Fosse by Wasson Sam

Author:Wasson, Sam [Wasson, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2013-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

Filming ended in the spring of 1974, and full-time editing began. The task: getting about 360,000 feet of printed film to a releasable 11,000. Fosse could get impatient while he cut, so Heim, relaxed, would set him up on the flatbed editing machine with a reel of reaction shots or one of Hoffman’s long monologues—something to keep him busy. With bigger screens and reels, the flatbed Kem, which could take as much as a thousand feet of film, was better for screening, while the upright Moviolas—loud green monsters Heim stood before and spliced down hard into—were nimbler and better for cutting. They spent the day floating between the machines; their collaboration rarely got heated. The heat was between Fosse and Lenny. “He taught me how to be hard on material,” Heim said. “But he was so unrelenting, sometimes I had to rescue him from his own dislike.” But there was peace in postproduction. A face, an arm, an upper lip—things he spotted in dailies—they were now his to control, full stop.

Sometimes lunch would be personally delivered by Chayefsky, Gardner, or David Picker, and often for the whole family. “There were times in the cutting room,” said assistant editor Jonathan Pontell, “when Fosse was very jovial, full of stories, almost literally dancing. Then there were dark times.” He made no effort to hide the attaché case Heim called “the pharmacy,” leaving it open by the Moviola in full view of all who passed by. “I’m positive that Bob did this intentionally,” Heim said. “He didn’t want to tell me that he was having these moods, but he did want me to know that it wasn’t personal.” Fosse did not discuss his bottom-most fears with male associates outside of his immediate circle, not even Heim, whom he had known and respected for years. Women were another matter. Whether owing to sex or friendship, in female company, Fosse opened up almost involuntarily. “Bob would talk to me about the tremendous guilt he felt not being able to stay faithful to his girlfriends,” Trudy Ship said. “He was still thinking about Gwen. He said he loved her very much but that his unfaithfulness became too much for her.” He would laugh at himself for dating girls closer and closer to Nicole’s age, like Kim St. Leon, the nineteen-year-old extra he picked up on the set in Miami. She had followed him back to New York, and though she got a place of her own in the city, St. Leon had some accidental run-ins with Ann Reinking, one heading toward Fosse’s apartment as the other headed away.

“Who was it last night?” Ship asked him one morning.

“It’s complicated,” he said. “But amyl nitrite helped.”

One night Fosse invited Kim and Ann to 1600 Broadway, led them to seats at the Moviola, and then settled into a deep armchair. Trudy Ship cued up the reel. He gave the word and the lights went off. A few flickers in, Fosse’s audience knew why they were there—it was the threesome scene.

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