BREAK
OLIVER STONE
Copyright @ 1969
Anthony's trip through three moods/locations:
1. The City -- Speed and Fear
2. The Forest --Decreasing Speed Fading Into Dream
3. Prison -- Silence (The Death of Words)
Freedom (End of Movie)
1. Small, student's French-type garret decorated
in deep-red, suitcase on bed. Anthony to his desk,
hurriedly examining his thick papers and books, and
throwing them on the floor. Takes a book (closeup
photograph of Genet, book's author, a photo from early
50's, in his burglar's T-shirt, his name in large, Visible
letters at base of photo) off night table, puts it in
suitcase, locks suitcase, opens door, suitcase out
door. A. back into the room, wine bottle from mantelpiece,
pouring red gasoline over books and manuscripts piled on
floor, spreading the gasoline around the small room.
Looks it all over, bends, lights match, tosses on fire,
backing up, an instant later sound of wind popping a tent
Shot of A.
and red flames shooting up. A. forced hack.
through the jumping flames, sweating with the heat and
watching. Shot of closing door through
Opening the door.
fire. A's fleeing footsteps down the gothic stairs,
trotting. Fire. cut.
Footsteps (running).
2. Voice Off:
So you ran away from school.
(Pause)
Yes.
Shot of father and son, son in jeans, boots and vest,
long hair, early twenties, his hair getting longer with
the progress of the movie, his features, icily handsome,
becoming more and more expressive and tender.
You quit.
A :* : (Inwardly)
Yea.
(A.'s small pocket knife is out, playing the edge with his
nail, shot close of his hands slightly quivering with
inner tension.)
I can see you're on acid,
Father:
Probably on
you're on pot.
pills. God knows what else!
(Laughing 'at himself)
A .-.
sex . . .
Dancing. Mushrooms.
my mind is blown.
(Gently out of tension rubs the inside of his upper leg)
(Looking at him as he
Father:
does this)
I think you're sick.
(Puts knife away)
A*: tun
I love you, you're
Anthony,
P. :
my boy*
A. striking match, watches it burn. Telephone rings.
Father picks up phone. Pause.
Strange voice hissing over the phone:
sssssss.
Hanging up.
Father, bothered, hanging up. The match in A.'s hand
burns out. Father sees it go out.
A; rising, not looking at his Father, walking to elevator
which opens directly on the luxurious apartment.
3
I think your fire is out
A:
I think
Dad . . . I'm sorry.
I need a woman, Dad. I'm
going out and find a woman, Dad-
F. startled, very distant, slowly wondering aloud:
You really are sick . . . You
have no idea really of what
reality is.
A, turning around at entrance to elevator which opens
as he talks. Then softer:
Looking at Father hard.
Right here.
Reality I have.
(Gesturing with his
hand to his genitals)
Right here.
(Head)
Right here.
(Heart)
So man . . .
(Softly)
Dad . . . don't ever tell
me I'm sick.
Shot: footsteps into elevator. Hand pushing elevator
button. Elevator drifting across Father's face,
disappearing,
3. Anthony's
Elevator opening another floor.
mother with Siamese cat on her arm getting into elevator
4
first, group of friends following dressed in fancy threads
ready to go someplace.
ITother, looking at in elevator, at first unable
A. to
recognize him: Anthony?
Yes, Mom.
A:
How are you?
Marina:
Elarina, who says this, is Russian looking, is tall with
She locks down closely
a husky voice and long black hair.
at A., who is leaning up against a side of the elevator.
Mother from distance:
Come with us.
Where you going?
A .:
Looking at Iilarina, who is looking at him.
Mother turning bored to her son, looking at :him, blowing
smoke out of her mouth:
To Hell! What difference
A .:
does it make?
A Dylan-type, freaky hair
4. opening.
Elevator
and corduroys and knee-high boots (seen later as Lerner)
is leaning up against the side of the elevator in same
pose as A's as elevator opens. Looks at the party of
people wth cold blue eyes. Goes in elevator after last
has left.
A. combing his hair in the reflection
5.
Marina
of the glass doors, with a large light-blue comb.
standing behind him. To the side.
5
A .: No.
!I. : Why not:
A .: No.
14. : why not?
A .: No.
Anthony returns to pocket of his jeans.
comb
6. Faces of party going out the glass door, mother
first, son the last.
7. Anthony at front of door, waving to them as the
doors of the limousine close.
A. (off in low whisper):
Ciaou,
8. A. gloved hands in pocket not wearing jeans
but fancier, better clothes, walking down a city sidewalk
in the damp night. A young, cautious, slightly tense walk.
Passes
A belted raincoat on, drawn up around his neck.
a tall black standing in the shadows of a doorway, very
well dressed, a silk scarf about his neck, a distant
green light blinking on and off. To the negro's right
there is a fence with a manifesto tacked on. A. stopping,
looking at the black, at the manifesto, approaching, reads
it. Camera follows down the manifesto, line by line with
his eye.
Hen Wanted
Are You a Man
Can you Kill
Are A Realist.
You
Can You Rape.
Can You Steal.
Can You Die!
Assure Yourself.
Go East.
Go To War
Today.
Shot of spade treading past A.'s back, as he reads.
9. Camera follows spade from side walking down
Reading
street. Stopping at lighted newspaper stand.
a Glamour magazine. Pull of white models.
Marina, in
Fleeting full-screen shots of the model:
Russian leather and Egyptian outfits.
A, looking, Pan his eyes to newstand where the
spade is casually walking away with magazine.
Voice off (low), ALEXANDER's soft
cultivated voice:
I fled moral courage. I
read Vogue magazines and
Comic Books . . . and suffered
as I looked across the abyss
at Beauty, such complacent
Beauty . . .
Quick full-screen blowup ?.larina; then the Silver Surfer
(a comic-book hero).
&walking down another street. It is starting to rain.
7
Cut to A. as he is trying to close a window in the middle
of the night, the cold air blowing on his naked.body. He
finds the window stuck. It will not close.
Voice off:... but then I was a
soldier . . . a soldier is a
soldier . . . and a soldier
never cries . . .
Close, A. wearing a horrible white face mask, a cigarette
stuck in the mouth hole of the mask, smoke blowing out.
