AUGGIE and VIOLET are standing in front of the store. AUGGIE seems distracted. As VIOLET talks to him, his eyes scan the street, as if searching for a lost thought.
VIOLET Okay, Auggie, you got it?
AUGGIE Yeah, I got it.
VIOLET Saturday the sixteenth.
AUGGIE Right.
VIOLET It’s gotta be then, ‘cause that’s the only night Ramon and his band are playing in Brooklyn. He’s my brother, Auggie, and I’m telling you, he’s the best.
AUGGIE Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s a date.
VIOLET You gonna be something else, Agosto. Just remember those steps I taught you, and you’ll look like Fred fucking Astaire.
AUGGIE (Smiling) Okay, Ginger. Whatever you say.
At that moment, coming around the corner to the right of frame, we see a black BOY of about eleven and a white WOMAN in her late twenties. The BOY grabs the WOMAN’S purse and starts running, scooting around the corner past AUGGIE and VIOLET and exiting to the left of frame.
WOMAN Thief! Thief! He stole my purse!
AUGGIE (Under his breath) Shit. (He takes off after the kid—exiting the frame)
In the meantime, the door behind them opens and a number of customers, attracted by the commotion, come out, crowding around the doorway with the WOMAN and VIOLET. Among them are the three OTB MEN (TOMMY, DENNIS and JERRY).
WOMAN I can’t believe it! He just ripped it out of my hands! Three hundred dollars in cash and all my credit cards!
DENNIS (Looking the WOMAN up and down) Yeah, it’s disgusting, ain’t it? I mean, an attractive lady like yourself, you can’t walk the streets of this city alone no more. What you need—
VIOLET (Excited, looking down the street) Look! Look! Auggie, he got him!
DENNIS—is a man to protect you.
TOMMY and JERRY both look disgustedly at DENNIS, appalled by his sleazy come-on.
DENNIS (Playing the innocent. To TOMMY and JERRY) What? What I do now?
TOMMY Give it a rest, Dennis. Can’t you see she’s upset?
AUGGIE and the BOY reenter frame in front of the door. With one hand, AUGGIE is holding him by the collar; in AUGGIE’S other hand is the WOMAN’S purse. The BOY looks terrified.
AUGGIE (Handing the WOMAN her purse) Here’s your purse.
WOMAN Thank you. That was … that was extraordinary. I don’t know how to thank you.
AUGGIE Now go inside and call the cops, and we’ll have this little punk arrested.
The WOMAN studies the BOY, who stands there in total silence. The others watch the exchange between AUGGIE and the WOMAN with rapt attention.
WOMAN Arrested?
AUGGIE Arrested. He’s a thief, ain’t he?
The WOMAN continues to study the BOY. Little by little, we see her resolve crumble.
WOMAN But he’s just a baby.
AUGGIE (Growing irritated) What difference does it make? He snatched your purse.
WOMAN I have the purse now. Maybe we should just forget it. AUGGIE Forget it? What are you talking about?
WOMAN He’s just a baby. I can’t put a baby in jail.
AUGGIE (By now genuinely angry) It’s your duty! Is this the kind of city you want to live in? Where little kids rip off people’s purses—and get away with it?
WOMAN I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.
AUGGIE looks at the WOMAN; then he looks at the BOY; then he looks at the WOMAN again. In a flash, he comes to an impulsive, radical decision: he jerks the purse out of the WOMAN’S hands and gives it back to the BOY.
WOMAN (Shocked) Hey! What are you doing?
AUGGIE (To the BOY, shooing him away) Go, kid, go. It’s yours.
The BOY, by now totally confused, stands there mutely with the purse in his hands. He is frozen to the spot.
WOMAN (To AUGGIE, outraged) Are you crazy?
The WOMAN yanks the purse out of the BOY’s hands. Without hesitating, AUGGIE grabs the purse from the WOMAN and gives it back to the BOY.
