Michael Dane knew that, objectively, his directing career had been successful.
His movies had grossed more than three billion dollars. They’d spawned video games, comic books, restaurants, Macy’s floats, and theme parks. When he released a new sequel, people camped out for days for a chance to see it early. He was friends with Johnny Depp. Not close friends, but definitely legitimately friends, like they texted each other funny links and stuff.
But despite all his accomplishments, he couldn’t help but feel like a failure. And the reason was simple: Alan Schwab.
For decades, the legendary film critic had dogged him, describing his work as “cheap,” “hollow,” “flimsy,” and “disgusting.” Lately, he’d even begun to insult Dane in reviews of other people’s work, referring to choices that upset him as “Dane-esque.”
In interviews, Dane claimed he “never read reviews.” But secretly, Schwab’s words were seared into his brain. Every night, while he tried to fall asleep in his large glass mansion with an unobstructed view of the ocean, Dane thought of Schwab’s cruelty. How could he get back at him? How could he even the score? Revenge seemed impossible. But then one night, like so many times in his career, it happened: inspiration.
Alan Schwab woke up naked in an underground bunker, his arms and legs chained to a chair.
“Don’t move,” Dane whispered from the shadows. “You’re still recovering from major surgery.”
The critic looked down and gasped. Sure enough, there was a jagged incision just below his nipple.
“My God!” he cried. “What’s happening?”
“An explosive device has been implanted in your chest,” Dane continued. “If you don’t do exactly as I say, I will detonate your heart.” He stepped slowly into the light, holding a small remote control. “You might recognize this gambit from my film Final Battle 2. In your review, you called it an ‘overly simplistic plot contrivance.’ Well, as you can see, it gets the job done.”
“What do you want?” Schwab begged.
Dane handed the critic a piece of paper and whipped out a small, sleek camera.
“Look into the lens,” he said. “And read your lines.”
Alan was about to comply when Dane held up his palm. Despite the circumstances, he was still a director, and he couldn’t resist giving a couple of notes.
“Try to deliver the lines with some joy,” he said. “Your motivation is ‘to reassure.’”
Alan nodded awkwardly.
“Okay,” the director whispered. “Action.”
“This is Alan Schwab,” the critic said. “I have decided to take a one-year leave of absence from writing reviews in order to pursue my secret lifelong dream: to direct a movie of my own.”
“Cut,” said the director, turning off the camera. “Nice work, really natural. I think we got it.”
Alan looked at his captor with confusion. “What happens now?”
Dane giddily explained the rules. Schwab would have one year to complete a feature film. If he failed, refused, or told anybody the circumstances, his torso would explode. Other than those basic stipulations, though, Schwab would enjoy complete creative freedom. He could work in any style or genre that he pleased. Regardless of content or length, Schwab’s film would be given a full theatrical release with his name in giant letters on the poster.
“You’ll get all the credit,” Dane explained, “positive or negative.”
He took out a gem-studded Montblanc pen (a prop from Final Battle 4: The Final Battle) and scribbled out a check for thirty million dollars.
“Here you go,” he said, pressing the check into Schwab’s hand. “That’s a big enough budget to hire Meryl Streep.”
Schwab winced as the bunker doors slid open, flooding his eyes with California sunlight.
“Now it’s your turn,” the director told him. “Now you go make a fucking movie.”
Dane flew east in his private jet, his face suffused with pleasure. In his lap was an iPad opened to a recent post on Deadline. He’d put off reading it for several hours, to better savor the experience, but he couldn’t hold out any longer. He picked up the tablet and scrolled through the paragraphs, pausing after each, like he did when eating uni rolls at Masa.
Schwab Film in Trouble, Sources Say
“He cries all the time,” said one crew member, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity. “And whenever somebody asks him a question, like how to block a scene or what shot he wants next, he falls to his knees and starts whispering, ‘I can’t take it anymore.’ That’s usually when he passes out one of his weird notes.”
Schwab’s handwritten notes are becoming something of a legend on the lot. I’ve been shown several, and even by the standards of feature directors, the letters are eccentric. They always begin in the same way, with a plea for the recipient to “not say anything” because he’s “probably being watched.” He then pleads with them to “find a surgeon” to “silently operate on his chest” and “take out the detonator in [his] chest.”
It’s unclear what’s happening to Schwab. Some of my sources theorize that the pressures of directing have caused him to have a psychotic breakdown. Others are more charitable.
“It’s a little unusual to pass out notes like that,” said one studio veteran. “I mean, for a director to beg the crew to operate on his body, that’s definitely strange. But compared to David O. Russell? It’s not that shocking.”
