Matty: There are two sides to every story. Two sides to every coin and all that crap! Ever since I was a teenager, I wanted to be alone. The unassailable winters of Bismarck, North Dakota, where I grew up must have thrown a blanket of frosty aloofness over my natural American Christian tendency of benevolence. As a grown up, I liked my cubicle and my privacy at Bismarck Dispatch. My movie columns were popular. So, when Joey, our editor told me that I would be co-writing a column with Stella Andersson, who was moving here from The Fargo Journal, I was annoyed to say the least. I felt like I was being sabotaged. I felt like someone else was moving in on my gig.

Stella: Moving in on your gig? What do you mean, moving in? I got no joy at the thought of co-writing a movie column with a stranger. Fargo, where I grew up has harsher winters than Bismarck. I am as misanthropic as any other writer and my movie columns were popular too. Just ask the postman about the fan mail that I used to bring in. The Credence Group, the parent company that owned both Bismarck Dispatch and The Fargo Journal decided to merge the two newspapers to cut costs. The folks at The Fargo Journal were told to move to Bismarck Dispatch. Most of my colleagues moved elsewhere. I was the only one from my office who made the move to Bismarck Dispatch.

Joey: Matty Walker is one of our most esteemed film columnists. So is Stella Andersson. But these are tough times for the North Dakota newspaper industry. Circulation has plateaued out since the late sixties. We simply could not afford two offices. Head office decided that the two newspapers would have to merge under the name of Bismarck Dispatch. It was my idea to unite the two stalwart movie columnists for a single column. I knew a few sparks would fly. But I thought it was all right if they both together created something beautiful.

Matty: There is a point in a person?s life when you simply cannot make friends with anyone anymore. How many of you have made friends in your thirties or forties? Once the work life begins, all you have are acquaintances. You immerse yourself in movies or books to fill the lack of human contact. Movies have become my best friends. I am forty-five. What was me and Stella Andersson supposed to do together? Go on movie dates? Are you kidding me?

Stella: Two unmarried forty-five-year-old women in a single cubicle. I wasn?t looking forward to it. But what is one to do? One had to make a living. Frankly, I felt bad for me and Matty after Joey Costello, our editor called me and informed me about how we would be co-writing a column. It was like we were two middle aged women who were forced to marry the same guy or something and live together in the same house.

Matty: We would have to make it work. But it wasn?t like I was going to go out of the way to be nice to her. I dreaded going to work as the day neared. She was to join on a Monday. That weekend, I played some Bruce Springsteen and got really drunk on both Saturday and Sunday, feeling bad about the state of my life. The winter was upon us and a one glance out of the window at the cold freezing landscape was enough to drive anyone to madness. I had wanted to make movies. But instead, I became someone who wrote about the movies. It was too late to start over at forty-five. If there are any young people reading this, you might think you have your whole life ahead of you when you?re in your twenties. But it goes really fast. Trust me, it does. I know.

Stella: I skipped The Fargo Journal farewell party. What was I supposed to say to my co-workers? I would never see any of them ever again. Sure, phone numbers and addresses would be exchanged. But would we ever keep in touch? I didn?t think anyone of them was going to ever invite me over for dinner. I walked to the bar. The cold breeze felt like it was coming straight from hell and beat against my face. I talked to the bartender, Jeffrey, while downing a few whiskeys. I must have known him for twenty years now. I did not tell him that I was leaving town or anything.
Early the next morning (I remember the day as Saturday, December 15th), I dragged the two suitcases and put them in the car. Then I locked the house and placed the key under the front door carpet. I had lived on rent for much of my life. I had told my landlord that I was leaving and where to find the key. Nobody came to say goodbye. I took one last look at the house that I had lived in for more than twenty years and got into the car.
When I reached the ice cream store at the corner, I choked up a little. I stopped the car there and went inside. The young man at the store did not recognize me. I asked him what his name was, and he said Colin. He seemed to be busy and paid me little attention. Old Harold Sparrow had owned the store when I was a kid. I would walk down to the store with my father for homemade orange rind ice cream that Harold made himself. He would always give me an extra scoop even though my father only paid for one. I said goodbye, the boy called Colin did not respond. I felt better when I reached the highway.

Matty: That Monday, when we were supposed to begin work together, I was hungover from all the drinking I had done the previous night. I reached work early and had a few coffees from the coffee machine. Stella had not come in. My head felt like it was being badgered with a hammer.

Stella: I walked into the office in the afternoon, after dropping my luggage off at the new house that I had taken on rent. Joey took me around, introducing me to the staff. I must have met around twenty employees before he took me to the cubicle where Matty sat. I took one look at her face and knew she was hungover. But she was a foxy babe with her hair cut short. There were wrinkles on her cheeks and dark circles under her eyes, but she carried them well, with a certain grace and strength as if she didn?t give a shit. She wore a round neck t-shirt tucked into a denim shorts, that showed off chiseled but appropriately fleshy legs. I couldn?t take my eyes off her legs and had to tell myself not to stare.