Voice off:... he dies.
A. walking faster, hands in pocket of raincoat.
10.
Voices off, reeling by fast:
I know exactly how you
feel, man.
I know exactly what you went
through over there darling.
I'm hip man, you're emerging
from a cosmos of insanity.
Full screen blowup: Eisenhower, smiling, in a golf cap-
REAK H To The Other Side.
Drums starting up. B ON THROUG
Drums fade.
Voices off:
Cool it man, cool it.
Another voice:
See Alexander.
8
Voices off:
It's a fcDl man, who plays
it cool.
(Pause)
A-'s voice, off:
. . . on the loneliness tri?
they all split. Dad's face
I leave behind in the elevator.
Shot.
A's voice, off:
My mother's voice dies on
the telephone. She . . .
Shot of Marina in the hall behind A. combing his hair.
A's voice, off:
splits. I split.
...
Shot of A. in student room at fire, his fleeing footsteps.
A's voice, off:
We all split . . . We all
fade.
(Pause)
My mouth feels dry.
A. passes camera, his back to it,
11. Anthony in coffee shop next to movie theatre,
standing, eating, what he's eating. Beautiful blonde girl
waiting at the counter for her change, catch each other's
eye, the voice on the radio saying:
Drive slowly, don't gamble
with your life, remember . . .
the stakes are too high.
9
A. following her.
Shot of her moving out the door.
Superimposed images of the two walking separately.
Voice off (Alexander's):
. . . the streets are full of
The City is the fear.
fear.
The sfi>dOWS
The wind is fear.
off the buildings are fear.
The plastic people are fear . . .
the silence is fear.
Blonde girl arrives outside her doorway, sees shadow of
A. coming up to her silently, his hands on her neck,
Kissing her cheek, lightly kissing
softly kissing her.
her on the mouth again, his finger gently under her chin-
She responds gently.
Her fear melts into tenderness.
Cut to Blowup (full screen) of Joanna (seen later) in
the woods with a thin Egyptian band shaped as a snake on
her head, her face painted green, not a model but a
member of a strange tribe living in the forests.
12. Voice off, (A.'s):
I wanted to sleep with you
as soon as I saw you.
She is a painter, her comfortable
Set: Diana's apartment.
pad full of large unframed colorful paintings on the wall.
She has long silken white hair, a pale face, green eyes,
is in her late twenties, speaks with an arrogant British
tone. Together they are lying on a rug next to the fire,
10
a lion's head telling us what sort of rug. She is
Her Doberman Pincer
warming A's cold feet in her lap.
is quietly resting on the couch above them, surveying.
Sound of fire crackling.
D-. (answering):
Oh we will eventually. It
takes time. Right now you're
perfectly dreadful . . .
You don't know
you're uptight.
Look
what to do with yourself.
They're beautiful
at your hands.
long creative hands,
Shot of hands.
D .: but they're tense, quivering
as if you'd had malaria in the
East.
Smells him, a bit of disgust in her face.
D .: You're giving off no scent.
You're cold . . .
No smell.
You're clammy.
Shot: painting of black man with large red flaming
D' S
eyeballs, black on red background, an edge
semi-abstract,
insanity to it.
of
A: (off): Wow like some oyster in
his shell on a seashore.
D, (off): No, an oyster is wet,
It isn't at all
damp.
the same thing.
11
Pause, looking at A's e'yes closely. A. not relaxing
with her,
A .: Wow what do I say.
Don't say Wow, it doesn't
D .:
mean anything to me.
A But baby,
l :
(bqoving his head
with emphasis)
wow means a lot to me.
-
Shot of A. at Temple in the Forest, with black brothers,
A. saying with
Slow motion.
in their primitive clothes.
great feeling and adoration WOW (no sound).
D.'s voice, off, the camera returning to her
apartment as she talks (petulantly):
Hide Hide Hide1 Why do you
You don't have
Hide things?
to perform with me . . . if YOU
...
want me . . . be yourself
don't be honest either . . .
there's no such thing as honesty
. . . those who try it inevitably
come off smelling stained.
Cut: Coming closer together on the rug.
Shot his fingers kneading the inside of her mouth,
Shot D. playing with his zipper.
Shot A. taking his brown leather pants off.
Shot dog watching,
12
Shot D.'s face examining his naked body from above,
judging,
observing,
Shot Anthony on his back, his eyes wander to the painting
semi-abstract, examining a butterfly
of a naked woman, also
This painting,
cupped in her hands between her knees.
unframed I grows almost to full screen as camera zooms in
slowly.
D.,off: Now your bones are getting
softer. You have a lot of
bones and very little flesh.
Didpu know that?
(Pause)
A ., off: No, what does that mean?
D *, off: You're not a fish anyway.
Camera has panned across wall to closeup of painting of
black man. The voices Off;
Now you're tasting good.
D.:
You're being yourself.
A .: The fire's out.
D .: Let's go into the bedroom.
A .: Let's stay out here,
Voices, off, trailing into the bedroom:
A .: Maybe I'll go in the back.
D .: No, you may attack me from the
rear, but you will enter at the
front.
13
Shot: door closing on dog who attentive to his mistress,
is circling at the door.
Shot (sharp tense freeze) of D. upthrust on bed, arching
herself, a green scarf clinging by its tip to her mouth.
Ai's left hand, with a leather wrist band on it, on the
In her face, eyes open,
side of her head, framing it.
a sudden and surprising fear -- fear of A., fear of
release, fear of sex.
Shot close on A's face, looking at her under him, curious,
not passionate.
cut. D. naked combing her long hair with a brush in the
mirror above her boudoir, wearing small black reading
spectacles on the tip of her long nose. In the mirror, we
see the big dog lying warily on the bed with A.
You've got a nice body.
D.
You've got nice hands.
But
You've got nice hair.
I can get a thousand nice
bodies and nice hands in this
Therefore, if you're
city.
going to come back, produce.
But a little
Not just a tool.
more of everything: guts, talent,
intelligence . . . and then
together . . . we'll work.
Is hurt, not
A* on bed, hands behind head, listening.
to show it, gets up, going towards bathroom.
14
Oui, mama.