AUGGIE (To the BOY) Are you deaf? The purse is yours. Now get the fuck out of here! (He gives the BOY a shove, and the BOY takes off with the purse, running out of frame)
WOMAN (Beside herself) You son of a bitch! All my money’s in there! Are you out of your mind?
AUGGIE (Boiling over with rage) No, you are, lady! It’s people like you who are turning New York into such a shit-hole. You won’t take responsibility! If we don’t teach these kids the difference between right and wrong, who’s going to do it?
This time, the notes were written out in traditional script form. We had a much better idea of what we were looking for now, and the October scenes were devised in an altogether different spirit from the ones we shot in the summer: as a way of filling in gaps, tightening narrative threads, and rounding out the earlier material. The experiment was essentially over, and this time our efforts were concentrated on putting together a viable film.
On the other hand, just because we had a script, that didn’t mean the actors weren’t free to improvise. The entire cast for this new version of Philosophers did an excellent job of playing off and around the material as written, immensely improving it, I feel, with every line they spoke. Mira Sorvino was our principal newcomer, and she fit in as if she had been with us from the beginning. Several things are continually happening at once in this scene, and the side argument between Violet and Auggie as well as Dennis’s snickering laugh from the front door help make the action unfold with all the multi-level confusion of a real street scene.
VIOLET is sitting alone, putting on her makeup in front of a mirror.
VIOLET Auggie, you make me so horny. You make my tripas … tremble … . Oh, Auggie, you would be so wonderful … if only you were different. (Pause. She begins opening jars on the table in front of her) That Auggie, he gonna drive me cuckoo. First he say yes, then he say no. It’s on, it’s off, it’s some other time. But Ramon, he don’t know some other time. He play at Freddy’s on the sixteenth,
and now Agosto, he tell me he busy on the sixteenth. But I tole him: Saturday, the sixteenth. What gives around here, huh? Is somebody deaf or something? I talk myself blue in the face, and still it don’t do no good. (Pause. Fussing with her mascara. Uncaps her lipstick and begins applying it to her lips. Puckers her mouth in the mirror. Growing angrier. As if addressing AUGGIE) Auggie, I make up my mind. And this is what my mind says. It says: if you don’t do the thing you said you would do, then I never say nothing to you no more. You got it? Nothing. Never. No more. (Pause. Inspects her lips in the mirror. Even angrier: but in a low, quiet, smoldering voice) You lie to me, Auggie. And people who lie don’t deserve no love. You mess with Violetta, and Violetta fight back. (Almost in a whisper) I rip your guts out, Auggie. Like a tiger. Like a fucking tiger—with teeth as sharp as the razor blades!
Violet’s monologue is the only interior scene filmed outside the cigar store, but we didn’t have far to go: just around the corner to an empty apartment on 16th Street.
Another departure from the first round of shooting: the close-up. For the first time, we managed to film a scene from two different angles.
AUGGIE and VINNIE are alone in the store, deep in conversation.
VINNIE I don’t know, Auggie. It’s a lot of money. I’d be crazy to turn it down.
AUGGIE After nineteen years, you’re just going to walk away? I can’t believe it.
VINNIE It’s dollars and cents. This store’s been losing money for years, you know that as well as I do. It’s a good month when we break even.
AUGGIE But you’ve got plenty of money, Vin. All those real estate deals out on the Island. You just write this place off on your taxes. VINNIE It’s too late. We’re already in contract.
AUGGIE So the Brooklyn Cigar Company gets turned into a health-food store.
VINNIE Times change. Tobacco’s out, wheat germ’s in. (Pause) It might not be such a bad thing for you either, Auggie. I mean, maybe it’s time for you to move on, too. I’d hate to see you turn into an old man sitting behind that counter.
AUGGIE Everybody has to grow old. What difference does it make where it happens?
VINNIE (Lighting up a cigar. Smiling) No more free cigars, eh, Auggie?
