My Concha:
1 Manny Farber, Farber on Film, ed. Robert Polito 2009, Library of America, 664
Buñuel placed his story in Spain and France against the backdrop of a terrorist insurgency, and Galchen’s novel is set between New York and Argentina, with the geographical jumps allowing for consideration of climate change and conspiracy theories. Concha (seductive and scheming in the film) and Rema (lovelorn and guileless in the novel) converge—as coterminous as Beverly and Elliot Mantle from Dead Ringers.
Like Galchen’s novel, my Atmospheric Disturbances emanates from the point of view of Leo. Taking off from Buñuel’s film, which famously has two very different actresses (Carole Bouquet and Ángela Molina) playing Concha, my Concha/Rema will be played by different actresses and femme-presenting actors from scene to scene, lending increasing credence to Leo’s projections, his growing conviction that his wife is not herself. Leo, as I interpret it, is displaying symptoms of Capgras syndrome: a psychological condition in which a loved one is perceived as an imposter. A most obvious example would be a QAnon casualty who no longer recognizes, and/or is no longer recognized, by their significant other. Galchen’s novel introduces a fourth character, Harvey, Leo’s conspiracy-addled patient who embarks on various self-assigned meteorological missions, and as such goes missing for extended periods of time, much to the chagrin of his mother. Somewhat implausibly, Leo begins colluding with Harvey’s theories at Rema’s behest. Leo's irrational desire to appease Rema is motivated by his fears of inadequacy and fear of losing her, which send the three characters spiraling into chaos and confusion. A powerful transference plays out between Leo and Harvey, who is persuasive and functional enough to follow Leo to Argentina, supporting and confronting the doctor as he tangles with further iterations of Rema.
Following this approach, approximately thirty actors would fill the role of Rema in my film. Scenes accumulate comic tension as Rema becomes increasingly untrustwrorthy and even menacing, like a femme fatale in a classic noir, while Leo is hapless, unhinged, hysterical. Galchen’s dialogue tends to focus on wordplay and meta-references, and her Rema can appear as a Latina caricature, ditzy and pathetic. I’ve tried to give the character more Conchita-like grit and gall—she bites back.
My adaptation intends to be faithful to Galchen’s novel in its treatment of relationships unfolding within expansive philosophical and theoretical frameworks, suggesting that our reality is part of a forking-path multiverse or bubble universe. More specifically, Leo seems to be under the influence of Nick Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis, a mathematically elaborate rationalization of cognitive biases, which concludes that our perception of reality is an artificial imitation. One could take this logic further to imply that there is a substrate independent level of consciousness that we are not privy to. In Galchen’s novel, psychosis is meaningful: there is a continuity in experience between psychosis and non-psychosis, as well as a discontinuity. Mad thoughts, as Wouter Kusters observes, are distinct from normal thoughts in the way they are rendered visible. As Leo looks for clues in academic papers that may indicate the whereabouts of his Rema, the outside world becomes a manifestation of his private thinking.
Conspiracy theories ripple through the novel, as well as this screenplay—wacky ideas containing truth nuggets about unmet needs, uncontrollable forces, relatable fears, cosmic drama. Many of us can relate to rifts in perception that can occur between spouses, sifting through emotions that can turn quickly from harmonious affection to crushing dissonance. It’s possible to feel fraudulent in your own mind, in your own perceptions of reality. Leo’s feelings toward his wife are often hostile, aimed at the inexplicable, grotesque stranger all up in his personal space. He tries to suppress this, keeping his fraying sanity a secret from her. The plot kicks in when Leo misconstrues cues and jumps to a conclusion that Harvey may be linked to Rema’s disappearance.
Casting is one of the most exhilarating aspects for a film of this nature. Dr Leo could be played by any sympathetic middle-aged neurotic of any ethnicity who might plausibly pass as a psychiatrist. He just needs to look considerably older and frumpier than Rema, while still having enough charm to be a plausible suitor. Maybe Michael Sheen or Michael Shannon, if they’re willing to gain a few pounds. Basically anyone from 40 to 50 years old who could play an appealingly self-absorbed, self-sabotaging lunatic whose wife would stick by him—up to a point, since she too has a tolerance threshold. And Rema could be played by a range of women of various ethnicities and nationalities, portraying her in variable moods and modes, thereby intensifying fluctuations of temperament and feeling.
I roughly calculated around 10 actor/actresses required to fill the role of Rema—a kind of spectral amalgamation of seductresses, wounded waifs and steadfast wives. The role is more likely to attract an assortment of neophytes throwing themselves into their given scene, which could be exciting. More established actors would be disinclined to do low-budget cameos, some briefer than others. The idea that there is a Rema for everyone is offensive only to the easily offended. Yes, it implies women can be interchangeable objects, following an undeniably all-pervasive cross-cultural logic, particularly given the growing number of women identifying/diminishing themselves as “femcels.” I see the literalized multitudes of Rema as more than a gimmick. I defer to Galchen’s observation (pertaining to Kafka) that great comic novels often feature “an extended set of minor characters, who by being funny, make a disproportionately deep claim on our emotions, however brief their appearances . . . it’s through them that we feel the sadness of the endings, since of course we already know how it ends.” 2
2 Rivka Galchen, “What kind of funny is he?” London Review of Books, Vol. 36 No. 23 · 4 December 2014
Each version of Rema makes a fleeting yet powerful claim on the audience’s emotions while also thwarting the expectation of comfortable identification and attachment. Viewers can witness how the naive old Leo falls under the bewitching spell of the shifty/ever-shifting Rema, as together they compulsively repeat a cycle of attraction, repulsion, humiliation and devastation. Rema continuously arouses and rebuffs Leo’s advances, all while draining their shared bank account. Rema’s mother, a significant supporting role, will be played by one actress, in case you're wondering. Though when Leo leaves one country for another to search for “the real” Rema, he is astonished to see Rema replicas turning up to continue their stealth manipulations.
The narrative’s overarching thrust reflects our fundamentally unstable and vulnerable subjectivities. We all have a little Concha in us, we’re all a little disingenuous, a little slutty, capable of betrayal and self-perpetuating delusions. Like Concha the hustler/sponger, many of us (specifically those of us without trust funds and are mired in debt) do what we must to get by, to survive. Innocence and guilt is irrelevant, because Rema and Leo come to represent multitudinous gradations of experiences between one another. Rema might be aloof, but Leo grows insufferable as a doctor exhibiting the manic characteristics and behaviors of his patient. Their dynamic is complex, it can’t be nutshelled in terms of abandonment issues, or daddy issues, or power play, or abuse, or heartache, or grief—although it’s all of these things too.
ALAS, this film will never get made for many reasons, primarily because:
- Independent films aimed at non-juvenile audiences are harder than ever to make in this post-Covid climate, and pushing this particular rock up the hill would require a huge amount of confidence and motivation (traits I do not possess). Plus, I have debilitating bouts of depression that leave me despairingly aware of the odds stacked against me. Such defeatism is obviously not an admirable quality.
- I have not acquired rights to either primary source from which I draw inspiration, which may or may not matter if the script deviated through more plot twists.
- I am not a stealth networker or super-influencer and would find it difficult to do a Kickstarter or any similar self-promotional fundraising campaign.
- Unless I can reconfigure this into a horror film, the most marketable and lucrative of genres, particularly for first-time filmmakers, the one producer I met to discuss the project over coffee (I’m moderately better at “one-on-one”) cannot get his preferred production house to look at it.
- I don’t have Final Draft software and don’t plan to get it.
- There’s a dog in the script. I would imagine a lot of directors reading the first page and thinking great, I have to direct a damn dog, although I was trying to be mindful of that and not have the dog do anything behaviorally elaborate, this is not a remake of The Accidental Tourist.
- I’ve been trying to write the script without a voiceover, because these days voice-over is almost always over-indulged, expository, overbearing. It’s bad enough that I’ve included flashbacks, though both of my primary sources move freely back and forth in time.
- Does anybody, aside from myself, want to watch a film about an often abrasive, pretentious and unhinged psychiatrist who can no longer recognize his wife for who she is and isn’t particularly kind to her or to his patients? Male subjectivity, I’m told, has outworn its welcome, though one could argue it’s more timely than ever, now that it’s out of vogue.
