He loved movies
He loved The Big Sleep,
The Big Chill and The Big Easy
He loved Al Pacino in the Godfather
And Rita Hayworth in Gilda
He loved the golf match in Goldfinger
And the sharp 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 Primlico 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 a 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 combing her hair
In one feature length sleep sequence
She barely moves and eyelid
But the cracks begin to show after ten
Or eleven spools
Where once she was relaxed
She is now uncomfortable in the frame
Her expression, her whole body language
Becomes defensive and strained
Still the images continue recording
Her in the same locations
Around the house, the same outfits
With a hand on her hip
She lectures a point beside the camera
She waves at him to stop filming
Yet the footage continues unyielding
And the reels stack up
Repeatedly shot after shot after shot
She leaves various rooms
Trapped for a few seconds she screams
In silence, tearing at her hair
And eventually she throws things
Their marriage lasted eight and a half months
And for thirty-seven years afterwards
He sat until late in his study
Feeding the projector and blinking in the half-light
He loved those movies