"Bruce McAllister - The Passion a Western" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcallister Bruce)

The Passion: a Western
Bruce McAllister

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“This story, whatever its virtues and vices, has been thirty years in the
making—beginning with a tropical-storm, lightning-strike bus accident in Mexico in
l974. In the 80’s the story went through a number of incarnations—all of them
bloody—but not until Mel Gibson’s movie appeared did the blood finally make
sense. I’m grateful to Mel, and hope that Clint—whom I do admire—will forgive
me.”

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CLINT STARES OUT THE WINDOW at a town of red dust and adobe. He’s
seventy-five years old, for God’s sake, and hasn’t made a western in years, but it’s
a western. He’s younger—he can feel it in his bones—and though he can’t see
Leone’s bright blue chair or hear Morricone’s score, it’s a western. It’s got to be.

This is Mantos, a voice says suddenly. It’s the script, of course. They never
used voice-over in films like this.

It’s a quaint but somehow disturbing town, the voice adds. How pretentious.
It’s got to be Sergio’s. Who else would write like this?

He’s waiting for someone. He can feel it. They’re in this town on a mission.
The script doesn’t have to tell him. But what mission?

He’ll have to wait for clarification—and his partner. Is it Paul? Bob? Hank?
Lee? John? Someone new? He squints—it’s one of his trademarks—but he can’t
remember.

He keeps staring through the broken glass, not knowing what else to do.

We alternate between his eyes and what he sees. The alternation has
meaning.

What meaning? What the hell is the script talking about?

Figures in loose white garments cross and re-cross the street, like dogs in a
John Ford flick, and he knows this pattern should probably mean something, too,
but what?

What would Sergio want it to mean?
 The figures disappear, and now, behind his eyes, in their place, float immense
white flowers like the dogwood blossoms of his own country’s capital, so far away
now.