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MONDAY, OCTOBER 25 , 2021. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ RE C
BY TRAVIS M. ANDREWS,
BRITTANY SHAMMAS
AND ELIZABETH MILLERA tragedy on a New Mexico
movie set, where actor Alec Bald-
win fired a prop gun that killed
cinematographer Halyna Hutch -
ins and injured director Joel Sou-
za, has ignited conversations
about workplace safety on films
involving firearms. In particular,
the incident has put a s potlight on
the role of a set’s armorer, or a
firearms specialist — and the lack
of formal training required to be-
come one.
An armorer is tasked with man-
aging all firearms used on a film
set, ensuring they look realistic
and are appropriate for the setting
of the film. More importantly,
they’re tasked with ensuring the
weapons are clean, correctly load-
ed, properly kept up and safely
handled.
“There’s no school for this,” said
Mike Tristano, a master armorer
who has been in the business for
three decades. “You can’t go to the
American Film Institute and learn
armory.” Still, good practices can
ensure safety o n movie sets, Trista-
no said.
Hannah Gutierrez, the daugh-
ter of widely known Hollywood
armorer Thell Reed, was the ar-
morer on the set of “Rust,” a west-
ern starring Baldwin that was be-
ing filmed at the Bonanza Creek
Ranch. An affidavit filed by a S an-
ta Fe County Sheriff’s Of fice detec-
tive states that she had set up three
prop guns in a gray cart. Assistant
director Dave Halls grabbed one of
them, brought it to Baldwin and
yelled, “Cold gun!” to indicate that
it did not contain a live round.
According to the affidavit, he was
mistaken.
Gutierrez did not respond to
multiple requests for comment
from The Washington Post.
The detail that Halls h ad han-
dled the weapon alarmed Jeremy
Goldstein, an Israeli military vet-
eran and Hollywood armorer.
“No crew member should be
handling a weapon of any kind
other than the armorer, designat-
ed prop person or actor. Full stop,”
Goldstein told The Post in an
email. “The armorer must clear all
firearms with the [first assistant
director] when bringing them to
set, and verify that they are un-
loaded. Then the armorer does the
same with the actor, but the fire-
arm does not leave the custody of
the armorer or designated prop
person.”
Halls has not responded to a
request for comment.
There is no standard test to
become an armorer, according to
Tristano, and training mainly con-
sists of internships or other work
under master armorers, the indus-
try term for experienced armorers
who oversee those with less ex-
perience.
Gutierrez, 24, had been head
armorer on a film before “Rust” —
another western, “The Old Way,”
which has not been released. On a
SEE BALDWIN ON C2‘Rust’ death
shines light
on movie
armorers
BY EMILY YAHRThis year, one celebrity couple
dreamily captured the public’s
imagination in a way that you
might not have expected, given
that we’re still living through a
global pandemic. Yet nearly every
time a photo of this pair is re-
leased, looking almost suspi-
ciously stunning and in love, peo-
ple of the Internet stop doom-
scrolling so they can swoon.
Of course, we’re talking about
Bennifer 2.0. But for some reason,
Megan Fox and Machine Gun
Kelly are trying to convince us
that it’s them.
Bennifer, the delightful re-
union of Ben Affleck and Jennifer
Lopez 17 years after they first
dated, is an elegant and inspira-
tional tale about rediscovering
your possible soul mate in your
50s. Meanwhile, Megchine Gun
(what, are we supposed to call
them “Megan Kelly”?) is a cringe-
worthy spectacle whose most no-
table achievement may be provid-
ing our culture’s defining — and
dumbest — quote of 2021.
“I am weed.” This was appar-
SEE MEGAN MGK ON C4
The ‘ick’
couple with
‘it’ couple
aspirations
TELEVISION
Meghan McCain’s fights
on “The View” were as
nasty as they looked, she
says in her new book. C3CAROLYN HAX
The plan was to quit her
job and be a stay-at-home
mom. Now she’s having
second thoughts. C8KIDSPOST
A Florida teenager’s
music therapy invention
wins the 3M Young
Scientist Challenge. C8JAMIE MCCARTHY/GETTY IMAGES/MTV/VIACOMCBS
“ He was like, ‘You’re gonna be naked tonight.’ I was like, ‘Whatever
you say, Daddy!’ ”: Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly at the VMAs.as “withheld,” he says in an
afterword to “Silverview.”
