Letter From Beirut, Vol. 4

November 16, 2009

I have finally been able to check my email today and many of you have asked for an update. More specifically, many of you have asked if I am still alive. Internet is much scarcer now as I am on location all day and there is no connection where I am living. Filming began three weeks ago and I have not had a minute to write or even think. I jot these words down in haste as I am soon off to choreograph a chase sequence through the streets of "Tehran" (in Beirut) involving a stolen Mercedes, two motorcycles and a police cruiser. We don't have good walkie-talkies.

So much drama goes in to making a movie, though often most of it is behind the camera. This work is difficult anywhere but especially so in a place where the process is almost unheard of. For the small American crew here--four of us--we are working regular thirteen-hour days, but the local crew seems exhausted. There are about forty of them and I think they are starting to blame me for the circles under their eyes. Film shoots in Beirut are for videos or commercials and usually three days long, during which they work practically around the clock. We are on a twenty-seven day shoot. How do I express that the Lebanese, in general, are very sensitive? (I guess like that.)

Anyway, I am sleeping just fine.

I love it here still but I am missing home terribly now. I miss the orderliness of New York City. I miss riding my bike through the controlled traffic jams and good customer service and being in a place where religion is nothing to defend or argue about. I miss the clean New York City air. I miss the Maine woods.

One day we traveled out into a protected wilderness in the mountains of Chouf to shoot a hiking scene. The Cedars of Lebanon are truly magnificent. When I was ten years old I received a Bible from my church in Augusta, Maine, and I used to stare at the color photographs of those beautiful trees. Walking through the same hills last week I felt like a minor character in that book. Maybe Bildad the Shuhite, or Moses. I guess my Jesus complex is waning. (That Bible was dedicated to me by me father, who was the minister of the church. I still have it. It's got a red faux-leather cover and onion skin pages.)

Through an interesting coincidence, the son of my (need I say former?) pediatrician lives in Beirut and we have met up a couple of times, including a jaunt out to the suburbs to visit the magnificent Jeita Grotto. I have never seen anything like it. An underwater cavern and lake. During the civil war here it was used as an ammunitions depot. Now it's a tourist attraction. Jon has told me many interesting anecdotes of Lebanon--he was here in 2006 during the bombings. My new friend's wife is from Lebanon and he has heard a lot about what it was like in the days of the fifteen year struggle. I've heard some scary stuff.