Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(38)
The day the L.A. riots touched off, I was mixing the sound for Of Mice and Men at Sony Studios in Culver City. One of the technicians called me into the office, and there on his TV all hell was breaking loose. A helicopter was circling above a street where a truck driver named Reginald Denny had been pulled out of his vehicle and was being beaten by a mob at the intersection of Florence and Normandie. The cameras cut to other areas of the city, and stores were being looted and burned. Several other innocent motorists were attacked and beaten.
The images were deeply frightening—and all this violence was happening not too far from where we were working. I told everyone we were shutting down and they should go home immediately. As I drove home, my eyes darted from left to right as I wondered if I, too, would be pulled from my vehicle and beaten. Anarchy reigned in Los Angeles, and police raced here and there. I wondered how I was going to protect my family if the violence reached our home. I was scared.
For the next five days while the riots raged, I tried to work at home while watching the city burn on television. The California Army National Guard, the Seventh Infantry Division, and the First Marine Division were called in to help restore order, but for some time, mobs still roamed. In the end, sixty-three people were killed, 2,383 were injured, and more than 12,000 people were arrested. Property damage was estimated as high as $1 billion. Los Angeles would never be the same. I admit I was so consumed with my own work that year—directing, producing, and acting in my film—that I did not even know when the verdict was coming in the Rodney King case. What a shock. It was a tough time for our city and our country, and I’ll never forget what Rodney King himself asked during those terrible days of rage: “Can we all get along?”
A week after the riots ended, we were finally able to go back to work to get the movie ready for the festival. We finished things up by adding the beautiful score written by Mark Isham. We left for Cannes a few days later. Of Mice and Men was screened toward the end of the festival, so by then everybody had viewed many films and had a lot to compare my movie with. My coproducer, Russ Smith, attended our screening, along with Malkovich and many of the MGM executives, including Alan Ladd Jr., the top guy at MGM. Moira was there. My mom and dad were there. The movie was screened in Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, a giant movie theater with a seating capacity of twenty-three hundred seats, all filled. On the way from the hotel to the theater, the streets were lined with cheering people. At the theater, the red carpet was packed with paparazzi and journalists. Everybody wore tuxedos or ball gowns. Flashbulbs popped everywhere. As a filmmaker, when your movie is being shown, you can’t stand in the back and pace, which is what I nervously felt like doing. You must sit in the middle of the theater, along with the production team, in the middle of the gigantic crowd. You hope the crowd enjoys the show. If they don’t, then you sit there and take your punishment, even if you get booed. And this was my first film as a producer. My second as a director. Only my third as an actor.
The crowd and I watched the movie. It started just as I had envisioned it, on a train, inside a boxcar. We heard the clackity clack of the train going across the tracks. The story progressed, the movie finished, and the credits rolled, with the lights still down. The plot concludes tragically, not triumphantly, and it’s not a movie where you walk away feeling happy. Still, the story is deeply moving and powerful, and my hope was that after seeing the film, viewers might be motivated to do a little more to make sure people aren’t alone, abandoned, marginalized, or left on the fringes.
When the credits began to roll, a little lull crept into the auditorium, a tense moment of silence. Sometimes the audience waits until the very end of the credits to show their feelings. Sometimes they make their decision with credits still rolling. I felt my skin crawl. Will the audience clap? Will they boo? I held my breath, waiting for the response.
And then it happened.
A dam burst. The entire room erupted into applause. Huge applause. With the credits still rolling, the audience clapped and clapped. One person stood. Then another. The entire theater rose to their feet. A standing ovation. The team and I stayed sitting in the middle of the crowd, and they brought the house lights up and shined a spotlight on us. The crowd continued to clap wildly. They cheered through the entire credits. Malkovich and I stood, took a bow, and waved. The credits ended, and nothing appeared on the screen. The audience continued to clap and cheer. Malkovich and I sat down and took a few moments, the audience continued to clap and cheer, then Russ, John, and I stood. I saw Tom Selleck standing off to one side in the crowd, clapping, cheering. I didn’t know him personally, but I could pick out his familiar face anywhere. He wore a white tux, and as I glanced over, Tom caught my eye and smiled and nodded as only Magnum, P.I., could do. The standing ovation went on and on. The noise in the room was deafening. Someone said later that the ovation lasted a full ten minutes. Finally, the clapping wound down, and I stood again and called to the crowd, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much!” Tears filled my eyes, and a wave of emotion nearly choked me. We had worked hard, and this was our moment of truth. It felt spectacular.
You would think a huge standing ovation at Cannes would mean a studio would really get behind a picture, publicity-wise. At one point during the ovation, I’d looked over at Russ and quipped, “Wow, I’m so glad the MGM executives are here to see this. It will be really good for the film.” And Russ had quipped back, “Either that, or I think we just made a French film.” By that, he meant it was going to play well only in art houses. We both laughed ruefully.