Marteeny - Shaken, then Stirred! (The experiences of one Billy Wirth fan at the St. Louis Film Festival, Saturday, Nov. 10th)
I remember the raised eyebrows of my co-workers when I announced my plans for the coming weekend. "You're flying to St. Louis," they repeated with incredulous faces, "to see a movie."
"Yes," I answered calmly. I explained to them that I'd been a Billy Wirth fan for a long time, and that this was the first full-length film that he's directed. I wanted to see it, and the St. Louis Film Festival was the last screening that I was aware of.
"Will he be there or something?" they asked, determined to find a plausible excuse for such impetuosity.
My answer only caused the eyebrows to lift even higher. "I have no idea."
I arrived in St. Louis around 9:30am on Saturday. I had originally wanted to fly in on Friday afternoon and catch the 9:30pm screening of MacArthur Park, but a hectic work week and a lack of organization on my part made me settle for the Saturday afternoon showing instead.
My hotel was downtown, and I decided on the way there to locate the Hi-Pointe Theatre first and perhaps purchase my ticket in advance. The theater was not yet open, but I stared open-mouthed at the words on the marquee: Welcome Billy Wirth, MacArthur Park!
The entire way to the hotel, my thoughts churned in my head. I'd had no inkling that he was planning to attend. Had he been there the night before? Would he be there today? Could I actually be that lucky?
I checked into the hotel and tried rather unsuccessfully to relax for a couple of hours. Finally, around noon, I left to find some lunch and do the tourist thing, camera and all. Unfortunately, I hadn't thought to consult a calendar and found a big Veteran's Day parade going on right where I needed to drive. All the roads I'd navigated from the interstate were closed off, and I, who'd been to St. Louis once, 12 years ago, had to figure out another way to get back to the interstate. Needless to say, I went through lots of areas of condemned buildings, kept finding myself on the same streets over and over, and ended up God knows where before I finally made a miraculous turn which put me onto the interstate going in the right direction.
I got off at the exit for the Hi-Pointe since it was more familiar to me than anything else, and when I passed the theater again, I saw that there was someone in the box office window. I decided to stop and get my ticket. "One for MacArthur Park at 3:30," I stated when I reached the window.
As he handed me my ticket, the gentleman at the counter said, offhandedly, "The director was here last night."
"Yes, I noticed your marquee," I replied. "Is he supposed to be here today as well?"
"I don't think so. He hung around here for about an hour last night, talking to people, and then he left."
"So he's gone then?" I tried to hide my disappointment.
"Well, I don't know if he's left St. Louis or not," the man told me, "but he didn't say anything about coming back out here today."
I wanted to kick myself! 12 hours! 12 hours! I'd missed him by 12 hours! I tried to keep reminding myself that I'd come to St. Louis to see MacArthur Park, with no expectations of getting to see Billy Wirth, but I couldn't help the fact that my hopes had soared when I saw that marquee. Now my hopes were somewhere under my shoe… With a wry smile for cruel fate, I found a nice vantage point, shot a couple of pictures of the marquee, left to find lunch, and proceeded to get somewhat lost again in the suburbs.
I found my way back to the theater around 3:00. This time there were several people out front buying tickets and talking. I saw a young woman wearing one of the MacArthur Park t-shirts from the fan club site; she was taking a picture of the marquee. I met her halfway back to the door and said to her with a laugh that I'd been doing the same thing myself a couple hours ago. We continued towards the door as I told her, "The guy at the ticket window said that he (i.e. Billy) was here last night, but he left. I knew I should have made the afternoon flight yesterday - now I've missed a chance to see him in person." We joined a small group of women next to the door as one of them assured me with a smile, "He'll be here today." She looked familiar to me, and several of these women were wearing the MP t-shirts, so, after talking with them for a few minutes I asked, nonchalantly, "Would any of you happen to be Maxine?" As I suspected, the woman who had first spoken up was indeed Max.
She asked for my name, and introduced me to the rest of "the girls" (Penny, Mary Jo, Barbara, Bethy, Calandra, Carla, and Amy), and I found out that I wasn't the only one to have traveled a long distance to see this movie. What a wonderful bunch I was surrounded by! Everyone was SO NICE! These women had never set eyes on me before and knew next to nothing about me, yet they treated me as if I was part of the family, including me into the group as if they'd been expecting me to show up and were simply holding my spot.
