Connie Willis - Remake

To Fred Astaire

Special thanks to Scott Kippen and Sheryl Beck and all the rest of the UNC Sigma Tau Deltans

and to my daughter Cordelia and her statistics classes

and to my secretary Laura Norton

all of whom helped come up with chase scenes, tears, happy endings, and all the other movie references.

I saw her again tonight. I wasnt looking for her. It was an early Spielberg liveaction, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a cross between a shoot-em-up and a VR ride and the last place youd expect tap shoes, and it was too late. The musical had kicked off, as Michael Caine so eloquently put it, in 1965.

This liveaction was made in 84, at the very beginning of the computer graphics revolution, and it had a few CG sections: digitized Thugees being thrown off a cliff and a pathetically clunky morph of a heart being torn out. It also had a Ford Tri-Motor plane, which was what I was looking for when I found her.

I needed the Tri-Motor for the big good-bye scene at the airport, so Id accessed Heada, who knows everything, and shed said she thought there was one in one of the liveaction Spielbergs, the second Indy maybe. Its close to the end.

How close?

Fifty frames. Or maybe its in the third one. No, thats a dirigible. The second one. Hows the remake coming, Tom?

Almost done, I thought. Three years off the ASs and still sober.

The remakes stuck on the big farewell scene, I said, which is why I need the plane. So what do you know, Heada? Whats the latest gossip? Whos ILMGM being taken over by this month?

Fox-Mitsubishi, she said promptly. Mayers frantic. And the word is Universals head exec is on the way out. Too many addictive substances.

How about you? I said. Are you still off the ASs? Still assistant producer?

Still playing Melanie Griffith, she said. Does the plane have to be color?

No. Ive got a colorization program. Why?

I think theres one in Casablanca.

No, theres not, I said. Thats a two-engine Lockheed.

She said, Tom, I talked to a set director last week who was on his way to China to do stock shots.

I knew where this was leading. I said, Ill check the Spielberg. Thanks, and signed off before she could say anything else.

The Ford Tri-Motor wasnt at the end, or in the middle, which had one of the worst mattes Id ever seen. I worked my way back through it at 48 per, thinking it would have been easier to do a scratch construct, and finally found the plane almost at the beginning. It was pretty good there were close-ups of the door and the cockpit, and a nice medium shot of it taking off. I went back a few frames, trying to see if there was a close-up of the propellers, and then said, Frame 1-001, in case there was something at the very beginning.

Trademark Spielberg morph of the old Paramount Studios mountain into opening shot, this time of a man-sized silver gong. Cue music. Red smoke. Credits. And there she was, in a chorus line, wearing silver tap shoes and a silver-sequined leotard with tuxedo lapels. Her face was made up thirties style red lips, Harlow eyebrows and her hair was platinum blonde.

It caught me off guard. Id already searched the eighties, looking in everything from Chorus Line to Footloose, and not found any sign of her.

I said, Freeze! and then Enhance right half, and leaned forward to look at the enlarged image to make sure, as if I hadnt already been sure the instant I saw her.

Full screen, I said, forward realtime, and watched the rest of the number. It wasnt much four lines of blondes in sequined top hats and ribboned tap shoes doing a simple chorus routine that could have been lifted from 42nd Street, and was about as good. There must not have been any dancing teachers around in the eighties either.

The steps were simple, mostly trenches and traveling steps, and I thought it had probably been one of the very first ones Alis did. She had been this good when I saw her practicing in the film hist classroom. And it was too Berkeleyesque. Near the end of the number it went to angles and a pan shot of red scarves being pulled out of tuxedo pockets, and Alis disappeared. The Digimatte couldnt have matched that many switching shots, and I doubted if Alis had even tried. She had never had any patience with Busby Berkeley.

It isnt dancing, shed said, watching the kaleidoscope scene in Dames that first night in my room.

I thought he was famous for his choreography, Id said.

He is, but he shouldnt be. Its all camera angles and stage sets. Fred Astaire always insisted his dances be shot full-length and one continuous take.

Frame ten, I said so I wouldnt have to put up with the mountain morph again, and started through the routine again. Freeze.

The screen froze her in midkick, her foot in the silver tap shoe extended the way Madame Dilyovska of Meadowville had taught her, her arms outstretched. She was supposed to be smiling, but she wasnt. She had a look of intentness, of careful concentration under the scarlet lipstick, the penciled brows, the look she had worn that first night, watching Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire on the freescreen.

Freeze, I said again, even though the image hadnt moved, and sat there for a long time, thinking about Fred Astaire and looking at her face, that face I had seen under endless wigs, in endless makeups, that face I would have known anywhere.

MOVIE CLICHE #14: The Party. Disjointed snatches of bizarre conversation, excessive AS consumption, assorted outrageous behavior.

SEE: Notorious, Greed, The Graduate, Risky Business, Breakfast at Tiffanys, Dance, Fools, Dance, The Party.

She was born the year Fred Astaire died. Hedda told me that the first time I met Alis. It was at one of the dorm parties the studios sponsor. Theres one every week, ostensibly to show off their latest CG innovations and try to tempt hackate film-school seniors into a life of digitizing and indentured servitude, really so their execs can score some chooch (of which there is never enough) and some popsy (of which there is plenty, all of it in white halter dresses and platinum hair). Hollywood at its finest, which is why I stay away, but this one was being sponsored by ILMGM, and Mayer had promised me hed be there.

Id been doing a paste-up for him, digitizing his studio exec bosss popsy into a River Phoenix movie. I wanted to give Mayer the opdisk and get paid before the boss found a new face. Id already done the paste-up twice and fed in the feedback bypasses three times because hed switched girlfriends, and this last time the new face had insisted on a scene with River Phoenix, which meant Id had to watch every River Phoenix movie ever made, of which there are a lot he was one of the first actors copyrighted. I wanted to get the money before Mayers boss changed partners again. The money and some ASs.

The party was crammed into the dorm lounge, like always freshies and faces and hackates and hangers-on. The usual suspects. There was a big fibe-op freescreen in the middle of the room. I glanced up at it, hoping to God it wasnt the new River Phoenix movie, and was surprised to see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, dancing up a flight of stairs. Fred was wearing tails, and Ginger was in a white dress that flared into black at the hem. I couldnt hear the music over the party din, but it looked like the Continental.