Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [307]
Sunday, October 29th, Hotel L’Oasis, Gabes
Toy with the idea of treating Gabès as a series of abstract impressions – ‘Sea, smell of seaweed, spreading sands … hotel continuously alive with jarring sound of chairs on marble floors, tiredness, tat, two toilets, infinitely slow emptying baths, locals quick to laugh and equally quick to take offence – ’.
Long to return to England and really concentrate on writing. Urge to work carefully and thoroughly on a second novel grows daily. Together with a curiosity about Jill’s reaction to my first one – and a growing frustration with the tedium of film-acting.
Friday’s filming of the Sermon on the Mount was difficult – mainly because we had a crowd of 600 local extras. Prouder, more independent, less malleable folk than up in Monastir.
Ken Colley performed marvellously as Jesus – using a modern translation of the Beatitudes, which we’d decided on in preference to the St James version, because it felt less like a set up for a joke, and more of an attempt to portray Jesus as honestly as possible.
After the early takes, stunning in their recreation of the image of the Bible story, the extras started getting restless. It turned out that many of them had left their homes at 2.30 in the morning and had had neither food nor water since then.
At one point the crowd thought they were finished, and streamed from the Mount down towards the coaches, whilst Hammeda, one of our Tunisian assistants, pursued them screaming and shouting. The womenfolk had to be taken back early, because if they arrived back after sunset there would be hell to pay from the male villagers. All very different from the jolly, co-operative crowd who rolled on their backs at Monastir.
So to this Sunday. I sit listening to my latest favourite tape – Kate and Annie McGarrigle’s ‘Dancers with Bruised Knees’ – sipping a Glenlivet from the litre bottle which Helen brought two and a half weeks ago and which is half gone, and looking out onto the darkening sky and sea.
This morning I looked through an assembly of the film – from Pilate’s forum up to the crucifixions – and was greatly encouraged.
I’m not quite sure that I’d go along with TJ, who last night ventured to me that it was going to be ‘a masterpiece’, but, having seen the stuff this morning, I feel closer to his judgement than to Terry Gilliam, who spread gloom and despondency over me on Friday morning, as we motored out to Matmata, with his analysis of shortcomings and missed opportunities.
But more of this later. Night has fallen on the end of our seventh week in Tunisia. I feel optimistic about the film tonight and less depressed at the thought of being trapped here for two more weeks. All I have to decide now is which of my two baths to use …
Tuesday, October 31st, Gabès
The violence of the downpour is increasing as I listen. The prospect of an enforced day off tomorrow looks ominously likely.
Yesterday morning I was hauled up on the cross. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but I was stretched out for half an hour or so whilst various takes of Big Nose were done and, as I write, I’ve numbed a nerve in my left arm and lost some control of my muscles, so the arm keeps rising involuntarily – rather like Peter Sellers’ rogue limb in Dr Strangelove.
Thursday, November 2nd, Gabès
Wake to sunshine. Give Cleese a lift out to the location. Have to wait five minutes at a shop whilst he buys honey and almonds for his breakfast. John is sharing a caravan with TJ and me at the moment, so that make-up can have extra space. As a result I have Cleese, who has a cold, and his girlfriend, Charlotte, who arrives around lunchtime and smokes.
Today we spend most of our time and effort on the final song, which twenty-four crucifees sing as the climax of the film.
I’m in one of the front-row crosses. There’s a slightly heady feeling – a tiny rush of vertigo as I clamber up onto the racing