Mac Error in Milan

General impressions.

The Castello Sforzesco is a castle populated by tourists, cats and pigeons. The cats aren’t afraid of the tourists and the pigeons aren’t afraid of the cats. Everyone lives side by side in peace and harmony like ebony and ivory on the piano keyboard, pausing occasionally to lick their privates or peck stuff off the ground. And that includes the cats and pigeons.

I passed some kind of Harley Davidson rally outside the castle. Many many bikes, plus fifty girls in halter-tops and hot pants. So many asses hanging out actually came to seem slightly gross, which surprised me. I pictured all those asses heaped together and wondered what they’d weigh.

Insomnia watch, Day 2! I think I may have actually slept last night, for ten minutes or so. Having failed with the sleeping pills, I tried tranquilisers. Not bad.

Terry Gilliam calls Italy “the sexy country” and it’s true. Asides from the legions of Claudia Cardinales haunting the streets, there’s a huge amount of public necking going on, plus ass-squeezing etc. Feel a little lonely.

I get into the meat market hostel at midnight, ahead of the other filmmakers, and rise at 9, ahead of the other filmmakers. I have only met one filmmaker. But hey, you can meet filmmakers anywhere. You can only meet film festival volunteers at a film festival.

The rain yesteday washed my sun-block off in streaks, then the blazing sun came out, so that I feared I might burn in vertical stripes, ironically just as scientists have published a study showing that such patterns are not, in fact, slimming. But I seem to be evenly brown — either tanned or just dirty.

Had a nice chat with Amy Gilliam, Terry’s daughter. It seems possible I may meet the man himself. Of course I’ll fail to find anything to say. Had a business card printed up for Shadowplay so I gave one to A.G. Briefly discussed THE BROTHERS GRIMM and the excellent making-of book which the Weinstein Bros tried to suppress. Well worth reading, and if you found the film disappointing, as I admit I did, the book will make you altogether more sympathetic to Gilliam: it’s a miracle the film that got made is at all watchable.