First novel has heart, winning cast of characters
Based on the Movie
By Billy Taylor, Atria Books, 2008, 310 pp.
It is difficult to decide what about this winning first novel to embrace first. Its plot about the vicissitudes of getting a movie made? Its winning cast of characters, most of whom are part of the lowest echelon of filmdom? Its acerbic commentary on the petty jealousies and revenges of contemporary movie-making?
Its large, large heart?
Bobby Conlon is not having a good year. He's a professional dolly grip, the one responsible for mounting and moving the movie camera. But work's not enough to take his mind off the fact that his wife Natalie has left him for a hot-shot, young director. Or the fact that he's got to get that year-old Christmas tree out of their apartment. Or the fact that he's run out of Vicodin.
Or especially the fact that Gertie, his grip truck, has been totaled while being driven down to a Texas film site by a buddy.
Oh, and that film set is a disaster. The first-time Brit director doesn't know what he's doing. The Polish cinematographer does know what he's doing and arrogantly takes up the reins. No one can decide whether or not to use a trained or special effects animal for Ralph the Swimming Pig. And then things get really bad.
Yet all of this is not just part of some mean-spirited exposé. Movies don't work without characters; neither do novels. Taylor, thank goodness, embellishes them with the sure hand of a seasoned author. We like and understand Taylor's creations because of their quirks, their frailties. He gives subtle edges to characters that in less assured hands would be mere caricatures. It is that, perhaps, that is the novel's most satisfying accomplishment.
Well, that and Taylor's clear love of movie-making, love that emerges in unexpected ways from a character we discover is more than a low-level grunt. When he talks about the movies, Bobby Conlon is a poet: "Movies are about chasing tornadoes and trying to catch something magical before the trailer park is destroyed." Or: "Film sets are limbo lands of temporal confusion where the only thing that matters is the shot you're working on at that moment. It's kind of like Buddhism, only without the enlightenment."
Such insights make Based on the Movie as irresistible as it is. It will make one terrific movie, if the right producer can be convinced that Bobby Conlon is the right man for the job. I'll be first in line for that one.
Steven Whitton is a Professor of English at Jacksonville State University.
