The Man Who Knew Too Much

Tatsuya Iwakura

1 ~Scrolling Films~

The man who knew too much dials M in a telephone booth made of topaz in the direction of north by northwest. His psychotic wife Marnie answers, “Rebecca got stage fright!” He says, “She’s okay because she was born under Capricorn. I have to leave to catch a thief. Don’t forget our family plot. Never let Mrs. Paradine into our house. She has a shadow of doubt.” Marnie only remembers she has to bind torn curtains with a rope, throw them away, and shut up the rear window not to let suspicion in.

The man meets a stranger named Harry on a train. Harry laughs and says, “My father didn’t allow me to get on a lifeboat when I was a kid because vertigo struck me.” The man replies, “My mother allowed me to become a saboteur when I was a baby because only frenzy made me a dominant person.”

One year later, a notorious local newspaper reports the article about a spellbound London correspondent. A cluster of birds, maybe ravens, attacked and killed him. He must have been a wrong man.

This is just another story.

 2 ~Joker~

His angle penetrates my heartbeat. His grin directs my dizziness.
His fat belly disgusts my stomach.
His lie splits my mind into black and white.

Mount Rushmore, British Museum, the Statue of Liberty.
What huge sacrifices for one small murder!
Salvador Dali’s abstract paintings, Grace Kelly’s pearls, Cary Grant’s lips.
What stylish farewells for one little murderer!

Ingrid Bergman marries a uranium smuggler.
Tippi Hedren, a kleptomaniac, runs away from copulation.
Anthony Perkins wears his mother’s wig.
James Stewart, a voyeur, imagines a woman’s torso in a salesman’s trunk.
How could these happen?

One day, a boy asked him at a premiere, “Real blood?”
He said, “No, that’s hot chocolate.”
Monsieur Truffaut may call it, “The Hitchcock Magic.”
But I call it, “The Hitchcock Chocolate.”

3 ~Eulogy~

The fat man loved to eat medium rare beefsteaks, blonde actresses, and audience.
The fat man hated eggs, kids, police officers, altitudes, and critics.
Whenever he said, “This is just a movie,”
he was afraid that it became just another movie.

“To use a pair of scissors is the best way,” he said.
Of course not for cutting someone’s neck.
His montage squeezed a shriek out of a drainpipe.
His track-and-back motion percolated height through the core of a spiral staircase.
His fifteen-minute shot dissolved two ambitious students’ suites.
His crane shot linked a chandelier to a silver tiny stain.
His Kuleshov effect harmonized a pianist with an old maid on a certain timeline.
Absolutely, his grammar created a memorable epoch.

In 1910, he memorized the diagram of trains and the names of stations all over Europe,
and went on a trip alone in his flights of fancy, forward, forward, forward.
In 1980, he tried to fly over fairy-tale countries, but couldn’t anymore with a pacemaker
in his corpulent heart.

He pan-focused suspense until the last minute, betraying himself, fighting with himself.

Hitchcock, you’re the man. Thank you forever. Thank you for shooting my heart.

Tatsuya Iwakura is a young filmmaker in Japan who studied poetry through the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. English is his second language.

Contents   Top

Speechless Spring 2007
Copyright © 2007 Published by Tebot Bach