Billy arrived momentarily and, after receiving a bit of ribbing from Max and the others about the vanity of taking a picture of his name up in lights (at which he grinned and proclaimed, "It's for my Mom!"), he followed us into the theater.
After a brief introduction to the film by Billy, the lights were lowered and the movie began with a camera sweep over Los Angeles. I’d read the film’s description and what reviews I could find, but I had no idea what I was in for. Having no real knowledge of or personal experience with crack, I expected to have difficulty empathizing with the lifestyles and motivations of crack addicts, especially those who had beggared themselves to the point of homelessness.
My initial trepidation quickly vanished. I was amazed at the parallels I was able to draw between the attitudes and behaviors of these "afflicted" people and those of "normal", "everyday" people, including myself. I was astounded by the depth of my own identification with certain aspects of Cody, the main character - I understood the sense of hopelessness that breeds apathy and denial of a problem, be it drugs, alcohol, debt, bad relationships, or an uncertain job future. I also understood too well the contradiction of being unable to shut yourself off from caring, despite the pain. It is possible for anyone to become trapped in a web of his or her own design, and, as the film pointed out, these people can be so easily destroyed. Even the ones who "escape" run the eternal risk of being sucked back in – at the end of the movie I found that I felt as much fear for Cody as hope.
When the lights came up, I was wiping my eyes and trying not to sniffle too loudly. I turned to Carla, who was sitting next to me, and said, "I was holding it in okay, even when the last scene had faded, but then when the first credits appeared and I saw the dedication to his father, I just lost it…" I suspected that there were others in our group who’d had the same reaction.
Billy came back to the front and stood between the theater seats in the row directly in front of me (in fact, only about 5 feet from me, so I had a great view!) to talk about the film and to answer questions from the audience. Within the first 10 minutes, he’d managed to answer every question that had popped into my head but never made it out of my mouth! He showed a genuine interest in everyone’s questions and opinions, not fobbing them off as if he’d rather be somewhere else.
Once we’d gotten outside, Billy was kind and gracious with his time. He signed things for fans and posed for pictures with anyone who wanted one. My camera chose the worst possible moment to flip out – right when he and I were posed and smiling. Calandra was taking the picture for me since she’s used to manual focus, but after two attempts with the flash going off several seconds late and the camera pointed elsewhere, I was too embarrassed to monopolize Billy’s time any further. But when Calandra offered to take one with her camera and send me the picture, Billy returned to my side without my asking, smiled at my apologies, and shrugged it off as if he truly didn’t mind the inconvenience.
Turns out that my timer was kicking in for some unexplainable reason (resulting in a lovely abstract of the underside of the marquee). I shot the last half of the roll of Billy and my newfound friends and hoped that at least those pictures would turn out since I seemed destined not to have one with me in it on my own film.
Penny told me that "the girls" were all going for a drink and dinner afterward, and invited me to go along. I gratefully accepted. We stood around for a while as Billy talked to some of the other fans, joking with each other about feeling like "12-year-old groupies", but Billy had said, "I’ll be back" and none of us wanted to leave before then. As good as his word, he made his way back to our group and talked with us for a short while longer, then gave each of us a hug before we left.
"The girls" were staying about a block from the theater, so we made plans to meet there. They went off in the direction of their hotel and I in the opposite direction to get my car. Billy and the Film Festival representative were the only two people still outside the theater, but I was determined not to humiliate myself further by staring at him, so I concentrated on the sidewalk instead as I passed by. I heard Billy say, "Bye." When I glanced over to where he was standing, he was looking right at me with one of those melting smiles. I managed not to faint, smiled back, and said, "Bye."
I had a wonderful time hanging out with the rest of "the girls" (I find the reference both flattering and amusing, and am glad to have been lumped into it with them). Max and I talked outside the hotel after dinner for, no joke, over an hour.
The rest of my trip was pretty anticlimactic; I had also forgotten to consult a football schedule and got embroiled for an hour or so in the melee of people and traffic of the Rams game. The bright spot to Sunday was that I found time to wander through the art museum for a couple of hours before I had to catch my flight.
On Monday, the photo developers brilliantly managed to tear my film in the processor and then light fog (in other words, completely ruin) the second half of the roll, which of course contained every single shot I’d taken of everyone at the screening. Go figure! But I have great memories of the trip, and new friends with whom I hope to keep in touch for a very long time.
Looking forward to the next event – hopefully we won’t have to wait long.
Amy Marteeny
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