Damian Overton | Papercut / 2018

everything to lose

by Douglas Messerli

 

Damian Overton (screenwriter and director) Papercut / 2018 [14 minutes]

 

Actors Josh Kieser and Kieton Beilby play the two film actors, Kane and Gabriel, up for the same award for a performance in a film as recounted in Australian film Papercut, written and directed by the Damian Overton.

     The two men, like other major film actors in the past, are in a gay relationship, but over their drive into the city for the ceremonies, sitting in the backseat of a limousine driven a man named David (Donnie Baxter), they discuss their priorities for their careers and the problems of being in the closet while being involved in an acting career.

     The situation is probably not so very different from discussions between Cary Grant and his lover Raymond Scott, who lived together for 11 years so intimately that the studios finally ordered a photo shoot to tamp down the rumors by presenting the couple as bachelor roommates in their so-called “Bachelor Hall,” a piece aimed primarily at their female audiences in the photo tabloids.

    Given that photographer Jeremy Zerbe was a gay man and shot them in numerous homoerotic poses and Ben Maddox, the closeted gay journalist who edited the spread, slipped in several suggestive captions, it didn’t work; and Grant was forced by the studios in 1934 to marry Virginia Cherrill, a marriage which lasted 13 months before he rushed back into Scott’s arms, the two “rooming together” once again.

     Or certainly such a conversation might have happened between Anthony Perkins and his then lover Tab Hunter, Perkins evidently so career-oriented that when Hunter mentioned that he was being considered for a new role, Perkins auditioned for it, grabbing the role away from his lover.    

     Kane and Gabriel, are also headed for rocky times, as Kane, apparently more highly career-oriented than his lover, at first seems terrified that if Gabriel wins the award he will have to thank Kane, providing further fodder for the tabloids who have already scented that something might being going on between the two given the coy statements Gabriel as made.

      Kane is determined to straighten up his lover the night before by reading him the agent’s riot act: he should read what studio has provided him to say and he should meet up with André (previously Andrew) who will tell him where to go, who to talk to at the ceremony, and how to behave. This understandably does not go over to well with the far higher spirited and “fuck-the-industry” attitudes of Gabriel.

      Kane is so uptight that he afraid even the driver, David, might be overhearing their conversation and knowing who they are, will leak out the truth of their relationship. Gabriel asks him if he knows who they are, to which David replies in the negative. But Kane, we soon discover, is even more nervous for other reasons.

      They are not heading to the awards venue, but stopping by to pick up a woman with whom Kane used to date, Brit. As they hit the carpet, he will announce on twitter that he and Brit are about to married, a marriage obviously arranged by the matchmakers from hell, his female agent and the studio publicists. Kane rotely tells Gabriel what may have to repeat to himself many times each day in order to survive: “She’s the best thing for my career at the moment.”

        So astounded is Gabriel, that he can only marvel at the stupidities coming out of the mouth from the man he thought he loved, responding with sarcasm instead of pain and anger. When Kane announces, “Look, I just want to make super clear that I’m straight now,” his lover responds: “Well, you didn’t seem that overly straight last night when my dick was in your mouth.”—words that once more send Kane into a fit, afraid as he is that David might be listening.

     Throughout the sequence of events, Kane keeps repeating that, on the top of their careers as they now are, “They have everything to lose.” But what he doesn’t realize is that in putting his career before all else and in determining to return permanently into the closet; as a fake heterosexual he will indeed be losing everything, including the love of a seemingly clever and handsome man, Gabriel. Without intending to be ironic, Kane simply expresses the situation: I want to say goodbye to whatever we had. It’s just been going on for way too long.”

      At one point when Kane is terrified that they’ve been overheard, as David asks “You gents all right back there?” he declares, “We’re fine, just talking about “footy” [soccer].” When David asks what team he supports, he has no answer except to say “the blue team.” For the first time, David opens up to tell them that he was once a professional soccer player who loves the game but evidently suffered an injury at his prime. He speaks a truth that passes right over Kane’s head, but is certainly applicable: “One day you’re at the top of your game and the next driving a car full of strangers to the city.”

      When they finally reach the spot where he plans to meet Brit, Gabriel passes on the pre-cocktail party, suggesting he’ll move on to the awards venue in the limo. Indeed, Kane is relieved to be freed from having any longer to deal with his now ex-lover.

      Once he leaves the car, Gabriel asks the driver to take him back to where he picked him up. He takes out the speech hidden in his pants cuff which he had told Kane that he had never written—probably filled with appreciation and love to Kane—and tears it up.

      David looks sadly in the rear-view mirror, saying “I loved your film by the way. You’re much better actor than your friend.”

      It terrifies me that such conversations are probably still happening every day in Hollywood, as well as the London, Paris, Mumbai, and Sydney film communities.

 

Los Angeles, October 19, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (October 2022).