Walking the very long stairway to film-fan heaven
One day last week I was met on the stairwell of my place of business by a man from the council. Of course, I didn’t know he was from the council at the time.
If close attention had been paid, the clipboard and/or officiouslooking documentation might have given it away.
Yet his face was friendly, his tone gentle and his body language anything but that of a career bureaucrat. We ascended the stairs together. With more tact than most of his ilk could muster, he got quickly to the point.
Auteur House, my DVD rental store, owed the Hamilton City Council $200. At issue was our sandwich board sign, a necessity for any commercial operation with a very narrow frontage located one level up from the street.
The annual charge for having the sign was now overdue.
From a small business point of view, such expenses are at best a frustration, at worst a millstone around the proverbial neck.
Auteur House is, in all but formal tax status, a nonprofit organisation staffed by volunteers, a labour of love for those who toil there, a community service dedicated to those few remaining city cineastes who both own and use a DVD player.
To find an extra $200 in a month is no small thing.
I had not been remiss in my payment out of forgetfulness or even principle.
Auteur House just doesn’t have the money.
From a council perspective, I see the need for such charges.
Though part of me always suspects that the $200 goes to pay the wages of the man employed to ensure that the $200 is paid, the issue is likely bigger than that.
If there weren’t some financial disincentive around signage, then every business – even those not located up a flight of stairs – would put one out.
Without some bureaucratic control of street signs they would litter the pavement and we would have unnecessary pedestrian congestion.
The homeless would have fewer places to beg.
Chaos would be loosed upon the world.
Magnanimously, I accepted and understood the message the man from the council was delivering.
I appreciated the fact that a potentially confrontational situation had been made almost pleasant by his warm demeanour.
I didn’t want to shoot the messenger. I wanted to offer him a cup of tea.
By the time his duty was done, my new council friend had reached the top of the stairs.
Curious as to what we did, he elected to stay awhile, browsing the shelves. Like many who visit Auteur House for the first time, he was overwhelmed.
Like most, he declared he would be back someday when he had more time.
I didn’t begrudge this. After all, he was at work and no doubt plenty of other businesses needed to be brought into line.
Before he departed he paused to tell me a story, one relevant to what Auteur House is all about. In the telling, he revealed himself as 13 years my senior.
In 1966, my friend was a Wellington schoolboy with at least a cursory knowledge of the cinema.
He had an older acquaintance who worked as a doorman at the prestigious Hotel St George.
When he heard that a certain person was staying at the hotel, he contacted his doorman friend to see if it were possible to attain an autograph. An approach was made to the gentleman in question, who, somewhat miraculously, replied in the positive.
The schoolboy presented himself at the St George and was ushered to a hallway outside the hotel’s prime suite.
A door opened and out stepped the most famous film-maker in the world. Alfred Hitchcock was charm itself.
There was no trace of the lugubrious malice with which he hosted his television shows. There were no psycho knives or bird talons. Hitchcock scrawled his John Hancock upon the page presented, then paused and began to doodle.
The one-time silent movie titlecard designer had lost none of his graphic skill.
He sketched his profile, the trademark sign of the master of suspense.
Earlier this year, my wife and I travelled thousands of miles to visit the San Francisco locations of the Hitchcock classic Vertigo. Later, on the same trip, we toured Hollywood. At no stage did we encounter anyone who had met Hitchcock himself. Yet here was someone in my home town, working in my own backyard, who walks into my shop and tells a story like that.
Now that’s worth $200.