Above the Line Read online

  Whenever a new faculty is developed into being, an old one loses its force and precision.

  Memory is nearer to the deep foundations laid by Nature in humankind than is the power of reason.

  WHEN I finally reached the Grand Patio below, I said a big hello to everyone, sat down, and was introduced to my first caipirinha cocktail. When I realized that that drink made me feel better about everything, I knew I was in big trouble.

  Everyone was drinking. I tried to absorb who they all were and what they did. Andy was clearly in charge. I had never worked with him and had only met him once before, at a lunch overlooking the Pacific in Malibu. He claims that within half an hour I knew more about him than his wife. So what else is new? Bobby Harling, whom I met and became friends with on Steel Magnolias (he wrote it), had worked with Andy on Sweet Home Alabama and told me he liked and trusted him. “Plus, he makes hits,” said Bobby.

  During the preproduction insanity, I had strongly urged that we postpone the shoot until we were completely ready and fully financed (ha!). The producer, Tyne, had been so inexperienced and had so little professional assistance from lawyers that financing and deals and contracts kept changing. It truly sounded like a colossal mess to me, as it did to Andy, but there was something about the script, me, the location, and the magic of the movie itself that propelled him forward. I’ll never forget the sound of his voice, the vibration, the frequency of his emotion, when he said with total conviction and certainty, “We are making this movie. Nothing will stop me. We can’t postpone for any reason. We are going forward. I am making this movie now.” It was almost mystically imbued. That one speech had convinced me to sign the contract and get on the plane. It was to propel me through the whole experience—the utterly assured sound of his voice.

  Andy would say I was the reason Oats got made. I say he was the reason. I didn’t learn until later that several times, after sounding so confident, he had almost booked himself on a flight home. Basically, though, I think I was there because anything that smacked of an ancient truth that was familiar to me was a magnet. I was to learn later that I was right.

  So we sat around on the patio mingling and chatting about this movie that we each were crazy enough to be a part of. I met people from wardrobe, hair, makeup, the director of photography, assistant directors, line producers, accountants. They all said, “Thank you for getting on the plane.” As the evening went on, I came to see that in this particular situation, I was more than a lead actor in a film. Why had I created this reality for myself? Then it hit me. The movie itself was important, but the making of it was the crucial adventure. And as all the inherent implications of that sank in, I realized that I was emotionally committed to this film. I was deeply involved with getting it made but somehow still neutral as to its potential financial, professional, and critical results. Whatever happened after we finished was supposed to.

  Was this quietly engaged state of being what Buddha and Nelson Mandela were talking about? Was a low-budget, independent movie made where the tax credits and rebates were good the fitting location in time and space for me to learn a profound lesson about the value of art versus materialism? Of course it was. We were on islands that were formed from the remnants of Atlantis, a civilization which, according to researchers specializing in esoteric matters, had lasted for eight hundred fifty thousand years. As legend has it, Atlantis sank because of the Atlantean people’s addiction to high-level technology and materialism. Of course we would succeed because we had none of that! Yeah, right.

  In addition to having past-life memories of my time on the advanced continent of Atlantis, I had read whatever writings or research I could find about it. The people inhabiting the islands today accepted as fact that their land had been part of the ancient continent. They hadn’t read Plato or Socrates or any of the great Greek writers who referred to its existence. But in private, most everyone I met said that they believed the “myth” of Atlantis to be fact. They said they could feel it in the air and the ocean. What such a belief meant to them was not clear. Nor was it to me . . . until I became more involved in the production of a movie.

  ———

  In the 1800s, mystic Madame Blavatsky claimed that she learned about Atlantis from Tibetan gurus; a century later, psychic Edgar Cayce claimed that Atlantis was an ancient, highly evolved civilization powered by crystals. Plato in his Critias and Timaeus dialogues left such a convincing description of Atlantis that many scholars doubted his information could have been imagined.

  In his book Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, professor Ken Feder summarizes the story: “A technologically sophisticated but morally bankrupt evil empire—Atlantis—attempts world domination by force. The only thing standing in its way is a relatively small group of spiritually pure, morally principled, and incorruptible people—the ancient Athenians. Overcoming overwhelming odds, the Athenians were able to defeat their far more powerful adversary simply through the force of their spirit.” It sounded familiar to me. Plato’s Atlantean dialogues are essentially an ancient Greek version of Star Wars.

  Plato, however, is crystal clear about where Atlantis is: “For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, ‘the Pillars of Hercules’ there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together.” In other words, it lies in the Atlantic Ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules (i.e., the Straits of Gibraltar, at the mouth of the Mediterranean).

