Movie diaries...eight

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The Basement at The Hall Of Waters

I have this thing about drowning. Being cold and drowning.

I'm not afraid of swimming, have enjoyed water skiing the few times I've gotten to do it. Ditto, sailing, fishing, other more or less benign water sports. Put me in a situation that resembles the hold of a ship, though, and I'm fucked. The movie "Titanic" holds a special facination for me. I couldn't care less about Jack and Rose: it's the death of the big ship and the hopelessness of the passengers (particularly those in steerage) that captivates me; the scene where the Irish mother tucks her children in bed and tells them a bedtime story to distract them as the water rises chills me, makes me need to go grab my kid and hold on to her until she complains. I've never watched the first VCR tape more than twice, but I've about destroyed tape 2. I've never done a past life regression, but I wonder if there aren't a few bones rattling around in that closet, like yellowed dice in the bottom of a dusty Yahtzee cup. I don't know if that cup has a White Star Line logo on it or not; probably not.


In terms of the paranormal, this whole movie experience has not been kind to me. Thankfully, I've only been stung twice; hopefully, that'll be it. I've already written about the graveyard. As before, I was taken by surprise, stepping on, if you will, the tines of a supernatural rake. The handle, as it flies up and smacks my forehead and bloodies by mental and emotional nose, is well worn.

Before the beginning of principle photography, we paid a visit to the basement under the Hall Of Waters in Excelsior Springs, purposing to map out what we'd be filming there. The place is mostly concrete under the metal and glass above-ground that you can actually see. It was a place that obviously hadn't been visited for some time before we got there.

The elevator opens onto a space that looks for all the world like an underground parking garage at 3/4 or even 1/2 scale. The ceilings aren't very tall, 12' max, with thick concrete columns widely spaced supporting the building above. Behind, several storage rooms. To the side, a long concrete hallway, like the driving exit to the street, except this is level and leads only to more rooms. Those rooms turned out to be our destination.

We walked as a group, the actors, director, couple of writers, on a layer of dust thick enough to leave footprints in, unconsciously staying together and keeping the darkness at bay with flashlights. PD's voice was a constant sing-songy presence in that echo-y place, talking about shooting this scene here, and that scene there. The wall to our right was solid, the outside foundation I think. The wall to our left wasn't really a wall at all, but wide columns closely spaced, like a foundation that's had floor to ceiling windows cut into it at long intervals.

As we neared the end of the long hall, I glimpsed through the openings a pair of large machines, sitting in puddles of water and dust, and I stopped breathing for a little while.

I had a good view of them. They were below us a level, gigantic steam boilers of the kind used for steam baths for a now defunct resort. Cylinders, at least eight foot around sitting on large iron feet, with water puddled an inch or two deep around them. There were no visions, no imagery, no voices in my head: just a visceral need to Get The Hell Out and see the sun shining before the sea broke through the walls and drowned us where we were.

I stopped at the top of a flight of steps. We'd turned two corners, circling the room with the boilers; the director's destination was a room just in front of the hulking things, across the "hall" as it were. I couldn't make my legs work: where I was, I couldn't see the boilers, and that was just fine with me. PublicRelations was at the bottom of the steps, and because PD was talking, presumably saying things I needed to hear, she was calling me to come down.

It was hard. I couldn't take my eyes from the things, as they slowly came into view around the concealing corner at the bottom step. You've seen us before, they seemed to say. And you didn't make it. Our cousins are at the bottom of the sea somewhere, holding your corpse in the near-freezing silt while the crabs, sightless, mindless, feast on your eyeballs and what's left of your small intestine.

Kate knew something was up, and gently questioned me on it, but couldn't quite reach me. I was aware of little else but the machines and what they meant, insensate but upright. When there was a pause in the noise coming from PD, I nodded like I was listening, a lie in the very gesture. When I heard my name, I called out "Yeah", waited for the noise to stop, and nodded, still lying. When we escaped...okay, I escaped, everybody else just came up the steps...we went back to the main area and started mapping out the fight sequence that was to take place there. I was glad to be back into the space, oppressively large and heavy feeling, but away from the boilers and their underwater biography of me. I was tense, jittery, needing to be physical, and fight choreography fit the bill.

Into this private clockspring - drumhead - loaded-catapult tension walked a woman in an attitude and a five dollar Wal*Mart blouse...

Comments

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

One of the people on my friends list is the daughter of the woman who owns the Hall of Waters.


D.

[billthetailor.livejournal.com]

It's amazing who You know, isn't it? We keep running into folks as production moves on, a surprisingly diverse group being assembled. Most recently, we added the Schutte family (of Schutte Lumber fame) just because they thought it might be fun. Turns out J is a fantastic writer with some involvement in the movie industry independent of this project. But I'm giving away some future topics...

[fantomas71.livejournal.com]

I always thought that the Titanic movie would have been a lot better if they'd just lopped off the ingenue plot and gone around the ship telling the little stories that matter.

[billthetailor.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting thought - `A Night To Remember` tried that in some ways. It's a mark of modern American filmmaking (and its audience) that without ONE plot the viewer can latch onto the movie fails. If `Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon` had no martial arts I don't believe it would have done as well in this country - it's a long movie with several plots, very Eastern (duh) in its mentality in spite of its American release.

wouldn't...

[themadblonde]

removing Leonard from just about ANYTHING constitute an improvement? ;-)