Free The Same River Twice by Ted Mooney

succession of stills, each held for two seconds, as he gets closer and closer to her, breathing hard, grimacing. The woman isnow heard in voice-over, very near to the ear, with all else silent. “It isn’t really love, it’s the illusion of love … It ends badly … Well, no. Finally, it ends well … Or”—the last image of the man appears, he has yet to reach the woman—“it ends badly.” Freeze frame and credits.
    The applause was more than polite. As the lights came up, Max went back down the aisle to the podium, nodding his thanks and then speaking them into the microphone.
    When
Fireflies
had premiered, in New York, at Lincoln Center, he’d sat rapt through the screening, as though he were watching someone else’s film. By the time the credits rolled, he knew he’d succeeded in making, if not the film he’d set out to make, then another that was at least as good. There had been a podium on that occasion too, and when he stood behind it facing the audience, he had felt his whole life stretching out before him. Nothing had seemed beyond his reach.
    The applause died away. He lit a small black cigar, then opened his hands to the audience, inviting questions.
    “Did you give your actors any special guidance or exercises to prepare for their roles?” The speaker was a woman in her thirties wearing violet lipstick with a matching scarf tied close about her neck. “And if so, what did you intend?”
    “In general I prefer my actors to sink or swim without my interference. For
Fireflies
, though, because my cast insisted on it, I did give them an exercise. I asked them to walk to the location each day, rather than take the subway or a taxi.” Max began to enjoy himself a little. “And my intention? It was just to make them wonder what my intention might be. As a result they became more thoughtful, more alert to possibility. Also, they absorbed the city more deeply. New York’s like a character in this film.”
    A tall man in a black turtleneck asked about the shooting ratio in
Fireflies
.
    “I was very fast when I started out,” said Max. “About three to one for
Fireflies
. But with my most recent film,
White Room/Black Room
, I shot close to ten feet for every foot that made the final cut. The more one learns, it seems, the more film one wastes. Or, alternatively: I’ve forgotten what I knew.”
    There was laughter, then an interval of silence. A woman in her twenties, her glossy hair hennaed red almost to magenta, stood up and smiled at him. She seemed to be referring to some private understanding between the two of them, and he smiled back.
    “It is something of an open secret,” the woman began, “at least among your more devoted admirers, that there exists an alternate ending to
Fireflies
.In that version a boat is tied up at the end of the pier, waiting for the two lovers. They argue about what to do, then board the boat. Something is thrown overboard, and the boat sets out. The lovers escape together. Obviously, this ending changes the meaning of the film radically. My question is: do you favor one ending over the other, and why did you choose this one today?”
    The woman sat back down, looking pleased with herself. She seemed eager to hear his answer, and he was fleetingly sorry not to have one.
    “Unfortunately, you’ve been misinformed. There is no alternative ending to
Fireflies
, because, among many other reasons, I didn’t shoot one.”
    “But one does exist,” she replied from her seat. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes!”
    He hesitated. “Then you are ahead of me,” he decided to say. “Thank you for your question, though. You’ve given me something to think about.”
    The woman acknowledged these words with a nod. She didn’t seem the least bit discouraged; rather, it was as if her earlier air of complicity had been shown to be justified. And though Max had dealt before with unsound or misguided students of his work, people who felt personally addressed by his films and