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Chapters 
66
Monday. Bit depressed, love. Had this ludicrous tiff with Vic about a line. Six bloody words, but I knew Firmin wouldn't 
say them. I mean, I've been living this guy for three weeks now and Vic starts telling me how to speak? He said OK rewrite 
them, so I held things up for an hour and at the end of it he said he wasn't convinced. We tried it out all the same, because I 
insisted, and guess what? Bloody Matt wasn't convinced either. I said he
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couldn't tell a line of dialogue from a line of coke and anyway his face was carved out of corned beef, and he threatened to 
punch me. Stupid bloody film. 
Tuesday. Still boiling. 
Wednesday. Amazing thing. You know I said about the Indians not understanding about acting. Well in the last 2 days 
Firmin and Antonio have been getting more and more hostile (which isn't hard to do given how Charlie and Matt are currently 
feeling about one another) and you could really sense the Indians getting involved, following it all from their part of the raft as 
if their lives depended on it - which in a way they did I suppose because we were arguing about whether they had the right to 
be baptised and have their souls saved or not. They sensed this somehow, I don't know. Anyway today we had the scene where 
Matt had to hit me with the paddle sort of semi-accidentally. It was best balsa wood of course, not that the Indians could know, 
but I duly went down poleaxed and Matt started pretending it was an accident. The Indians were supposed to look on at what 
was happening as if these two white men in skirts were barmy. That's what they'd been told to do. But they didn't. Lots of them 
came rushing over to me and started stroking my face and wetting my brow and making a sort of wailing noise, and then three 
of them turned on Matt looking really nasty. Incredible! What's more they might have done him an injury if he hadn't pulled 
off his cassock pretty smartish and turned back into Matt, which calmed them down. Amazing! It was only old Matt, and that 
nasty priest Antonio had gone away. Then I slowly got to my feet and they all started laughing happily as if I wasn't dead after 
all. The good thing was that Vic kept running so we didn't miss any of it. Now he thinks he can work it in, which I'm pleased 
about because if this is the way the Indians react to me and Matt then maybe that's a pointer to how the fans will go. 
Thursday. Vic says the lab report on yesterday's scuffle wasn't too kosher. Bet bloody Matt's been getting at him - probably 
knew the camera had caught him looking shit-scared. I said let's wait and see how it prints and Vic agreed but I didn't 
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get good vibes. So much for Truthspiel: when they get it, they don't use it. 
Friday. I don't think the script's up to scratch, and the whole thing's underbudgeted, but one thing I will say for it is that it's 
ABOUT something. I mean, it isn't afraid of the big issues. Most films aren't about anything, are they, that's what I find more 
and more. `Two Priests up the Jungle' (which is what Old Fish Sparks sings from time to time to the tune of Red Sails in the 
Sunset) - sure, but it's about the sort of conflict running through human life in every time and every civilization. Discipline v. 
permissiveness. Sticking to the letter of the law v. sticking to its spirit. Means and ends. Doing the right thing for the wrong 
reason v. doing the wrong thing for the right reason. How great ideas like the Church get bogged down in bureaucracy. How 
Christianity starts off as the religion of peace but ends up violent like other religions. You could say the same about 
Communism or anything else, any big idea. I think this film could be really quite subversive in Eastern Europe and not because 
it's about priests either. Whether they'd distribute it is another matter. I said to Fish the film has a message for the trade unions 
as well if they could find it and he said he'd keep looking. Pippa love, think about the baby thing, won't you? 
Your Charlie 
P.S. Funny thing happened today. Not serious, but makes me wonder about the Indians. 
P.P.S. Can't think why you haven't written.