David spent much of his time placating the local “chief.” They paid for “protection,” as if in Chicago. Only by promising so much a week could they insure cooperation and prevent “fishing fleets” from crossing back and forth behind their shots.

Crosby meanwhile spent days on a tramline for the dolly. Constructing one on uneven ground caused him no end of aggravation. He carried everywhere his little notebook and The Carpenters’ and Builders’ Manual. His constant fear that he’d overlooked something important gave him a restless aspect.

Once he built the thing, all night the native girls and boys rolled his cart up and down its tracks. No one was able to sleep. Then the great joke became to derail the cart over and over. This they thought irresistably funny. Crosby, Flaherty, and Murnau finally went out to put a stop to the proceedings, and became part of the hilarity. Finally the revelers were shooed away, and Crosby stood guard over the dolly cart until morning.

The shots that they got with the dolly over the next week proved unusable.

By Mid-August, Pal seemed reinvigorated. At any given moment during a discussion they would notice him in the background against the tall grass and the skyline, flying through the air after birds. The islanders called him the Bouncing Dog.

Around the veranda were innumerable crab holes, from which big land crabs emerged to work their way over to leaves or fallen blossoms. They ate anything. One pulled the end of Murnau’s towel down its hole.

Every so often they had a good night, when, thanks to a few moments with the actors or the light, Murnau had the impression that the day had gone well, and that it was all right for work to have ended.

On nights like that he set up magnesium torches around the lagoon for midnight swims with Mehao. Crosby was furious at the waste. But when they dived from the tall rocks and sprayed white light high into the air, they were like magically shining ghosts in the otherwise black water. Other Tahitians joined them, naked. Their wet bodies shimmered in the torchlight. The women held palm leaf fans before their faces.

****24 August. Every position is unposed and singular; he possesses his body as others possess music. He’s the jungle in person, though his cheekbones and black eyes are those of a Breton peasant.

Eroticism is the true subject of film. Asta Nielsen, and the way she suggested nudity with only her eyes.

Film brings the overintellectualized back into the primal realm of gesture, and allows us to recover the breathtaking power of primal communication. It lets us breathe, not speak. The new world I seek here is not a world of novelty and wonder but intuition.