  In Critias, Plato wrote of Atlantis’s architecture, engineering, and ceremonies in great detail. According to Plato, one of the greatest splendors of Atlantis was the palace compound located in the heart of its capital. It was ringed by three canals. Plato remarked, “As each king received it from his predecessor, he added to its adornment and did all he could to surpass the king before him, and finally they made of it an abode amazing to behold for the magnitude and beauty of its workmanship. The visitors passed through a wall of brass, a wall of tin, and a wall of copper. White and black and red stone was quarried from the native rock.” He also wrote that the wealth they possessed was so immense that the like had never been seen before in any royal house, nor will ever easily be seen again. I wished we had some of that money for our production. But of course, their materialism led to their homeland’s destruction.

  Plato stated that the Atlanteans appeared to be superlatively fair and blessed, yet they were filled with lawless ambition and power. Sounded a lot like Hollywood to me. The Atlanteans started valuing material wealth above goodness and morality, and that’s where they went wrong. Definitely Hollywood. Plato said, “The portion of divinity within them was now becoming faint and weak through being oftentimes blended with a large measure of mortality.” The Atlanteans were unable to bear the burden of their possessions. So, “there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, and one grievous day and night befell them when . . . the island of Atlantis . . . was swallowed up by the sea and vanished.” Hollywood and California? Plato doubted that any sign of the lost land would ever be found. “The ocean at that spot has now become impassable and unsearchable.”

  Ancient memories are some of our most prominent mental functions.

  ON THAT first night on the remnants of Atlantis, cast and crew all convened for a sumptuous dinner at a restaurant adjacent to the hotel. I wondered who was footing the bill for this.

  As I was enjoying my caipirinha, a woman sat down next to me, turned, and looked into my eyes. I nearly fell from my chair because her dark eyes pierced my brain and literally shrank my soul! They were so desperate, so insistent . . . frankly, slightly insane. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a reaction to the eyes of another human being.

  She said, “Thank you for getting on the plane.” Others at the table saw my recoiling reaction but went on with their drinks. I didn’t know who she was, this woman who looked into my eyes with such piercing intensity. She hadn’t said her name. I leaned across the table and surreptitiously asked Andy, “Who is this woman next to me?”

  He looked at me as though I had no brains. “That’s Tyne,” he said.

  In every endeavor in show business—or maybe any business (I’ve never known any other)—I’ve found one consistent, sad truth. Because of the emotionality of our business, and because during production we need to become a family to pull off the make-believe, there seems to be a necessity of having one person on set to hate. When the consensus lands on that one person, the frustrations of everyone find a target. Without that target we seem unable to balance our anger, our love for our work, our impatience with time and each other. Because of her amateurness, her insistence on being there, and the colossal financial mess the production was in, Tyne did become the person to hate. No one wanted to talk to her or even acknowledge her existence except to focus their frustration on what they believed she was responsible for.

  I hadn’t remembered those eyes, and frankly, I was glad for that. I went on talking to other people, and Tyne made no attempt to engage me in further conversation.

  The dinner was nice, the pizza delicious, and the caipirinhas a lifesaver. Nick the AD (assistant director) walked me back to the hotel. I knew I had to get some sleep. But how, with all the noise coming from the patio below my room? A band played so loud, you could have heard it in Madrid. I gratefully turned on CNN. I am a news freak and feel more grounded if I know what’s happening in other parts of the world.

  I undressed, walked on the rubber mats to the shower. No hot water. Got clean with cold water anyway and went to bed.

  I hate the technology of my iPad. However, the app that I appreciate more than any other is the white noise with the owl looking out. The band played on, but the white sound from my owl app nearly covered it.

  The next morning Miranda helped me put the right plugs into the right sockets so that I had my cell phone, iPad, and Canary Islands cell phone all juiced up. My bed was where the lines of communication connected. I felt like execution by electrocution was certain to be next.

  She ordered breakfast for me. Scrambled eggs and decaf latte. The eggs were so fluffy, I put raw sugar on top and made a dessert for breakfast. On an accompanying tray with my coffee were crunchy cracker cookies with a hint of sugar.

  I have been addicted to sugar all my life. Dancing in shows and rehearsals left me little time for good meals. I felt the sugar give me energy, so began to rely on it. I will get into what sugar does to the human body later. It is truly a weapon of mass destruction . . . and it came from the Canary Islands.

  After breakfast I went into an adjacent hotel room that had been outfitted as a makeup and hair sanctuary. Since the two leading characters in the script had makeovers when they arrived at the Canary Islands resort area, it seemed to me that my character (Eva) should have hair for home and a new hairstyle for her vacation. I thought gray hair for home and red for her new life. Because I knew there was no money, I’d brought with me all the false hair and wigs I had worn in sixty years of making movies. The Hollywood hair filled a wheelbarrow! The only hair I didn’t have was gray. The hairdresser said a friend of his could shop for it in Madrid and give it to someone who was coming in a few days. Fine.