A posthumously discovered
work is one of the art world’s
great intrigues, for it raises so
many titillating questions, spec-
ulations, suspicions, hopes.
Might this be the true expression
of the creator’s soul? Might it be
terrible?
Thankfully, what le
Ca rré has left us is a
thoroughly enjoyable
book, more accessible
and less complex than
his greatest works. This
is not the sort of novel,
like “Tinker, Tailor, Sol-
dier, Spy” or “Smiley’s
People,” that demands
you stop mid-sentence,
flip back 50 pages and
start again from there.
But “Silverview” still
ma nages to build on
themes Le Carré has de-
veloped so skillfully —
betr ayal, mendacity, bureaucrat-
ic inanity and our willingness to
accept black-and-white explana-
tions of a gray world — over
decades as one of the world’s
best-selling authors. Perhaps, his
son wonders, le Carré held off
publishing “Silverview” in his
lifetime because it cut too “close
SEE BOOK WORLD ON C3BY MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIAOne day the master spy novel-
ist John le Carré was walking on
Hampstead Heath in London
with his son, the writer Nick
Cornwell.
Le Carré, whose real name is
David John Moore Cornwell, was
afflicted with cancer, but a kind
that you “die with rather
than from,” according to
his son’s recollections.
Nick Cornwell (who
writes under the pen
name Nick Harkaway)
doesn’t remember the
exact year, though it was
sometime in the “meta-
phorical summer” of his
father’s life. But he does
recall with crystal clarity
the promise he made:
He would finish any in-
complete work le Carré
should leave behind af-
ter dying.
That pledge came to Hark-
away’s mind in December when
Le Carré died at the age of 89
after a fall at his home in Corn-
wall in southwestern England.
He knew that there was, indeed,
an unpublished work of his fa-
ther’s called “Silverview.” The
son looked it over and concluded
it was not so much “incomplete”BOOK WORLDLe Carré leaves us
a thoughtful message
SILVERVIEW
By John le Carré
Viki ng. 224 pp.
$28BY CHRIS RICHARDSAs a s ongwriter of supreme resourcefulness
and extraordinary wit, Caetano Veloso knows
where to find the most superb melodies in life.
The quiet centerpiece of the 79-year-old’s latest
album was inspired by the bedtime vocaliza-
tions of his newest grandchild, now 17 months
old, who learned to sing himself to sleep. The
song is called “Autoacalanto” — “self-lullaby” —
and Veloso is more than happy to imitate his
grandson’s sleepy vowels over a video call from
his living room in Rio de Janeiro: Ou-ah-ahh!
Ou-ah-ahh!
“That was astonishing,” Veloso says of
hearing it for the first time. “He would sing
until he fell asleep!” Even more astonishing
was news from Veloso’s daughter-in-law that
her friend’s infant does the same thing. Same
for the child of Carminho, the Portuguese fado
singer whom Veloso duets with on this new
record. “Well, this is a generational phenom-
enon,” Veloso says, his pixelated smile beam-
ing wisdom and delight through the computer
screen.
So much of Veloso’s songbook lives at th at
contact point between human intimacy andsocietal shift. He’s renowned for kick-starting
tropicalia, one of the most vibrant musical
protest movements in history — a style-slash-
ethos in which Veloso and his compatriots met
the brutality of Brazil’s rising military dicta-
torship in the 1960s with playfulness, tender-
ness, imagination and grace. The highly om-
nivorous music of the tropicalistas combined
the delicate vitality of bossa nova with the
electric zest of the Beatles to such dazzling
effect, the sound got Veloso and fellow song-
writer Gilberto Gil exiled in 1969. After a f ew
lonely years in London, they returned home as
national superstars committed to Brazil’s
democratic future.
And with Brazil’s election of far-right
president Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, Veloso has
made it clear that his commitment will not
waver. “Having a military government is
awful and Bolsonaro is so confused, so
incompetent,” Veloso told the Guardian last
year amid the Brazilian president’s flagrant
undermining of the environment and educa-
tion, as well as his botched response to the
coronavirus pandemic. “... There’s been no
government — just a racket of insanities.”
SEE NOTEBOOK ON C2Caetano Veloso’s sweetest of dreams
ALINE FONSECASONY MUSIC LATIN
The title of Caetano Veloso’s
“Meu Coco” translates to “My
Coconut,” as in “My Noggin.”The Brazilian icon
revels in a world of
wide-eyed wonder in
a child’s ‘self-lullaby’CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK