All the Trees are Naked

ALL THE TREES ARE NAKED

I find her downstairs, half asleep in an armchair, watching The Third Man. She’s curled into her beautiful hips; really astounding hips that never fail to stir me. I slide my hand along her waist. She says “Hi honey” in a wistful little-girl voice. I sit on the arm of the chair and touch her bleached hair. “Isn’t this a beautiful film?” she says as we watch the closing scene in black and white where Joseph Cotten passes Ingrid Bergman on the long country road and decides to get out of the jeep and wait for her.

“Look at those phony leaves falling in the foreground,” I say. It just comes out of me. “All the trees are naked but there’s leaves falling right in the foreground.” She makes a hum of agreement and then I feel stupid for breaking the emotional spell of the film with a lame intellectual comment. Ingrid Bergman keeps walking toward the camera at the same steady pace. She has a great walk, full of female strength; tall, erect, and self-contained. Joseph Cotten lights his cigarette and waits. There’s something arrogant about his waiting; something characteristically male. The leaves keep falling in the foreground, right in front of the lens. I start thinking about the hidden factors of filmmaking. The prop guys perched on tall ladders beside the camera, dropping autumn leaves so they float just right. The wind machine. Someone controlling the breeze. I’ve just dropped into this. I have no connection to the story line or empathy with the characters. She’s been watching from the start, in and out of sleep. Ingrid Bergman gets closer and passes Joseph Cotten without so much as a glance. She walks right past the camera, never changing her stride, and disappears, leaving him alone with his cigarette. His arrogance dissolves. He watches the path she’s taken. There’s a recognizable sense of loss and yearning in his eyes; those hound-dog eyes that seem like they’ll never get the sleep they need. Suddenly I’m inside the film without quite knowing how I’ve been seduced. I’m caught right where the filmmaker wants me. The raw zither music is working on me. I believe the falling leaves are real. I make the leap of feeling toward the impossible gap between men and women. I’m feeling lucky to be here right now with the one I love, touching her bleached blond hair. The credits roll. “Why didn’t Ingrid Bergman stop when she saw him waiting for her? She could see that he was waiting,” I ask.

“That wasn’t Ingrid Bergman,” she says.

“It wasn’t? It looked just like her.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

“Who was it then?”

“Someone who looks a lot like Ingrid Bergman.”

“But it wasn’t her?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“Well, why didn’t she stop?”