The Legendary Actor - Chapter 26

What exactly is war.

This was the first question that Renly asked Tim the in boot camp, and it was also the last.

When the two men first started talking, Renly asked this question, Tim just smiled and did not answer, moving on to other topics. Half a cigarette’s worth of time passed before he replied, “I don’t know.”

I don’t know.

That was the answer Tim gave him, and it came from a veteran who had been to war twice. During the filming of “The Pacific”, Renly pondered over this question constantly, not only because it was the answer Eugene was looking for but also because it was a question that Renly himself was exploring.

For some people, war is glory. Like Renly and Rami, being wounded is a kind of medal, a sign that they have gone through the baptism of blood and fire, that they have laughed until the end in the midst of a grueling confrontation, and that they have washed away milk on their lips and completed their growth and transformation.

For some people, war is heroism. “I am not a hero, but I fight alongside heroes”. The camaraderie between brothers who support each other and cover for each other, who struggle to survive and win in the face of death, makes one’s blood boil.

For some people, war is death. It’s like corpses all over the open field, enemy, friendly and innocent alike, one life after another passing away, eventually becoming a series of numbers, but no one remembers the real meaning behind the numbers, as if life no longer has meaning here, not even living.

For some people, war is profit. It’s like the real-life war hero John Bartholomew, whose teammates stayed behind to fight and kill, and who died every hour of every day, while he danced and sang on American soil, selling war bonds, and taking favors from women, all of which are just a series of money figures in the hands of Wall Street.

But why does Tim say, “I don’t know”? Why?

He saw the soldier lose his mind because he had killed too many Japanese and sat dumbfoundedly, counting as if all the friendly troops were enemy troops; he saw a soldier in the same company late at night start screaming because of a nightmare, and gradually lose control, and to avoid revealing his position, they had to execute the soldier themselves, and he fell asleep forever with the nightmare.

He was almost killed by a Japanese bomb, but after surviving, he had to fight the enemy with his bare hands, and when the dagger plunged into the abdomen, hot blood stained his hands; he walked through a hail of bullets and saved his wounded comrade on a stretcher, and was only halfway there when the shrapnel from the air raid directly ended the wounded man’s life.

He captured a Japanese soldier with his own hands, but it was a teenage boy who raised his hands in fear and surrender, which made him lower the barrel of his gun, but his friends used the boy as a target to bet on who was a better shot; he watched innocent local people being used as human bombs and cried “help” to blend in, but the Japanese detonated the bombs, causing a chain reaction of injuries.

So, what is war, really? Renly had thought he would understand, at least after actually going through what Eugene had faced, but as the months passed, he didn’t.

After Renly asked that question one last time, Tim told a little story.

A war photographer had gone to the streets of Baghdad in search of material, and he was walking through the living quarters, where daily life was still going on, as if the war hadn’t made much of a difference, but had actually produced a moment of peace. Just then, a little girl of three or four years of age quickly crossed the street.

Running back toward the ruins, the photographer subconsciously lifted his camera and pointed it at the little girl.

The little girl stopped in fear, raised her hands high in the air, and looked at the photographer timidly, her dusty face filled with terror, her dark eyes quickly covered with tears, and she started pleading him something he didn’t understand.

The photographer was so stunned that he didn’t know what was wrong with his actions. He hurried forward to comfort the little girl, but he heard her mumbling in a trembling voice, “Don’t kill me.” She thought the photographer was holding a gun.

“I used to believe that I was fighting for justice, for glory, for faith, or at least I wanted to believe that was the case. But after seeing that picture … I don’t know, I really don’t.” Those were the last words Tim and Renly exchanged, and then he turned away, his shoulders still straight, but with a touch of heavy burden to them.

Renly was confused, but he didn’t even have the energy to think about it. Sometimes, he didn’t even think about whether it would be easier to just die and be done with it. Instead, living became a torture, with no end in sight, no meaning, no hope, and even the faith begins to fall apart.

To live, they just fight to live. Maybe it was right, maybe it was wrong, because maybe “living” itself had no meaning.

Rami could feel the subtle changes in Renly’s mood, but couldn’t say why. Ever since he returned from his injury, Renly had been acting stranger and stranger as the days passed.

It wasn’t that he affected the shooting, on the contrary, Renly’s shooting went very smoothly, and his wonderful performance often won the praise of the crew, not only David’s but also the other directors’ of the series; but outside the shooting, when there were no gigs, he was sitting quietly on the side. Renly’s silent and oppressive atmosphere made the sunlight dim, but every time he was asked something, he returned to his normal state, and continued to joke with them about nothing.

Several times, Rami tried to talk to Renly, but Renly cleverly avoided it, not giving him a chance to go further, and just brushed it off. This only made Rami more worried.

“Rookie, Rookie.” Rami called out twice in a row, but got no response, so he had to tap Renly on the shoulder, and then he saw Renly come back to his senses, his eyebrows raised lightly, indicating that he had heard. Rami pointed in the direction of the director, “They asked, are you ready?”.

Renly nodded, gestured “OK,”, and smiled lightly at Rami, “What about you? Are you ready? This is not going to be an easy scene.”

Rami gathered up his worries and tugged at the corners of his mouth, “You’re the star of the show, so I’ll be fine when you’re ready.”

Now they were filming a big scene, “The Pacific” was nearing its end, and all the weight of the scene had accumulated on Renly.

After a series of battles and events, Eugene’s soul has been transformed, not only into a ruthless one but also into a stone-hearted man, as seen in the scene filmed five days ago, where Eugene, being maddened, tried to kill Japanese prisoners. He was warned not to do it, and yet he still executes them down to the last enemy soldier who resisted – even after the officer has ordered a cease-fire.

Today’s scene is the culmination of all these emotional outbursts.

After a long and hard battle on Okinawa, the Americans had finally won, but there were still pockets of resistance, so they needed to take their time in exploring the island and wiping out the last of the partisans. During their search, Eugene and Merriell heard a baby crying from a dilapidated house on the side of the road, and they cautiously went in.

Here, Eugene, who had gone off the deep end and had a dead heart, was touched again.

The final sublimation of the entire episode of “The Pacific” depended on it.

Renly withdrew his gaze and looked silently at the mountain of corpses in front of him, knowing that they were mass actors; he knew that the plasma and intestines were props. But now, they all entered the performance without moving, as if they were real corpses. This caused Renly’s mind to settle down and quieten down, just standing still, time seemed to freeze at this moment.

Death, he had seen so much death, he was so accustomed to it that when he received a letter from home saying that Deacon was dead, he was indifferent, just sitting there, pondering what “Deacon is dead” really meant, without finding any answer, as if death no longer had any meaning, it was just a state! The irony is that his body and face were covered in blood. Even more ironically, he couldn’t count how many lives had ended at his hands.

He himself was a wandering soul who had crawled out of the pile of corpses. But he was stunned at the sight of the bawling baby in front of him.

The state of birth and death constituted a cycle of reincarnation, the clear and loud cry with a hint of anxiety, but no fear, just anxious, complaining, crying out, calling for someone to change his diaper, or calling for someone to fill his hungry stomach. So simple, so natural, surrounded by death, but also full of hope. The cycle of life is playing out right before our eyes.

“Action!” The director’s voice came from the far side of the sky, as if it were a command from God.