Pontypool Changes Everything Part 16

When we began to look at putting out a new edition of this book, my editor and friend Michael Holmes asked me if I wanted to change anything. It hadn't occurred to me that that would be part of the deal. Change it. I dug through some bookshelves to find a copy and cracked it open. Would I change anything? Really? As I read through the first few pages I realized that, no, I wouldn't change anything - I'd change everything. It is not the book I would write today. I'm not the person who wrote this book. I remember him. He had just graduated with a degree in semiotics, which is to say he was insufferably preoccupied with literary malformations. He didn't actually expect anyone to read it and he held this to be the book's best virtue. He wanted to magnify the least recognizable parts of his thoughts and feelings. Not just a sketch book, but something far, far less. He wanted to write an "instead," or an "in case." "Instead" of a first novel. "In case" one day there might be something to say. "In case" I ever decide to write a book. It's a place where a book might have been written. And so, and this is the aggravation of the book, and, indeed, the arrogance of the d.a.m.n thing, it didn't have to ever be a good one. When I read it and think, oh no, you shouldn't have done that, and this part can't work like that, I have to remember, it never really guarded itself against "bad" or "wrong" choices. And so, now that I have been asked to write this afterword, I realize it has to be an apology, not for the book, which can't be helped, but for that fact that I was unfaithful to its first virtue: I have asked you to read it, and now, sitting here at the end, I am telling you that it might be a mistake that you did.

The process of turning this into a film, which is the impatient opposite of everything the book thinks it is, brings me closer, alas, to the writer I am today. In the ten or so years leading up to the script Bruce would finally shoot, I wrote, sometimes alone and sometimes with others, dozens of scripts. In fact, now that it is done, I am still writing sequels. The irony of Pontypool, Pontypool, for me, is that it isn't the thing I wrote in case I wrote; it's the only thing I ever write.The film bears little resemblance to the novel. How could it? There is a long line of former producers to the project who argued against my involvement, but, though I often suspected they were right, I think in the end I for me, is that it isn't the thing I wrote in case I wrote; it's the only thing I ever write.The film bears little resemblance to the novel. How could it? There is a long line of former producers to the project who argued against my involvement, but, though I often suspected they were right, I think in the end I was was the right person, because no one had a lower regard for this infuriating book than myself. I felt great energy in tossing the book aside. I wanted something new. Something that worked. Something like work. the right person, because no one had a lower regard for this infuriating book than myself. I felt great energy in tossing the book aside. I wanted something new. Something that worked. Something like work.

The first day of shooting was completely harrowing for me. I had been re-writing for years and had grown quite used to the luxury of always getting another shot. I think after years of Guided by Voices addiction I had developed Bob Pollard syndrome: if you don't like this one, I got four thousand more in a suitcase under my bed. Sketches, loose wet pages and photos. The lake. Plenty more where they come from. But when Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle stood there, heads full of memorized lines and feet firmly on their marks, I knew that, marvelously and terribly, sometimes things are finished. In the mornings I would go over the day's lines and grow frantic that they were awful - because of course they were. Every line is always awful. And then I'd trip and bounce around the set, all the busy people who didn't know how badly the script was failing them, and find Bruce, who I could never tell this to. I'd seek out Stephen and Lisa who were enjoying the script far too much to be of any use. The producers on the other hand were so superst.i.tious of uncertainty that I think they avoided me with cat-like sense. And then Bruce would call "action" and it was too late, and silence fell and everyone started to focus. Focus! Focus is the last thing we need. We need blurry and unknown and unfinished. We need palimpsest and stick figures and many, many more meetings. I stood there, clammy and guilty and waiting for someone, anyone, to realize how desperately we needed a re-write.Then the scene began, a kind of una.s.suming feeling to the dialogue. It seemed natural and I watched as these two people began their day. Pouring coffee. A little chit-chat. And this was it. By some strange and miraculous process, in spite of the claw marks across the page, these two actors had finished it. It was a thing. It was people on a specific day. People who really had no idea what was coming. This was not what I thought I had written at all - this was actually very good. I relaxed and drew myself up. I was the writer and this was the good movie he had written. Just then one of the PAS PAS walked by me and out of the corner of his mouth he said to the prop person, "They let the writer on the set?" It was meant to be funny, but it's a cliche I found myself embodying: a destructively self-conscious child in a room of shopworn adults.The shoot went quickly and I did rewrite daily as it turned out; in fact, I rewrote the ending the night before we shot it, perhaps because I was getting comfortable with the idea that no matter what I wrote there was a company of fine people invested in making it work. For a writer that is a ma.s.sive advantage. Years of fighting and flirting and arguing and despairing had somehow transformed into a giant tent of people co-operating with an idea. A tremendously humbling sensation and, looking back, a striking refutation of that book I wrote back there. The book you just read. walked by me and out of the corner of his mouth he said to the prop person, "They let the writer on the set?" It was meant to be funny, but it's a cliche I found myself embodying: a destructively self-conscious child in a room of shopworn adults.The shoot went quickly and I did rewrite daily as it turned out; in fact, I rewrote the ending the night before we shot it, perhaps because I was getting comfortable with the idea that no matter what I wrote there was a company of fine people invested in making it work. For a writer that is a ma.s.sive advantage. Years of fighting and flirting and arguing and despairing had somehow transformed into a giant tent of people co-operating with an idea. A tremendously humbling sensation and, looking back, a striking refutation of that book I wrote back there. The book you just read.

After seeing the film a.s.sembled for the first time and feeling great relief that it wasn't as bad as all that, I leaned over to Lisa Houle, who I was nuts over, and whispered, "Well, thank Christ, now I never have to watch it again."

Later, at a party for some event, Lisa sought me out. She had been worried, she explained, that I didn't like the film. I was quite alarmed by this. I did like the film. I loved her in it. In fact - and this is another odd fact about filmmaking - you have these momentary raptures about other people. Stephen McHattie is a shaman to me. Bruce McDonald is a shaman to me. I asked Lisa why she thought this? She reminded me of what I had said to her at the screening. She looked hurt. I smiled. Actors. Sheesh. Actors. Sheesh.

"Oh darlin', you should know I never say anything I can't take back later."