Into the new studio with [blank] and [blank]. The studio, which is just being completed, is very modern, for Czechoslovakia. The lifts in the building were unlike any I have ever seen1. They were like a conveyor-belt, with man-size, constantly rising or descending compartments into which one nervously stepped. The lifts go at exactly the same pace, slow, as someone walking down the stairs. The recording went well, we broke for coffee occasionally. Milena brought us lunch and saw that I was doing a good job.
Met Veronika outside the SEMAFOR theatre at 3:15. Eventually found Milena in the office at 4:00. Interview. Then back with Veronika to Barbora’s where she read Babel and I read Havel. Bed.
Then with Barbora, Ezra and Barbora’s mother to the cinema. Barbora’s mother had bought the tickets and invited us (with an implicit three line whip). Ezra thought it would be worth surprising me with the film and nobody told me what it was until we got to the cinema. It was Emmanuelle2. We left after one rape scene and before another. Barbora’s mother apologized and apologized.
‘The last time I got tickets it was Out of Africa and that was very good.’
Walked Veronika home. No book to read on the Metro so thought instead. Bed.
Paternoster lifts. I think it was this one.
1974, directed by Just Jaeckin and starring Sylvia Kristel.