A. (bored):
D. sees him in mirrur, turning, coming towards him aslant
as he moves, black spectacles on her nose, green scarf
tied around her neck, putting herself up against him,
Dog raising
his
tapping buttock with brush reassuringly.
his head, looking at them quietly.
D .: If you are what I think
you are . . . it'll work . . .
we'll run away . . . we'll
get out of the City -..
A- (deadpan):
Oui, mama.
As he says this, earlier picture of Genet full-screen
Blowup, passes on screen through his mind.
A. goes to bowl.
Shot of solitary red rose floating in the toilet bowl.
Shot A. curious about it.
D ., off: I want to watch you
pee.
Shot of rose being destroyed by the urine.
A ., off: why?
D ., off: I'm curious.
(Pause)
What do you want from me?
A ., off:
A. in
Shot, the dog on bed looking at them both naked.
Growling lowly,
at the door watching him.
the bathroom. D.
menacingly.
cut.
15
13. The sound of jazz now, as an increasing
Clash.
We go faster.
senseof unreality envelopes the city.
It's cold, he
Anthony walking the dark night streets.
briskly, driving on in spite of his
hugs himself. Walks
growing fear. Pliles-Davis-type jazz playing off.
Shot of cat (Alexander's cat seen later) from the top,
his striped back undulating, gliding, jumping up, sitting.
Shot of A.'s other cat, the Siamese, sitting, watching the
striped cat.
The former
Shot of the street, a homosexual is digging A.
wearing a fur overcoat festooned with flower patterns and
Xoroccan lace.
Shot of A. through the homosexual's orange-colored shades
(jazz growing intense, into the drums, mimicing his
Orange shades melting into red stoplight.
fantasy-passion).
A. crossing the street at the red light, in the drizzle,
quick image shot ofa speed limit sign marked with the
twin zeroes representing infinity.
Pan across thevine covered abandoned Temple in the Forest
-(used later for second set).
Pan into the cat's eyes, cat's eyes fusing into the eyes
of spade in super-threads sitting at a small table in the
A. is only white
middle of a jazz club, decorated in red.
at the table, with the spade and a couple of heads, each
One brother with goatee very
isolated from one another.
lightly sleeping on his muscles, another softly shaking
his head like a snake riffing on the music, the third, the
16
spade with an African head sitting there perfectly stoned
within himself, eyes open, looking ahead, almost not even
paying attention to the beat.
Shot of candle.
Shot of jazz group leader, close, a slight sweat on his
himself, starting to grow more intense,
face, carrying
playing the same jazz that began the scene.
Voice, off:
Betray: Explode . . . I:
Negative . . . Betray:
Explodef
Quick shot candle.
Shot: terrifying explosion of a mine in a tree (seen later).
A. rising from table quickly, sweating, flushed, treading
Freaking on the jazz, needing
shakily towards men's room
Heavy soul James Brown, coming
something stronger. music,
UP fast on the jazz score, beginning at the moment of the
explosion in the tree . . . Brown moaning "I got the feeling".
Shots quicker in rhythm with new music.
Shots: Sweating jazz leader's face
The blacks at his table, individually
A's burning room back at the university
feet running
His
A. shakily gliding through club to men's room.
Goes in. White walls of john momentarily break his mood.
Shots Two cats locked in the toilet, their feet visible
Snorting.
under the door. Sounds of strong sniffing.
17
Bumping up against the door of the toilet as they hear A.
coming in. One of them saying in husky drugged voice
Yea . . . well a . . .
Shot: A. combing his long hair in the mirror with the
light blue comb. Closer.
Shot: A's calmer face.
Shot: A. in his forest threads, his hair longer, in the
forest, combing his hair with a small jagged pocket mirror.
His face reflected on a jagged screen.
Long shot from side of in woods combing his hair.
A.
Shot: same explosion. James Brown beginning all over
again *.. I got the feeling!
Shot: A. dancing to the music with a colored chick, alone
in his apartment, working it out. Both dance well, fast
slow, never strenuously.
Superimposed images: A. back in the jazz club
Candle
Jazz man swinging
His books and papers in flames
Smashing his photograph (seen later)
Cat, moving, watching
14. These superimposed images fading, A. and the girl
dancing to the music. I Got The Feeling peaks.
cut. No sound but that of the rain falling on the streets.
Still night.
A. getting out of the car at the corner.
One of the brothers, with the goatee, driving in the front,
the spade next to him, in the back in the shadows the third
The window wipers rubbing the
head, very high and silent.
windshield.
18
open, talking to brother in back.
A. keeping the door
Listen man think we're
A .t I
on two different trips
tonight and wow . . . it's like
we're still circling each other.
Brother in back, shy smilk-ng, not quite looking at A.
Well you kfiow how it is . . .
3rother:
we all got our secrets --
the man at the wheel's got
his. I got mine.
The
Shot of driver looking out at the rain, bored.
spade next to him adjusting his scarf.
A. looking at brother in back.
A .: Would you like to come up
We'll get so
to my place?
high, we'll have to unite.
Brother (still shy, elusive):
. . . Well it's getting late
and we gotta be at the Man's
Fe got your
in the morning.
number. FTe.11 give you a ring.
(Pause)
A .*0 Okay, man, have it your way.
Brother: Keep it cool.
A. closing door to car.
Shot of two in front looking ahead through the wet
windshield.
Car driving off.
19
A. walking through a cloud of steam rising from the sewer.
15. A girl in motorcycle gear (same girl who later
as member of the tribe is killed by Bunny; some
distinguishing feature so as to be recognizable) looking
closely at Rodinls sculpture The Kiss.
Voice, off:
I never knew why before,
There's
why it was so beautiful.
no sex.
follows her gloved fingers as they probe the area
Camera
of the male's missing parts.
16. On a wall
A. coming through the steam cloud.
A cop
behind him is painted "Freedom For Italy's Young!"
in a blue overcoat with a stick is leaning up like a
prostitute against a building down the street, trying to
keep out of the rain. walking past him.
A.
Shot: A. trying to close the window in the night. It
won't close.
turning his face -on Anthony, coming out of the shadows,
Cop
taking his cap off, long white hair tumbles down from the
cap. A. sees Diana, dressed in blue. NO look of surprise
in A.* s face, rather an acquiescence to the fear. He sees
what happens to him, not as unreality or dream, but as
objects of fear. Only later, does this Fear fade into
Dream.
