The Making of My Dad Is 100 Years Old

By Erin Hirschberg

Sunday, March 20, 2005

So far transition from man Guy to movie Guy has been smooth. Isabella arrives tonight, once again, to confront the saddest city in the world. Hockey sticks in backseat are replaced by an old Steenbeck. Front seat heated for the non-Norse half of the immortal Isa.

I watch an always composed Isabella ward off the doughnut fumes of homebound Winnipeggers as she glides down the escalator in the airport. “Left cheek first then right cheek,” I say to myself as I find my anxious lips on the skin of this icon. Pleasantry completed, an immaculate execution I think until I discover within the furls of my blue parka that I too have the stench of Winnipeg—fried onions, car dirt, and beer. Isabella makes no notice of this fascinating odour and simply asks, “Where is Guyyyaaaa?” I cannot tell Isabella the truth; that Guy is home frantically avoiding the task of story-boarding the film which he is to shoot in two days, which is not a comforting response. So instead I say, “Guy is at the studio building sets with the volunteers, you know what a perfectionist he is…” Lovingly, Isabella replies “Of coursaaaaa.” I offer Isabella a hand with her bag which is surely getting heavier with the weight of my awkwardness but she refuses: “Father did everything himself, so must Iaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”
Isabella falls asleep in the car. Lobby staff carry her into her bed at the Hotel Fort Garry. I go to Guy’s apartment. I find blank pages where storyboards should be. Only one page has been filled, on it a note from Guy: “Have gone to Carl’s to play table-hockey. Will be home late. Don’t wait up. G.”

Monday, March 21, 2005

Sleep day. Still no sign of Guy.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

I find Guy this morning at the studio sleeping on an oversized mold of Roberto Rossellini’s belly. Guy’s head has sunk so deeply into Roberto’s amorphous naval that I fear nothing will wake him. Small men with wide, leather belts and washer-women’s clips trample into the long-abandoned theatre and begin their work, screwing in stands, switching on lights, cutting crusts, and belching. One of these men excises a piece of construction paper, writes “Do not bother Herr Direktor,” and tapes it onto the only visible part of Guy’s scalp. I decide, however, that Herr Direktor needs to be bothered and begin jumping on Roberto’s bloated breasts, hoping to generate enough waves to wrangle Guy into wakefulness. Nothing can be done. Nothing. Nothing.
I wait. I watch the men in their puffy jackets speak to each other through mechanical devices on their waists. I watch the bombed-out theatre melt under the heat of the movie lights and crumble its loge onto the snoozing director. From him, not a stir, not a sound. And then…and then…SHE. She, but not she. She, but more than she. All my violent jangling is worthless next to the quiet storm which Ingrabella brings with her as she walks into the room, like one summoned out of the grave. “How can I cover for him now,” I hear in my head while I watch this haunting moment. And suddenly my inner voice is replaced by the words “She’s alive,” emerging like a groan from Roberto’s belly. I turn toward Guy, he is awake, in a trance. Repeating these words—“she’s alive, she’s alive”—he walks toward the camera “ACTION” he calls and the first shot begins.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Isabella sheds her mother’s skin today to don the eternal raiments of Fellini himself.

Escorting Isa to wardrobe and seemingly still under the spell of yesterday’s séance, Guy demands that all tea cups and keys be removed from the set at once. The workmen jump to the task with alacrity, clipping all china to their belts and gathering all keys to be stored in the Money Mart next door. Guy panics, however, when he hears this clanking cacophony and dashes to wardrobe covering Isabella’s ears all the way.

Meg, the costumer, peels Guy’s hands from Isabella’s reddening lobes and tempts him to her plush, vermillion chaise. As Guy’s lids get heavier and heavier, Meg enfolds Isabella in a white shroud and lays her on a floral-print gurney. Now, dressing begins. First, piece by piece, Meg strips off layers of Ingrid from her daughter—immortal grace flung here, incessant poise flung there… Guy then stirs, as if pricked by shards of Ingrid’s ghost: “You’ve killed her,” says he, desperately struggling to ward off his slumbers. Over Meg’s walkie-talkie, I hear Jody, the producer’s, voice, “Keep him asleep. Or we’ll go over budget.” “Ten-four,” says Meg. Grabbing Isabella’s Ingrid-wig, she tiptoes toward Guy and places it over his face: “Now it’s dark,” he says, and with a deep, hairy breath collapses again.

