Movie, Talent, Self-Sufficiency

“LET ME DO IT.”

 

Saturday came and a few kids were hanging around to see if I would make good on my promise. I had a Super 8 projector on a table to show my good intent when it got dark enough and a sheet for a screen against the wall. At dusk, I told Jerry to gather some friends to come and see the movies starting in ten minutes. Maybe I should have had candy for 12 kids?

He was gone, but in the blink of an eye my house was overflowing with kids. They were sitting wall-to-wall on the floor, leaning against the walls, up on the loft, with parents crowded around the windows. Even teenagers showed up. How could the word get out so quickly?

“Let me see! Let me see!”

I had taken the roll of film out of the box as Charlene stood next to me. Charlene was several years younger than Jerry and Jose, the daughter of Señor Sanchez next door, second from last in that family. The last child was Manolito, who was already a rascal, a very endearing rascal however, but a rascal, nonetheless. Charlene, on the other hand, was the cutest, prettiest girl I had ever seen. Her smile melted wild boars. I thought to myself, when she grows up, watch out!

With her friend Isabel, next to her, she watched attentively while I winded the film intricately through the film projector, up to the wheel at the tail end where I hooked the film strip to the roll and rotated it two times to make it catch. Anyone who has done this knows that the first and second time is confusing.  

“Ready?”

  The whirling sound of the projector could be heard above the abrupt, absolute silence that descended on more than forty-five cramped heads all looking at the screen on the wall.

First a few houses and ‘A’ Mountain, then the moment the first kid came up it was followed by a shout, “THAT’S ME!  That’s me!” One after another, each child screamed from the top of their lungs as their faces rolled across the screen.

“Jimmy!” “Pepe!” “Miguel!” “Look at me, that’s me!” It became mayhem with everyone shouting at the same time.

When the roll was over and the tail end went flap, flap, flap, flap, I re-winded the film and was about to install the next reel, Jose’s film, when I felt someone pulling on my sleeve.

“Let me do it! Let me do it.” Charlene said pulling harder on my sleeve. “Let me do it! Let me do it!” This little girl pulling on my sleeve kept saying.

“OK, let me show you how it is done.”

“No! No. Let me do it.”

“I will. But here, you need to take this end and pass it through here…”

“Let me do it, let me do it.” Little Charlene in black pigtails, pushed me away. So, I gave her the film strip and watched in amazement how she faultlessly, with her little hands wound the film through the ins and outs of the projector, hooked it up to the back reel, and with pride turned the machine on. Okay, I thought, you have clearly done this before.

I had no idea what to expect from José’s film, and could not believe what I saw even if I knew all the characters in the film. They were all in that room. I knew that Jose had been the one holding the camera and telling the others what to do. That quiet, unassuming kid with a mischievous Indian smile if there is such a thing. I didn’t know if Indians could smile. You never see them smiling in movies.

The movie showed two kids hiding inside the thick wall of an adobe door frame, when another kid comes walking by. The two in hiding jumped over the third kid, and two more came into the scene, as all of them assaulted the walker, took his wallet, and ran off.

That was it! Very well done.

What do I do now? What do I say?

Raw talent! Wrong direction!

They were all clapping and cheering. It was really a very well-done scene, as though pros had done this take. He had experimented with changing camera angles, zooming in and out, a few close ups, and he made a few minor retakes since he had no editing possibilities, resulting in the improvement of his directing and of the acting by the kids. Maybe they were not acting. They were practicing their future and not really doing a film.

 I called Charlene over to rewind the film, but she declined with a “No”.

“Why? You can do it.”

“No,” is all she said.  All it took for her was to see it done once, and she didn’t see the rewinding. When I tried to verbally explain the process to her, she would not even listen. She had incredible visual memory learning but poor verbal attention span. I wondered how she was treated at school. Do we promote verbal submission or self-sufficiency?

I was getting to know the people around me. Charlene’s brother, Manolito, I was told was exceptional as well. “Wait until you find out what that little rascal can do,” I was told. Her father, my next-door neighbor, lamented that he paid his electric bills and my use of electricity was costing him money, although he didn’t, but the landlord said to go ahead and give him one dollar a month, which made him happy. Manolito was sent every month to collect.

 

The tapestry of local personalities began to flourish ‘new’ in my recent awareness, but they were all there before I was.