So Ralph Packer was true to his word. The Group Thing was a mild success. That part where the 'Horst Wessel Song' is played over a beery crowd at Benny's? That was my idea. And the part with the Maths department meeting at the University of Iowa, with German dubbed in and the subtitles reading: 'First you arrest them with the proper court order, then you start arresting so many that group trials become acceptable, then you've got them so worried about the detention camps that they don't bother you about having to have a court order any more, so then ...'
It was a kind of propaganda film. The evil was the innate hostility directed at the individual by groups. It was not a political film, however; all groups were equally misrepresented. The enemy was any unified crowd. Even a classroom with nodding heads: 'Yes, yes, I see, I agree, jawohl!'
Everyone thought that The Group Thing was 'innovative'. Only one major complaint was ever leveled against it, and it came to Ralph in the form of a letter from the German American Society of Columbus, Ohio. They said the film was anti-German; it 'raked over a lot of old coals', they said. There wasn't anything especially German about groups, they said, and there wasn't anything wrong with groups, either. Ralph was referred to as a 'nut'. The letter was not actually signed by anybody, by any real person. It was stamped, with one of those ink stampers: THE GERMAN AMERICAN SOCIETY.
'Another fucking group,' said Ralph. 'Over five hundred people wrote that letter. And shit, Thump-Thump, I didn't really mean anything. I mean, I don't know what I meant ...'
This is still true of Ralph; it has been the major criticism of his films. They are nearly always called 'innovative', often 'unpretentious', usually 'truthful'. But The New York Times, for example, notes 'a certain lack of resolution ... he fails to commit himself to a point of view.' The Village Voice finds that 'the visions are always striving to be personal, authentic and fresh, yet Packer fails to really deal with the issues ... a simple portrait of the action seems to satisfy him.' I think it satisfies me too.
'Shit,' says Ralph. 'They're just pictures, Thump-Thump.'
In fact, their lack of 'meaning' I find especially refreshing.
The Group Thing was his only propaganda film; it was the only one to win a prize, too. His next two films I wasn't in on; I was leaving my wife and mind behind.
Ralph went on a long lam, from Iowa to New York. Soft Dirt was about a rock group. Ralph just followed them around when Soft Dirt was on a concert tour. Interviews with their girls, shots of the guys cutting each other's hair, shots of the leg-wrestling competition organized among the girls, shots of what the winners won. The high point of the film comes when the leader's dog gets accidentally electrocuted by an amplifier. The group cancelled a week of concerts; out of sympathy, fans donated about fifty dogs. 'They're all very nice dogs,' said the leader, 'but they're just not like old Soft Dirt.' That had been the name of the dog too.
The third film was about a small traveling circus, which Ralph followed through an endless series of one-night stands. There's a lot of footage of the tent going up and coming down, and interviews with the trapeze girls.
'Is the circus dead?'
'God ... why would you ever think that?'
And a very long vignette about the elephant keeper who lost three fingers on his right hand when the elephant stepped on him.
'Do you still like elephants?'
'Sure, I love elephants.'
'Even this particular elephant who stepped on your hand?'
'Especially this particular elephant. He didn't mean to step on my hand. He didn't even know what he was stepping on. I just put my hand where he was stepping; he would have stepped there anyway. And he really felt awful about it.'
'The elephant felt awful? He knew he'd stepped on your hand?'
'Christ, of course he knew. I yelled, "You're stepping on my fucking hand!" Sure, he knew all right, and he just felt terrible.'
Then there follows an episodic series of shots of the elephant, trying to convey how sorry he was. It was Ralph's worst film, I think. I can't ever remember the title.
But now that I'm back as his sound tracker, his films should improve - soundwise, at least. We're working on one now called Down on the Farm. It's about a hippie commune called the Free Farm. The Free Farmers want everybody to use the land - any land. They think private property is bullshit. The land should be free to them who'd use it. They run into a little trouble, from some real farmers up in Vermont. The real farmers think private property is OK. The Free Farmers try to tell the real farmers how badly they're being screwed by not having any free land. They appear to be headed toward a confrontation. A small liberal arts college in the area lends a certain intellectual confusion to the situation. Ralph goes up to Vermont every weekend to see if the confrontation has occurred yet. He comes back with reels and reels, tapes and tapes. 'It's still building,' he says.
'When the winter comes along,' I tell him, 'maybe the kids will get cold and hungry and just walk off the land.'
'Then we'll film that,' he says.
'Maybe there won't be any confrontation,' I suggest.
'Maybe there won't,' Ralph says, and Tulpen tips her tit with the back of her hand.
This irks Ralph. Tulpen was already working for Ralph when I came to New York; Ralph gave her the job because she was sleeping with him. Oh, long ago. Tulpen didn't know anything about editing film, but Ralph showed her. When she learned to do it very well, she stopped sleeping with him. Ralph didn't fire her because she's a fantastic editor, but sometimes Ralph gets mad about it. 'You only slept with me to get this job,' he tells her.
'You only gave me the job because I slept with you,' Tulpen tells him, unperturbed. 'Don't you like my work?' she asks him. 'I like the job.'
There is this understanding stalemate between them.
The kid named Kent, who runs errands, is another story.
Tulpen and me in the darkroom, sipping coffee, wondering where the doughnuts are. Tulpen is trimming some of Ralph's stills, hot off the dryer, cropping them in the big paper cutter. Chomp! And it's been two weeks since I've heard a word from that damn Biggie. Are the other kids kind to Colm in school? Does he still bite?