The Water-Method Man

Home Movies

KENT RAN THE projector. It was a pretty beat-up print of the original which Tulpen had crudely spliced together so they could see how the concept was working.

Trumper ran the recorder. His tapes were as crudely cut as the film; they weren't always in sync, and he kept having to ask Kent to slow down the projector or speed it up or stop it altogether, and he was constantly fussing with the speed of the tape too. Altogether, it was about as amateurish an operation as Trumper had been privileged to see since he'd started working with Ralph. Most of the camera shots were hand-held, as jumpy as a TV newsreel, and most of the film was silent; the separately taped sound track would be laid over later. Ralph had practically given up on using sync sound. Even the film itself was substandard - high speed, grainy stuff - and Ralph, normally a wizard with light, had overexposed and underexposed half of the footage. Ralph was also a very patient genius in the darkroom, yet some of the footage looked as if the film had been handled with pliers and blotched with chemicals invented for the removal of rust rather than the development of film.

An excellent film craftsman, Ralph had done all this on purpose; in fact, some of the light holes in the film had been handmade with a jackknife. Since there wasn't a speck of dust in his darkroom, Ralph must have swept half of New York with the reels to achieve the mess he had. Perhaps when the film was distributed, if it ever was, Ralph would stipulate the use of a crushed plastic lens on the projector.

When Packer wanted to run through the whole crude beginning again, Trumper felt he'd had it.

'It's looking good,' Ralph said. 'It's looking better.'

'You want to know what it sounds like?' Trumper said, slamming the buttons on the recorder. 'It sounds like it was taped in a tin-can factory. And you know what it looks like? It looks like your tripod got stolen and that you were so poor you had to pawn your light meter to be able to buy the cheapest film stock in Hong Kong.'

Tulpen coughed.

'It looks,' said Trumper, 'like your darkroom was in a windowless building being sand-blasted.

Even Kent didn't say anything. He probably didn't like it either, but he had great faith in Ralph. If Ralph had asked him to load a camera with Saran Wrap, Kent would have tried it.

'It looks like home movies,' Trumper said.

'It is a home movie, Thump-Thump,' Ralph told him. 'Can we run through the first reel just once more please?'

'If this tape will even hold together,' Trumper said. 'I ought to copy it. It's got more splices than actual tape. It's about as stable as a pubic hair,' he said.

'Once more, Thump-Thump?' Ralph asked.

'If I have to stop it just once,' Trumper said, 'the whole thing will fall apart.'

'Then we'll run it straight through, OK, Kent?' Ralph said.

'The film might break too,' Kent suggested.

'Let's just try it, shall we?' Ralph said patiently. 'Just once more.'

'I'll pray for you, Ralph,' said Bogus. Tulpen coughed again. Nothing was meant by it; she simply had a cold. 'Ready, Kent?' Trumper asked.

Kent advanced the film to the opening frame and Trumper located the sound he wanted. 'Ready, Thump-Thump,' Kent said.

The name was reserved for Ralph's use alone; Trumper didn't like being called Thump-Thump by fucking Kent. 'What did you say, Kent?' he asked.

'Huh?' said Kent.

Ralph stood up, and Tulpen put her right hand in Trumper's lap, leaned across him and with her left hand flicked the tape to PLAY. 'Go, Kent,' she said.

The film opens with a medium shot of Trumper in a delicatessen in the Village. It is a big, crowded lunch-counter, and you can pick out sandwich makings as you move along, ending up with a whopper at the cash register. Trumper moves slowly, scrutinizing the pastrami, pickles and spiced ham, nodding or shaking his head to the men behind the counter. There is no sync sound.

The voice-over is Packer's, narrating, from the tape. 'He's very cautious now - like someone who's been stung has an eye open for bees, you know?'

Trumper looks suspiciously at his sandwich, 'It's natural, I guess, but he just won't get involved in anything.'

Ralph's voice-over rattles on about Trumper's lack of involvement until we cut to another angle: Trumper standing by the condiment counter, applying mustard and relish. A pretty girl is looking self-consciously at the camera, then at Trumper to see if he might be someone famous. She also wants the mustard. Trumper slides it along the counter to her without looking at her, then carries his sandwich out of frame. The girl stares after him, as Tulpen's voice-over says, 'I think he's very careful with women. A good thing, too, by the way ...'

Cut: Trumper and Tulpen are entering her apartment, both of them lugging groceries. There is no sync sound. Ralph, voice-over, says, 'Well, naturally you'd think so. You live with him.'

Tulpen and Bogus are putting groceries away in the kitchen; she is chattering in an apparently normal monologue; he is sullen, throwing an occasional irritated look at her, then at the camera. 'I mean, he's just nice with me,' Tulpen's voice-over says. 'I think he's aware of the dangers, that's all ...'

Walking straight into the camera's lens, Trumper makes an obscene gesture.