Matty: I was struck by Stella?s large barely lined face, a face like that at forty-five suggested she came from good genes. She had sharp intense questioning eyes and a prominent nose. Her large lips were painted red. She wore a tight shirt and a long skirt. I smiled at the skirt. Maybe Fargo was a little more conservative than Bismarck. We shook hands. She had a firm grip.

Stella: Our first column was due in three days. Joey kept us both on our toes that first week. He watched over us like a hawk, maybe to check if we were fighting. We agreed on an easy subject for our first column ? ?The Twenty-Five Greatest Films of the 1960s?.

Matty: We had an argument over ?In Cold Blood? and ?Le Trou?. Both crime films. I wanted ?In Cold Blood? at number one. She wanted ?Le Trou?. She railed on about the effortless brilliance of ?Le Trou? and how Becker managed to make a realistic film with rookie actors. I managed to convince her about ?In Cold Blood? in the end by talking about the clever editing, the terrific score by Quincy Jones and the intense performance by Robert Blake. Afterall, the film was a perfect adaptation of Capote?s novel.

Stella: I was impressed by her knowledge of contemporary French cinema. I was a big fan of French crime films and not just the arty farty Goddard and Truffaut stuff. We agreed to add Le Samourai to the list. We fought over The Sicilian Clan. She thought Verneuil was a useless hack, a mediocre commercial version of the great Melville. I took offense to this. I spoke about the procedural aspects of the film which were more imaginative than Melville?s and there was Morricone?s gorgeous score. But she wouldn?t budge.

Matty: I didn?t get my way always. Stella wanted De Palma?s Greetings on the list. While I had enjoyed the film, I did not think it deserved to be in the top twenty-five of the decade. We really fought over that one. She took off about how innovative and clever it was and how it had a young De Niro. I was taken in by her passion and finally relented.

Stella: It wasn?t all daggers between us. We agreed on a couple of Polanski films ? Cul-De-Sac and Knife in the Water. I could tell Matty really liked Cul-De-Sac and its helpless no hope protagonist played by Pleasance. It was a personal favorite of mine too.

Matty: We also agreed on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. I was glad we agreed that there would be just one Sergio Leone film on the list. But we fought like a couple of cats over Paint Your Wagon. I loved that one with Marvin and Clint sharing Jean Seberg. I thought it was damn sexy. We had to call Joey in on that one. He agreed with me and it made it into the list.

Stella: We impressed each other. There was a lot of name dropping and dueling over cinema. Both of us were passionate and we argued intensely. We fought over who would write summaries for which films. We criticized each other?s summaries and sometimes the arguments were quite heated. All this in the first week.
Matty: That first week with Stella was vigorous and I needed all my energy to keep her in check. It was clear that she wanted to dominate me, and I decided that I would not give an inch. Sparks would fly. There was no question about it. But I must say I was quite impressed by this woman from Fargo and I think she was quite impressed by me too. It?s a good think our cubicle was far away from the rest of the office. We could fight our heads out and the rest of the floor wouldn?t know anything about it.

Stella: Our joint column was a big success. We received more than a hundred letters within a week from many enthusiastic movie fans across North Dakota. Joey was very pleased with the two of us.

Matty: But it wasn?t just over movies that we competed. After a few days, Stella began to turn up at work in tight denim shorts and t-shirt tucked in, just like me. I found it quite amusing and flattering that she wanted to imitate my sartorial indiscretions. Then she cut her hair short and wore it like I did. I wasn?t too impressed by that.

Stella: I wanted to impress Matty. I got rid of my long skirt and shirt. I wanted to be as cool as her. I wanted her to admire my legs which were as chiseled and shapely as hers. Just like I admired her legs. I wanted to be like her, so I got my hair cut just like hers. I thought the two of us looked cute together.

Matty: We were both about the same height, I guess. Maybe 5?5. We had a lot in common physically. I had managed not to put on weight, despite my drinking. I was lean and thin for a forty-five-year-old woman. Stella was the same. There was a wiriness and toughness about her that I admired.

Stella: Our work together was so intense that I quickly got over my sadness of leaving Fargo. Matty kept me on my toes. There was never a dull moment. We would talk cinema all day. After a few days, I wanted to know more about her. I kept prodding about her personal life, but she kept dodging them, cleverly turning the discussions back to films.

Matty: The second column we wrote together was to be titled ?Brando?s Lost Decade?. It was about how Brando had made some terrible movie choices in the sixties. It was published a couple of days before Christmas. We really tore into each other while writing this one. Stella felt that the sixties weren?t really a lost decade for Brando. Afterall, he had acted in Mutiny on the Bounty, worked with Huston in Reflections in a Golden Eye and finally with Portencovo in Burn!. It?s not a lost decade if he acted in a classic film and with two all-time great directors. That?s what she said.

Stella: Matty kept harking about how he had missed out on Benhur and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Boy, we fought like a couple of cats over this one. I didn?t give an inch and neither did she. But I finally managed to add a question mark to the column title ? ?The Sixties ? Brando?s Lost Decade??. I think she was pretty done with me after this one. I wished she would invite me for drinks over the Christmas holidays or ask me out on a date. But she did not. I was too proud to ask her out.