself, composes into art. Or, if you’re Edward Curtis, you dress the mess to play the part. You disguise the truth to make the image that you want. You find the movie in there at any cost.

“Of course ever since we’ve been attending Sundance — how many years is it now, Michelle, thirteen? fourteen? — there’s been a writer in Park City flogging a new Curtis project.”