AUGGIE (Pensive) You really should think this through before it’s too late, Vincent. I mean, sure, it’s just a dinky little nothing store, but everybody comes in here. Not just the smokers … but the school kids for their candy … old Mrs. McKenna for her soap-opera magazines … Crazy Louie for his cough drops … Frank Sanchez for his El Diario … fat Mr. Chen for his crossword-puzzle books. The whole neighborhood lives in this store. It’s a hangout, and it helps hold the place together. Go twenty blocks from here, and twelve-year-old kids are shooting each other for a pair of sneakers. You close this store, and it’s one more nail in the coffin. You’ll be helping to kill off this neighborhood.
VINNIE You trying to make me feel guilty, is that what you’re doing?
AUGGIE No. I’m just giving you the facts. You can do whatever you want with them.
Victor Argo was performing in a play in Los Angeles and could only work with us on Monday, his day off, which was the last day of our three-day shoot. Harvey Keitel, on the other hand, was only available on the first two days, Thursday and Friday. What to do? How to film a conversation between two men who couldn’t be in the same room together? The only possible solution was to cheat. We filmed the two halves of the scene on separate days. Peggy Gormley (Sue from Cowboys and Indians) read the lines of the missing actor at each session.
VINNIE is sitting alone, agitated, still worrying about his recent conversation with AUGGIE.
VINNIE That Auggie. He’s going to drive me crazy. Just when I get the deal together, he comes in and starts playing those fucking violins. Brooklyn, Brooklyn. I’m supposed to care about Brooklyn? I don’t even live in this shithole of a town no more.
VINNIE leans forward, elbows on his knees, and puts his head between his hands. He looks down at the ground. Two beats.
A figure enters the frame: a large black man dressed in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform with number 42 on his back. This is JACKIE ROBINSON. He stops in front of the bench and stares down at VINNIE. The rest of the scene plays on VINNIE’S face.
JACKIE ROBINSON Hi, Vinnie. Remember me?
VINNIE (Awestruck) Jackie?
JACKIE ROBINSON In the flesh, sport.
VINNIE (Stammering) Jackie … the greatest player of them all. I used to pray for you at night when I was a kid.
JACKIE ROBINSON I’m the man who changed America, Vinnie. And I did it right here, in Brooklyn. They spat on me, they cursed me, they made my life a never-ending hell, and I wasn’t allowed to fight back. It takes its toll, being a martyr. I died when I was fifty-three, Vinnie, younger than you are now. But I was a hell of a ballplayer, wasn’t I?
VINNIE The best. You were the best there was, Jackie.
JACKIE ROBINSON And after me, things started to change. I don’t just mean for black people, I mean for white people, too. After me, white people and black people could never look at each other in the same way again. And it all happened right here, sport. In Brooklyn. VINNIE Yeah. And then they had to move the team away. It nearly broke my heart. (Pause) Why’d they have to do a dumb thing like that?
JACKIE ROBINSON Dollars and cents, Vinnie. Ebbets Field might be gone, but what happened there lives on in the mind. That’s what counts, Vinnie. Mind over matter. (We see VINNIE listening intently, making the connection between the fate of the Dodgers and the fate of the cigar store) And besides, there are more important things in life than baseball. (Pause. Looking out the window) But Brooklyn looks good. More or less the way it was when I last saw it. And Prospect Park over there … still as beautiful as ever. (Pause) Say, Vinnie. They don’t still make those Belgian waffles, do they? Man, what I wouldn’t give to sink my teeth into a Belgian waffle. With two scoops of pistachio ice cream on it … and maybe a heap of strawberries and bananas on top of that. Boy, have I missed those things. VINNIE (Obligingly) Belgian waffles? Sure, they still make them. (Points) A couple of blocks down, you’ll see the Cosmic Diner. Just go in there, and they’ll give you all the Belgian waffles you want.
JACKIE ROBINSON Thanks, sport. Don’t mind if I do. (Begins to exit frame. Stops) A day in Brooklyn just wouldn’t be complete without stopping in for a Belgian waffle, would it? (He exits frame)
Still sitting on the chair, VINNIE follows JACKIE ROBINSON with his eyes. After a moment, he turns back and looks straight into the camera. His expression is utterly blank. Hold for two beats.