20
17, Voice off, Ibther's regalvoice, previous scene
dissolving into bedroom of Mother's who is in bed looking
like a fiery wreck.
Mother, I just don't know I have
pains all over my ears, my
eyes, my spine . . . I can't
tonight I thought I
move -*.
was going to die.
Oh I'm suffering Anthony since
the East,
you've been back from
you leave this apartment in such
a mess, you're a pig! I can't
have it . . . I'm going to . . . Oh
IRm in pain it doesn't matter.
want my place impeccable all the
I
do you understand that?
time,
A * I distracted, flicking his cigarette in the waste basket
at his mother's bedside. Fire erupts immediately as if
gasoline had been soaking the trash. Mother shrieking as
the red flames jump up and block her off from A. Through
the fire, her voice:
I4OTHER: Oh you fool, you've put the
place fire.
1'11 go and tell father.
A.:
18. Shot of father sitting cross-legged on a divan
in an afghan-type robe, smoking long Turkish hashish pipe.
21
Father's voice, off:
My son, blessed be the stars
that bring f7ou to me.
-
Cut to A. picking up his young boy's face,
19.
encased in a photograph frame and throwing it out the
Father in robe behind him,
picture window onto the street,
looking off distracted somewhere else.
sound of breakage,
Long shot from above of it dropping. NO
His face in the street, the rain pouring down On it.
20. Cut to shot of telephone.
Telephone voice, off (soft):
Keep it cool.
Cool it man.
Slow fade.
21. This scene done in deadpan semi-documentary style,
mostly medium and long shots, Anthony treading lightly
into the subway, no longer wearing raincoat, but looking
more like a cat, wrapped in a light beige wool overcoat
down to his knees with hood which he has over his head and
light-blue sunglasses over his eyes, tan warm tight pants
It's about two in the morning
and heavy warm moccasins.
and the underground station is deserted save for a colored
cat well dressed in a silk scarf and wearing light-pink
shades over his eyes, leaning up against a tier on the other
side of the tracks.
Long shot of them across the tracks from one another,
22
glancing through their shades at each other, unconcerned.
An utter silence,, A. casually strolling back and forth.
Advertisements on walls for soups, intermixed with posters
Dean. Dette Davis.
of people's faces,blownup. Brando.
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman-
Edward G. Robinson, etc.
A. stops at Blowup of The Silver Surfer.
Walks on. Shot of him through colored cat's
light pink lens across the tracks. A. reading a Poster:
Believe That Love is the Greatest Thing
w I
in The world; that It Alone Can Overcome Hate, That Right
Can and Will Triumph over Might. " --John D. Rockefeller Jr.
As A. reads the poster, a whistle down the tunnel.
An express train whistles by, shot of moving people's
Express disappears.
zombie faces shooting by in the night.
Utter silence returns; whistle from down pedestrian
corridor. Ri'ch croesus-rockefeller type emerging dressed
He's old with grey
in rich furs, a red flower in his fur.
Walking back and forth near the
hair, distinguished.
tracks, a bit nervously but detached and rich.
Puts a pair of light yellow shades on, looks at
A, on his side of the track and the brother across
the track, Sees them both looking at him with their
variously colored shades (shot of them through his yellow-
He doesn't
shades). Puts them away.
He takes ihem off.
like them.
shot of rich man pacing through A.'s blue shades
23
(if in black and white, a frontal view of A. looking is
good enough) and then through the brother's pink shades.
Suddenly train whistles down tunnel, coming down
A.'s track. Then brother's. -Train
Shot through A-Is eyes.
approaching, screaming. Shot through rich man's eyes.
Nervously pacing at the very edge of the track. Roar of
train. Rich man jumping head on into the tracks. Roar as
train goes by, pulls to a stop. Long shot A. casually
getting into subway. Shot of brother, left
Pulls away.
alone. on subway platform. Watching the train pull out.
Train through his pink shades. Looking at the bloodied
tracks. Do not see what he sees. Camera on his unsurprised
eyes. Greys can kill greys.
22. seated, a white wall behind
Solitary shot. Woman
her. First shot, her beautiful legs. The
Tilting up.
face and body of an old woman. Staring at the camera.
23. Blow Wp Pull Screen of Mureyev. Momentary.
(Nureyev the ballet dancer)
24. Shot A., narcissistically examining his own face
in the mirror , proud that it is icy. Trying suddenly to put
expression into it. Not satisfied.
2s. Cut to Anthony throwing his photograph into the
street (seen earlier). Slow motion as it descends onto
sidewalk, shot from above. Shot Nureyev's face smashed in
the street.
24
26. Anthony in a stark white walled toilet, a violin
Anthony
softly playing off screen a classic Mozart melody.
writing with pencil on wall in large capitals:
To Be Real!
To Feel!
FREE!
(semi-documentary effect to this scene)
Camera dwells on Free.
cut to
27. Some stock footage out of the great fencing scene
in The Sea Hawk (1940) with Errol Flynn battling his adver-
sary in the castle, their two huge silhouettes leaping up
on the stone wall behind them.
Its effect camping the seriousness of A.'s feelings perhaps
This
implying his own ability to see himself comically.
ability being what makes him go on and not give up, the
difference between him and Alexander.
Violin is still playing through this scene. Footage is
cut at the moment Flynn kills his adversary.
Violin continues.
28. Camera panning a park, discovering Man in the
Cold, in the day, not raining, his head in his hands,
looking at a small fire burning in wired trash barrel.
a
Dwells on him.,
A dime mister?
Voices off:
A: If you need bread man, steal it
(pause)
25
A: (cont'd): Can I steal it from you?
(pause)
Here, take this key . . .
(low mumbling follows and fades)
29. Shot of father in business suit, speaking
Scene
on telephone, his arms gesturing, angry, disgusted,
done in silence except for violin which is still playing.
Pan from father's gesturing arm across to his
looted apartment, drawers on floor, food eaten in kitchen,
liquor bottles open, the mirrors stolen from their frames.
Pan across his library full of rich leather bound
books, left untouched, Panning across this, camera comes
to a young boy with long hair (Anthony) in a Cardin-type
suit playing the piano (the same child is seen later as
Anthony's own child). The off screen violin fading, and
Anthony picking UD the same gentle melody on the piano.
Camera not stopping long at him, keeps panning to his
young ITother, much younger, virginal, in a long dress
reaching to her ankles as in the early 50's, looking in
profile out the window at the garden, an afternoon sun
shining.
(soft, a boy's tiny voice)
Voice off:
The world is sorrow, nothing more,
and in its bosom I play . . . the
practice of my heart.
Camera panning out to the garden. Dissolve very slow.
26
(off 1
30. There are no Truths outside the gates
of Eden.
Shot of
Shot: unframed blowup of Dylan on wall.
ALEXANDER'S back on side, looking at pester, hating just
spoken this. Turns around:
I was what you are . . . I am what you're
going to be.
Alexander, handsome all in voluptuous black, walking
This
away from poster, down a few steps, into his apartment.
scene, as very important to the
well as the apartment, are
theme of the movie, Alexander being a throw-back to the
A blow up
feelings expressed through Words, through Poetry,
Of Dylan in his apartment and a romantic unframed portrait of
Anthony,
Rimbaud, the young French poet he identifies with.
in the apartment with him, is more modern, more uncertain Of
his symbols (so far Genet, Movie Actors, Vogue and Glamour
Models being his only glow ups; he makes Alexander's trip here
in the Apartment and later again one last time, in Prison,
where Alexander's destiny is unfolded along with Anthony's*
Two different roads, but sprung from a similar source.
Alexander's dark brooding clothes accentuate the
idea of a modern bewildered Hamlet lost in a sea of words in
a world where Words are dying.
During the course of his monologues, the camera Will
pass through his Apartment, picking up objects such as his
two cats, one striped, one Siamese, the paintings, the blow-
ups of Comic-Book characters Alexander has but on his VJall~
27
a poster of Jim Morrison of the Doors, and several large
plants (optional) -- and flowers. The Apartment's colors
could be plain white and black, either black walls and
ceilings and bright white furnishings or vice-versa, but a
Plastic
stark contrast between two schemes, old and modern.
white chairs, bubble tables with neons glowing on them,
abstract portraits, that of Rimbaud could be semi-abstract
red and green, contrasted to this single classic furnishing --
Alexander -- all in black, pacing through his large one-room
apartment studio. A picture window looking out on the
dark city way below. Also a fireplace above which hangs a
torch. Not an Apartment stressing Wealth, as Alexander is
beyond it, almost mythic to Anthony.
As written, the camerats effect is to circle the
room time and again 1 panning the objects as the spoken words
themselves encircle themselves.
The Siamese sits in a white plastic chair, looking.
The striped cat is on the move.
Alexander gliding past his objects, finding a
cigarette, Anthony is sitting across
lighting it, standing.
from him in a chair, dressed in a light motif -- contrasting
to Alexander's black. Looking at Alexander, Anthony in his
clothes looks like he's burned his lar;t candle.
Alexander looking at him, understanding::
(softly) What's happened, Anthony? Tell
me.
A, pausing, shrugging, saying "Oh" like the French
say it. Lighting cigarette. Camera wandering away from him-
28
His voice off, soft, almost an interior monologue:
Strange things happen to me .-- feel like a
I
little boy inside a crazy crazy city, trying to close a
window . . . and the window's jammed . . . (Pause) .-. I keep
having accidents,
Camera moving around room takes in another Anthony
sitting there, in another outfit, spilling champagne on
himself, camera continuing past him as if nothing has happen-
ed. Quick cut to A. flicking the cigarette into his Mother's
wastebasket but before fire can erupt, cut to sight pf auto-
mobile accident, an anonymous body lying in the street . . .
Cut to A.'s face close, worried:
I met a girl yesterday in the park . . .
I was walking my Mother's dog.
Shot of A. in the park walking his Mother's little
Diana walking her Doberman. The Doberman swarming over
dog.
A.'s dog. Talking
Diana berating her dog. Leashing him in.
A. talking to
to A, who holds the little dog in his arms.
her. Both talking.
I: didn't know it then . . . but she was
the law.
Shot of Diana, her long white hair, in the blue
policeman*s overcoat, her voice off:
You may attack me from the rear but You
will enter by the front,
Fading into her freeze in bed, the green scarf
clinging to her teeth by its edge, draped on her bosom, the
29
fear of release written in her eyes:
. . . so I was the thief (&net B~CJW UP)
explanations, in contrast to Alexander=,
Anthony's
are mostly made in images:
... cop a cigarette case from her.
I
Shot A. leaving her apartment, taking a gold cigar-
ette case.
. . . she sees me . . . (D. sees him) . . . she
pretends she hasngt.
Shot Diana acting as normal, the dog still growling
at A., soundlessly.
. . . says goodbye . . . says call me soon . . .
knows I won't . . . I stole . . . I'm caught . . . I don't return . .
(pause) . . . she adores it . . . I do what she wants . . . she's
a thief . . . doesn't know it. (camera dwelling on Alexander's
portrait of Rimbaud) . . . she paints . . . she steals . . .
Shot of full screen of Diana's painting of the
woman and the butterfly. Shot A. photograph, similar to
Shot
Genet's, in a t-shirt, looking sensitive and a thief.
A. close, talking, blowing cigarette smoke out mouth.
. . . but she doesn't admit it . . . stays a
COP . . . loves . . . like a cop.
Shot Diana in bed, freeze, green scarf, etc.,
fading into shot of red rose sitting in the toilet bowl,
slow fade.
Alexander: But you're not a thief, are you?
Anthony, looking up at Alexander. (Pause)
Alexander: Any others?
A. mood, starting
changing to smile:
Oh . . . I met this crazy chick at an auto-
mobile wreck .., (shot of same wreck, seen previously) . . .
she takes me home to her place ,.. we talk . . . she's incredi-
bly warm .-. we go to bed . . . then very suddenly ehe says,
do you like to dominate or be dominated? . . . I say it doesn't
make any difference . . . I don't think about it . . . she says, I
want to beat you . . . okay ..* she weighs about a hundred
pounds . . . it's passionless . . . I feel foolish . . . she says,
man, you're so square . . . beat it .-. beat what? ..- get Out
of here! . . . she throws a boot at me (shot of boot hitting the
wall next to A.)
