Red Twilight
Within his dimly lit office with only the dim light of the outside peeking in through the blinds to offer illumination, John Milius blinded himself to the problems of the world, most especially the rotten plague of war with the age old companion of a bottle of alcohol. It was darkly ironic, as John had previously used to hate the trope of the alcoholic who nursed trauma with beer and booze, finding it rather cliche and a contrived way to get good men to forget their woes and descend into depravity. However, John found himself repeating these same cliches when they returned home, as he knew if he did drugs then he'd get fired from his drugs and the sweet release of liquor helped to heal the pain of Romania.
Romania, oh sweet Romania. What a stupid decision it was to go to such a horrible place, where an ongoing Revolution had been born from bloody rioting and the impaling of the ruling Communist leadership in an orgy of violence that made the French reign of terror look sane. There was no mistake within America that Romania was a bloodbath and hellhole, but John still bravely ventured to capture the story. Everyone told him that he was mad, that he would get hurt or worse come back a very changed man, but he never listened, viewing this as material that he needed to receive for Red Dawn, his return to the Director's chair that would make him just as much of a legend as Lucas, Spielberg, or Scorcese. How naive, how immature to thrust himself into a war zone just to get material. Then again, John had always been fascinated with war.
From a young age he had been enthralled with dreams of action and violence on the far off battlefields. This had started with conversations with World War II veterans, where their tales of deployments had always captured John's fascination and imagination, with the young boy always happening to miss the far off and haunted stares that accompanied the stories. When he lived in San Diego, he often visited the beaches near Camp Pendleton and made friends with a number of Marines, their stories of brotherhood and purpose filling him with a sense of drive. During the late 60's at a time when the youth of America had hated Vietnam with a passion and were marching in the streets to protest the war, John wanted deeply to enlist with the Marines, wanting to make a career out of it and reach General. For better or worse, he would never get to join the greatest brotherhood due to his asthma. While John found new callings with surfing, writing, and a deep appreciation of Japanese culture; he always felt lost since then like he missed out on his true calling as a Marine. It was what caused John to be admittedly obsessed with war ever since, what made him write several stories on the subject such as the Apocalypse Now script, and what pushed him to create Red Dawn.
The desire to have an air of authenticity with the Romanian footage was derived from his watching and deep enjoyment of Napoleon. While America had passed on the film, John watched it multiple times and what always enthralled him to call it his favorite along with Star Wars was Napoleon's deep commitment to realism and grand scale. There were no toy soldiers or exaggerated effects, there were real battles being played out with thousands of soldiers, all real veterans of their respective national armies that managed to recapture perfectly one of the greatest series of wars in human history nearly two centuries later. If John wanted to truly bring home to America modern urban warfare and create a realistic scenario of what an invasion of the states would look like, he needed to go to the next best thing with the current target of Soviet invasion, Romania.
When John had arrived at Romania through smuggling via the Yugoslavian border, his rather boyish fascination had quickly eroded as he came face to face with the true horrors of modern warfare. The Soviet-Romanian War was not like World War II, or at least the western front of the conflict where battles were fought in clean conventional engagements where both sides pushed against each other to paint the map. The war was personal and bloody, everywhere was a battlefield, the whole country was turned into a living hell to force the Romanians to submit to marxist serfdom and have their souls crushed. Roads and fields became filled with mines where one needed to tiptoe or risk getting their leg blown up. One had to avoid open areas for fear of snipers or getting marked by Soviet jets. To go about your day, you had to numb yourself to the sound of artillery and shooting and differentiate between distance and intent. Anything and everything could be used as a weapon with no building sacred and no person of age or gender considered alien to the war. Everyone had to fight in, not just for liberation from Communist rule, but for the survival of the Romanian people, most especially when they were regarded as less than human by the Soviets and thus transitioned into being lab rats for Soviet healthcare.
And yet, in spite of the horrors that the Romanians endured, they continued on, resolved to fight another day and that even if they could never see a free Romania, that their blood would be used as the cement for a new future where Romanian kids never knew oppression and lived in peace. The hearts of Romanians were filled with intense hatred for the Russian that drove them to impale almost every survivor of a battle, but when John spoke with them, there was some fleeting remnants of hope and optimism, most especially when he shared stories of America. The American Dream may be dead in the eyes of most of the nation for one reason or another, but in Romania it was one of their core tenents of hope, that someday they could live like the West in prosperity and freedom where any man or woman can choose their destiny and rise high to live as they like, a world where Romania can finally escape its history of abuse via authoritarianism.
What drove them most especially was movies. For some reason, Romania was obsessed with movies and shows. Anything from Hollywood that passed the state censors became widely adored by them, case in point being Columbo where the story of one man who stood for justice and defied the odds to end evil giving comfort to a people whose state turned the police into weapons of fear and oppression. When John shared that he was gathering their stories for a documentary and perhaps a movie, many resistance fighters lined up, excited to share their stories and be a part of Hollywood amidst this hell. As part of his activities, John had smuggled in copies of Star Wars, and when he showed the resistance fighters the movie, and they saw the greatest story of all time and how a simple farm boy and his friends stood up to an evil Galactic Empire and destroyed their greatest weapon, it moved them to tears, giving them a sense of renewed purpose and hope that if Luke Skywalker can stand against the Empire, then so can they.