This scene was written two or three days after the rest of the October material, and the idea came directly from Harvey Weinstein, president of Miramax.
It was 10:00 P.M. when the telephone rang at my house. Harvey was on the other end of the line, calling from his hotel room in London, where it was three o’clock in the morning. He had just had a dream about Blue in the Face, he said, and he wondered if it wouldn’t make sense to work it into the film: after his conversation with Auggie about selling the store, Vinnie is miserable and confused; he sits down somewhere to weigh the pros and cons of his dilemma, when all of a sudden, out of thin air, a number of the old Dodgers appear to him and begin reminiscing about Brooklyn. What did I think? I
thought it was a stroke of genius. First thing tomorrow morning, I would sit down at my desk and see what I could do.
One of the Dodgers Harvey mentioned was Jackie Robinson. He couldn’t have known, of course, but I had been thinking about Jackie Robinson all my life. Way back when I was in the ninth grade, everyone in my junior high school was required to participate in a public speaking contest. The subject that year was “The Person I Most Admire.” I wrote my speech about Jackie Robinson and wound up winning the first prize. It was 1961, and I was just fourteen years old, but composing that speech was one of the crucial events of my life. After that day, I knew that I wanted to become a writer.
When I sat down to work on the scene, I realized that Jackie Robinson was the only Dodger who had to appear, that his presence would say everything that had to be said … .
AUGGIE is standing in front of the door, smoking a cigarette and surveying the street.
A YOUNG WOMAN dressed in a skimpy Las Vegas showgirl outfit and wearing a little bellhop’s cap on her head approaches the store. She is holding a yellow envelope in her hand. AUGGIE studies her with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.
YOUNG WOMAN Is this the Brooklyn Cigar Company?
AUGGIE In the flesh. What can I do for you?
YOUNG WOMAN (Studying the envelope) I’m looking for Mr. Augustus Wren.
AUGGIE You’ve found him, beautiful.
YOUNG WOMAN (Relieved) Great. I’ve never been to Brooklyn before. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find you.
AUGGIE Well, Brooklyn’s on the map. We even have streets out here. And electricity, too.
YOUNG WOMAN (Sarcastic) You don’t say. (Pause) Well?
AUGGIE Well what?
YOUNG WOMAN I have a telegram for you.
AUGGIE Nobody’s dead, I hope. (Extending his hand) Let’s see it.
YOUNG WOMAN A singing telegram.
AUGGIE (Grinning) This gets better and better.
YOUNG WOMAN (Gearing up for her performance) Ready?
AUGGIE Whenever you are.
YOUNG WOMAN (Dancing as she sings. In a throaty, nightclub singer’s voice).
The deal is off … stop.
Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-boom.
Not selling the store … stop.
Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-boom.
See you next week … stop.
Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-boom.
I’m sending you love … love … love
From Las Vegas!
Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-boom.
AUGGIE (Claps in appreciation) Dynamite.
The YOUNG WOMAN gives a polite curtsy (in stark contrast to her raunchy performance) and smiles.
AUGGIE (cont’d) I’d say that’s worth at least a five-dollar tip, wouldn’t you? (Removes his wallet from his pocket)
YOUNG WOMAN (Quietly miffed by the small amount) Five dollars?
AUGGIE hands her a five-dollar bill; she gives him the yellow envelope.
AUGGIE Any time you want to deliver some more good news, you know where to find me.
YOUNG WOMAN (Looking at the money) Thanks, mister. Now I’ll be able to buy that hearing aid my mother’s always wanted.
The YOUNG WOMAN walks off. AUGGIE opens the envelope and begins reading the telegram, humming under his breath: Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-boom.
This was the first time I had ever written anything to be sung. Admittedly, the lyrics of the telegram message aren’t much to write home about, but still, I had a definite melody in mind when I wrote the words. To my amazement, Madonna sang it precisely as I imagined she would. Beat for beat, phrase for phrase, she delivered the same little tune I had been carrying around in my head. The only difference: there were five ba’s before each of my booms, and she used seven.