- The quantum mysteries of our overdetermined universe are a difficult thing to dramatize. A miniseries like Devs illustrates competing theoretical ideas successfully to some extent, though I imagine some physicists might think Alex Garfield gets the many worlds/Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics wrong, because it’s not about how many versions of you exist somewhere out in space and how many forking paths you could have taken at any given second; this is a mathematical abstraction of what happens on a quantum scale not on a human scale, so it’s not to be taken so literally (and narcissistically). I’m also not lost on the universe-building in DC and Marvel and Disney franchises, but I’m so disinterested in big budget spectacle that whenever I watch a $200+ million dollar movie like Avengers or Tenet all I see is money exploding before my eyes. How could one not be resentful about that kind of budget, which could be reallocated to low-budget, stripped back films like Primer (the budget for the entire film was around $7000, though yeah okay many crew probably went unpaid and the film itself was a bit boring at times, I would hope comparatively speaking that Disturbances would have a bigger budget, more vitality and fanaticism.)
- The script is still rough and in dire need of a co-writer. In a half-assed attempt to find a collaborator, I approached two experienced independent filmmaker-writers I admire, who both responded with degrees of enthusiasm, but both are already working on several film projects of their own, with desk drawers stuffed with unmade screenplays, clearly par for the filmmaking course.
- I’m presently working on something else that better caters to the horror genre and may have marginally better odds of actually going into production. It’s a parody of an “interdisciplinary artist residency” gone wrong (think Justin Simien’s Bad Hair meets Alex Garland’s Ex Machina meets Buñuel’s Exterminating Angel meets the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit). I’ve been binge-reading Gurdjieff and Nick Land’s Fanged Noumena interchangeably for research. It's a trip! Of course, even this will be a stretch to pitch around.
In any case, here are the first few pages of Disturbances, as it seems wasteful not to put these out there. If you like what you read and you’re a filmmaker with a penchant for psychodramas, why not steal the idea and make it yourself? I’d watch it for sure.
INT. LEO & REMA’s APARTMENT. DUSK
REMA #1 enters with shopping bags in her arms, tugged by a hyperactive dog on a leash. She tosses her keys, purse and bags down on a table, and takes off her jacket. She’s in her early 30s, has cropped hair, sharp eyes, and youthful energy.
LEO, mid-50s, looks up from a lounge chair, removing his reading glasses to squint at Rema and the dog.
LEO
What is that?
REMA #1
A dog!
LEO
You look odd.
REMA #1
What?
LEO
Why the dog?
REMA #1
He’s a rescue. For us.
As if blithely unaware of his disapproval, she takes the dog down the hall, into the bathroom, and runs bath water while addressing the dog in Spanish, a gush of baby talk.
Leo sets down his book, stands and ventures down the hall.
Watching through a crack in the door, he sees Rema fussing over the dog, who starts barking as she sets him in the tub.
Leo backs away - returning to the front room.
He stares at the bags on the table and hovers a moment as barking and whimpering sounds intensify; then he reaches in, bringing out cans of dog food, a plastic bottle of doggy shampoo.
He looks up, startled to see Rema right beside him. She grabs the shampoo from his hands and dashes back to the bathroom, where the dog has been unhappily left behind, trapped.
Leo looks suspiciously after her, then turns his attention to her purse. He opens it and carefully investigates its contents: a wallet, tube of lipstick, pocket notebook, hair band - nothing extraordinary.
As the sound of bathwater stops, the dog whimpering persists. Leo flips through the notebook - finding nothing but blank pages.
Replacing everything, he takes the purse and stashes it under the kitchen sink. He then takes his own set of keys from the counter and quietly exits the apartment.
EXT. HOSPITAL. NIGHT.
Leo, looking slightly agitated, walks into the lobby, moving with apparent familiarity past a sleepy-looking security guard.
INT. LOBBY, PSYCHIATRIC EMERGENCY ROOM. NIGHT
Leo strides into the reception area for an open waiting room.
