Ruse
I came to La Gaillarde, Normandie, France, a little before the film crew arrived, to help my brother put the finishing touches of turning his house into a hotel. I did the painting and decorating. The rooms were now all equipped with en suite bathrooms. It all needed a fresh coat of paint. The film crew were the first guests at the hotel. It was a small film called Le gang du Cafe.
The director Arnaud got the best room in the house, the one with the best view of the countryside and the biggest bathroom and bathtub to soak his bones after a day’s shoot. It was his first film. Le Gang du Cafe was a book Arnaud wrote some twenty years earlier about his youth and summers spent in la Gaillarde. Logically he was the director of the film adaptation, although some of the crew resented this; they felt he hadn’t paid his dues. Why should he get to direct a feature film when he’d never even directed a short? Arnaud was previously the editor and chief of La Liberation newspaper in Paris. He was now pursuing something purely creative. It must have been odd to glorify his own story on film- his youth, thirty-five years later. Arnaud co wrote the screenplay with Jules, an interesting character who resembled greatly Jules Renoir. Jules had done a lot of screenwriting, and knew the formula, so he was there to help Arnaud turn his book into a screenplay. Even after filming had started they still tinkered with the script. They sat at the kitchen table early in the morning discussing dialogue changes over coffee and croissants, etc. They didn't mind me being there because I never really said anything. I pretended as if I wasn't listening, not bothered.
At the same time Le Gang du Cafe was happening I received correspondence from Christian Jones, the film maker. I knew Christian from his first film, the cult classic Lackeys. I played a Latvian opera singer in the film, a brief cameo really, nothing to write home about. Christian had made a handful of films since Lackeys and was in the process of finishing his latest venture called Barney and Quiet John Save the Day. He contacted me out of the blue to say that he had been trying to contact me for some time. He told me he had wanted to put me in the film but couldn't find me. So the next best thing he could do was put the character I played in Lackeys on the tee shirt of the main character Barney, my mug up on the screen, on Barney's tee shirt. Christian also said he wanted to use one of my songs on the soundtrack, this was the main purpose of the call. I had sent him a CD of my music about a year earlier. No reply. Nothing. I had forgotten all about it. Now everything seemed too good to be true.
‘Which song?’ I asked.
‘Any one?’
I thought this strange. ‘Any one?’ He said this as if it didn’t matter which song. How could it not matter? If he was an artist it should have mattered. It would have mattered to Stanley Kubrick, John Ford or Orson Welles. I was realising that he couldn’t have liked the CD I sent him, that he probably didn't even listen to it. He was lying. It was a ruse. If he were honest and just said- 'listen, I never got you to sign a waiver for Lackeys;’ I would have said ‘fine.’ I had not signed a waiver for Lackeys so they were using my image without my permission, nor had they had my written permission to use my image on the tee shirt. Obviously, one of the lawyers from the film realised they were using my image without my permission and raised the alert. It was left to Christian to present the ruse to get my signature and agreement to use my image. They feared I could come later with a big lawsuit so nip it at the bud. The dishonesty of the whole affair- the ruse- built up an expectation in me where I got other people to buy into the lie as well, which was the tragedy of the whole affair. Christian wasn't dangling money but false hope. Hollywood hope. Unfortunately, I got others to buy into it as well.
My brother and I were drinking beers together at the café across from the church in La Gaillarde. ‘I smell a rat,’ he said. He confirmed my suspicions and I knew he was right. None of it made sense. It had the smell of rat written all over it. Still, I did not want to believe Christian Jones was not genuine, that this was the way the system worked. Nor did I want it to get ugly. I looked at it as an opportunity to contribute to the idea, the creation. I suggested to Christian a more appropriate song- something in line with the character I played in Lackeys. The character of Fyodor was a Latvian opera singer. None of the songs on the CD I sent Christian where remotely Latvian or operatic. I suggested I record an opera song in the spirit of Fyodor. It didn’t make sense to have Fyodor singing a folk song with an operatic vibe a la Freddy Mercury and Queen. Christian said this was a great idea- record it. We will use it. Definitely. Once again I found this strange because he hadn’t even heard the song yet.
