Truth in Advertising Page 0,62
show A Chorus Line (“One . . . singular sensation . . . every little time he makes . . .” If you’re sensing a theme of “borrowing” other ideas and making them our own by putting the most minute twist on them, you’re on to something.). His producer was very gracious, saying that as much as Errol loved the script—and musical theater in particular—he would have to pass, as “Errol is on an extended holiday in India, where he’s shooting a comedy with Adam Sandler.”
I say, “Too serious, maybe?”
Ian says, “Serious stuff, the environment.”
“Super Bowl audience, though. Straight guys. Drunk. Baseball caps on backwards. Guys who use the word tits, boner. Guys who use the word party as a verb.”
Ian says, “It doesn’t have to be super serious. Charming. Hopeful. Not unlike myself.”
I leave a message for Pam, asking her to get in touch with Errol Morris’s production company and to see if William McDonough would be interested. I also ask her to get in touch with Ridley Scott’s production company to see if he’s available.
• • •
“Fin. How do you feel about fondue?”
It’s Martin calling from Austria. A rough calculation says it’s almost ten at night where he is. I’d e-mailed him scripts, paragraph write-ups of ideas from the guys earlier in the day, highlighting Captain Underpants, William McDonough, 1984, under pressure/Bach, and talking babies but not E-Trade, as well as a couple other stragglers that weren’t good but that added to the length of the Word doc I sent, making it seem like a lot of work.
I say, “Warm stinky cheese?”
“You’re a poet.”
“How’s Austria?”
“Reminds me of Switzerland. Not far from the border, actually. What was that quote, Orson Welles’s character in The Third Man. ‘In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love—they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.’”
I’m never bored listening to Martin. I hear a piano in the background, clinking glasses, silverware.
“You at dinner, Martin?”
“Friend has a place on the Gaschurn. I’m looking out over the valley, the lights, snowcapped Alps in the distance.”
I’m looking out over an avenue in midtown Manhattan, snow turned black. I have an intense pang of jealousy for Martin’s life, his intelligence and success and cool.
Martin says, “Captain Underpants could be interesting.”
“That’s not a sentence I ever thought I’d hear you say, Martin.”
“Could be the altitude. And the wine.”
I hear a woman speak French. Martin replies in kind, away from the phone.
Martin says, “Bach. Could be nice. Talking babies. Tricky. E-Trade. If you can figure out a way to make it original, fine. But they can’t talk like adults. William McDonough. Tell me.”
I start to explain who William McDonough is.
“I know who he is. What’s the spot?”
“Maybe a mix of interview and beauty shots of the environment. Maybe just him talking to camera. Errol Morris.”
“Bit serious.”
“We watched clips of McDonough on TED. He’s amazing. Great speaker, sense of humor. Won’t feel too serious.”
I’m waiting for him to mention the 1984 idea, which I both love and hate. I love it because I think it could be funny. I hate it because it’s someone else’s idea and I can see it being mercilessly criticized. I worry that it’s one of those ideas that you initially think is genius but that reveal themselves slowly to be idiotic.
He says, “1984.”
“Yes.”
“Has to be perfect. Shot for shot. Perfect but over the top. I don’t hate it.”
Which means he likes it a lot. I hear the French woman again.
“I’m on a plane tomorrow. Be ready to show Frank and Dodge. Tschüss.”
• • •
The team gathers to share where we are. Ideas will be killed. Two or three might live for the eventual presentation, which is three days away, the day after New Year’s.
Martin is back. He talks with Frank and another man I’ve never seen. Dodge is on vacation.
We sit at one of the conference room tables. Jill, Alan, me, Ian, Paulie, Stefano, Malcolm, Raj, Pam. Along the other side sit additional people I’ve only seen a few times and in some cases never at all.
Alan says, “Frank? Shall we get started?” Alan becomes nervous around Frank.
I lean over to Ian. “Who’s the guy?”
The guy is perhaps thirty-five, Japanese, dressed in a bespoke Paul Smith suit that does not lend itself to his portly frame. A fat King George knot in his tie,