Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [148]
“Well, that sounds like a great idea,” he responded, making that the first time anyone had said they liked my outrageous plan. “What would you need me to do?”
Uh, everything?
“Well, for starters,” I said timidly, “you could show me how the 16mm camera works.”
“I could come to Flint and shoot some of it for you,” Kevin said out of nowhere. I wanted him to repeat that, but I was afraid if he did, it might turn out that he had actually said, I’ll have another Heineken, please, from the tap.
“Really?” I asked, fingers crossed.
“Sure. I could bring my equipment, and maybe some of my crew would come. I think even Anne Bohlen [his co-director on their American Nazi film, Blood in the Face] might come.”
This was way beyond what I was expecting, and, if truth be told, I was really thinking a “good luck” and “see you next time” would be all I’d get.
“Wow,” I said, my face feeling flush, “that would be so incredible. I mean, I wasn’t expecting that, but…”
“No, it would be fun. And I can show you what you need to know. I could give you a week of my time.”
A whole week? In Flint?
“Kevin, I’d be happy with whatever you could do. Do you think you can teach me this stuff in a week?”
“It doesn’t take long to know how the equipment works. The most important part about making a movie is what’s in your head, your ideas, and then the beats and rhythms it moves to. Knowing how to say more with less. Having a sharp eye. Listening for the stuff happening between the lines. Having some balls. I watched you when we came to Michigan. You’ll do fine.”
At some point it dawned on me that I would have to pay him for his time, plus his crew and equipment. I was on the public dole, so I was hoping for a little mercy.
“Of course, you know, I’ll pay you for this,” I said. “Maybe we can work out something?”
“Not necessary,” he replied. “You did us a big favor with our film and we didn’t pay you. So we’ll return the favor. You don’t have to pay us anything.”
The table did not break when my jaw hit it.
“Um, wow—I don’t know what to say. Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ve had nothing but one door after another shut in my face for the past two months. This is really beyond necessary. I can’t thank you enough.”
I wanted to break down right there, but I was in New York sitting at a table in the Village with a top filmmaker, and I wanted to act as cool as possible. So I smiled. A big smile.
Kevin took me over to his edit room which was in (and I will be polite here) some back-alley location you have to walk on 4 x 12s to get there. It was in a basement on MacDougal Street. The place looked like the kind of room where a cheap Chinese restaurant might store its garbage, or maybe a dead body. No, strike that—no one would do this to the deceased, not here, no matter how rotten they were or who they owed money to.
He saw the look on my face and said that the owner of the building did some deal with him that didn’t cost him that much to put his Steenbeck editing machine down in the basement. In addition to the Steenbeck, there was what he called a “rewind table,” a few “trim bins,” and stacks and stacks of developed film. He turned the machine on and showed me some of the scenes from the Nazi film he was working on. It was cool to see the things he had shot in Michigan, and even weirder to hear my voice and see my mug on this little screen. Other than my parents’ home movies, this was the first time I’d ever seen myself in a film. I hated it and I loved it.
“You made a lot of this possible,” Kevin said. “All your best stuff will be in here.”
I went back to Flint and started to think about what I would shoot. I had to get back