Leo approaches the reception counter, where a male NIGHT NURSE, (attractive, in his 20s) is playing poker on the computer. His eyes shift to Leo.
NURSE
Doctor Liebenstein. I don’t think we’ve overlapped before? You’re Conchita’s husband, right?
LEO
Rema. Yes. She’s gone missing, you know.
NURSE
Pardon?
LEO
A client will be meeting me soon. Mrs. Hoffman. When she arrives, please admit her to my office.
NURSE
Oh, she already signed in, Edith Hoffman, she’s waiting in the reception area.
LEO
Right, thanks…
Leo’s about to go, but notices an older man in the waiting area. He has an amputated leg, is sitting slumped and sedated in a wheelchair, a sheet unevenly covering his lap.
LEO CONT’D
Shouldn’t he be transferred to a bed? Looks uncomfortable.
NURSE
He made a fuss about staying in his chair. He came in shouting about us stealing his leg. Psychotic. probably - sleeping off a dose of Haldol now. I may leave him for the morning crew, it’ll be awhile before his meds wear off.
LEO
Well, somebody did take his leg - so maybe you shouldn’t be sloppy with “psychotic.”
Leo walks off.
INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR / LEO’S OFFICE. NIGHT
Leo approaches an elderly woman seated in the corridor opposite his office door: EDITH HOFFMAN.
EDITH
Doctor Liebenstein.
She stands and embraces him. He uncomfortable pats her, then steps away.
LEO
Edith. Please - let’s go to my office.
He opens his office door and guides her in.
INT. LEO’S OFFICE. NIGHT.
Leo gestures for Edith to take a seat, then crosses to his desk and sits facing her.
EDITH
I can’t believe this is happening again. He's been fine for almost a year, thanks to you. And now...I don’t know what to do.
LEO
How did he seem when you last saw him?
EDITH
He was more determined than ever. Driven by a sense of purpose. Like he finally had the validation he needed to continue what he called his work. He told me so himself, months ago, that you’re the only one who truly understands him. You’re the first to have stopped him from going missing for this long.
LEO
So - tell me what happened.
EDITH
I went through his room and nothing. Nothing. Could he be caught up in a drug cartel or something?
LEO
Why would you say that?
EDITH
Nothing makes sense. What is his “work”? Can you tell me?
LEO
To the best of my knowledge, he is not engaged in criminal activity.
She sits there, quivering, near tears.
LEO
We must stay calm and wait until we hear from him. I’m almost certain he’ll call, or reappear, not necessarily in that order. We shall see.
Edith extracts a vintage barometer from her handbag and presents it to Leo.
EDITH
Do you recognize this?
LEO
Yes, he brought it to our sessions.
EDITH
Usually, when he disappears, he takes this with him. [CUT I’m concerned now more than ever because] But this time he left it behind. I want you to have it until he returns.
INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR. NIGHT
Leo walks Edith back down long maze-like empty halls. In silence, we hear their footsteps.
INT. LOBBY, PSYCHIATRIC EMERGENCY ROOM. NIGHT
Leo says good-bye to Edith, watching her walk to the exit and onto the sidewalk. He glances at the sleeping man in the wheelchair, then heads back to his office.
INT. LEO’S OFFICE. NIGHT
Leo re-enters the office, situates himself at his desk.
He stares at the empty chair facing him, then brings out a file. We take note of the name on the folder: HARVEY HOFFMAN.
When Leo looks up again, we have seamlessly entered a FLASHBACK.
The room is lit by natural light coming in through the window, and HARVEY is sitting across from Leo’s desk - a slightly disheveled young man with a bushy beard, casual attire, holding the vintage barometer in his hands, like a stress ball.
Leo explains himself in a dry rational manner while sounding increasingly loopy. And Leo listens, engaged, occasionally taking notes with calm detachment.
HARVEY
I know what I must look like to you. “Fixed magical beliefs” and so forth. I don’t believe in Q if that’s what you’re thinking. That’s just a distraction. I do, however, believe in QF.
LEO
QF?
