The New Confessions (44 page)

All film technique, I am convinced (and as is the case with many of my theories, I am probably alone in adhering to it), originates in dreaming. We could dream slow motion before the moving camera was invented. In our dreams we could cut between parallel action, we assembled montage shots, long before some self-important Russian claimed to show us how. This is where the film derives its particular power. It re-creates on screen what has been going on in our unconscious. I met a famous director once (he shall be nameless) who purported to have been the first man to launch a remote-control camera down a stretched wire and give us for the first time the sensation of flying like a bird. But dreamers, I told him, have been flying this way since the birth of consciousness. Many of my own inventions (the hand-held camera, my soft-focus lens) originated in my dreams. This, then, was the position I found myself in. Let us take another image—a still, burning candle. It is beautiful, it illumines. Now, breathe gently on the flame and observe the flickering, dancing transformation. As I saw it, the director’s role in the film was to be the breath upon the candle flame. I had everything at my disposal in
The Confessions
to make that flame dance and sparkle—my vision, the actors, technical apparatus and the skills of my collaborators—but I still felt myself balked and restricted by the confinement of the lens and what we could do with it, that fixed immutable rectangle that we had to fill. And then, that spring of ’28, I dreamed about Rousseau and his walk from Geneva to Savoy. I saw him striding through the chilly landscape with the vast backdrop of the mountains behind him. It was as if I stood and watched him walk a mile in front of my eyes.… When I woke I knew that my task in
The Confessions
was somehow to escape the limitations of the frame.

The solution to this problem came so swiftly that I was baffled that it had not struck anyone before. If I could not extend the dimensions of
the camera lens and thereby extend the dimensions of the screen, I would simply multiply the options available to me: I would use three cameras, five cameras, synchronize their images and project them on a corresponding number of adjacent screens. I had a sudden vision of my cinema of the future. We would sit the audience in a round amphitheater, hemmed in by a circular screen. Jean Jacques’s walk could span 360 degrees.…

But this was far away. I sat down with my cameraman, Horst Immelman, to work out the practicalities (there is not much to say about Horst—in his forties, genial, efficient, an artisan deluxe). We quickly realized that the best we could achieve was the linking up of three cameras, otherwise synchronization, image adjustment and continuity would prove nightmarishly complicated. Horst thought a prototype could be rigged up in a month. I went to Eddie to convince him we should use it. He at once saw the immense advantages the device would bring, but pointed out that we would have to adapt the world’s cinemas too, if it was to be worthwhile. It was a fair point. In the end it was decided that I would shoot some scenes with the Tri-Kamera (as it was now known) and—this was Eddie’s idea—Realismus would adapt key cinemas for premiere, trade and publicity screenings. He enthused about my invention but for the wrong reason. He saw it as a spectacular publicity stunt and was indifferent to the aesthetic potential. We—Horst and I—went away with a revised budget and shooting schedule. I would refilm two scenes—Rousseau’s walk to Savoy and his first meeting Mme. de Warens—and use the Tri-Kamera on two new ones: the cherry-picking incident and Rousseau’s forlorn departure from Les Charmettes and arrival in Paris. If the device worked, and public response was favorable, we would look at expanding the Tri-Kamera sequences in
Parts II
and
III
.

And so we were set to go again. The rest of the year lay before me, planned and funded. Spring and summer in Geneva, Annecy and Chambéry. The autumn taken up with shooting the Tri-Kamera scenes. Winter, back in Spandau for interiors. My new delivery date was July 1, 1929.
Part II
would commence in the autumn of that year.

Before we left for France I asked Doon to marry me but, typically, with my usual impulsive stupidity, chose entirely the wrong moment. I was at her apartment; we had just made love. I got dressed to go out and buy some cigarettes. As I took my coat and hat from the stand in the hall I saw an unfamiliar paisley-patterned fine-wool scarf hanging there.
I picked it up and smelled it. Hair oil and cigars … I replaced it and went out. Somehow I purchased cigarettes.

Mavrocordato.

Mavrocordato had been to the apartment. I could see the scarf round his thick neck. I issued a series of instructions to myself as I walked back from the tobacconist’s kiosk, all to do with calmness, logic, dispassion, self-respect, but I promptly forgot them all as I stepped back inside.

Doon called, “Hurry up with those cigarettes!”

I took Mavrocordato’s scarf off the hook and put it in my pocket. I went into the bedroom and tossed a packet of cigarettes onto the bed. Doon sat up to reach them, exposing her breasts as she leaned forward. I dangled the scarf in front of her. She looked up.

“Mavrocordato’s been here, hasn’t he?”

“Yes.” She was candid, unshaken.

I felt my eyes heavy with tears. “He forgot his scarf. You should be more careful.”

“No, it’s not.”

“What?”

“Not his scarf. The plumber who came on Monday—no, Tuesday—left it.”

“The plumber …”

“Well done.”

“But you did say Mavrocordato had been here.”

“Yes.”

I felt all my anger turn in midair like a boomerang and head back towards me.

“What the hell for?” I asked. “I mean, what bloody right does he have … ? What about my feelings, for God’s sake?”

“We had a chat. Christ, I
was
married to him, you know.”

I sat down on the bed and took her hand.

“Doon, I want you to marry me. I beg you. Let’s get married.”

“No. I don’t want to get married again. Once was enough. Not to anyone. Not even you.”

She freed her hand from mine, lit her cigarette and lay back in the bed.

“Why should we get married? Aren’t you happy?”

“Of course I am. That’s why.”

“Well, let’s leave it at that.”

“I forbid you to see that … that big hairy shit again.”

“No, you don’t. I like him. I’ll see him if I want to. You don’t need
to be there. For God’s sake, don’t be stupid, Jamie. Anyway, you’re married already.”

Why can’t we be content with the way things are? Is it a basic human failing, this constant need to improve your life?… Is there a deep atavistic dream, which we all cherish, that however settled and content our life seems to be, it can with more effort be a little bit better? Chimeras, mirages, illusions—not to be trusted. Why did I keep pushing Doon this way? Why did I keep pushing myself? Everything was fine until I unilaterally decided it could be better. That night I kept on at her, pleading the case for matrimony with keening insistence. It became very boring for her. We snapped at each other, we argued. Then I apologized and tried to calm down, but the evening was ruined. My tone had been wheedling, selfish. Doon was right, damn her; my arguments could get no forensic purchase.

Shortly after that abortive proposal, I came home one night at about half past eight. Sonia was in the kitchen talking to Lily. I went upstairs without greeting her. It must have been about half past nine. In the upstairs corridor I saw Vincent peering through the half-opened door to the boys’ bedroom.

“Get to bed.” I warned.

“Daddy, Hereford won’t talk to me.”

“He’s a sensible boy. He’s gone to sleep.”

I ushered Vincent back into the room and helped him into bed. Then I went over to Hereford’s cot. He was lying on his back, one arm thrown high, two glistening streams of snot trailing from his nostrils. I took out my handkerchief to wipe his lip clean. The instant I touched him I knew he was dead. He was barely warm. I picked him up and his head fell back. A curious gurgling sound came from his throat. I kissed his face, the tears running freely from my eyes, and laid him back down again. I went over to Vincent, got him out of bed and led him from the room.

Hereford’s cold had lingered on, turned into a bad cough, gone away and returned again. He did not seem to mind. To him, I suppose, it was just another couple of orifices—nose and mouth—excreting in concert with his nether ones. He was three years old.

What can I say about Hereford? I think, I believe, I sincerely believe that everything might have been different had he lived.
But I can’t be
sure
. I can’t be sure of anything. Hamish would agree with that conclusion. All I’m left with is a sentimental aggregate of fond recollections and wishful thinking. I know only that I loved that small boy in a different way from my other children. There was something in me that responded to his anarchic clumsy presence no matter how irritated and preoccupied I was. And then he was gone.

Is this the sort of occasion when a human life (mine) takes a quantum leap? One of those sudden jumps, an abrupt discontinuity that changes everything? Nothing was quite the same after Hereford died; the world had a different tinge and texture. From where do we get this funny idea that order, causality, sense and continuity should necessarily prevail in the world in which we humans live and breath? Yes, I thought, I can see how this place is governed by chance and random change, having just been the victim of a particularly brutal one. I can understand now how visions of discontinuity and plurality fit my experience better than ideas of order and deliberateness. We don’t know anything for certain. We can’t determine anything. We function solely on terms of hopeful probability. It worked this way before; maybe it will again. But don’t count on it.

I go into the main town, the port, to see Eddie’s lawyer about getting the pool filled. The central square is shabbily elegant, paved with white stone and lined with mature fragrant oleanders. The yellowing stucco buildings around it have tall windows with shutters and wrought-iron balconies. At one end there is an amusing baroque statue of two heavily armed, plumed soldiers wrestling with the flag of liberty.

Everywhere the tourists mill about. Inside his hot office the lawyer is diplomatic. He procrastinates. He apologizes. What can he do? Perhaps at the end of the tourist season …

I leave and join gaudy visitors to our island. I find my favorite café overlooking the harbor and after waiting no more than ten minutes I secure a seat. I eat some ice cream—pistachio, always pistachio—and drink a coffee. I think about Ulrike. She’s a charming girl. The tan she has now suits her. She exudes health and a settled happy confidence in her life or work. I try to picture her boyfriend, the cineast. I see a beard, a checked shirt, a name like Rudi or Rolf. Everything seems fine, Ulrike, but tread carefully. Remember the Uncertainty Principle. It governs the molecules we’re made up of. A little of it is going to penetrate our human world. If a fig tree root can make it through a solid concrete
wall, what is going to stop the Uncertainty Principle? Look at my life—lived in unswerving devotion to its capricious edicts.

I stop. I’m getting depressed. I look up and at that moment a tourist bus goes by. And there at a window pointing at the attractions of our picturesque harbor is a man I know. An American. The bus passes; my sudden fear sizzles on, like spit on a hot skillet. Reassurance is slow to return. Relax, I say to myself, it could be a coincidence. It must be. It might not even be him at all. He never saw you, and anyway, nobody knows you are here.

In the summer of 1730, Mme. de Warens quit Annecy temporarily for Paris, leaving Jean Jacques behind. He had a pleasant time in her absence, dallying with young women, several of whom, or so he claimed in his
Confessions
, were in love with him. On one particularly beautiful day he went for a walk in the country. In a green valley beside a stream he came across two girls who were having difficulty leading their horses across. Rousseau had met one of the girls before—a Mlle. de Graffenried—and was introduced to her by the other—Mile. Galley. They were both pretty, especially Mlle. Galley, who was “both small and well developed at an age when a girl is most beautiful.” Rousseau helped them both across the stream and the girls insisted on his accompanying them for the rest of the day. They were going to the Château de la Tour at Thônes, a large farmhouse that belonged to Mlle. Galley’s family.

They duly arrived at the château and enjoyed a late lunch in the
kitchen. Saving their coffee and cream cakes for later, they decided to round off their meal by going into the chateau’s cherry orchard to pick the ripe fruit. Rousseau climbed the trees and threw down cherries to the girls, who teasingly threw the pits back up at him. A flirtatious game ensued. Then “Mlle. Galley, with her apron held forward and her head thrown back, presented such a good target and I threw so well, that a bunch of cherries fell between her breasts. What laughter! I said to myself, ‘If only my lips were cherries I would gladly throw them there.’ ”

But nothing happened. It was an idyll, vibrant with sexual intimations and unrealized potential. As you can imagine, this particular episode had burned itself into my mind when I read it in my barren cell at Weilburg. And remember I read it as a virgin (my two girls were Huguette and Dagmar) and at the time it actually occurred Jean Jacques had been a virgin too. He never forgot that day in the cherry orchard. For him it was a moment, he realized later, which proved that the erotic sensuality of innocence is often more powerful than the carnal pleasures of adulthood.

I filmed the entire day just as Rousseau had related it. I cast the two girls locally, searching touring theater groups and music halls in Grenoble, Nice and Lyons. It was their appearance that was important, not their acting ability—I had no need for sophisticated, worldly actresses. All they had to do was look right, giggle and flirt. Karl-Heinz was a gauche monster of ardent frustration, positively deformed with the competing pressures of desire and shyness. In our orchard we cut out the center of one tree and mounted a camera platform there. We used embossed film for the moment Mlle. Galley’s breasts “catch” the bunch of cherries. It was during this week that I saw a further potential in the Tri-Kamera. I realized that it need not be employed solely for creating one single long, stretched image—it could just as easily make three separate ones. Throughout one exhausting evening Horst and I worked out with the aid of diagrams a sequence of massive close-ups using the embossed film. The actors were baffled as we thrust the cameras to within inches of their faces from every possible angle, pausing between shots to consult sheaves of notes and scribbled drawings. The resulting sequence is breathtaking in its latent erotic power, as those who saw it on the three screens testified. Let me take you through it.