AUGGIE is sitting outside the store in his plastic lawn chair, reading The Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein and smoking two cigarettes at once. A boom box sits at his feet.
VIOLET comes by in a tight dress and stops in front of AUGGIE’s chair.
VIOLET I just wanted to show you what I’m wearing tonight. (She spins in a circle, modeling her dress) So you’ll know what you’ll be missing if you don’t do the thing you said you’d do.
AUGGIE (Admiringly) Very nice.
VIOLET (Noticing that AUGGIE has two cigarettes in his mouth) Auggie, you got two cigarettes in your mouth. What do you want to do a thing like that for?
AUGGIE (Shrugs) I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. (Pause) You want one?
VIOLET shrugs. AUGGIE takes one of the cigarettes out of his mouth and hands it to her.
VIOLET (Smoking) So, what are you going to wear tonight, Auggie?
AUGGIE (Shrugs) I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it yet.
VIOLET I hope you’ll be ready, that’s all I can say. (Gesturing to her body) It would be sad to say good-bye to this, wouldn’t it, Auggie?
AUGGIE What do you mean? I’m ready now.
VIOLET You’re not even dressed. How can you be ready?
AUGGIE I might not be dressed. But I’m ready.
VIOLET What the hell does that mean?
AUGGIE Watch.
AUGGIE pushes a button on the boom box. Loud salsa music suddenly comes pouring out of the machine. AUGGIE stands up and invites VIOLET to dance.
The camera begins to pull away. VIOLET throws her head back and laughs, then starts dancing in front of AUGGIE. After a few moments, other people enter the frame, all of them dancing to the music. Cut to:
The street from above. Dozens of people have appeared out of nowhere. A wild block party is in full swing. AUGGIE and VIOLET continue to dance, laughing in the midst of the mayhem.
For reasons still difficult to understand, the first part of this scene did not play well on screen. The performances were good, but the light, perhaps, or the camera angle, or the quality of the sound just didn’t work, and we reluctantly dropped it from the film.
The two block-party shots, however, still provide us with our conclusion. The tall blonde dancing in the middle of the crowd is RuPaul.
One by one, different people stand in front of the cigar store and recite the following facts about Brooklyn:
—There are 2.3 million people living in Brooklyn.
—There are 1,600 miles of streets, 4,513 fire boxes, and 50 miles of shoreline in Brooklyn.
—There are 672,569 people living in Brooklyn who were born in foreign countries.
—There are 3,268,121 potholes in Brooklyn.
—There are 605,554 people under the age of 18 living in Brooklyn.
—were 1,066 forcible rapes committed in Brooklyn last year.
—There are 872,305 African Americans living in Brooklyn.
—There are 412,906 Jewish people living in Brooklyn.
—There are 462,411 Hispanic people living in Brooklyn.
—There are 514,163 people living below the poverty line in Brooklyn.
—There were 32,979 cars stolen in Brooklyn last year.
—There are 90 different ethnic groups, 32,000 businesses, and 1,500 churches, synagogues, and mosques in Brooklyn.
—There were 30,973 robberies, 14,596 felonious assaults, and 720 murders committed in Brooklyn last year.
—Every day, 7,999 Belgian waffles are eaten in the restaurants of Brooklyn.
—Once, there was a major league baseball team in Brooklyn. But that was a long time ago.
In editing the July material (before we knew we would have a chance to shoot again in October) I suggested a number of small elements that could be added to the film without major expense. The map of Brooklyn that appears at the beginning (along with the words “YOU ARE HERE”) was one such idea. Another was to flash various facts and statistics about Brooklyn on screen at certain key moments. Once the extra days of shooting were given to us, we decided it would be more interesting to have a cross-section of Auggie’s customers recite those figures on the sidewalk outside the store. A casting session was hastily arranged, and more than a hundred people showed up to audition for these briefest of brief roles.