HARVEY
The Academy - an underground group called the 49 Quantum Fathers - maybe I should say “clandestine”. While there’s plenty of evidence in support of simulation theory and this will be the next phase of my research, at this stage in my career, I have been busy harnessing my skills for manipulating weather phenomena. I’m employed as an agent for the Royal Academy of Meteorology, which dedicates itself to maintaining the weather’s elements of unpredictability and randomness.
LEO
(after a beat)
Unpredictability? I would have thought the goal would be - the opposite.
HARVEY
No, the Academy prefers chaos. In this particular sub-group, the 49 Quantum Fathers are hiding my father in a parallel world. They send me messages in a rather archaic fashion, through the newspaper.
LEO
Is there a particular section?
HARVEY
Of what?
LEO
Section of the newspaper?
HARVEY
Of course. The Post. Page Six.
LEO
(after a beat)
So you’re saying –
HARVEY
I can control the weather, under certain circumstances, but the thing is, the Quantum Fathers have abducted my father and are hiding him from me and, I suppose, everyone else. Hiding him.
LEO
Where or why are they hiding him?
HARVEY
This will sound unbelievable, I assume, but the QF can move between adjacent worlds and they can, say, set forth into a world that is like this one but Pompeii erupted ten years later and variables were altered, with consequences you can go crazy thinking about. It’s a rainy spring in Oklahoma, but then again there’s a drought, dustbowl, whatever. You miss the bus, you get hit by the bus, the bus flies like a bird. Normally the worlds are isolated from one another, obviously, but there are tangencies that the QF exploit for mining data and energy from one world to another. How, exactly, do they map these worlds? How do these worlds intercommunicate? That I would like to know.
A pause. Leo realizes he’s being asked to respond, even if in a tentative way. He nods.
LEO
Can you explain further the parallel processing worlds?
HARVEY
You understand, of course, that all weather research is really just war research by another name. Knowing the weather, controlling the weather, means winning the war. Any war. I don’t mean to aggrandize my personal work. I’m just the littlest butterfly in all this. I specialize mostly in local wind patterns.
INT. KITCHEN, LEO & REMA’s APARTMENT. NIGHT
REMA #2, a different young woman with long hair secured in a ponytail, talks with Leo while washing the dishes and he wipes down the counter.
REMA #2
You should present yourself as a member of the Quantum Fathers. A secret member. Adopt the name of an Academy member, maybe an actual one, if there is such an academy.
LEO
There is. I googled it.
REMA #2
Or say you’re such-and-such a person’s colleague, to make it more ambiguous? Psychotics respect ranking, you’ve said as much yourself.
LEO
That’s called collusion, Rema. It would spell the end of my career.
REMA #2
How else are you going to help him? How else are you going to get inside his beliefs, and turn them around? The vanishing man. Will he stop vanishing if you don’t take action? Do you want him to stop vanishing or not? You should respect my ideas. You should respect your wife.
LEO
I do. But you were born in the wrong era. That kind of obscene psychological experiment might have been performed sixty years ago. But not now.
REMA #2
Maybe my real problem is that I was too happy to marry you. That was good enough, for so long, but maybe if I stayed alone longer I would have made something out of myself, like a tax attorney or a poet.
LEO
I’m not stopping you from making, being, achieving whatever it is you want to make, be or achieve. Am I?
REMA #2
We’re talking about Harvey, your patient. I didn’t mean to talk about anything else. But I’ll make this one point: my therapist, all she does is sit quietly, repeat what I say back to me, and lie.
LEO
You’re seeing a therapist? Since when?
REMA #2
Since a while ago.
LEO
And she lies to you?
REMA #2
More like omission. It’s ethical if the intentions are good.
Leo pauses to fathom the contradiction.
LEO
Why see a therapist if she lies?
REMA #2
Because lying is a process of revealing. And he’s not a she.
LEO
Ah. And what is his name?
REMA #2
None of your business.
Leo’s raised eyebrow indicates he can’t argue with that.
INT. LEO’S OFFICE. DAY
Leo is on the phone, seated across from Harvey, who is observing him with intense curiosity.
LEO (on phone)
Yes... Yes. I agree. QRA?
INTERCUT: INT. LEO & REMA’s APARTMENT. DAY
REMA #3 is at her desk, on her phone, reading off her laptop from Science Advances Journal.
