You're Lying

"It's late. I should get home," Martin Scorsese told the man he had been speaking with. He gathered the people leaving with him, Brian Johnson among them, and started toward the exit.

There were familiar faces to greet along the way. Several minutes passed before they reached the steps and someone went to bring the car around.

"Mr. Scorsese!"

The director turned toward a young man Johnson had stopped from approaching. "Who are you?"

"Sanders Peller. We met earlier. I represent Adrian Vale."

He spoke quickly and kept looking at Johnson, who was still in his way.

"I thought his agent was Frederick Rogers." Scorsese gestured for Johnson to let him through.

"He is. Fred's his agent. I'm here on Adrian's behalf." Sanders straightened his collar and gave the director a small, respectful nod. "I'm sorry to stop you, but there's something important I need to discuss."

"We've talked about this enough," Johnson put in. "Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

Scorsese glanced at him, then back at Sanders. "What is it? If it's about the audition, I've made myself clear."

"A few minutes. In private. That's all I'm asking."

"I'm sorry, young man, but the world doesn't revolve around you and your friend."

He saw his car approaching and started down the steps.

Sanders raised his voice. "Did you watch his video? The one he made for you?"

"Of course. I told you we reviewed everything. He's a good actor. If you're going to represent him, Mr. Peller, you should be helping him plan his next move instead of arguing with me."

Johnson blocked Sanders again. "Enough. If you keep this up, I'll have someone remove you."

"You're lying."

Sanders said it clearly, each word carrying across the steps.

"You're lying, Mr. Scorsese. I'm sure of it. Nobody who'd watched that video would dismiss it as if there were nothing to discuss."

People coming out of the house turned toward them. Scorsese stopped and looked back, frowning.

"I'm disappointed," Sanders went on. "We've watched your films over and over. Raging Bull. Goodfellas. The Age of Innocence. We didn't expect you to praise everything we did, but we thought the work would at least get a fair look. Adrian spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on that film. You haven't even watched it, and you're willing to make up your mind. I'm disappointed."

Before Scorsese could respond, Sanders turned and walked away.

"What an arrogant little fool," Johnson muttered. He touched the director's shoulder. "Don't let him get to you. He's trying to provoke you. It's an old trick."

Scorsese studied him. "You seem nervous, Brian."

"Of course I am. He's accusing me of not doing my job. That's a serious claim to throw around with nothing behind it."

Scorsese offered no answer. He got into the car and spent most of the ride with his eyes closed. Several times Johnson seemed ready to say something, then stopped himself.

The next morning, Scorsese called the key production staff into his office.

"Bring me the tapes and DVDs from the final candidates. I want to watch them again."

"You're serious?" Johnson asked him privately afterward.

"What harm can it do? Better than being told I don't know what's going on."

Scorsese's tone was light. Johnson could not be sure what sat beneath it, and went back to work looking troubled.

When the material arrived, the director looked through it and frowned.

"Only three?"

The staff exchanged glances before one of them answered. "You asked us to screen the submissions first and pass along the strongest ones. Since you'd already seen the auditions..."

"Find the rest. Bring everything to me."

That proved harder than expected. At least two submissions were missing. One belonged to Adrian Vale.

"Once we'd made the selection, nobody paid much attention to the others," Johnson explained. "They were put away somewhere."

"Keep looking. They have to be here. If they aren't, ask the actors to send replacements. They'll have copies."

Johnson's expression changed, but Scorsese did not give him room to argue. Later, he called another staff member in alone.

"How did you divide the screenings? Who was assigned to watch whom?"

More than half the day passed before Johnson and the others produced the missing discs. Somebody, apparently, had tucked them at the back of a low cabinet in the archive room.

Scorsese sent everyone out, turned on the television, and chose Adrian's submission first.

"After all that, this had better be good," he muttered.

The first image made him lift his eyebrows. An office filled the screen, its colors dark and red, its windows sealed behind heavy curtains. A man sat sideways in a chair, unkempt hair falling around his face. One hand covered his closed mouth. The other rested on the desk.

As the camera moved closer, the hand on the desk resolved into a fist. His thumb rubbed the second knuckle of his index finger, up and down, again and again. His distant expression made it clear that he was hardly aware of the movement.

'Good.'

Scorsese leaned forward.

A knock sounded. The man in the chair startled. He half rose, sat again, and waited until a second knock before finding his voice.

"Come... come in."

The image cut to the door. A short, heavyset older man stood there in round glasses, uncertain whether to enter.

"Mr. Hughes..."

"Stay there," Hughes said impatiently. "Tell me."

The visitor looked relieved, then anxious again. "The committee insists that you attend."

"I won't accept this!" Hughes surged to his feet, arms moving with his anger. "Companies all over this country failed to meet their contracts. Why single me out? At least I built prototypes. It's a setup. A setup!"

"But if you don't appear, they'll find you in breach."

Hughes stopped. He stared toward the camera, eyes reddening, his thumb worrying the same knuckle faster and faster. He seemed about to explode.

Instead he drew a deep breath. His anger settled into something hard and concentrated.

"All right. I'll go. And I'll beat them. I will."

The film ran about ten minutes in all. When it ended, Scorsese's first response was simple admiration.

The camera work and editing were unremarkable. The actor opposite Adrian was adequate. But the color and light had been chosen with care. The oppressive red of the room worked with the scene instead of merely decorating it.

The sequence drew on the Senate inquiry after the war, when Hughes was called to answer questions about aircraft contracts and unfinished deliveries. Scorsese intended to make it one of the great crises of the film, more concentrated and dangerous than a literal account of every historical detail would allow. The short had anticipated the pressure he wanted. Then there was Adrian himself.

"That's the same young man?"

He rewound and watched again, now openly curious. The restraint and the sudden bursts of energy, the weight behind the performance, made it difficult to see the actor's age. Makeup helped, but makeup alone could not do that. For someone under twenty-five, with only a few years of screen work behind him, it was remarkable.

"No wonder Sanders mentioned the money," Scorsese murmured, still watching.

Then his expression darkened.

He had suspected something was wrong, but part of him had wanted a simple explanation. A mistake. A submission filed in the wrong place. Now he was less willing to believe it.