On the Road with Bob Dylan (51 page)

“What’s your fix on this movie as compared to, say,
Nashville?”

Blakley downs the Coke. “My fix on the movie is that it’s great. It’s gonna be a brilliant movie. I would say it’s similar to
Nashville
in terms of high quality. It’s not gonna be similar in terms of genre, although in the sense that one of the controversies about
Nashville
was, is it or is it not a documentary? I mean, people were criticizing it all of the time saying the country music stinks, that it’s really not country music, da da da. Well, it wasn’t a documentary, it was fiction, but
Nashville
approached real life so closely that people actually confused it with real life and yet at the same time, it was surrealistic, so there was constant confusion between irony, comedy, tragedy, sincerity, soap opera, humor, and hysteria with no hint and no lead-in or lead-out. It was the creation of one man’s vision, and so is this film. And the thing about this that’s very similar but goes a step further is that you’ll see people singing onstage then you’ll probably see cuts into some other scenes where you won’t know if they’re actually faking it, acting, or whether the scene was actually taking place.”

“Was
Nashville
scripted?” Ratso asks.

“Nashville was
scripted. There’s a big difference between improvisation and writing. Some was improvised, some was scripted.”

“Well, with this movie it seems everything was improvised,” Ratso remembers.

“Never on any of my scenes,” Ronee gets indignant. “I wrote some of my scenes and I improvised some of my own scenes.
Nashville
was entirely structured and scripted compared to this Rolling Thunder movie. Altman is not given credit and neither is Joan Tewkesbury for writing scenes within which actors can work …. Everybody seems to give Altman some magical credit, which is true, he does have the magical genius to have people appear on the set and something happens, but it just doesn’t happen.
He discusses things with actors, actors go out shopping for their own props, for their own wigs, their own wardrobes, they go practice in the drugstores, they hang out in the bars, they write and work out their lines, they get everything worked out. They’re professionals from the word go, they don’t just show up on the set and it’s an accident. This whole thing about Altman and improvisation and all his actors not really being actors, you should see the work that his actors put in before they show up on the set. Just because they don’t stand in the room and rehearse.”

“Did you do research for that character?”

“Lots of research, yeah.” Ronee’s eyes grow wide. “Oh yeah, I hung around everywhere. I hung around the Opry, I hung around Nashville, I called all the managers of all the stars, and all the record companies, and I went to all the fan club dinners. And I hung out with Dolly, and I hung out with Loretta, and I hung out with Conway. I worked very hard for that part, I studied very hard. I called up Altman every day and told him new little dialogue, new lines I heard, new bits of action, lots of stuff. I studied very hard. See, most people think that I was her,” Ronee leans over and confides to Ratso. “You know that? Everyone thinks that I really was Barbara Jean. See, so they don’t regard it as acting.”

“That’s a compliment!” Ratso gushes.

“It’s a compliment, except I can’t get a job,” Blakley frowns. “They think I’m Barbara Jean. If they want Barbara Jean, the girl in the white dress with the Southern accent who falls apart, maybe they would call me, but for any other part, no. What they say is, How did Altman have the genius to find that girl with that ratted hair and that white dress and that crazy neurotic …. I was skiing with Miloš Forman for four days, not as lovers but as friends, we were all staying in the same house, Jack Nicholson’s house, in Aspen for four days, him and me skiing in our jeans, in our crummy army surplus parkas, fighting our way down Aspen Mountain. Finally, on about the fourth day on a trip up the chair lift, he says to me, ‘You know, Ronee, there’s somesing I vant to tell
you, I saw
Nashville
and I thought it was so brilliant, so very brilliant, but you know, up until this very day it’s taken me three days now to be around you but I have to tell you quite honestly that I thought that Bob Altman had just found himself a nut. I thought that Bob Altman had this genius and he had found himself this nut. You know, you’re very together. You’re a very together person.’ I said, ‘Well, thanks, Miloš, you know, I’m not that together.’

“He said that I represent the new kind of American actor and I think it’s the highest compliment that I could be paid as an actress; he said I represented the new American actor like Jack Nicholson who gives the kind of performance which Miloš called You can’t see through it.’ And it had taken that long and we were staying in the same house and I was wearing jeans, no makeup, and T-shirts, and we were skiing together all day and having dinner and every morning getting up, and it took him four days and he was still seeing that white dress on the ski slopes.” Ronee laughs out loud at that surreal image. She gets up and starts for the door, then pauses. “How dare I impersonate Barbara Jean?” she shouts, then shrugs ironically, blows the reporter a kiss, and scampers back to her room.

