Playing Dumb

“Cut, cut, cut. What the hell was that?,” the Director, or Captain as he preferred to be called, asked the entire set. It was a semi-rhetorical statement, to which, he only wanted an answer from one person – his lead actor, Marco Bontemps. 

“I was riffing a little. I thought this was a safe set.”

“You’re playing dumb in this part. What about that don’t you understand?”

“I thought I could add some depth to the character.”

“This character has no depth. You said ‘evince’ in the last take. Don’t say that again unless you’re talking about an e-version of our key grip named Vince.” 

Vince looked up from the rafters, holding a piece of cable in his teeth.

“You good Captain?,” yelled Vince, swaying from a wobbly scaffold. 

The Captain delivered a big thumbs up to his favorite crew member. 

“Right. You’re the boss.”

“I’m the Captain. Stick to what’s on the page. And if you must improvise, monosyllables only. Think you can handle that?”

“Did it ever bother you that the word monosyllabic isn’t monosyllabic?” 

The Captain rolled his eyes and headed back to the director’s chair. It wasn’t a normal director’s chair, but a vintage Eames chair that he expensed for about ten grand. No wonder most of his films went way over budget. This wasn’t the highlight of his career and he knew it. That would’ve been the independent movie, a real passion project, he wrote and directed, Pebble in a Pond. A three-hour film with no dialogue, just a lot of Wagner and some well-timed German subtitles. The story followed a pebble as it plunged from the surface, thrown by a six-year-old boy on shore, and made its way, quite slowly given the running time, to the bottom. Even though we never see the boy’s face, it was written in trade publications that the Captain auditioned hundreds of arms before finally going with some kid who just happened to be there that day. Critics didn’t know what to make of the film, but many put it on their top ten lists out of fear of being considered low brow. It’s like when someone says a joke you don’t understand – you laugh harder to throw them off the scent.

But this project wasn’t his low point either. That would’ve been a mini-series he produced in the late 80s entitled, Our Son, about a teenage arsonist/valedictorian. The project was a disaster and went  over budget because the Captain insisted on actually burning down buildings. “No special effects” was his mantra on set. The documentary about the making of it, Fired!, portrayed the Captain as a tyrannical, pyromaniacal, middling artist obsessed with free food and endless takes.  

After lunch is always the roughest time on a film set. There are pieces of shredded lettuce everywhere, sticking to work boots like torn toilet paper in a bus station bathroom. And everyone’s completely full. People want to nap, they want to veg out. Working is the last thing on someone’s mind whose belly is full.

“Quiet on set. And…rolling,” said the Captain.

Marco stepped to his mark, a piece of tape, covered with shredded lettuce. He held a tray of paint chips.

“They give these free at hardware stores. Suckers. Each color is a different flavor.” 

Marco brought one to his lips, then sighed and waved cut.

“What now?”

“Last scene I was making memes, in another I was leaving mini-lectures on message boards, and now I’m eating paint chips. What’s my motivation, Cap?”

“You’re a moron.”

“Are we talking about my character?”