Outside, a queue of buxom blondes and bursting brunettes awaits its cue from Meg’s window. Suddenly, it comes, a strand of spaghetti suspended out of the lunette, like the hair of Rapunzel. One by the one, each mini-skirted beauty climbs the carbohydrate and passes through the glass threshold. The women besiege Isabella at the gurney where they proceed to massage her and smoke. Hours later, Meg blows her whistle and the ladies part, revealing a bescarved, becoated, behatted, Isarico Fossellini.

Wednesday, March 25, 2005

I find Guy this morning at the craft-service station standing atop the counter and ordering workmen to line-up and take off their shoes. The men comply tenfold, weaving a hammock out of their loosed laces later to be used by Guy. “Soup’s on,” Guy proclaims from his rostrum as he empties dozens of Evian bottles into a massive pot. Then, Herr Direktor jumps off the table and gathers up the worker’s boots. Guy shoves the ham-on-whites off the cutting board and replaces them with these leather vessels. “Too tough,” cries Guy while fingering and sniffing the crew’s shoes, “get me a knife, pronto!” Immediately, the men prick up their ears and in unison slide their swiss-armies into view. “Take mine, take mine,” they call in desperation. Overhearing the ruckus, props-man Spittle staunchly swaggers in, carrying a gilt dagger on a pillow. “Thank you, my liege,” Guy says with a curtsey, removing the gleaming blade from its cushion. Then, Direktor-cum-culiniste begins his work, slicing out steel-toes and fitting them to his heels. Guy drops the toeless boots into his bubbling cauldron and clicks his heels three times.

Meg appears, wheeling in our star asleep on her florid slab. Quietly, Meg reaches for a whistle hanging on her neck and blows. The instrument does not make a peep and yet the crew responds to it as if the sound is as commanding as the shriek of a drill-sergeant. Without a misstep, they march to the slumberer, lifting her high above the enormous pot. Guy walks along his perch, nose first, and buries it into the supine Isabella, steam rising from her like morning mists. “Not quite done,” he says as his sniffing proboscis travels along her various appendages, “lower her in.”

Like a trooper, Isabella plugs her nose, resisting coughing fits, as her plank sinks deeper and deeper into the broth. When she finally disappears into liquid, a faint, sizzling sound resonates throughout the kino-kitchen making the surrounding staff uncomfortable, even lascivious, in their appetites, for they know what, or rather, whom is being cooked up. Then, just when everything seems par for the course a strange thing happens; a thick, wretched smell wafts through the room with no remorse. One by one the workmen fall until the room is filled with nothing but Guy, his pot, and a comatose crew. And, suddenly the source of the fetid odour reveals itself in the form of a toe peaking out of a holey sock, protruding from the pot. Guy pulls out his tongs and gives the little-piggy a squeeze. “Cooked you are,” he whispers, hoping not to stir the surrounding gentlemen. “Now, out you come!” Guy steps aside, making room, not for Isabella, but for a curly haired, moustachioed, dripping creation as it sets itself free of the pot and tiptoes around the half-dead men, absconding with their wallets.

I type quietly because producer, J.S, enters the now-devastated space. J.S looks around and fears the number of people lost on this shoot will outweigh those exhumed and that a big lawsuit is imminent. J.S approaches me breathing his torrid breath into my ear, “Consider this a gag order,” says he. From now on I am not at liberty to reveal just where Isabella has gone, or just who has replaced her. It is outside my diary’s legal reach to make public the names of those honourable men who rest peacefully with the knowledge that they gave their lives for the freedom of film. Now, I too will rest for the hypnotic grinding of Guy’s Bolex camera has returned and I must sleep.

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