  The makeup artist, Mariló, was married to the director of photography, José Luis Alcaine. Alcaine was Pedro Almodóvar’s DP and is famous in show business for his skill at photographing women. Most female stars would rather have him on a one-week shoot than a husband full-time. I agree. He is meticulous with his lighting and moves his seventy-four-year-old frame around the set with a limp. The first time I looked at the dailies of me and Jessica, I thought, The critics are going to want to know who our plastic surgeon is! I actually put my vanity aside and wondered if we looked too good for the truth. Alcaine said he would fix it later in postproduction. “Fix it in post” has become a protector against whatever you are afraid of—lighting, editing, ADR (voice separation from image), performance defects, even a lackluster script. You can rewrite a script by the way you edit it in postproduction.

  I was determined to deal with my wrinkling neck and not get plastic surgery. So we used a face-lift tape which would then be secured underneath my wig. If I had a headache by lunch, that would be my problem, and it was. My skin and ears itched from the pulling. I should have let him “fix it in post.”

  The wardrobe, off the racks of the tourist shops, was perfect for my character in the film. The costumer herself, Lena, was experienced and bright. She had also read my book The Camino and wanted to know what I was really like.

  The weather was beautiful, the people nice, the accommodations wonderful. And now we just had to make the movie—and get a bit more money to do it.

  One of my specialties is asking people questions and finding out what’s really going on. In this case it was more difficult than usual. Nobody really wanted me to know how desperate the situation was. Movie people are as silent and closed as tombs when they want to be.

  In any case, I was impressed with Katy, the second AD who would give us our calls and try to keep a modicum of organization despite frequent miscommunication between the Spanish and the Americans on the crew. She was also honest. She had wanted to leave a few times because of the lack of money but stuck around to meet and talk to me. She had great respect for our line producer, Bret, and the AD, Nick, and how professionally they were prepping the film.

  When she told me that Bret had put ten thousand dollars of his own money into the budget to pay for some cars one day, I understood how desperate the situation really was. And, by her telling me, I understood how much she trusted me. The first and second assistant directors had been warned by their union (the Directors Guild) that they should quit. A bond company needs to sign off on a production so that unions will allow their members to work, and we were not bonded. A woman named Amy from the bond company was there to determine whether she would give her okay to proceed. Members of the crew had not been paid for a few weeks, but according to Spanish union rules, they were not allowed to revolt for another week. However, they were not getting any per diem either and so were feeding themselves and covering other daily expenses out of their own pockets.

  Jesus . . . no wonder all my psychic friends and business acquaintances had advised me to stay away.

  Why was I here?

  My interest in past lives and ancient civilizations has been a sustaining entertainment for me all my life. I had my first past-life recall when I was about seven. My family was on a history trip relating to Virginia. I stood on a hill, and suddenly I felt I had a rifle in my arms. I knew I had been a soldier at another time and place on that same hill in Virginia. I’ll never forget that memory recognition. I have had others in many of the countries in which I’ve traveled. In fact, my life has been an entertainment of recall, so to speak. I believe that is why I’ve never questioned the truth that I have lived before and will do so again. I did not know that the Canary Islands were thought to be the remnants of Atlantis until Iberia Airlines advertised it. So when I arrived, my answer to “Why am I here?” seemed clear!

  ———

  All of Earth’s ancient peoples share the tradition of a great flood during which a civilization was destroyed by a catastrophe: a combination of flood, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. I wondered if Atlantis was the first tribe of humans to build a so-called civilization. And was Adam an allegory of the first man, or was Ad-Am the first civilized tribe? Did the Bible or the Torah really describe Adam and Eve as the first humans, and if so, how did they become human?

  Researchers say that the Canary Islands are the tops of Atlantis’s tallest mountains and that Atlantis was a highly evolved group of humans and star beings that lived many years in balanced harmony of light and used crystal grids around the Earth to spread knowledge and to communicate.

  Information about Atlantis comes from many ancient texts: the Mayan, the Chaldean king list, the Egyptian records well into the prehistoric period of “the Reign of the Gods,” the Mahabharata and other Hindu ancient texts, the Incas of Peru. I’ve often wondered who the “gods” were.

  The Spanish conquerors of the Canary Islands found that the natives, called Guanches, were surprised to learn that other people had survived the disaster that had flooded their world and had left them isolated on islands that were once the tops of the high mountains of their former homeland. Plato had written, “When the ‘gods’ purge the Earth with a deluge of water . . . yon herdsmen and shepherds on the mountains are the survivors.” The Guanches were said to have been white-skinned, often with blond hair, very tall, and of a type now catalogued as the Cro-Magnon race that existed some thirty-five thousand years ago.

  Christopher Columbus possessed a number of maps showing Atlantis spelled in various ways and located just adjacent to where the Canary Islands are now. The Spaniards who reached the New World spoke of how the Native Americans talked of the ancient white gods who came in flying boats and brought them civilization. These gods had promised to return and bring other gods to continue their teaching of civilization. We know what happened to the Aztecs and Incas when the Spanish landed with Cortés.