Closeup; A's face:
We just couldn't get together . . . (pause)
(A. reflecting) . . . You walk around and you meet so many
squares you begin to think you're square ,.. then sometimes
just everybody's out of his head . . . then YOU
you think meet
the freaky obsessed ones like that chick . . . snake people,
cat people, dog people .,. (pause; closeup A.'s face) . . .
and YOU just don't know where you're at.
punish yourself-
Alexander: (a tender look) YOU
A: this crazy chick
Yeah, that's just what
said, Why do you punish yourself, That's what they always
say when you want to find something and you're looking very
hard. You'll it) anything just to
try anything (emphasizing
find out, and if nothing is available, you go out and force
A, in street, walking) and because YOU
yourself to look (shot
31
force yourself, these crazy people pin a label on it --
Masochist, why do you punish yourself?
Alexander: So now what?
(pause)
A: (shrugging, shifting mood)
(Camera dwelling on timbaud, shifting
to the Comics) ...I'm sick of sitting in movies . . . there's
some kind of real war in the East . . . they need men . . . I
need new faces . . . It11 enlist.
Alexander and Anthony, looking at each other. A.
going on almost in apology:
.e. the money's good, you keep what YOU
take . . . you find out . . . if you can kill . . . if you can't
(shrugs at his own morbid
.-. (pause) . . . do you get killed?
thought),
A soft
Alexander picking it up-
Telephone rings.
feminine voice, husky, saying over the phone:
Is Diana there?
Alex&tier: She's gone,
Is she coming back?
Alexander: No.
This is Luna. How are you, Alex?
Alexander looking at wall, reflecting, hesitant
about something. The voice continues:
I have a partin a
I'm going to the East,
Will you still be
new movie of Godard's, I'll be back.
here?
Alexander, looking puzzled:
I don't know.
32
Alexander hanging up, pacing to front of abstract
Able.to be read:
lettering hanging on a canvas on the wall,
"Painters paint, Writers write, Poets sing, Killers kill (read
by camera going down from line to line).
Alexander turning away from tableaux, asking A:
Are you a killer who kills, Anthony?
(going on) You have never . . . ever ,., betrayed yourself to
me .., ever, it's sad that you're this way . . . you insist
really on being your own hero in your own little tragedy.
Shot: face. His offscreen voice:
A,`s
Words
The images begin. Four quick images from Anthony's
mind tumble on screen, each image running through his mind
with a click, as from a slide viewer:
1. A. killing the anake with his knife (seen later).
Shot from A.'s
2. A. as sole survivor of massacre.
shoulder, of desolate stream bed in the forest (seen later).
In profile.
A. being decorated in dark shadows.
3.
A dark hand in a greta garbo glove putting an orchid on his
afghan-type uniform.
The silver bird (airplane) flying across the
4.
sky (seen later). Silver bird on airfield runway, stopped,
Alexander,
the door opening. Parents,
The hero returned.
Diana, others there. Four strong black brothers in furs
bearing a pink marble coffin strewn with yellow and black
flowers from the plane. Shot of horror on Parents' faces-
looking
Diana
Alexander bowing his head, tears on his cheek,
hard, offended by this heroic act.
33
Images end.
Alexander: . . . I don't think you know yet whether
you want to live or die.
Close shot A's face. Pause,
(becoming hard] . . . I see before me with
A:
my eyes. I see a Siamese sitting pn a chair (camera follows
these objects he mentions) . ..I seeposters of Dylan---Morrison`
Superman . . . people with secret identitie . . . I see a library
full of exalted expectations -written by people who've been
eaten by worms .-. I see a portrait of Rimbaud . . . young,
tender, bold . . . (camera dwelling on portrait) who after all
his travels and adventures was delivered back to the beginning
dying of syphilis
into his mothergs arms . . . (bitterly)
l . .
. . . and I see one writer (camera directly on Alexander,
humbling him, beginning to reveal his identity) - He
wrote a poetic book at the tender age of
eighteen. He's lived inside these
He's done nothing since.
four walls for more than a year now wrizing to all hours, dream-
ing thinking imagining having his women around him like little
insects, and without knowing it himself, becoming an ultra-
sensitive, very tender plant,
An interior
This wounds Alexander. A long pause.
monologue delivered offscreen between the two of them, in
urgent, intimate whispers, something they might have said to
each other before somewhere in the past:
(soft, said quickly) . . . when I die will
A:
Will you let me in?
I see your face at the Gates of Eden?
I don't think I'd let myself in.
Alx:
34
Camera which has been panning the room during this
short interior dialogue, returns to Alx. who is talking more
to himself in a wistful vein:
It's
We really live like plants though.
the wordless part of ourselves where things just happen to
us .., we're hard on our animal selves, so hard, and we travel
such a long way, looking at Dylan blow Up "it's so hard to
very few of us young ones ever
get on" . . . and so few, SO
really make it, (Turning to A. After a long pause) I've been
here tco long--. like yousay.. My mindistooloose, my legs
.areinstagnantwaters- Last night...1 took mylasttrip,..., I
asked my -.,"insect woman",--to leave me-.-She did-
Shot of A. listening to Alx's conversational story,
imagining it. Alx on floor in lotus position, Diana, his
Diana, painting ~1~'s face with long snaky luminescent colors
Alx
sprouting from the eyes, the nose, about the forehead.
She
looking very Indian, very intense, about to be brutal.
is finishing. stands, looks in the mirror, says something
He
to her, looks at her tenderly. She leaves,
A: . . . as soon as she left, I set my Poems
and my books, everything on fire (shot of flames seen in
same 1) . . . it was everything I had done #is last year we-
I took a bag -- writing -- and
but it made no difference.
went to the end of it, as far as could go, and you know
I
All else had
what I found . . . I found nothing but myself.
fallen -- Truth Illusion, whatever it is, and The Dream had
very suddenly come down to an inescapable almost implacable
35
unmerciful factor, factor-inanition One. Me! . . . I, like some
poor poet would say, had punctured by beautiful beautiful
quintessence. Quintessence is a lung. Bang SSSSS.
