Free Winter Oranges by Marie Sexton Page B

Ben’s spectral eyes. “You don’t want to see those.”
    “Yes, I do. I want to see everything you’re in.”
    “They’re low-budget horror flicks with shitty scripts and cheap cinematography. They’re barely watchable.”
    “They’ll be the first movies I’ve seen in twenty-five years. Trust me. I’m easily entertained.”
    Jason searched Ben’s face for signs of mockery, but found none. He saw only an innocent eagerness that was refreshing, especially compared to the cynicism of modern audiences. “I don’t know where any of my DVDs are, but we could probably stream some of them.”
    Ben laughed. “I have no idea what you just said, but it sounded like a maybe.”
    “Maybe,” Jason agreed, although he knew what he really meant was yes .

 

     
    They started with Alley of Blood —not because it was any good, but because it somehow made sense to Jason that they go in order.
    “Promise me you won’t hold this against me,” he said as the movie started.
    Ben’s facial expression was almost comically solemn. “I promise.”
    Like a lot of actors he knew, Jason never watched his own movies once they were finished. The prevailing wisdom of people outside the business—people who didn’t know a damn thing about acting or filmmaking—was that the only way to get better was to analyze your own work. What they didn’t seem to realize was that acting wasn’t about planning out each sigh or bat of the eye. It wasn’t about stepping outside yourself and viewing your body as an outsider, wondering if your hair was a mess or whether there was snot coming out of your nose as you cried. It was about occupying the character completely, one moment at a time, and trusting that everybody else involved, from the gaffers to the hairdressers to the editors, would take all the fragmented pieces of art and make them work.
    But once the scenes were filmed, why watch them again? There were the exceptions of course—the actors and actresses who were anxious to see their footage and analyze what they’d done, but in Jason’s experience, they were the minority. Most actors he knew shuddered at the thought. After all, it was over. Nothing could be changed or revised or reshot. Why watch a movie afterward only to find out the scene you’d torn your heart out for had landed on the editing room floor, or that in the sequence you’d done your best work in, you’d actually been halfway out of focus, just part of the background of another actor’s shot?
    In the end, it didn’t matter. The success of the film had very little to do with acting. It had a lot more to do with the total vibe of the project. There were a hundred different things that went into making a movie work.
    Or not work, in certain cases.
    And for better or worse, about two-thirds of the way through a production, most of the cast and crew knew how things would shake out. They knew in their gut whether the film would rock, or whether it was a dud. When that happened, the only thing anyone could do was try to laugh it off. Hold their heads up and walk back on set every day until it was done. And Jason had done that. No matter how shitty the role or the film, he’d given it his best. But in nearly every case, he’d walked away feeling like it had all been for nothing.
    Alley of Blood had been like that.
    Jason took a deep breath and prepared for a hundred and three minutes of hell. He knew watching the film would be tough, but he realized immediately he hadn’t thought things through. The opening scene was all Andrew, so bright and young and full of life, it took Jason’s breath away.
    “That’s him,” Jason said, his throat tight. He felt Ben’s concerned gaze on him. “That’s the boy I was telling you about. Andrew. The one who died.”
    Ben frowned. “We don’t have to watch it if it’s upsetting for you.”
    And it was. There was no denying the gentle ache in Jason’s heart, but it also seemed wrong to turn away. As if stopping the movie