1: Puff Piece

Interviews with directors used to be painless: a phone call to the agent; a time; a place. Reporters and filmmakers were compatriots in a perfectly reciprocal agreement: money for the journalist, publicity for the subject.

Things are difficult now; unnecessarily so. When I called Ellen, Eugene Park’s (The New York Times: “A visionary of limitless depth …”) publicist, I was connected to Park’s bodyguard, a tired sounding gentlemen who cautioned me on the innumerable dangers of interviewing the director in the current climate.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m okay.”

Finally I reached Park’s agent. He was young, and spoke in clipped half-sentences. I told him I was an intern at a film magazine.

“And you want an interview,” he said.

“An interview, yes.”

“With Eugene.”

“Unless you’ve got anyone better.”

I shouldn’t make jokes, not in these situations.

“Eugene’s been under a lot stress.”

“I read about it. This interview will be short; a puff piece.”

“A puff piece.”

“A vapid, depthless piece, sort of like a press release. It makes the subject look good at the expense of substance.”

The agent grunted.

“Well let me see now,” he said.

I waited, thwacking my pencil against my kneecap. It was evening, and raining; the sky was green and spoiled like a tea leaf. In a minute the agent was back on the line.

“At 11:30 Eugene takes a 20 minute break.”

“Wonderful. That works.”

“He stretches and does calisthenics with his wife.”

“Perfect.”

“He doesn’t like reporters, but maybe if this is, as you say, a puff…”

“A puff piece.”

“If it’s what you say it is he’ll tolerate certain softball questions.”

“And I’ll expect nothing more than pre-packaged answers. An interview is all I want.”

“They don’t have very high standards at your film magazine?”

“It’s run by alcoholics.”

“Alcoholics. I like this. Toby, the security team will be expecting you at 11:25 at his Brooklyn residence. The address is…”

He told me the address.

“You’ll need some form of identification. A driver’s licence or a passport.”

“Got it.”

“Remember: Softball questions.”

“Got it.”

I hung up; smirked; sat back in my swivel and lapsed into a daze, a dozen dramatic interviews unspooling in my mind’s eye, all either terminated in a gunfight or a brawl on the director’s Persian rug. After all, this was a trying year for Park. His former agent was found strangled in a bathtub in Chicago before a screening, face contorted in mild distaste. His Bentley had been set fire while he was in a Rite-Aid. His critical champions had received death threats. Most recently — and this made national news — his apartment had been ransacked, and his laptop, containing the storyboard for his latest short film, had been bludgeoned to a crisp.