Experts agree that if this were a studio venture, Schwab would have been removed from the feature long ago. But his independent financier, who continues to remain anonymous, has vowed to stick with the newbie director, no matter what.
“We wholeheartedly believe in Alan Schwab’s vision,” wrote the unknown benefactor in a recent online statement, “and we are excited to share that vision with the world.”
Schwab’s film, Help Me, There’s a Bomb in My Chest, I’m Not Pitching Titles, This Is Real!, will premiere tomorrow at the Cannes Film Festival.
Dane gazed out the window as the sandy French shore came into view. He had fallen behind on his latest Final Battle sequel (Final Battle 5: Armistice). But he felt no desire to work on the script. His masterpiece was already in progress.
Three hundred reporters looked on curiously as Alan Schwab took the stage to introduce his film. He was dressed like a typical first-time director, in a slightly rumpled, rented black tuxedo. But there were clues that something was amiss. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept in days, and his forehead was coated with sweat. He was also accompanied by a man in a black face mask, who stood silently beside him, holding what looked like a bomb detonator.
“This is a real movie,” Schwab began, shooting nervous glances at the masked man. “I made it by choice.” He covered his face with his hands and gave himself over to a lengthy crying jag. “I’m scared,” he murmured finally. “I’m scared.”
The audience awkwardly applauded as the lights began to dim.
“I can’t take this anymore,” Schwab whimpered to his captor as they stood in the wings. “Just kill me. Kill me!”
“Not a chance,” Dane said. “You’re going to live through this experience. You’re going to see what it’s like to step into the arena and fail before the throngs. To get a taste of your own medicine, a sip of your own—”
He’d prepared several pages of this sort of dialogue, but before he could finish reciting it all, he became aware of a disconcerting sound.
Applause.
Dane flew west in his private jet, his face suffused with pain. His iPad sat on his lap, opened to a recent post on Deadline. It wasn’t easy, but after several hours, he forced himself to scroll through the paragraphs.
Alan Schwab Dazzles Cannes
with Experimental Masterpiece
At fourteen minutes, Help Me is short by the standards of most feature films. But don’t let the running time fool you. Alan Schwab’s film contains more ingenuity than all the studio releases of the past ten years combined.
The film opens with a haunting image. An unnamed woman (played with graceful understatement by Meryl Streep) stands in the middle of what appears to be a Hollywood soundstage. A frightened man, played by Schwab himself, runs over to her and presses a note into her hands.
“Help me,” he whispers. “There’s a bomb in my chest. Oh God, help me.”
The shot ends abruptly—with a swift cut to black.
The rest of the film consists of variations on this theme. Again and again, Schwab’s “frightened man” character approaches people, desperately begging for help and demanding that they perform surgery on his body to “remove the bomb” or “get rid of the bomb.” Sometimes, we hear his cries offscreen. Occasionally, he stares right into camera, as if asking us, the audience, to assist him.
“There’s a bomb in my chest,” he tells us as tears stream down his ashen, haunted face. “This isn’t made-up. I don’t want to direct this movie. I’m doing it because someone put a bomb in my chest and he threatened me. I’m afraid to say his name because he’ll kill me. Oh God, help me. I’m so scared. I need surgery to remove the bomb from my chest!”
One hopes that Schwab will remove more from his chest. More honesty, more emotion, more art. The world would be a richer place for it.
Does Help Me, There’s a Bomb in My Chest, I’m Not Pitching Titles, This Is Real! have its flaws? Of course. The film can feel repetitive at times, given the fact that so much of the dialogue consists of the same few phrases said over and over again (most notably “Help me” and “There’s a bomb inside my chest”). But these are minor quibbles. If you like your films slick and sanitized, you can go to your local multiplex and watch the latest offering from Michael Dane.
Or, like Schwab, you can take a risk. You can see Schwab’s film, open up your chest, and see the human heart beating inside.
Michael Dane powered down his iPad. Then, for the first time in his life, he considered the option of suicide. He didn’t have any weapons in his jet. Although his gem-studded Montblanc fountain pen was reasonably sharp. He took it out of his pocket and stared at its glistening nib. He wondered what it would look like to see it slash into his wrist.
It would be pretty cool-looking, actually. Especially if you scored it with some dubstep and shot it at a hundred frames a second. He could see the parabolic arc of blood, rising and falling out of frame. It could be the opening shot of a major battle.
Perhaps even a Final Battle.
He pressed the pen nib lightly to his wrist and carefully wrote himself a note:
Final Battle 5 intro shot—pen slash?
It was only a start, but it had potential. He’d figure out the rest when he got back to Los Angeles. He couldn’t wait to land. He was Michael Dane, God damn it, and he had work to do.