Free Emerald City by David Williamson Page A

doing something about it. It’s not my fault that they aren’t.
    COLIN : You found out that Sue Michaelis had flown first class, and asked her how she could ever justify the fact that the extra ten cubic feet of body space she had bought herself for twenty-four hours, would have kept eight families in Bangladesh alive for a year.
    KATE : I was a little fanatical in those days.
    COLIN : That was just last year.
    KATE : Colin, whether I travel first class or not, the families in Bangladesh aren’t going to get any extra money.
    COLIN : They would if you cashed in your first-class ticket, went tourist, and sent Freedom from Hunger the difference.
    KATE : Colin, I’m feeling guilty enough already. Don’t make me feel any worse. The minute I have any success in my career you get nasty.
    COLIN : I’m not getting nasty. I’m just pointing out that it only takes one first-class ticket and your ferocious moral standards take a nosedive.
    KATE : Colin, this book has been one of my great triumphs. Can’t you be a little bit generous?
    COLIN : Triumph? A mouldy little book in an overrated competition? I’m just about to become the first foreign producer ever to sell a series to prime-time television in the United States.
    KATE : What kind of an achievement is that? Prime-time television in America is to art what McDonald’s is to cooking.
    COLIN : Which would you rather have a percentage of? Maxim’s or McDonald’s?
    KATE : Colin, I think you’re coming apart at the seams. You came in here ranting with Polish-fired zeal, determined to make films of quality, and now you’re bursting with pride because you’re about to sell schlock to NBC. What’s going on in your head?
    COLIN : [ gesticulating wildly ] I wish I knew! One minute I want to make a film that’s so beautiful and truthful and angry and funny that people in this country who still care about justice and truth and compassion will leave the cinema weeping, and the next minute my head is full of images of mansions on the waterfront. I know what I should do! Reject the false gods—but it’s not that easy! We live in a culture that worships wealth and worships power and gives artistic success no recognition or honour of any kind!
    KATE : Colin, you’re being a little bit overdramatic.
    COLIN : [ overdramatically ] Am I? Am I? What do you have at the end of your life to show for your artistic success? An old age pension, a one-bar radiator—if you can afford the fuel bills—and a few yellowing crits in a dusty scrapbook. It’s too demeaning, Kate. It’s too bloody demeaning! If I’ve got to choose between money and oblivion, I’ll take the money!
    KATE exits. COLIN sits at Mike ’s place. He dictates, or attempts to dictate, the script to MIKE as of old, but there’s a subtle change— MIKE is offering resistance.
    Let’s have a close-up of him kickstarting the bike.
    MIKE : Kickstart shots went out with Easy Rider .
    MIKE taps out a few lines rapidly.
    COLIN : [ tersely ] What was that you wrote?
    MIKE : Just a thought I had.
    COLIN : What?
    MIKE : Catch up with it later.
    COLIN : [ quietly fuming ] If kick shots went out with Easy Rider , what do you suggest?
    MIKE : Zoom in on the helmet going on with a snap and pan down across his body to the exhaust pipe belching fumes.
    COLIN : [ considering this reluctantly ] Alright. Write it.
    MIKE : I’ve written it.
    COLIN : [ trying to regain control ] Right, now before Grant rides off he should turn and say—
    MIKE : [ interrupting ] Don’t need any dialogue. The intention’s clear.
    COLIN : [ clenched teeth ] I’d like him to make the point—
    MIKE : [ interrupting ] You wouldn’t hear what he was saying in any case over the exhaust and the rock track.
    COLIN : What are we making here? A cartoon? We’re twenty minutes into the episode and only twelve words have been spoken.
    MIKE : This is