SCENE THE FIRST
Early winter, 1968. 26 Ranger Road, Dumont, New Jersey
GLENN KENNY, nine years old, is sitting at the dining room table, poring over the Grove Press "film book" of Godard's "Masculine Feminine." His mother, AMELIA, is dusting around the dining room and living room.
GLENN (looking up from the book): Mom, why do think it is that Godard wears sunglasses all the time?
AMELIA (continuing to dust): I'd imagine it's some sort of affectation.
GLENN: What's an affectation?
AMELIA (not unaffectionately): Go look it up.
SCENE THE SECOND
Fall, 1977. The Show Place, 347 South Salem Street, Dover, New Jersey
RICHARD HELL AND THE VOIDOIDS have just completed a set, in support of their recently released debut album "Blank Generation." GLENN KENNY<em>, just recently turned 18, hovers around the dressing room just off the main bar of this strip club turned part-time punk rock venue. Entering the dressing room, he introduces himself to HELL, who is lounging on a couch between two bottle blondes, and ROBERT QUINE, the Voidoids' guitarist. GLENN sputters a good deal of fanboy effusion before getting to a question that's been much on his mind.
GLENN: So, why did you put those pictures of Godard on the inner sleeve of Blank Generation? Is he, like, a really big influence on you?
HELL (one should be able to see his eyes rolling, even though he's wearing dark glasses): I don't know, man. I just thought he was a cool guy...
(The bottle blondes laugh. Sensing a blind alley, GLENN turns his attention to QUINE.)
GLENN: Hey, you put your Berklee School of Music ID on the inner sleeve, I've gotta couple of friends who are going to Berklee and they're all into Chicago and stuff...
QUINE: Not surprising...when I went there everybody wanted to end up playing in the Tonight Show Orchestra...
They step off to the bar to continue their chat.
SCENE THE THIRD
Late Spring, 1986. The north foyer (not even the lobby!) of the Parker Meridian Hotel, West 56th Street entrance, New York, New York
GLENN, 25, newly hired as an Associate Editor at Video Review magazine, is uncharacteristically early for a breakfast meeting with a consumer electronics executive. He sits on a bench in the foyer, enjoying a cigarette, a copy of Bely's "Saint Petersburg," a book he will not finish until several years from now, on his lap.
Enter JEAN-LUC GODARD, from the lobby. Slightly dishevelled, wearing a tweed blazer, tight plaid shirt and dark blue slacks, carrying an unlit cheroot, he gazes out into the street, nervously.
GLENN (interior monologue): Holy shit. It's Godard. Man, he must be in town to work on that project with Mailer I read about...is his English any good? Should I try to talk to him? Maybe he'll be impressed that I'm reading Bely...I wonder if he needs an assistant or something? Oh, crap, what am I saying...I just got this job, and it wasn't easy. Still, how cool could that conceivably be...and even aside from that, I should tell him something about the fact that I've been such a fan for so many...
GODARD re-enters the lobby. GLENN continues on the life path which has brought him to his current status as an unemployed film critic.
hope next decade, scene the four, ends happier.
Posted by: Rodrigo Rothschild | July 16, 2008 at 02:22 PM
Dark Knight review Glenn? The suspense is killing...
Posted by: Mark | July 17, 2008 at 05:06 AM
Congratulations, this just became my favorite movie blog.
Posted by: MovieMan0283 | July 23, 2008 at 03:00 PM