Terminal Freeze

32

It seemed that Conti spoke up almost before Fortnum knocked on the door. “Come in.”

The cinematographer stepped inside and closed the door softly behind him. Conti was on the far side of the room, in the makeshift screening area, absorbed by a video playing on his huge LCD screen. The image was choppy and scratchy, but nevertheless instantly recognizable: the Hindenburg, afire and crumpling to the ground at Lakehurst Naval Air Station.

“Ah, Allan,” the director said. “Have a seat.”

Fortnum walked over and settled into one of the comfortable armchairs before the screen. “How’s Ken?”

Conti tented his fingers together. He was still staring at the screen. “I’m sure he’ll be just fine.”

“That’s not what I heard. He’s out of his mind.”

“Temporary. He’s had a bad shock. And that’s what I wanted to speak with you about.” Conti pulled himself away from the newsreel footage long enough to look at Fortnum. “How are you coming?”

Fortnum had assumed Conti summoned him to discuss Toussaint’s condition. Instead, it seemed the director wanted to talk business. He told himself he shouldn’t be surprised: with high-powered directors like Conti, business always came first. “I’ve got half a dozen decent reaction shots to Peters’s killing. I’m rendering them now.”

“Good, good. That’s an excellent start.”

Start? Fortnum was under the impression these were wrap shots: the rather distasteful final footage for a documentary about a documentary-a study of a project that had gone tragically wrong.

The image on the screen faded to black. Conti picked up a remote, pressed a button, and the newsreel began again: the Hindenburg gliding serenely in toward its berth, a huge silver cigar floating over the grassy fields of New Jersey. Suddenly, flames shot from its underside. Dark palls of smoke began roiling skyward. The zeppelin slowed; hung in the air for a horrible moment; then began sinking to the ground, fire devouring its skin, exposing wide black ribs one after another.

Conti gestured toward the screen. “Look at that. The framing’s horrible, the camera movement’s choppy. It’s completely lacking in mise-en-scène. And yet it’s probably the most imperishable image ever captured on celluloid. Does that seem fair?”

“I don’t think I follow you,” Fortnum replied.

Conti waved a hand. “Here we are, year in and year out, refining our technique, creating ever more subtle and beautiful shots, worrying endlessly about three-point lighting and non-diegetic inserts and eyeline matches. And to what end? Somebody with a box camera just happens to be in the right place at the right time-and in five minutes shoots something more famous than all of our carefully orchestrated hours of film put together.”

Fortnum shrugged. “That’s just the way it goes.”

“Not necessarily.” Conti fiddled with the remote.

“I still don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“It’s just that-this one time-maybe fate has put someone with the skills and the tools in the right place.”

Fortnum frowned. “You’re talking about whatever mauled Josh Peters. The thing Ken was raving about.”

Conti nodded slowly.

“Are you buying into that? You don’t believe it was sabotage anymore?”

“Let’s say I’m keeping my options open. And if there’s an opportunity here, I plan to seize it. We’d be fools not to.”

Fortnum paused. He couldn’t be talking about…No, of course not. Not even Conti is cold-blooded enough for that.

The film ended and Conti started it yet again with a flick of the remote. “Allan, let me ask you a question. Why do you think the Hindenburg footage is so famous?”

Fortnum thought. “It was a huge tragedy. You don’t often get to see that.”

“Precisely. And you phrase it exactly right: one doesn’t often get to see it. Did anyone capture the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre on film? No. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire? No. If somebody had, would those be just as iconic today as the Hindenburg film? Probably.” Conti turned to look at him, and Fortnum-with a growing sense of dismay-saw the director’s eyes were alive with excitement. “And the real tragedy is that the few films we have of such disasters are crude and unsophisticated. We’ve been given a chance to change that. Now do you understand what I mean by opportunity?”

Fortnum could barely believe what he was hearing. His worst fears about Conti’s motivations and intentions were proving true. “You expect me to catch this thing-whatever it is-in the act of killing somebody? Try to get it on film? Is that it?”

Instead of answering directly, Conti looked back at the screen. “You know what the most popular videos on YouTube are? Animal maulings. And the documentary with the best Nielsen numbers last year? When Sharks Attack. People have this primitive urge to see others die. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s some reflexive form of schadenfreude. Maybe it’s a primitive fight-or-flight instinct, something programmed into our amygdala. But we’ve been given a chance here, a chance filmmakers rarely get: we’re present at a moment of real crisis. Is this what we came here for? No. Did we plan it this way? Of course not. But we owe it to ourselves, to the network-to posterity-to document it.”

Fortnum stood up. “So you want me not only to expose myself to extreme risk but to actually film the creature in the act of mauling our crew. Film it, instead of doing all I can to save lives.”

“Who knows? There may be no more attacks. There may not even be an animal. The storm may clear prematurely, and we’ll be out of here tomorrow. But we need to be prepared, Allan-just in case.”

Fortnum felt his shock and disbelief giving way to anger. “Why was Ken Toussaint’s camera found in the infirmary, not ten yards from where Peters’s body was stowed? That was the assignment you gave him back in the entrance plaza, wasn’t it: to film Josh’s torn-apart corpse.”

“A shame the video feed was destroyed.” Conti’s eyes turned back to the screen, where once again the great dirigible was sinking to the ground in a slow, strangely formal gesture, engulfed in flames and smoke. “Primitive,” he murmured. “Amateurish. But not this time. I plan to take this documentary-this autobiography-and immortalize the unfolding tragedy on film. A crisis as memorable, in its way, as the Hindenburg…yet, this time, it will be art.”

“Mining Peters’s death for reaction shots was bad enough. But this…” Fortnum stiffened. “I won’t have any part of it. And I think you’re a monster for even suggesting such a vile thing.”

It took Conti a moment to tear his eyes from the screen and look at Fortnum. “You’re working for me,” he said. “If you don’t have what it takes to do this, you’re not fit to be a documentary cinematographer. I’ll see to it that you’re finished in the business.”

“Somehow,” Fortnum replied, “I think one or the other of us already is.” And he turned on his heel and strode out of the room without another word.