The Ice Rink

Suddenly, just like two professional hockey teams making their way into the rink, twenty or so men emerge onto the ice, armed with helmets and hockey sticks.

They circle the rink several times at breakneck speed.

Violent music accompanies their entry on the scene.

The director (yells)

Veronique! Veronique!

At the side of the rink, the assistant removes her jacket and her scarf, lifting up the rubber hood of her speed skater's outfit. She wears a full-body black synthetic rubber speed skater's suit which makes her look a bit like a spermatozoon. She bursts out onto the ice at top speed, bending forward, one hand behind her back like a champion speed skater, and comes to a clean stop in front of the director's chair after a superb controlled skid.

The assistant

Yes?

The director (in a low voice)

A megaphone.

The assistant (yelling into her walkie-talkie)

Hello, hello, do you read, megaphone called for, megaphone called for...megaphone on the way, roger, over and out.

A production assistant, very prompt, very agile on the ice, skates over at full speed bringing the megaphone to the director.

The director (into the megaphone)

Stop, gentlemen, stop!

The players, helmeted and armed with their sticks, don't listen to the director and continue to careen around the rink.

The members of the film crew flatten themselves against the sides of the ice rink to avoid the hockey players.

A few members of the crew, more courageous, place themselves in their path to try to get them to stop, wave with their arms in the way that one tries to intercept galloping horses, but the players will have nothing to do with them. They dodge and escape, evading the technicians blocking their way, and make off even faster on the ice, skating at top speed.

The assistant finally reaches the sound booth and manages to cut the music.

She comes back onto the ice with the microphone from the sound system at the end of a very long cord.

The assistant

Silence, gentlemen, silence!

The players eventually stop and gather haphazardly around the assistant.

The assistant

Your director is going to say something to you.

The director (into the microphone)

Go get the interpreter.

The assistant (into the walkie-talkie)

Interpreter called for, interpreter called for... interpreter on the way, roger, over and out.

The interpreter runs out onto the rink, shoes in hand, escorted by an assistant. Skates are hastily put on her feet. She advances onto the ice, her balance very uncertain.

She joins the assistant, who gives her the microphone.

The director (into the megaphone)

Good day gentlemen.

The interpreter (into the microphone, in Lithuanian)

Good day gentlemen.

The players (in chorus, in Lithuanian)

Good day sir!

The director

I am very happy to be working with you and I hope that all will go well. I don’t think what I will be asking you to do will be very difficult for you, considering your experience. I would simply like to add, so that it’s clear, that this is a movie and I’m not necessarily concerned about whether what we are doing is credible. Without a doubt some of the things that I will ask you to do might seem unrealistic, improbable, even illogical, bizarre and exagerated. But, I repeat, this is a movie. And, in the movies, to make it look real, you often have to do unrealistic things. In his Notes on the cinematographer, - I don’t know if you have read them - Bresson explained how, if you film an actor who pretends to be afraid on the bridge of a

real ship, in a real storm, in the end, no one will believe in the actor, the ship, or the storm. (To the interpreter) No, don’t translate that, just translate that it’s a movie. (To the players) What I’m going to ask you to do, for the shot that we’re going to do now, is to play as if it were a real game. As you can see, there’s only one net on the ice, - we are going to set up the camera there (he points to the parallel) - I ask that you remain as much as possible in that part of the rink, and to play normally, without paying attention to the camera. Do you understand?

The interpreter translates in Lithuanian into the microphone, which gives a slight echo that amplifies and renders her words more solemn.

From time to time, with a single voice, the players cry out YES or NO, in chorus, banging with their sticks in short bursts on the ice.

The assistant (discreetly, into her walkie-talkie)

Hello canteen, do you read me, hello canteen, Veronique here, you'll have to be ready in half an hour from now, half to three quarters of an hour... what's for lunch today?... chicken... chicken with what... chicken chop-suey, roger, over and out.

6. INT. PROVISIONAL PRODUCTION AND DIRECTION OFFICES - DAY

In the production and direction offices evening dresses, stage costumes, cans of film are being delivered.

In one corner a production assistant irons a hockey shirt on an ironing board.

The director and the assistant come back into the room.

The assistant leaves again, then pops back in. Sticking her head round the door, she asks the director if she can bring in the actors she has convened to cast the replacement for an actor who is unavailable.

In a low voice she adds that she has mostly retained theatre actors.

Preceded by the assistant twenty or so men from twenty-five to sixty years old dressed elegantly in street clothes, a scarf around the neck, enter the room and spread themselves out in the space, moving along the walls and placidly rubbing their hands together to give themselves the right bearing.

The director welcomes them.

He walks among them, asks them a few questions about their careers.

The actors, in turn, evoke their career, the last productions they have been involved in, a marquis in Moliere, a halberdier in a play by Shakespeare, a walk-on along the same lines in a play by Musset, Lear in King Lear.

Some of them present him with a sample of their talent, declaim a monologue from Britannicus, recite a poem by Verlaine, Vigny, Aragon.

The director hesitates, nods his head, asks the assistant if he can see them in costume before making his choice.

7. INT. ICE RINK - DAY

Everyone waits on the rink. The director reads in his director's chair. The script girl prepares her notebooks, sorts her first Polaroids. The interpreter stares into the distance, leaning against the protective barrier at the edge of the rink. The hockey players skate slowly around the rink, exchanging a few words with the interpreter leaning on the barrier.

Suddenly, preceded by the assistant who guides them with a walkie-talkie in her hand, the actors for the casting appear on the ice dressed as hockey referees.

They take a few steps on the ice in their zebra suits.

One or two break away and skate elegantly.

Others hesitate, stumble.

A group of landlubbers stay packed together near the entrance, awkward and unbalanced. They form a compact, oscillating conglomerate. They hold on to each other, their arms on each other's shoulders, stumbling on the ice, just managing to keep from falling.

The director looks at all the referees, perplexed.

The director (to the assistant)

I'll take the small guy with the moustache who can skate, and King Lear as a back up, just in case something happens to the guy with the moustache.

8. INT. MAKE-UP ROOM - DAY

In the make-up room, the make-up girl is making up the main actor.

Behind him on chairs, like at the barber's, wait the two selected referees. They talk shop, swap theatre stories, a few dress rehearsals they have experienced.

The voice of the assistant is heard from the walkie-talkie on the dressing table of the make-up room. ("Make-up, make-up, do you read, only do the small guy with the moustache, King Lear is just a back up, don’t make him up... and the small guy with the moustache, you'll shave it off, of course")

9. SEQ.

CANCELLED.

10. INT. ICE RINK - DAY

The camera is brought out onto the rink. Two grips venture onto the ice, carefully holding the camera at arms' length.

Walkie-talkie in hand, the assistant pirouettes before them over the ice, skating ahead and coming back to them again.

The camera is mounted on the parallel, fixed onto its tripod.

The cinematographer turns on all the lamps in the rink, takes readings with his light meter.

The writer-director leaves his seat and gets up on the parallel, takes a look through the camera, adjusts its position a hair.

Everything seems to be in order.

The director

Yes, that looks good. I think we can do it. (He looks at his watch) (To the assistant) Do you think it’s ready?

The assistant

Yes, yes, it’s ready, they are waiting for us.

The director

Good, so, let’s go. (Shouting) Lunch break!

SEQ.11

CANCELLED.