Hollywood Story
(excerpt from a work in progress)
The greatest movie ever made isn’t what anyone thinks it is. It has never been screened at a film festival and hasn’t won any awards. Film Studies textbooks don’t mention it, and you won’t find it on any streaming service. It’s not overwrought, overproduced, or overhyped. It has no spaceships, Nazis, yellow bricks, guns, or snow sleds. No critics ever speak of it, and no magazines or websites that publish lists of the greatest include it. And it probably wouldn’t sell. It’s a quiet, uncomplicated story told through superlative artistry, production, and performances, all of which leave everyone’s favorites a mile behind. Few have seen it, and I am one of them. I am, in fact, the last to have seen—the last who will ever see—the greatest movie ever made.
I wasn’t supposed to see it. The screening was intended to pass the time and perhaps remind me of my place, which it did. It changed me. The day before I saw it, I had someone else’s name and was convinced I was destined for stardom. The day after, I adopted a new professional persona, completely reordered my priorities, and had no tangible evidence that the film ever existed.
It started with a slow, gentle clicking, steadily accelerating to a soft, steady whir. The light around me fell, and a long, widening beam from behind cut through the darkness, revealing an unsettling amount of dust in the air. I had experienced it all before, of course, and each time the darkness awakens, I feel the thrill of not knowing what is about to happen or where I am headed. To me, there is nothing better. I’ll willingly take the ride, regardless of where it leads.
The air in the room carried a faint, not entirely unpleasant aroma of musty disuse, reminiscent of an old, unvisited library or attic. The air conditioning was blowing at a goosebump-inducing temperature, so much that I was anxious to return to the heat of the California sun; however, my burgundy velvet armchair wasn’t about to let me go. Its embrace was almost too comfortable, with worn, overstuffed cushions that pulled me in like quicksand. There are worse places to be trapped, which I was. But once the title card appeared, I unconsciously broke free from my comfortable discomfort, sitting upright and motionless, as focused as a birdwatcher. Soon, my heart would be broken and at the mercy of that series of images, each so striking that every other film I had ever seen, even those I considered the best of the best, was relegated to amateur.
Ninety minutes later, I was still frozen. There had been a gentle, caressing grace to it all, and a warmth—no, a safety—in its elegantly told truth. All the while, its intimacy was so intense that I felt like an intruder who had no business watching. It was provocative, not only because of its visuals or words, but also because of the questions it posed, the kind we can only ask of ourselves. It was like stepping back from a painting, until the elements I had been examining up close could be seen in their full context, and the work spoke as a whole. Tears flowed from my eyes without warning. How did this film exist? Nothing I had ever seen before came close to its impact. It was everything. Everything.
The lights rose to a comfortable level, and the camera light was switched off. I listened as the projector rewound the film, slowing to its gentle clicking before stopping.
“Lionel, would you care to join me in the sitting room?” The question came from a projection booth behind me.
I wanted to say no. I wanted to stay in that strange old screening room, which at some point in time must have been considered state-of-the-art. It felt as if every one of my emotions had awakened at once. I didn’t want to take those feelings out into the world, fearing I would lose them. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of a choice. I was a guest.