John had formed somewhat of a friendship with a woman named Natalya. She was a beautiful and bright eyed woman who from a young age had dreamed to be a performer, at first as a ballerina through a harsh training regimen, and when she watched Columbo, to flee to Hollywood somehow, someday and become a famous actress, to be like Carrie O'Brian from Star Wars. John gave her inspiration and in return she helped him endure the horrors he found on a daily basis, to push on and capture as much as he could and share their stories. John promised to have her star in a Lucasfilms movie, and days before he left she died of Anthrax infection after being caught in a retalitation attack by the Soviets bio units. He couldn't even be with her in her dying moments or see her buried.
John took another deep swig of vodka, looking at his reflection in the bottle in disgust. What right did he have to make a movie, to make any movie after what he went through? He went to Romania for adventure, and in the process he experienced the worst of mankind and made life more difficult for the resistance, them often putting themselves into harm's way to protect him and his crew to share their message. They placed all their hopes on him, but he was just a lousy hack of a writer, and while he gave his testimony to Congress, there was nothing substantial they could do so long as Moscow had nukes. How could he possibly make a war movie, when anything he came up with would be but a shallow imitation and poor bastardization of what the real heroes went through?
So deep was John in his sorrows that he didn't notice the knock, and opening of the door. "John, can we have a minute?" Asked Dave Allister softly.
John looked up from his stupor and found himself coming face to face with his three writing comrades; Dave Allister, Robert Zemeckis and Paul Schrader. They were all far more talented than him, and far smarter as they never risked their lives in a warzone for their movies. Since he got back he hadn't really had a conversation with any of them, too ashamed and disgusted of himself and frustrated that they would never know what he went through.
"If you're looking for the script, I'm almost done." John said of his semi-annual commitment, pointing to his type writer where a mess of papers laid about, some having pieces of a script, some blank, and some just a bunch of printed gibberish, no two pages containing the same movie.
"John, we're not hear about the scripts." Paul began.
"If it's Red Dawn I'm gonna get with Mike and work on the budget, I promise." John said with a lazy wave.
"John, we don't give a shit about the script or movie, none of that concerns us. We're concerned about you. Ever since you returned, you've done nothing but wander around drunk. If you don't die of a liver failure then you'll die of something dangerous and stupid." Robert said rather bluntly to concerned looks of Paul and Dave.
John laughed, "Dangerous, DANGEROUS? You people have no idea of what dangerous is, living comfortably in suburbia, having six number checks and working nine to fives, the most difficult thing you have to worry about is whether dinner is gonna be cold or not!" John said rather accusingly.
"Yes John, we don't know exactly what you went through and in many ways can't relate, but that doesn't mean you should shut us out. We're your friends, we want to support you. It's not easy, but we're here for you and we want to see you heal." Paul said.
"Oh, so I can get back to Red Dawn and pump another Lucasfilms movie? Well forget it, because I'm never gonna do any fucking films again, Romania is my last one!" John yelled.
"John, you don't mean that-" Robert began.
"I do!" John said slamming his desk with his fist, "I'm a goddamn sham aritst and idiot who couldn't be content playing make believe and wanted to be authentic, playing with people's lives and profiting off of their fight for survival. What the fuck kind of right do I have to profit off of their misery? How can I possibly pay tribute to their struggle, to their ongoing hell?!"
"John, you shouldn't place all the guilt and burden on yourself." Dave cautioned.
Frustrated, John rose up and marched to Dave at face, "And what gives you the right to lecture me?! WHAT-"
"BECAUSE I'M THE GODDAMNED BASTARD WHO WROTE DRACULA!" Yelled Dave, being mad for what was the first time that John had ever known Dave, making him and both Paul and Robert take steps back in shock, "I made a fucking vampire movie without any thought for the consequences, how others would interpret when I've seen what Some Nights and Star Wars do, and in the process I unleashed a revolution, uprooted people's lives and peace all for something I considered a fun fantasy project! I may not have experienced what you have John, I know that I can never directly relate to what you endured, but every night I have to fight myself to sleep because of the terrible crushing guilt that I get to sleep next to my wife, have a loving daughter and son, while countless families are torn apart or destroyed because of what I wrote." Dave explained.
Silence then settled for a period, no one sure of where to continue, "So why do you still want to work, how did you continue writing?" John asked, referring to Dave's recent invention of Taxman Cometh.
Dave thought for near a minute and then sighed, "Because as tainted as the love is, my passion is still there, and while I can never get rid of the guilt, I deal with it. I talk it out with Farah. She helps me to see that for whatever responsibility I have, that quitting isn't accountability, it's cowardice. That I have to own up to it, and make sure everything from here on out is done right by who I affect, and that I can be better."
John processed Dave's words, finding right within them but also unsure, "I don't want to ruin your days-"
"That doesn't matter, what's most important is you, we're here cause we care." Paul firmly reminded.
Unsure of what he did to deserve friends like these, John capped the bottle, and began to share his tale.
