Evings Pierre

Aristide and 'The Haitian Drama:' Light! Camera! Action...

(By Evings Pierre or PS for the eFriends)
Sunday Feb 29th 2004, for me was the most anticipated day of the young year. Not that I am an aficionado when it comes to movies, but like many of you, I could not help but notice the buzz created by the Oscars throughout the media. Now, we all have our favorite actor and director, but once in a while, we witness the emergence of one or two Hollywood figures, with some rather in-your-face audacious creativity we just have to learn to love. With that in mind, I spent the entire Sunday craving with anticipation the minute that I’ll see two of that kind of distinguished talents parading along with the other stars. Well into the night, at 11:30 PM, the last bell rang on me. It was all over, and to my great consternation, I did not see George Bush, nor did I see Colin Powell, two of my favorite movie directors in Hollywood. “Hey Cut! I say Cut... this must be a mistake”, I found myself exclaiming, as I jumped from my chair.
Now, how can the Academy miss these two personalities? How can they not be recognized for their theatrical prowess? Just recently, they have put the final touch in their much acclaimed “The Haitian Drama” motion picture. Although both Bush and Powell managed to make it a low budget movie, “The Haitian Drama” undoubtedly stands to rightfully rival Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ”, in terms of monetary returns. Both directors believed to have saved their company hundreds of millions of dollars, by concocting a plot to rid themselves of the beleaguered main actor Mr. Aristide, who according to them has shown such greed and insatiability, when it came to money and power, in the movie making business.
Aristide is no stranger to controversy. In 1991, when filming for “The Haitian Drama” began, he was summarily chastised by his supporting actors, and just a few month after was fired by the Bush-Powell film company CIA. But, the grand public, curious about his seeming acting capability, raved loudly about his reinstatement. Soon in 1994, the company would bow to the intense pressure, and reluctantly hired him back as the lead actor in “The Haitian Drama” picture.
Upon his arrival, Aristide of course went back to his old ways, further alienating the already irate actors who aspired to his job. He did not (shall I say he refused to) understand the politics behind Hollywood film production. According to those close to him, he suffered a sudden amnesia, thereby failing to remember who put him where he was.
In several occasions, Aristide went on to change the scripts, without consulting the directors or the other actors involved in the movie. His subsequent actions did nothing to rally support from his burgeoning flocks of enemies. To make him pay for his flagrant insult, the latter ones began very early to conspire to make a failure out of all of Aristide endeavors. And, with the endorsement of the company, they made sure that he does not get paid unless he decides to revert back the scripts.
Apparently Mr. Aristide did not bother to read the fine lines in the contract he signed in 1994. Also, as if overwhelmed by his own overbearing pride, he did not return the script to its original state, but instead openly criticized the company for a 'badly written script,' as he put it. Thus, without any money coming, it became very difficult for him to pay his own disgruntled, starving employees. To allay their growing contention, Aristide openly sought help from the company’s competitions, making alliance with such notorious Hollywood CEOs such as Fidel Castro, and Muammar Qadhafi. And, most to the disdain of the company, he is said to have facilitated the delivery of white powdery Columbian coffee to his starving employees, in an attempt to keep them happy. But, soon a company wide embargo was imposed on those benefiting from the delivery of the Columbian coffee. Under such a strangling squeeze, Aristide’s entourage rushed to join the growing number of other actors and associates eyeing his position of lead actor, and whose voice of discontent has been more and more loud over the years. In light of all this disorder in the midst of filming, both directors Bush and Powell expressed their utter embarrassment and secretly vowed to rid themselves of Aristide, whom they believe, was the source of all the problems facing the production of “The Haitian Drama” picture.
As the battle for power waged on among Aristide and the other angry aspirants, it is safe to say that life for the little behind-the-scene folks has been, to say the least, unbearable. The company continued to block the delivery of checks, while filming went on. The growing apathy between Aristide, his two bosses, and the other aspirants, was at best palpable. The element of trust supposedly fostered by their forced relationship was at its nadir. A solution was to be found soon before the company’s filming production’s upcoming audit in November 2004.
Right now, there seems to be an ominous take over, pending over the company's head like a sword of Damoclès. John Kerry, the rival CEO leading this effort, seems more than ever poised to bring the company under his wings, should the audit go wrong in November 2004. Furthermore, with thousands of those little folks threatening to come knocking at the company’s main entrance in Florida, to vent their frustration and disenchantment, Aristide stood to be a monkey wrench, capable of greatly influencing the November audit. Thus the company sought to sponsor his demise way before it gets too late.