He hisses. Walking to a flat table designed as
a chess board, with the pieces on it, all of them white, A~x
picks up a castle in his hand, rolling it over, saying a bit
more gayly:
Alx: So I started playing a game of chess with
myself today (turns to A.) it makes sense . . . (camera on
the all white chess pieces, A~X replacing the castle) . . . and
I shall play until I've completely lost track of which piece
belongs to which, of what belongs to what, of who belongs to
who . . and then when the game is over (he pauses) . . .
You'll what?
A:
Camera on Superman Blow Up, shifting to one of
Tarzan.
Alx: You know, Anthony, what the most beautiful
dream in the world is . . . it's the iris of a glistening green
serpent snowfloating on a film of mosspink water,
perforating pupil gazes at your naked back, it slices
its
through the fluid brim . . . it goes on and on, fingers of the
dawn.
A.indifferent to any meaning Alexander attaches
to it:
words.
These are just
A: I don't understand.
Words fall out of
Alx: But words are thoughts.
the sky like this rain. They glide from street corner to
36
street corner *.. (Camera dwelling on cat, the striped one,
moving, the Siamese looking at him, the cats play a little
game as the monologue continues) . . . thinking, there's
always one more word* one more thought nonetheless, isn't
there? Train of thought. On the last
On the next corner,
corner. I pass. What was it?
I go. I passed it by. YOU
search, You fail, You wish perfection in the mind, YOU
are close, closer , yesterday but one, tomorrow but one, SO
close you are almost there. Tomorrow! It collapses and
where are you? Thinking, dimly thinking. On and on, through
a threnody of streets, through words made of rain. (A.
looking at the Rimbaud portrait).
Interior monologue. hollow distant boy's
A I
I wrote the inexpressible, I fixed frenzies in their flight.
I purged my mind of all human hope. strangled joy. 1
I
pounced with the stealth of a wild beast. called to the
I
executioners. I gnawed their rifle butts as I died.
Oh! the banner of raw meat against the
silk of seas and artic flowers. veerings of chasms!
Music,
and the clash of icicles against the stars (pause) I*11 re-
turn with limbs of iron, dark skin and furious eyes; people
will think to look at me that I am of a strong race made-of
I will cover myself with gashes, tattoo my body, as
gold.
I'11 howl through the streets.
ugly as a Mongol, you'll see,
37
1 will be raving mad and never work and never show my jewels
-
. . . and one night (pause) the demon will seize me. and embrace
me and we will wrestle on the floor and one night I will lose
and come to regard as sacred the disorder of my mind1
Shot of Anthony's face, closer up, closer, his face
dissolving into the trees blowing in the forest right after
the explosion (seen later),
Shot of Alexander, looking out the window down at
the city. Goes on talking. As he talks, camera casually
panning Anthony as he rises, puts his coat on, and leaves,
He has be-
to go back outside (to the street) which calls.
Alexander
come really just another object in the apartment.
His back is
accepts his leaving without saying anything.
The camera alter-
turned. He is speaking as if to himself.
nating between the Apartment and the rainy street Anthony is
walking down,
Last night I was alone
Alexander: (his voice off)
. . . at the musicend of death .,. staring flatfaced into a
pond . . . the sea, the ghosts of the lungs . . . the promise of
things to be . . . A bony damp cavern where women grow like
in the night,
seaweed from the sea, they owl iboo iboo. cry
her hand like an edge on my isolated shoulder -- so sweet as
I rest, in her breath in her breast my head on her shoulder
and weep. Weep Weep! (shot of Comic Book Blow Up fading to
shot of Anthony chasing Joanna through the woods, seen later)
. . . the fingers of the dawn they weep . . . all is seen through
an eyeccave of bonepillars that redound . . . percussive 0-m
38
. . . porous . . . stumbling towards spectrum . . . slipping on
sound ,.t eating air. I tell myself, reminding myself, it
is wet in my shell, in my strong, strong shell, it is wet and
0 now I feel . . . I feel the days melting into years and light-
years liquidating the years and time itself crumbling . . .
through the lungs the ghosts sing, their songs carry into the
air, air atmmsphere, air all about (shot Al%% face, quick
Cut to A. emerging in the street, sniffing gratefully the wet
air) . . . air air, fixed and silent, how silent . . . long
silences inhabit this air, the drip drop of it in my ear, in
the air perched, sounds, tedium's sweat, like the movies, a
forgetive imago, in black and white and chevied with chiaro-
Yes --
scuro . . . and in the zoo it takes two days to say Yes.
the only word that matters in the language . . . it's in Eden
. . . Yes.
A. walking down a street hooded with construction
On the wall painted in red are
timber, the walls in blue.
the words, Freedcm for Greece!
Alx: (concluding) Out on the ocean (slow shot
of ocean late just before the sunset) when it is green and
desolate and cold, and the big waves come up (slow shot of
Seagreen blue
waves rising and falling) out of the emotion.
water, Thrashing on the skull . . . I dip my face inwards
(Camera panning to an anonymous youth floating by himself in
the water) and float my starved eyes on the wide window of
the sea. And lull my eyesockets to a wide-eyed sleep . . .
strange sample of the sea, transfusing the spark of ingenuity
39
(shifting, asking) there is no ingenuity in the sea is there?
... I wonder: what sharks are poised between here and there,
what fish lie lonely under the waves.
Shot A. walking, back Cut to Alx.
to the camera.
looking in a mirror , puzzled, perhaps realizing A. has left
and he is alone, his words are much slower now:
A face . . . is a face . . . nothing more?
The end of Truth . . . is this face? . . . (pleading, his voice
off) flee the fugitive dream . . . it glistens in the moon . . .
it dances on slithery serpents (shot of slithering snake in
(Shot
theTemple . . . by rushing waterfalls.
(seenlater)
Squeezed inwards by
the stream in the forest, seen later)
flesh-fed pythons that coil slimes of eternity about my eyes
(Shot Anthony being bitten by the snake, seen later) and . . .
To die . . . to
forgive, forget . . . free to finish my hope.
be - . . . no more . . . Dead!
me (both question and exclamation).
