Authors: Corey Mesler
Memphis Movie
MEMPHIS MOVIE
COREY MESLER
Copyright © Corey Mesler 2015
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mesler, Corey.
Memphis movie: a novel / Corey Mesler.
pages; cm
1. Motion picture producers and directorsâTennesseeâMemphisâFiction. 2. Motion picturesâTennesseeâMemphisâFiction. I. Title.
PS3613.E789M46 2015
813'.6âdc23
2014048925
Cover art by Jeane Umbreit
Interior design by Elyse Strongin, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.
SOFT SKULL PRESS
An imprint of COUNTERPOINT
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318
Berkeley, CA 94710
Distributed by Publishers Group West
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e-book ISBN 978-1-61902-626-1
CONTENTS
for Cheryl, Toby and Chloe
and for Craig Brewer, Ira Sachs, and Linn Sitler
and
Willie, David, and Ed
and
BLACK LODGE VIDEO
The events and characters in this photoplay are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental
.
ERIC WARBERG FILMOGRAPHY
Shlomo Stern, Boy Mystic
(1981) (student film)
The Hen Man
(1983) (writer only)
Situations Defined as Normal
(1983) (Assistant Director)
Strangers in Love
(1985)
Titanic Opera
(1990) (not released)
After You I Almost Disappeared
(1994)
Sunset Striptease
(1995)
When I See Beverly
(1997)
Dog Soup
(1998)
The “Hill” Trilogy:
    Â
Huck and Hominy
(1999)
    Â
Cracker Hobgoblin
(2000)
    Â
Diddy-Wah-Diddy
(2002)
She and He in a Swivet
(2003)
Spondulicks
(British title:
What, Ducks?
) (2005)
Memphis Movie
(working title) (2007 . . . in progress)
CAST
THE DIRECTOR:
Eric Warberg
THE WRITER:
Sandy Shoars
THE ACTORS:
Dan Yumont, Hope Davis (as herself), Ike Bana, Suze Everingham, Deni Kohut, Kimberly Winks (a local), Sue (Lying Sue) Pine
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER:
Ricky Lime
CINEMATOGRAPHER:
Rica Sash
A.D.:
Reuben Wickring
SET DECORATOR:
Kay Tell
LOCALS:
Dudu Orr, Ray Verbely, Bandy Lyle Most, Mimsy Borogoves, Sean Meezen
THE DRIVER:
Hassle Cooley
A LOCATION SCOUT:
Jimbo Cole
A MOVIE CRITIC:
Luke Apenail
A LOCAL WRITER:
Camel Jeremy Eros
A SPRITE:
Lorax
A BORDER COLLIE:
Fido
VARIOUS GHOSTS
“You can't banish the world by decree if it's in you. Is that it, Joseph?”
     Â
“How can you? You have gone to its schools and seen its movies, listened to its radios, read its magazines. What if you declare you are alienated, you say you reject the Hollywood dream, the soap opera, the cheap thriller? The very denial implicates you.”
âSAUL BELLOW, from
Dangling Man
 Â
We live two livesâone with our eyes open and one with them closed. Eyes open are for perceiving the exterior universe. Eyes shut are for exploring the inner cosmos. I spend all day with my eyes shut bumping into people and things.
âFEDERICO FELLINI
 Â
It meant nothing that Hollywood was filled with great musicians, poets and philosophers. It was also filled with spiritualists, religious nuts and swindlers. It devoured everyone, and whoever was unable to save himself in time, would lose his identity, whether he thought so himself or not.
âERICH MARIA REMARQUE
 Â
Are ghosts dreadful because they bring toward us from the future some component . . . of our own deaths? Are they partially defectively, our own dead selves, thrust back, in recoil from the mirrorface at the end, to haunt us?
âTHOMAS PYNCHON
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.
âJean-Luc Godard
Q:
Â
So you've come back to Memphis to make a movie.
A:
Â
Yes. Is that it? Is that all you want to know?
Q:
Â
Ha, no. Why Memphis? Why now?
A:
Â
Well, Donald, I'll tell you. Memphis is ground zero for me, that is, emotionally. It is, obviously, where I came from, but it is also where my heart goes when I am in need of solace, reparation, succor.
Q:
Â
I see. Plus your last movie in Hollywood tanked.
A:
Â
Yes. Yes, it did.
Q:
Â
What happened? You were being hailed as the nextâ
A:
Â
Don't say it.
Q:
Â
Tarantino.
A:
Â
Shit. Yeah, I know. I got that, the next Tarantino. It's like being the next Dylan, you know? Like they called Springsteen that when he started. And, first, he had to live that down. First, he had to kill that spiritual father before he could become whatever it is he was to become.
Q:
Â
Would you say you're the Springsteen of movies?
A:
Â
Huh. But, Tarantino, you know, at first I thought Tarantino wanted to be Robert Altmanânow it's clear he always wanted to be St. Spielberg. It's the same gee-whiz, eternal-child, look-at-me, everything-is-nostalgic shtick. It makes one want to throw up one's pabulum.
Q:
Â
You had a falling out.
A:
Â
No, no, I've never met the man. The whole Tarantino tag began and ended with movie critics. I think it was
Premiere
who first threw that one out there.
Q:
Â
Would you say this has been a long gap between films, a longer than usualâ