Contempt - Alberto Moravia [65]
I said nothing. As usual Battista was taking a roundabout course and keeping away from all material concerns: so I waited to see what he was getting at. “You see, Molteni,” he resumed, “I wanted to put you, an Italian, to work beside Rheingold, just because I feel him to be so different from us. I trust you, Molteni, and before I go away—and I ought to leave here as soon as possible—I want to give you a few words of advice.”
“Go on,” I remarked coldly.
“I’ve been watching Rheingold,” said Battista, “during our discussions about the film; either he agrees with me or he says nothing...but I know too much about people, by this time, to believe in that kind of attitude. You intellectuals, Molteni, all of you, all of you without exception, you think, more or less, that producers are simply business men, and that’s all there is to it. Don’t deny it, Molteni; that’s what you think, and of course Rheingold thinks just the same. Now, up to a point, it’s true. Rheingold perhaps thinks that he can fool me by this passive attitude of his, but I’m wide awake, very wide awake, Molteni!”
“The fact of the matter is,” I said abruptly, “you don’t trust Rheingold?”
“I trust him and I don’t trust him. I trust him as a technician, as a professional. I don’t trust him as a German, as a man of another world, different from our world. Now—” and Battista put down his cigarette in the ashtray and looked me straight in the eyes—“now, Molteni, let it be quite clear that what I want is a film as much like Homer’s Odyssey as possible. And what was Homer’s intention, with the Odyssey? He intended to tell an adventure story which would keep the reader in suspense the whole time...a story which would be, so to speak, spectacular. That’s what Homer wanted to do. And I want you two to stick faithfully to Homer. Homer put giants, prodigies, storms, witches, monsters into the Odyssey—and I want you to put giants, prodigies, storms, witches and monsters into the film...”
“But of course we shall put them in!” I said, somewhat surprised.
“Yes, you’ll put them in, you’ll put them in...” cried Battista in sudden, unexpected anger; “perhaps you think I’m a fool, Molteni? I’m not a fool.” He had raised his voice and was staring at me with a furious look in his eyes. I was astonished at this sudden rage; and, even more, by the vitality of Battista who, after driving a car all day long and crossing from Naples to Capri, instead of resting when he arrived, as I should have done in his place, still had a desire to discuss Rheingold’s intentions. I said, softly: “But what makes you imagine that I think you’re a...a fool?”
“Your attitude, the attitude of both of you, Molteni.”
“Please explain.”
Slightly calmer now, Battista took up his cigarette again and went on: “You remember—that day when you met Rheingold for the first time in my office—you said then that you didn’t feel you were cut out for a spectacular film, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I think I did.”
“And what did Rheingold say to you, to reassure you?”
“I don’t quite remember...”
“I will refresh your memory. Rheingold told you not to worry...he intended to make a psychological film—a film about the conjugal relations of Ulysses and Penelope. Isn’t that so?”
Again I was astonished: Battista, under that coarse, animal-like mask, was sharper than I had believed. “Yes,” I admitted, “I think he did say something of the kind.”
“Now, seeing that the script hasn’t yet been started and that nothing has yet been done, it is just as well that I should inform you with the utmost seriousness that, for me, the Odyssey is not a matter of the conjugal relations of Ulysses and Penelope.”
I said nothing, and Battista, after a pause, went on: “If I wanted to make a film about relations between husband and wife, I should take a modern novel, I should stay in Rome, and I should shoot the film in the bedrooms and drawing-rooms of the Parioli quarter...I shouldn’t bother about Homer and the Odyssey. Do you