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 Indulging in her favourite way to wile away the morning, Dotty is struck by the monster of things to come. Is it all a part of that syndrome diagnosed by her therapist, Dr Antonovian, post-Oscarian depression?
Never fear... as Dotty soon remembers, we could be heroes...
There is a quake in Dotty’s mid-morning honey button. Taken medicinally in the sham pretty chic of Soho’s La Pigalle café, the rippling amber waves almost
make me raise my nougat eyes with horror, expecting a sloping T-Rex to enter
through the be-laced door and order a Panini.
Something is a-coming and Soho
shivers.
Quite simply, there is a vein of fear generated by change
and evolution. T-Rex would be better
afraid of the running cyber geeks he would stomp on his charge through Soho square. The
fear is palpable… and thrilling! As one
of the first women to breach the Forbidden City not armed with dulcet tones for
the Emporer… as the one who suggest that women in party shoes should also have
party toes (check out some black and whites if you doubt me, qu’elle horreur)… and
as one of the founding members of the United Dictat of Progressive Lady
Filmmakers (the UDPLF…I wish there were a more humorous abbreviation for that
but unfortunately our budget never ran to one) I have never been a-feared of
change and exploration.
And thus it is that I welcome the news that the latest
abbreviated doodad (these corporations have more money for such verbal treats),
HD TV, is sending Soho-ians and Hollwood-ites scurrying to their surgeons, face
peelers and fat suckers in greater numbers with amusement. Apparently, and I understand little of modern
fangled engines… the pixies of the screen are allegedly so precise and clear
that they will show up every lump, bump and pore.
I considered this concept a few weeks back as I reclined in
my hotel room in post-Oscar bliss. There
were two naked winners on all fours looking for something with great
intensity in the (fake) clouded leopard skin rug of my penthouse…. I think it
may have been their dignity… An assortment
of out of season Christmas candy canes were strung up on dental floss across
the ceiling…. And on my balcony the
Hispanic maid (one day I will die of shock when a Los Angelian hotel has a maid
of another nation) was wearing my Oscar gown and throwing shreds of its lovely
silk down to the orange bled streets below… Of the nights before a haze of
glamour remained… the dress was actually improved by Mama Maria’s twitchy
workings (*note to self, giving drugs to the staff of hotels may lead to a revolution…
attempt this at every opportunity)… the winners had their Oscars with
them. Though, unlike them, modest Uncle
Oscar at least keeps a sword in front of his dagger…. And candy canes? That part of the night escapes me but I am
sure the hazy recollections I have (a warehouse… vodka shots… the sound of men
laughing with Russian accents) will spring a memory soon and it will be
glorious. But the early morning shadows
cast by the canes were quite enchanting, and their stick thinness reminded me
of so many of the dear, dear women at the ceremony previously.
But on the thoughts of glamour and exposure I wondered at
that moment what would bother me the more.
The revelation that Dotty has imperfections (Italian ancestors have
granted me their pores…. i bastardi) or the death of glamour through close
examination? Was that the fear at the heart of the quaking masses and massing
Quakers (for I hear that they are also four sheets against the idea… okay,
okay, just one of my little jokes), not that you could see their crater like
pores but that you would realize that they had them too?
The death of glamour, the realization of imperfections, le
fin de la reve…. All have caught my thoughts in their nets of late. Getting close to the industry as I have on
many occasions and on many couches, involves a certain amount of
disappointment. For a script doctor such
as I nothing is more thrilling than the first page and nothing is more
disillusioning than that same page. The
pitch, that hot fury of ideas and inspirations is the glamour of the industry, those
first few moments when we can see how it could be, the gold on the statue
before it flakes…
But is the great fear justified? As I left La Pigalle for a lunch meeting on Brewer Street with
a producer recently acquired, I thought of my pores. On HD TV would they fill the screen, reducing
me to mere out of perfect shapes and shadows? Was my nose too big, my arse too
small? Fear accosted me, like the T-Rex,
tearing away the layers of glamour with his teeth.
And then it came to me in a flash… just as the answer to
“what is in fashion?” is “whatever I am wearing” the problem of the death of
glamour is simple. Carry it with you,
place it in your handbag (Gucci or plastic bag free with your dinner), make it
a part of you and it will never die. And
that is the real fear of the actresses and actors, that it was never there to
begin with.
And so I went with a spring in my step and a stiletto on my
heel to the meeting, hand in claw with the not so Scary Monster, humming Bowie to myself and him.
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