They rounded up a few of Aristide’s hardcore foes and old-friends-becoming-hardened-enemies, enjoying their retirement abroad, to study the possibility of sapping short the foundation of his acting career. As they were working out their plan, a small player named Butter Metayer begun to grunt his discontent about the death of his older brother Amiot Metayer in the movie. To make the story behind the movie flow better, the directors seemed to have approved part of Aristide’s changing scripts, especially the takes that showcased the death of Amiot. However, when Butter began to voice bitter invectives toward both Aristide and the company itself, Bush and Powell rushed to affirm their belief that the original script stood to preclude the death of the actor, and therefore blamed Aristide for the change.
Next, the enraged Metayer went on a rampage, and set one of Aristide office in Gonaives ablaze. Meanwhile, the pressure from the other actors for Aristide to cede his post as lead actor in the movie was being felt from all corners. Many have joined the band wagon, openly spewing out their frustration and disdain for the man who, they believed, had become a symbol of greed, deceit, corruption, and all sort of malversations. The two directors profited the occasion to give their two cents with regard to Aristide’s grim situation. They deemed him not fit to continue being the lead actor in the movie. According to them, he made too many changes to the original scripts that went squarely against the good wishes of CIA film production. Meanwhile, for public relation purpose, the company heralded its efforts and attempts to bring to an end the unending wranglings between Aristide and the others, but never admitted failure.
Subsequently, they decided to make good of a bad situation, by subtly approving and sponsoring the merger between Metayer, Aristide’s old foes, and old-friends-becoming-hardened-enemies. This, the company believed, was the best occasion they would ever have to finally get Aristide out of the picture. To the directors’ great astonishment Aristide, despite his endangered life had become more and more defiant, leading them to further change the script on Mr. Aristide. For a few weeks Bush and Powell isolated him and his entourage, cutting out communications with most of his fans from the north, while bombarding him with the false news of his brazen enemies at the gate of his office, yearning to eat him alive.
Finally under severe pressure by both the company and until recently former competing character DeVillepin, brought in as advisor, Aristide capitulated and asked for the best severance package he was entitled to, before he could leave. As Mr. Bush busied himself getting his papers ready for the upcoming audit, Mr. Powell astutely reassured Aristide that the decision he was to take, was the best one, and that it will help with the continuation of the movie. “Too much money had been spent already, and too much is at stake,” he reminded Aristide.
I must add that the company was in a dire need for the Academy’s seal of approval for the movie “The Haitian Drama”, especially after the debacle issued from the merger with Iraq Production Company. Obviously, the rosy predictions the analysts painted as to the windfall Iraq’s movie production was to bring with their new picture “Oil For Blood,” were at most flawed, and the goodies never materialized. Both Bush and Powell rightfully felt the responsibility to cut Aristide short, and prevented him from thwarting the production of “The Haitian Drama,” for the sake of the company.
At dawn, early Sunday morning, Powell coaxed the actor into hastily signed a severance package, before, as he put it, Butter Metayer, and his associates Guy philipe and Mr. Chamblain, broke the office open. “Also,” he continued, “they are right outside the gate, and waiting.” “They’ve only allowed me to bring you the good news, hoping you are wise enough to take it.”
“What is that?” Aristide questioned anxiously.
“Well, they said that they will let you leave if you do it now.”
“Get out! Are you serious,” Aristide inquired with raised eyebrows.
“Oh yes, dead serious! And, having been your friend for so long, I feel obligated to leave with you now.”
“Honey, where are you?” Aristide yelled worriedly for his wife, unable to hide his trembling voice.”
“Hey,” Powell continued to pressure him, “here, look at these pictures right here. I know you can’t discern the face on that one, but this was one of your managers in your Hinche office.” Aristide suddenly cringed with fear, appearing somewhat more diminutive in his tight Armany costume.
“Over there,” Powell further pointed out, “that mutilated body is that of one of your loving fans near the Gonaives office.”
“I am therefore calling on your good sense to get the hell out of there now,” Powell emphasized. “I will not be able to save you later on. Here sign and we are out,” he finished.
In the midst of it all, Aristide signed the paper and once again forgot to read the fine lines. Thereafter, he agreed to be whisked away for fear of falling prey to a fictive enemy at his gate in Tabarre.
So the movie ended, with Aristide being duped and taken away. Not only did he not get paid, but also he failed to understand the whole twist behind the movie. He was being filmed all along, even when the directors yelled “cut!” And, all the wranglings between him, the CIA film production, the other power hungry actors and their associates, were nothing but part of another secret script, in a powerful scheme devised by the directors themselves.
Most certainly, the movie “The Haitian Drama,” to my view, deserved the Oscar for best picture of the year. Having said that, I truthfully pity those blind, dubious folks at the Academy, for not voting for that great picture. Even more dreadful, was the fact that neither Bush nor Mr. Powell was recognized at the Award show on Sunday. I wonder what the heck they were thinking those shady characters behind the scene at the Academy. How can they bypass such great talents?