As soon as Ronee leaves, Ratso remembers he made plans to meet Joni that evening to go to Leonard Cohen’s for dinner. So he takes a quick shower, throws on some clothes, and hustles downstairs. At the bar, Joni is waiting with Roger McGuinn, who’ll accompany them, and Steve Soles, who’d like to but is on call to Dylan for a movie scene. Ratso pulls up a barstool.

“We’re going to a girlfriend of mine’s house first, Ratso,” Joni explains. “She can’t go to Leonard’s, her old man just got back from New York, the fire is burning, and there are children. We’re going to a real Montreal home.”

“These guys are like society,” Soles explains.

“Not so much society which implies socialization as it is conservatism. She’s just an old girlfriend from Saskatoon. She was the best woman at my wedding.”
“Were you married, Joni?” Ratso forgets.

“For two years. I was twenty-one when I first got married.”

“I was twenty when I first got married,” Roger brags. “It lasted four months. I was attracted to her and I didn’t really know. Actually, as it turned out it was a kick we were both on.”

“Drink up, Ratso,” Joni warns.

“Are we ready to roll?” Ratso gulps his Tom Collins and gobbles some peanuts.

In the cab, Mitchell leans back, sandwiched by Ratso and Roger. “This trip is very addicting, isn’t it? I keep on thinking how am I gonna go back to the normality of my situation?”

“You’re gonna go back with another level of consciousness,” Roger smiles. “You’ll never lose that.”

“I don’t know if my old man will be able to relate to it,” Joni frets. “I’ve already been going through changes. I wish he could go through it too.”

Ratso looks out the window at the wet streets of Montreal. The cab begins its steep climb up the mountain and the houses get more and more opulent-looking. They finally locate the address and knock on the thick wood door.

An attractive thirtyish woman named Ruth answers and throws her arm around Joni. The troupe is ushered into the elegant but cozy house and Joni makes the introductions. Ruth leads them to seats on the plush couch and Brook, her husband, takes orders for drinks.

“Doug said everything was so super last night,” Ruth bubbles, genuinely pleased to see her old school chum.

“It was so hyper,” Joni gushes. “Everyone was playing so fast and talking so fast. It was really exciting. Well, we have one more to go. That fire smells so nice.” Ratso settles back with his drink, watching the flames.

“Are you tired?” Ruth worries. “Your voice really sounded bad on the phone.”

“I have been sick all the time,” Joni grimaces. “I got a flu in Niagara on the second day. Not a flu but a cold that everyone’s trying to get rid of and they’re canceling it out with someone else’s.”

“Plus you don’t have the sense to go to sleep,” Ruthie mothers.

“I spent three days up in a row at one point and I was like a space cadet,” Joni giggles. “Wandering around the room and there was music going and I’d still be dancing.”

“You couldn’t sleep,” Ruthie worries.

“I didn’t want to miss anything!” Joni smiles.

Ruth kneels down on the thick carpet in front of her friend. “You really drove me mad two years ago,” she chides Joni. “We had a mother’s helper from London, Ontario, and when she walked in the door, she had a guitar with her and she said, ‘How do you do? I’m the mother’s helper. I want you to introduce me to Joni Mitchell.’ She did not let up for the whole bloody summer,” Ruth remembers. “She just idolized you. The whole summer she asked me what you were really like. I said I didn’t know, that you chug-a-lug beer …”

Joni cracks up at the memory. “She does what?” Ratso wants to get this straight.

“She chug-a-lugs beer,” Ruthie grins impishly.

“This is a long time ago.” Joni starts to turn red.

“You know,” Ruthie demonstrates, “she glops the beer down without closing her throat. Joni was the best. Can you still stick your fist down your throat?” she roars.

“I can’t do that anymore,” Joni moans. “I lost it.”

“She used to do super swan dives off the bed. It just stunned me to have this girl come in and—”

“Idolize this alcoholic,” Ratso cracks.

“Then she wanted me to call and get to meet the top models in Canada,” Ruthie shakes her head.

