"Arthur Porges - Movie Show - A Story for Lincon's Birthday" - читать интересную книгу автора (Porges Arthur)

MOVIE SHOW
(A Story for Lincoln’s Birthday)
By Arthur Porges

THERE- THAT’S THE END. Looks like some very bad abstract art, or maybe
Mark Twain’s cat throwing its famous fit in a platter of tomatoes! If only I’d had the
good sense to make a copy immediately, before the cheap film deteriorated, but who
could have suspected the old man would do his own amateurish processing instead
of sending the movie out? Obviously, he was a very paranoid sort, certain that
“They” would steal it, or even come after him with a net on glimpsing his work.

Well, I’ve kicked myself enough; it won’t help, so I’ll just give you the facts.
Who knows? Maybe someday they’ll dig up new data about what really happened in
that courtroom, and confirm what I have to believe is true, however wild that is. But,
frankly, I doubt it; Elmer Grain was a unique genius, the kind we’re lucky to get once
a century. Anyhow, here’s what happened.

I had some business in Springfield, Illinois, the state capital. Some relations of
mine, people I hadn’t seen for years, live there, so naturally I looked them up. The
only one who matters in this story is my nephew, Joel, a kid of twelve. One of his
hobbies is photography, and after a magnificent dinner he set up a projector to show
us some of his home movies. The boy’s a fine technician for his age, that was clear,
but not very imaginative. All he’d taken were shots of the Mississippi, Tom
Sawyer’s cave, and other familiar scenes of the Mark Twain country.

But then, after about twenty minutes, there came a bit of film that must have
been spliced in, and that caught my eye, which had been glazing over. It was some
shots of a courtroom, with sunlight streaming in, yet the focusing was pretty bad, the
film jerky, the color badly off. So it definitely wasn’t Joel’s careful work. Besides, it
had a soundtrack, and my nephew’s movie was silent, being just a scenic take.
Come to think of it, I don’t really know how they get sound on a movie or
camcorder.

But getting back to the strange addition, the place was really packed, and
everybody just dripping with perspiration. A Southern Illinois summer can be worse
than one in India or on the Equator. I guessed from a magnificent old elm visible w
barely w through the dirty windows that the film might have been made in June or
July.

There were three people on trial, it seemed, and a judge, a prosecutor, and, of
course a defense attorney— or a pair of them; I couldn’t decide. Most of this
wasn’t clear to me at the time, but only much later, as you’ll see.

When the chief prosecutor stood up— unfolded himself, almost— to well
over six lean feet, obviously the tallest person there by far, my nephew snorted
derisively, and said, “That’s supposed to be Lincoln: You heard the judge call him
Mr. Lincoln. I wonder where Elmer dug him up!” I wasn’t so negative; there was a
kind of resemblance. It occurred to me at the time that there were still enough tall,
lanky, loose-jointed young men in Illinois to fit the part.