(no subject)
Francis is not feeling too good at the moment; Marlon Brando died, and of course all the journalists in the world wanted to know what he thought of that. He said (correctly) that Marlon wouldn't care for all those people opine about his death, so all he was going to say now was that he was sad that Marlon was dead.
Francis is so good at finding the right thing to say at a time like this. I loved what he had to say about Mario Puzo, who wrote "The Godfather," after he died:
I always looked forward to working on the screenplays with him. We'd often do it by meetings in a gambling casino, usually with a stiff deadline (like, this weekend). Mario loved to gamble, and knew everything there was to know about it (he even wrote a book about it). But he was a terrible gambler. I have memories of him sitting, dominating the roulette wheel, bored, pushing huge chips over toward a general area of the numbers board, and lose oo over and over. But then, shamed and beaten, we would go back upstairs to work, saying 'We're losing thousands down here, but we're making millions upstairs!'
I remember how he would "grade" my different drafts. Once in a description I wrote "Clemenza is in the kitchen, browning sausage in the olive oil." Mario crossed it out, with the note: "Clemenza is frying garlic in the olive oil..."Gangsters don't 'brown', gangsters 'fry.'"
Eventually, Francis will write something about Marlon beyond "ciao," and he'll feel better. Right now, he's still processing. And he's starting to mutter things about reports that Marlon was out of money. True or false, who knows? When he's not muttering about how the press are vultures, he worries about being destitute himself.
If I hadn't stepped in after Apocalypse Now and taken over management of our money, we probably would be destitute. We're not wealthy the way Steven and George are, but we have enough to be comfortable with. That's all you really need. Every so often, Francis and I argue about money. You can't take it with you, he says; no, but you should have enough to see you through the end, I retort. So we bought the winery and we have the Mammarella products, and we're secure.
But going back to Marlon, about halfway through the making of "The Godfather," Marlon mentioned that he was not Italian. He is Dutch and Irish. I still can see Francis' face. It was like someone told a little kid there was no Santa Claus. I saw the same look on Francis' face seven or eight years later, when Pope John Paul II was elected. He knew there was no real rule against the Pope being a non-Italian, but at the same time he never expected to see a non-Italian pope. It was like America losing the basketball gold medal, or Taiwan losing the Little League World Series, or Russian figure skaters losing the pairs title. It was like that Hawaiian sumo wrestler winning some championship. You feel some kind of nationalistic ownership of something, and then it's ripped from you and pounded into the dust.
Francis is so good at finding the right thing to say at a time like this. I loved what he had to say about Mario Puzo, who wrote "The Godfather," after he died:
I always looked forward to working on the screenplays with him. We'd often do it by meetings in a gambling casino, usually with a stiff deadline (like, this weekend). Mario loved to gamble, and knew everything there was to know about it (he even wrote a book about it). But he was a terrible gambler. I have memories of him sitting, dominating the roulette wheel, bored, pushing huge chips over toward a general area of the numbers board, and lose oo over and over. But then, shamed and beaten, we would go back upstairs to work, saying 'We're losing thousands down here, but we're making millions upstairs!'
I remember how he would "grade" my different drafts. Once in a description I wrote "Clemenza is in the kitchen, browning sausage in the olive oil." Mario crossed it out, with the note: "Clemenza is frying garlic in the olive oil..."Gangsters don't 'brown', gangsters 'fry.'"
Eventually, Francis will write something about Marlon beyond "ciao," and he'll feel better. Right now, he's still processing. And he's starting to mutter things about reports that Marlon was out of money. True or false, who knows? When he's not muttering about how the press are vultures, he worries about being destitute himself.
If I hadn't stepped in after Apocalypse Now and taken over management of our money, we probably would be destitute. We're not wealthy the way Steven and George are, but we have enough to be comfortable with. That's all you really need. Every so often, Francis and I argue about money. You can't take it with you, he says; no, but you should have enough to see you through the end, I retort. So we bought the winery and we have the Mammarella products, and we're secure.
But going back to Marlon, about halfway through the making of "The Godfather," Marlon mentioned that he was not Italian. He is Dutch and Irish. I still can see Francis' face. It was like someone told a little kid there was no Santa Claus. I saw the same look on Francis' face seven or eight years later, when Pope John Paul II was elected. He knew there was no real rule against the Pope being a non-Italian, but at the same time he never expected to see a non-Italian pope. It was like America losing the basketball gold medal, or Taiwan losing the Little League World Series, or Russian figure skaters losing the pairs title. It was like that Hawaiian sumo wrestler winning some championship. You feel some kind of nationalistic ownership of something, and then it's ripped from you and pounded into the dust.