“Ruthie and I used to model in department stores,” Joni explains, “like we were really heavy in our little town.”

“I didn’t do so badly here in this little town either, Joni, for
about three years,” Ruth bristles. “Has she ever told you her favorite song?” she giggles.

“What? ‘Bonie Moronie’?” Joni smiles. “I was very skinny at school—when I look back at the pictures I wasn’t, but the standard was to be more zaftig then—and ‘Bonie Maronie’ was my handle. This is some old shit we’re digging out,” she mock-glares at Ruth.

“What’s Chuck doing?” Brook interjects, “if I may ask such a blunt question.”

“He’s working in small repertory theatrical companies,” Joni answers unabashedly. “He still plays in some coffeehouses, doing the same material that he did when we were first married.”

“That’s ten years ago,” Ruthie marvels.

“He hasn’t changed a song in his set. He does a lot of Brecht and show tunes. We gotta go,” she tells Ruth, “Leonard has kids and …”

“Well before you go, finish this wine,” Ruthie instructs Ratso and Roger, “and I’ll be very selfish and ask Joan all sorts of dumb questions like, are you enjoying your house?”

“My house is like an experiment, Ruthie. When you get the notion in your head that you’re an artist you fall subject to artist morality.”

“Which is what?” Ruthie asks.

“Which is individualized but there is one sort of common bohemian aspect to it. Which is like that wealth corrupts art or any manifestation of it.”

“Say it again.” Ruthie holds her hands up. “Wealth corrupts …”

“Well, it’s a common point of view among artists, while the artist is like struggling for success and recognition, he is also developing an attitude of contempt toward the wealthy and the expression of wealth, so when you find yourself in the position of being an artist and of being wealthy, you have like a lot of moral conflict to deal with. How to express it.”

“Joni,” Ruth interrupts, “do you like your house or not? Are you doing what you want to do?”

“I’m getting to that,” Joni says, distracted. “Initially your feeling
is guilt and the point when you feel guilty you find you attract a lot of sycophants. There are people ready there to bleed off everything for like anything, and Picasso, he was lucky in that he was forty when he achieved major success so he had enough sensitivity and sensibility that when he made it, Picasso got little black and white maids, a chauffeur and silk suits, and he attended every social activity and all the artists in his circle said, ‘Watch his art go down the tubes.’ And for a while he did socialize out but his art never died, he just experienced that, so what I have done at this point is I have gone completely elegant. My house is like completely elegant.”

“Like
nouveau?”
Ruthie asks.

“No, it’s very tasteful. The best designers in the world did it. I worked with it like I do on my records, in partnership.”

“That’s why you got ripped off?” Ratso deduces.

“Well, the rip-off doesn’t matter. The only thing in that that matters is the violation of my space. I was burglarized five times in Laurel Canyon. It’s the nature of the city. I have to have electronic equipment, guitars, and all that.”

“I just can’t stand that, Joan,” Ruthie fumes, “I can’t stand that, five times!”

“I can empathize with Joni, it is the nature of our work,” Roger is affecting a very clipped, precise tone, the tone of a diplomat. Ratso gives him a strange stare. “It is the nature of our work to have electronic equipment and guitars and a turquoise collection which she had and I also have. It’s something to worry about, so I have a perimeter control around my house that has electronic surveillance, closed-circuit television, and dogs.”

“I can’t live that way,” Joni barks. “I can’t stand it. So I’m experiencing …”

“You just really want to move back to the Chelsea Hotel,” Ratso cracks.

“I can live anywhere, Ratso,” Joni runs her hand through her long silky hair. “I like to experience everything. I have elegance in
me and I have a lot of street in me, but I’m neither street nor elegant. And I’m middle class. I can live anywhere, I’ve lived in caves, I’ve lived in shacks, I’ve lived in mansions. I lived in caves on the island of Crete. I went from the caves to first-class hotels in Paris and bought myself elegant clothing. I like contrast, you know, and I like to experience everything. I’m enjoying my wealth. It’s not a symbol of any attainment to me.”

“What’s it a symbol of?” Ruthie challenges.

“It’s something I enjoy the expression of sometimes,” Joni seems at a loss for words.

“What does it mean? That you’ve gotten to the top of the heap? What does the expression of elegance mean to you?”