"James Morrow - Director's Cut" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrow James)

DIRECTOR’S CUT
By James Morrow

“Director’s Cut” is section from that novel. James writes, Echoes of ‘Director’s Cut
survive here and there in the [novel] manuscript, but the narrative structure could not
accommodate a complete, autonomous one-cut play. And so, rather poetically, this
play about ‘missing scenes’ is itself a missing scene.” We are lucky to have it in our
pages.

****

THE CURTAIN RISES ON THE prophet MOSES, caught in the glow of a
spotlight and sitting atop a mound of Dead Sea sand. The famous Tablets of the
Law stick out of the dune like ears on a Mickey Mouse cap. A large rear-projection
video screen is suspended over Moses’s head. An off-stage INTERVIEWER
addresses the patriarch.

INTERVIEWER. I’ll never forget. Who could forget? There I am, only nine
years old, and Morn and Dad take me to see Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten
Commandments . . .

MOSES. A terrific picture, Marty, don’t you think?

INTERVIEWER. It sure impressed me as a kid. Today . . . well, it seems a
bit hokey.

MOSES. Hokey? Hokey? That DeMille was a genius, Marty, a certifiable
genius.

INTERVIEWER. Is it true his original cut ran over seven hours?

MOSES. Yep. Of course, no theater chain was willing to book the thing.
You’d have had to serve dinner in the middle, like on a flight from London to Tel
Aviv.

INTERVIEWER. It’s rumored some of the original rushes are in your
possession.

MOSES. No way, Marty. You pull papyrus out by the roots and -- bang --it
disintegrates in a few days.

INTERVIEWER. I meant movie rushes.

MOSES. (laughs and slaps his knee) I know you did -- gotcha! (holds up
fistful of motion picture film) Over the past forty years, I’ve managed to collect bits
and pieces from nearly every missing scene.
 INTERVIEWER. For example?

MOSES. The Plagues of Egypt. The release prints included blood, darkness,
and hail . . .