(Among them was Michelle Hurst, who had played Rashid’s Aunt Em in Smoke.) A video tape was sent to me, and in less than two hours I chose a dozen people to play our Brooklyn “statisticians.” A perfect example of the deadlines and pressures we had to deal with in setting up our second round of shooting.
After the first round of shooting in July, Miramax threw a small cast party at Sammy’s Rumanian Restaurant on the Lower East Side. The highlight of the evening came when Mel Gorham stood up on the little stage and sang an unforgettable rendition of “Fever.” Wayne, who was still fighting the bug in his system, had left the party by then and missed the performance. Just one or two days before we began shooting again, he said to me, “Everyone is still talking about how great Mel was when she sang ‘Fever.’ Why don’t we have her do it for us after she finishes her monologue?” “Why not?” I said. And so we hired a couple of musicians to accompany Mel, and Wayne finally got to see her do the number—in a radically different version.
Later on, when we were putting together the final cut of the film, we brought Mel back to loop the lines she speaks over the song.
The Waffle Man carries around a Belgian waffle menu that features a succulent, full-color photo of his heart’s desire. When we filmed Lily Tomlin’s scene in July, there was no time to do an insert shot of the photo, which would have given the audience a clear idea of what her
character so desperately craved. To remedy this lack, we prepared a shot of a Belgian waffle poster in October—which turned out to be the last shot of the films … .
The poster was taped to a wall inside the cigar store. We planned the shot to last a certain number of seconds (I forget how many), and then the camera started to roll. With just two or three seconds left, the tape suddenly loosened and the poster fell off the wall. It was a typical Blue in the Face moment. We thought we were finished, but the god of adhesives had decided to play one last prank on us. So the poster had to be remounted, and the shot had to be done again.
This time it worked. This time the movie was really over.
This was the final piece of the puzzle. In discussing ways to open up Blue in the Face, Wayne and I became attracted to the idea of going out into Brooklyn and talking to real people, of pushing certain parts of our film into the realm of pure documentary. Yes, the cigar store was an imaginary place peopled by imaginary characters, but so much vital energy had come from the actors’ performances that it didn’t feel like a contradiction to try to include the actual Brooklyn world that surrounds the store … and see what happened when we mixed the two elements.
In an effort to save both time and money, Wayne suggested that we shoot these documentary sequences in High-8 video and then, once we were in the cutting room, transfer the material we wanted to keep onto film. Since we would be too busy on the set to take care of it ourselves, we had to enlist someone else’s help. That person turned out to be photographer Harvey Wang, author of Harvey Wang’s New York.
Given that both our leading actor and producer were
named Harvey, and given that Wayne’s last name was Wang, it felt like some kind of weird, cosmic joke that the best man for the job should be named Harvey Wang. To enhance the beauty of the coincidence, Harvey Wang is not Chinese (as Wayne is) but Jewish (as Wayne’s codirector is). So, a Chinese-Jewish team making a film about Brooklyn brought in a Jewish man with a Chinese name who just happened to live in Brooklyn. What could have been more appropriate? The three of us laughed about it constantly, and Wayne never tired of introducing Harvey to other people as his brother. But underneath all the horseplay, there was something wonderfully in keeping with the spirit of the project we had undertaken. This was Blue in the Face in a nutshell: strange, unpredictable doings set against a backdrop of diversity, tolerance, and affection.
Harvey threw himself into his assignment with great relish. In eight days of work, he amassed over sixteen hours of footage. No more than a few minutes are included in Blue in the Face, but having seen every one of the several dozen interviews he recorded, I believe this material would make an excellent film in its own right: a documentary portrait of Brooklyn in all its rough-and-tumble glory. As Harvey himself has written: “There is no one voice for all of Brooklyn. Like an orchestra, each voice contributes an accent, a ‘fuck you buddy, that’s my parking space’ attitude, a cheer, a kvetch. The resulting cacophony is the soundtrack of this one-of-a-kind place.”
It’s all there in his film.