He loved movies.
He loved The Big Sleep,
The Big Chill
and The Big Easy.
He loved Al Paccino,
in the godfather
and Rita Hayworth,
in Gilda.
He loved the Golfmatch,
in Goldfinger
and the shock twist,
in the Crying Game.
He loved Westerns
where the morality of the hero was suspect,
and romances
where her true love was there in front
of the heroine from scene one.
He loved period Drama
and Samurai Epics
and political Thrillers
and Detective Features,
but most of all
He loved Movies
of his wife.
Our firm always gave him the most
personal of attention.
And by the time he died,
none of his friends were left alive.
So as junior partner i got to spend a week
in his Primla Court townhouse,
sifting though books, suits, furniture
and sixty-three cans of super 8 film.
He was known to sit in his study
into the small hours,
alone with the flickering screen,
a glass of wine
and the quiet chattering of the projector.
Each reel had a date inscribed in careful black ink.
I watched them from first to last,
in that same study,
where the curtains drawn and a pot
of darjeeling by my elbow,
they were all studies,
portraits if you will.
In the early sequences she is shy,
hiding behind doors.
Raising her hand above the shot,
her plain gold wedding-band prominent.
After a spool or two she relaxes
and begins to play to the camera,
spinning in the garden,
swirling a scarf around her head,
blowing kisses and pointing her stern finger.
The subsequent reels are the most intimate,
as she learns to forget she is on film.
We see her reading at the window,
nibbling her nails,
talking on the telephone
and slowly, dreamily cowing her hair.
In one feature length sleep sequence,
she barely moves and eyelid.