REMA #3
Yes. Quasi-resonant amplification, using climate models, the researchers say they can show that human-caused climate change makes these conditions more likely, which is mirrored in multiple observational surface temperature datasets”
LEO (on phone)
Can you be a little more specific?
REMA #3
If the waveguide is, almost, circumglobal, then wave energy is efficiently trapped and waves constructively interfere with the forcing, leading to resonance. Through the thermal wind relationship, this profile can, in turn, be tied to meridional temperature gradients in the lower troposphere. Although a zonal mean approach neglects regional variations in the zonal flow, it has shown to be suitable for assessing the “waveguidability” of jets. As the derivation of the fundamental equations requires a certain degree of idealization, there are some caveats with this conceptual development. As QRA-related disturbances grow sufficiently in amplitude, they become baroclinically unstable and the barotropic assumption and WKB approximation is violated. Our zonal mean approach neglects longitudinal variations in the zonal flow and the possibility of meridionally oriented waveguides. Nonetheless, the theoretical framework presented above is useful for understanding the conditions under which QRA is likely to arise...
Leo glances at Harvey and registers alarm, as if just remembering he’s sitting there.
LEO (on phone)
Look, I must go now, I have a patient... Thank you, bye for now.
Leo gets off the call.
LEO
Sorry about that.
HARVEY
Who were you talking to?
LEO
I think you may be able to infer who I was talking to.
HARVEY
I didn’t realize you have a connection with the Academy.
How long have you been part of the team, so to speak?
LEO
I didn’t say I was, so to speak or otherwise.
HARVEY
No need to be coy.
LEO
There are very few details of my work that I’m allowed to disclose, given the nature of the therapist-client relation. All I can say is that it is lonely having secrets, isn’t it?
HARVEY
Not really. It gives you a sense of purpose. I’ll let you in on another one of mine.
Harvey pulls out a pocket mirror and shows it to Leo.
HARVEY
I use this to alter vectors of light and sound. Such an ordinary thing but it can work wonders.
INT. LEO & REMA’s APARTMENT. NIGHT
Leo lets himself in and unloads a grocery bag on the kitchen counter.
REMA #4 - with short hair - is on the livingroom floor, playing with the dog - who promptly scampers over to Leo, circling him as he puts things away.
LEO
Why did you say the store was out of clementines when it wasn’t?
REMA #4 sits up from the floor.
REMA #4
Why was my purse under the kitchen sink?
LEO
I don’t know why. You tell me.
Placing clementines in a bowl, Leo notices a photo of a happy family on their fridge door.
LEO
Who are these people?
REMA #4
The Gal-chens. The Gal-chen family. The real deal.
Leo looks irked.
LEO
Where did you get it?
REMA #4
The internet, of course.
LEO
This is a bit delusional.
REMA #4
No it’s not. Harvey hasn’t run away in months. You’re grounding him. And this -(the photo) is a reminder. Proof that we can work together. And that I’m usually right.
LEO
I’m going out for a walk.
REMA #4
But you just got back!
LEO
It’s stuffy in here.
REMA #4
We’ll come with you!
The dog looks excited.
LEO
No. I want to go alone.
REMA #4
Take Lacan with you, at least.
LEO
Who?
REMA #4
Lacan. I named him without you. Since you show zero interest in him.
LEO
Why Lacan?
REMA #4
He farts a lot.
LEO
Lacan was a terrible person. We can blame him for everything wrong with psychoanalysis.
REMA #4
But he revived Freud. Did you know Freud’s dogs were telepathic about diagnosing his patients?
LEO
He obfuscated Freud, and yes, I knew that, but this is a distraction from the fact that Lacan is a bad name for a dog.
Rema #4 looks hurt and cries out at him along with the bark.
INT. HALLWAY, LEO AND REMA’S APARTMENT. NIGHT.
Leo hurries down the hall, stuffing the leash into his coat pocket as Rema’s sharp voice can be heard from behind the door, accompanied by the barking dog.
REMA
¡Sal de aquí con tu egoísmo! Egoísmo!!!