tracks.
â Où est la neige ?â
âWhatâs he saying, man? Whatâs he saying?â asked Hopper.
In the right panel, snowflakes were falling in a window behind Joseph. Un miracle âit turned out.
Everyone was âWow. Wow.â The creaky old Frenchman was absolutely blown away with no qualms about the authenticity of Hopper and Fondaâs Mérode Altarpiece .
Just to be sure, the art experts wanted to take the triptych away and test the paint.
âNo.â
All eyes were on Hopper.
âWhaddya mean ânoâ?â asked Fonda.
âCome here, man!â Hopper hissed, pulling him aside. âYou know what theyâre gonna do ? Theyâre gonna take it and keep it, and give us the copy back, âcause this is the fuckinâ original, man ! You know, man, we gotta get outta here!â
âFuck,â thought Fonda, swayed by Hopperâs conviction. âHeâs right .â
Real or fake, the triptych went back into the closet. Fonda went back up to Millbrook. Leaving New York alone in a taxi on the way to JFK airport, Hopper looked back at the skyline as the crisscrossed steel girders on the bridge passed above and the Beatlesâ âWe Can Work It Outâ went to static on the radio.
THE ANGEL
T he form is now fifty years old,â preached Hopper. âWeâre in the same period as the artists were right after the Flemish Renaissance! Fifty years later, man, came the Italian Renaissance, and man, filmmakers should be making Sistine Chapels now! Michelangelo and da Vinci, they didnât dig working for that Establishment pope, but they didnât get negative about it. They tried to do something that was a little uplifting. Not dirty, not violent! And thatâs what itâs about, man!â
Phil Spector dug. Dandified in gold-rimmed shades, a ruffled shirt, and a pocket watch dangling from his three-piece suit, the boy genius record producer behind the famed Wall of Sound was in the midst of big changes. He had made his fortune engineering creations by girl bands like the Ronettes and the Crystals but was about to chuck his pioneering brand of teenybopper bubblegum pop for a new sonic masterpiece, something revolutionary. The Citizen Kane of pop!
Nikon in hand, Hopper caught Spector at just the right moment, documenting his epic Gold Star Studios sessions with a sweat-drenched Tina Turner belting it out in her bra. Shooting the cover for the big gamble upon which Spector was banking his future, River DeepâMountain High , Hopper posed Ike and Tina in front of a gigantic billboard with a movie starâs enormous teardrop. Fortunately for Hopper, the album tanked, debuting at 98 on Billboardâs Top 100, a crushing blow that made Spector turn his gaze toward the movies. A journalist came to interview him within the confines of his gloomy Hollywood palace draped in British oil-painted landscapes.
âThe sad thing,â said Spector, âis that most great artists start playing to the public rather than for their own satisfaction. This is why I must move on. Hollywood taught everybody around the world how to make movies. Now theyâve all passed us by. Thatâs why Hollywood has to make a great art filmâto show the rest of the world. The Last Movie will be that film.â
To be directed by Dennis Hopper with a screenplay by Stewart Stern, The Last Movie promised a postmodern twist on the classic Western. Starring two generations of Hollywood royaltyâJennifer Jones, Jason Robards, and Jane Fonda, it would feature the very cast David O. Selznick, dead for a year now, had dreamed about for his big Tender Is the Night comeback. The first great American art movie would be a new beginning for Hollywood. Shooting would start September 15, 1966. And if the Philistines at the studios wouldnât finance it?
âIn that case,â said Spector, devilishly flashing the diamond studded S on his ring, âI
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