The song I had in mind was a folk song but I could make it sound operatic as well as Latvian. I had a friend in Paris with a Latvian name and pure Latvian blood. He was also a great guitar player and could easily come up with some good heavy metal licks to transform my folk song. It made perfect sense and sounded good. I proposed the idea to Yevgeny over the phone. He worked for the French version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire as a lackey himself at the time and was looking to break away and do something more creative. He was interested of course. It was Hollywood and he thought there was some money in it and it would be good for his music career. Yevgeny proposed the idea to go down to Montpelier to record the song with some friends of his as it would be cheaper than going into a studio in Paris. It was in the south of France, nice weather, and we had a place to stay. His friend had good computer and music software and a sound engineer, most importantly. So off we went by train to Montpelier. We had our own compartment (guitars out) where we turned a folk song into a Latvian operatic masterpiece. We were ready to record.
We had a place to stay at this hippy guy Benoit’s apartment. Benoit was a bassist and used to be a high powered accountant before he decided to pursue more spiritual pursuits than dealing with money. He was still into the numbers and often talked about the power they hold. Benoit was living off his redundancy pay, smoking ridiculous amounts of grass and hash and playing bass for hours on end. He converted to Islam some months later and last I heard he was living in Syria teaching Islam. At the time I knew him he was mid stage of his spiritual transformation as he was still clinging to things in the material world, but just barely. John Coltrane was in the air a lot and Benoit played along. Spiritual vibes floated through the air incongruous to what was happening in Hollywood and Normandie. Benoit, to be fair, smelled a rat with the whole Hollywood thing, more than we did. He saw it as business and it didn't interest him as he stroked his growing beard and spoke English with the thickest of French accents.
'Jean, you talk bee’s nest. I don’t want to talk bee’s nest.'
I began to wonder if we were ever going to record the song as we continued to smoke ourselves into a spiritual haze where business became to mean bee’s nest. I felt France was surely forty years behind America. The hippy vibe of Montpelier was as strong as it was in 1960’s San Francisco. The only thing missing was people saying ‘groovy’ and ‘far out, man.’ I started to put the pressure on Yevgeny to get these cats in gear, as it seemed they had no interest in recording and the clock was ticking. Christian Jones said we had a week to send him the recording to incorporate into the soundtrack. The first three days in Montpelier we did nothing but smoke weed and hash in Benoit’s apartment. When we weren't in the apartment we walked the streets and listened to street buskers. I wore a red Hawaiian shirt a la Tony Montana. Yevgeny wore a similar one. We bought the shirts as soon as we got into town. They seemed appropriate. His shirt had parrots on it. Mine had coconuts. After the third day I desperately needed a shower and my Tony Montana shirt started to reek. It was then I laid in to Yevgeny.
‘Listen, man. We came down here to record and these stoners have no interest in recording anything.’
‘Jean, Jean- relax… it’s okay. Don’t worry. There is time.’
‘No, there isn’t time. We’re running out of time.’
‘Okay… okay; I will talk with them.’
‘When?’
‘Jean, relax. C’est cool.’
‘Ce n’est pas cool, mec.’
‘Okay, okay.’
We finally recorded the song over three days at this guy Pierre’s apartment. Once they got to work on the song and could see the potential they were all quite keen and optimistic. Hollywood wasn't
so bad after all, especially if there was some money and fame at the end of the rainbow. I sent the song off to Christian Jones. He promptly responded. He said he loved it and that it was going to be used in the biggest scene in the film. The Montpelier musicians were all very happy. We had a celebration in the streets, on the steps of the church. We all drove to swim nude in the Mediterranean sea at midnight. We sat on the beach sipping champagne and toasting the moon. I was eager to get back to Normandie with a bit of good news.
The day Yevgeny and I were heading back to Paris after some heavy celebrating I got an email saying the song didn't fit the scene or any scene. They wanted to use another song, a folk song from the CD I sent him earlier. I didn't know what to say really but I felt that I shouldn't push any kind of control over someone else's creation- if you could call it that? The musicians in Montpelier were needless to say pissed off. All of a sudden it was business to them and Benoit smugly said, ‘I told you so. I don’t like bee's nest.’ I looked for answers to appease them. I explained to them that it was out of my control- that I was the victim- that it was not my right to tell a film maker how he should edit his film. They felt that I should have demanded the song be in the film- that it was a promise and Cristian Jones did not follow through on his promise. They were right. It was the promise that there was something at the end of the rainbow instead of just the straight up truth. But at the time I did not want to tell Cristian Jones how to make his film, not that he would have listened anyway.
Yevgeny stayed in Montpelier and I returned to La Gaillarde. I haven’t seen him since. Unfortunately, he won’t talk to me…………… Thanks Hollywood.
