![]() What good was having a full sail if they couldn't blow up the boat? It made the sail billow plausibly, an effect she and the photographer had found pleasing, but now she wished it would die down. The boat was only fifty meters out to sea, but the wind seemed stronger there. ![]() ![]() The ladder was still empty, flapping against the side of the boat. She imagine him, willed him even, to kneel by the fuse once more, and it was shorter – how far had it burned before going out? Three centimeters, or maybe six? She imagined him re-lighting the fuse. The breeze had blown out the fuse, and he had to re-light it. A breeze had come up and rustled the pages in their notebooks. She could sense the journalists shuffling their feet in the sand. The fuse was burning, burning… now he should be rushing down the ladder to the rowboat. He found the fuse coming out of the barrel. She couldn't see him anymore, so she closed her eyes and pictured him, holding onto the jib line and then pushing the bottom of the mainsail out of his way, until he found the open barrel of powder. He had rowed out, anchored the rowboat and climbed up a rope ladder to board the ship. They were waiting for Herbert, her husband, to blow up the sailboat they had outfitted as a seventeenth century caravelle. It used to annoy her with its implication that she, the director, was slowing things down by not being ready when they were, when everyone well knew it was usually the camera that was the source of a pause. The film cameraman stood at her right, everything ready, with that cavalier air of being completely relaxed that only a cameraman could affect. On her left was the still photographer, humped over his camera, his black drape flapping around him. Alice needed all of her concentration and it was impossible to concentrate with them always pestering her, their pencils scratching away. The journalists stared at her legs admiringly. Vinnie was doing ballet steps in her pageboy wig, doublet, and tights. The Sultan was vamping around in his turban and robes. Some, like Vinnie and the man who was playing the Sultan, were still in the costumes they had worn for the morning's shoot. Although she did not look at them, she was acutely aware of the crowds around her: at a distance, the cast. A day at the beach should be about pleasure, about playing with the children, about tasting the salt spray on Herbert's lips.īut not today. At any other time the seaside would be refreshing, it would clear her head. The air was sharp, needles of cold reaching under her collar and her hat. The First Woman Filmmaker By Alison McMahan She Invented the Movies: The Life of Alice Guy Blaché,
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