Ry Cooder

ARMS FOLDED across his chest, Louis Malle stares stoically across the Hollywood soundstage as the last scene of Alamo Bay, his new film set against the battles between American and Vietnamese shrimpers in Texas a few years ago, is suddenly transformed into a brief, backwards blur. Only solitary pool and ping-pong tables break up the empty expanse between the giant screen at one end of the movie theater-sized room and a massive mixing console where the the French-born director waits to finish off the final sound mix.