the big picture

You don’t listen to the show, what’s it called? but you do recognize the man and you recognize his voice—Sean Fennessey, in a flannel shirt, Madewell? and light wash Levi’s and black, high-top Chuck Taylor’s (but you think they’re the slightly-less-nice Costco kind?), seated in the row behind you here; peek behind, watching his leg thump, there he is, slapping at his phone, here in the Wilshire Screening Room—that’s really the name, anyone can search for it online and find their booking woman Amelia easily, anyone can pay Amelia to show one’s film in here if one likes, though you wouldn’t advise it, exorbitant hourly, especially for so teensy a space—maybe if one is, let’s say, independently wealthy, but really it’s for industry crapola: press screenings, awards PR rentals and the like, sure, and that’s why you’re here, that’s why you’re waiting here in the half-dark with Fennessey, who’s talking to the woman with him, the woman sitting next to him—not his cohost, his wife? but you don’t really know much about these people, just what you’ve absorbed ambiently from your film-worker friends and your film-writer friends and your film-going friends who continue to, how do you say? give a shit about art (well, corporate art) and the world and things—and this woman, stunning in what you think’d be considered a sun dress, a yellow sun dress—but who is she? is she his wife? and he’s not looking up at her as he speaks, still slapping at his phone as he speaks, looking into it with an intense, almost homicidal-seeming regard (though clearly also with some fatigue)—‘Is this going to be good?’ the woman asks him. ‘I don’t know, that’s why we’re here.’ Tension? boredom? you can’t tell, you don’t know these people—he’s here to do his job, you must imagine, as you are here to do yours, which is to evaluate this here film for your boss, to see if there’s maybe a promotional angle for her here; she could sell the film’s reps ‘[her] list,’ or put together virtual Q&A’s for the talent, softball, perfect for a campaign, moderators from the trades, $4,500 all in (‘Because it sounds like a lot less than five grand,’ is what your boss said when you asked her why that price), or they could negotiate a package, multiple panel tapings, maybe get below-the-line in the mix—‘All over Zoom, talent doesn’t have to go anywhere, just stay home!’ wide smile, is a key part of her pitch, and it does seem to appeal to these people, so much of this business is people-wrangling, really. ‘I think this one should have some good Latinos,’ is what she said, what your boss said, before you left the office for the day to come here, because she’s looking to get studios and film distributors and agencies and management and independent producers to buy $25,000 tables to her show (our show? you suppose, you do get writing/associate producer credits [non-union though they are…]): the Latinx Critics Alliance Fiesta Awards—yes, that’s the name your boss, your lily white boss (Vanderbilt alumna, no less), came up with, she came up with it herself, and the LCA board backed her up because she went to LMU graduate producing school with Eduardo the LCA Exec Director, entertainment media in particular and corporate entertainment in general being giant make-work programs between college friends (at least, if you graduated prior Anno Domini 1999…). (‘I know you have some reservations about all this,’ your boss said one day. ‘Yeah,’ you replied. ‘Well, we’re doing good work. We’re honoring minorities.’ ‘They’re not minorities in LA,’ you said. ‘Well, they are in Hollywood,’ she replied.) Now Fennessey, nose still to phone, says, ‘It’s supposed to be pretty violent, just FYI—like, festival walkouts…’ and the woman crosses her legs—or rather, she crosses them again, switching which leg wraps over which, and says, ‘I’m no prude.’ ‘I know you’re not a prude, I’m just giving you a head’s up—’ (And what could he possibly be doing on his phone? emailing his wife? his co-host? DMing them jokes and memes and platitudes, because you’re thinking now—or really, something bodily within you is telling you—that this woman is neither of those women—) ‘Where’s it from?’ the woman asks him. ‘Spain,’ he replies. Well, shit—these aren’t ‘our Latinos,’ your boss definitely crossed some wires here, or just didn’t read past the second sentence of a press release: there’s no reason at all for you to be here, nothing you will gain from this, except that you’ll have encountered an artwork (which would normally be ‘not nothing’—but in this job often does turn out to be entirely nothing). ‘What’s it about?’ she asks Fennessey, who isn’t having it, but he answers: ‘It’s about a woman whose son dies in a funicular accident, and you see the whole accident, apparently—it’s like a ten minute sequence of this funicular failure, supposed to be, like, this harrowing sequence…—but for the most part it’s a legal drama, a mother seeking restitution against the funicular service’s operator (in this case, a Spanish autonomía), putting up a steely face and legal strategy whilst grieving semi-privately.’ You want to say: DUDE, LOOK UP FROM YOUR GODDAMN PHONE—LOOK UP AT THIS BEAUTIFUL FUCKING WOMAN YOU’RE SITTING WITH WHILE YOU’RE FUCKING TALKING TO HER, but of course you do not say this, if you said even less than one percent of the things you truly wish to say in this job, you’d be destitute, you’d be negative-rich (and you are not so far from negative-richness already…)—and also: perhaps the point is that he’s not looking at her? that this could be a game they play?—everything left out, ignored, elided—or it’s his trying not to violate the sacred marriage boundary, loophole or cheat code, you can’t tell, you don’t know these people! ‘What’s it called?’ the woman asks. ‘You don’t know the title?’—finally, her looks at her, leg still thumping away. She says, ‘I get dragged to movies I don’t know the title of all the time...’ ‘In screening rooms?’ (and wow, look at that, he’s ‘access’ big-timing her now? how quaint…)—She laughs a little musical laugh: ‘Yes, in screening rooms,’ she says, ‘—at studios, premieres—It’s LA!’ [Rachel-Sennott-viral-video voice, the reference seeming to escape him.] He smiles fakely, says tonight’s viewing’s called Slope of Injustice. ‘That’s really the title? A little extra? Kind of on the nose?’ replies the woman. Says Fennessey: ‘All these Euro-procedurals going for the literal-title thing post-Anatomy of a Fall.’ ‘Oh I loved that one.’ ‘Yeah, it’s great’—then back to the phone (SHEESH). ‘Triangle of Sadness, too—something going on with, like, Euro-art house title construction now?’ he says to the phone. The woman says, ‘Oh I don’t care for Östlund’s work, actually. Not my guy. Not for me.’ ‘Yeah. Not for everybody,’ says Fennessey. ‘I really love Force Majeure still, if you haven’t seen that one.’ ‘Not really my thing…’ she says. (God bless this woman [—and God fuck that hack Ruben Östlund].) ‘This one tonight’s not really a comedy,’ says Fennessey. ‘That’s good,’ says the woman, ‘not so in the mood to laugh, not so much.’ You want to tell them both about your boss’s confusion here re: Latinos, but decide against it,it’s too late to chime in, anyway, you think all three of you have agreed upon this implicitly (four of you, if you count Fennessey’s thumping leg as an entity, which you do). The anonymous junior publicist—hair back, gray blouse—who checked everyone in stands before you now (and it’s just the three of you in the crowd, you and your two new friends) in front of the blank movie screen, reminding the room that you cannot eat in here and can drink only bottled water, then thanking everyone present effusively for ‘making the time to support international cinema—’ though of course no one paid anything to be here (and, in fact, it’s your boss who would get paid, if only there were any of ‘our Latinos’ in Slope of Injustice [—‘No, Javier Bardem is not Latino,’ you tell your boss, ‘he was born in Las Palmas. In the Canaries?’ —you have to tell her this at least twice a week, literally, each and every week…]), they even validate your parking here at the Wilshire Screening Room—not always guaranteed in this funny, fickle town. Movie finally starting, only 23 minutes late: cards and cards of international production entities, tax shelters, various national institutes, dozens of them, perhaps 50 logos all together, two full minutes of this (prefacing the remaining 157 minutes of loud, bland punishment, a psychic wave informs you of the rest of the film). Then we hit footage—palm tree swaying at dusk, or is it dawn?—and more credits, a lot of the same production outfits and governmental arts organs repeated in grave serifs over this highly-saturated beach scene, the score kicking in, electronic—which can be cool and great, obviously, but usually means cheap, you’ve found—and here’s your first humans, actors, nondescript, out of focus flesh in sludges of clothing heading into the sea, credits, FOTOGRAFÍA, PRODUCTOR ASOCIADO, PRODUCTOR EJECUTIVO, GUIÓN Y DIRECCÍON—

Z.H. Gill lives in East Hollywood, CA. He edits Burial Magazine.