Shot: Francis at the stream, dying, seen later.
Cut to Alexander's sad face. Alexander approaching the end,
which is played out later in Prison.
street, these words following him,
Anthony, on the
He's tired, exhausted, worn
leans up against the blue fence.
out. His offscreen voice whispering, fighting off the
desire to give it all up:
Words . . . just Words wrapped around
Words.
Anthony in the
Dissolve to Previous Scene 26.
bathrobe, scrawling on the wall with the pencil:
bleak white
40
To Be Real!
To Feel!
FREE!
(But instead of the previous semi-documentary
style, this scene is shot again with a closer, realer camera,
catching the strong desire in Anthony to achieve what he
writes.
Dissolve
Forest - Stream - Temple
The City
Time and place and worlds have changed.
has been unreal, frightening. Here a much more relaxed
primitive world -- that of snakes, slow quiet, but suddenly
Anthony moves
very fast, very violent, and very dangerous.
from the Fear of the Cat into the Dream of the Snake. He
And never for-
will be bitten by it, and he will kill it.
getting it, will journey on into the final, deep-sea world
of silence. Then Freedom.
A, has gone to the East to fight with the mercenary
He's part
soldiers against the wild tribes of the Forest.
of a small detachment of fifteen-twenty men resting deep .
in the jungle-forest of a small old abandoned Buddhist
temple. The relics are broken, the statues on the floor,
mixed with the mercenaries' light individual equipment --
41
rifles, small knapsacks, grenade belts. In this temple
Buddha still stands , some stray unknown forest people still
coming to worship here, There are fresh joss sticks burn-
ing. Several mercenaries, mostly black in their early
twenties r are inside the temple, sprawled on the floor on
their ponchos, a small fire going. One is sleeping,
another reheating a piece of meat; they have killed a wild
deer and his half-eaten corpse is still slowly roasting on
a stick built over the fire. Several of the blacks are
smoking the Forest Hash which they are passing sound in
They wear an
two pipes which are very long and beautiful.
individual mixture of uniforms although their pants are all
If they wear
the same -- light tight-fitting breeches.
shirts -- several are bare-chested with medallions (Bud-
dhist, Christian, sharks' tooth, other designs) and tattoos
-- the shirts are loose, some of them ruffled, and mixing
with the camouflage of the jungle -- green and tan gold,
Some wear head bands around
black and white striped, etc.
their long hair, silver bracelets, beads, one wears sun-
glasses, another brother with a thin hawklike nose wears
a black bandanna tightly wrapped on his head, as if, like
the other brothers, he was just off the city block taking
This is to be kept in mind for the
a trip in the Jungle.
Fate that befalls this outfit results from the fact that
they are not really part of The Forest.
Very few of them
spite of their disguises, from The City.
will be able to survive the primitive ordeal of this world,
42
Though th@ outfit has been several weeks in the Forest,
the blacks have no beards. A small transistor.radio plays
inside the Temple and two of the Brothers are dancing
softly to the sound of soul music.
The white world is for the most part outside the
Temple, sprawled about it in the thick grass, relaxing.
Some have beards, others have shaved, but their faces are
hard and dirty, dust and dirt is deeply ingrained in the
cracks of skin, Anthony is an exception, he has kept him-
self clean, his beard barely visible, although there are
small lines of fatigue under his eyes and a small scar
under his left eye, the result of a previous wound, not
serious. He tends to rub it occasionally. Ironically, in
the war, he has become even softer. Time has crumbled:
he is spacing himself.
The contrast is made then, by camera CloseuPs,
of the black and white features, The Blacks are tenderer,
softer. The Whites are tired, cruel. The blacks Sing-
Dance. Although inside they are as blue as the sky, and
scared.
Opening Shot (set to Music, contrasting to the
World of Words Anthony has just left behind in the City.
31. A black soldier with rifle and grenades, but hat-
less like all the rest, is striding through thick elephant
grass and thicket, the camera with him as he walks, catch-
ing the effect of the green elephant grass splitting apart
43
as he walks, the sun gleaming through the trees, almost
moving with him, seen and then not seen and seen again.
From a distance, inside the temple, on the radio, Sam
Cooke's song "Cupid" is playing loud, and sort of sad like
all Cooke's songs , giving a texture of music and sunlight
to his walk.
He breaks through the thicket into the crystal
clear sun shining over the tiny clearing around the
Temple. The Whites sprawled about.
As he breaks through the thicket, Anthony, wear-
ing silver bracelets and a Buddhist medallion around his
neck and a ruffled dirty shirt, his hair unkempt, longer
than before, is taking his picture from a distance through
a telephoto-lensed camera, which for the first time, he
A. snap-'
carries with him, Radio still playing "Cupid".
the shutter again. Photographic freeze of Robinson
ping
and Anthony's first use of his eyes
(the soldier), XUS~C
are themes inherent to The Forest.
Camera on A. as he moves about the clearing,
pictures of the White soldiers. Their photographic
taking
freezes. Introducing their hard faces.
A. shooting Lee, who is at the head of the out-
fit (later described).
A. shooting Bunny, the youngest soldier, who is
handsome and tender looking, though later his actions
describe him as stupid and cruel.
A. pausing, walking a little bit further away
44
from the temple.
* Isaac, a
A. approaching from a distance moder-
with sharp attractive
ately tall, slender, muscled Indian,
features, no beard whatever, his long black hair curling
down over his forehead, could look like a little boy but
he stands there away from the rest, sharpening his long
glistening hunting knife. His chest is without hair and
he wears a thin loose-fitting vest of black cloth hanging
from broad The way he sharpens
unbuttoned hLs shoulders.
his knife, with stone and cloth, it is obvious this is his
most important possession.
A. raising the camera to his eye to take his
, sees Isaac raise his head
picture. Through the lens, A
Shakes
as he feels the camera on him. Looks at camera.
his head. Turns away from the camera-
A. walking back into the Temple after his trip
32.
the scene in the Temple as described
into the white world.
Two Brothers.dancing to the music- He
previously,
stops at the threshold of sunlight, thinks about taking
in here cannot
can't, this wrld
a picture but knows he
goes and sits by Francis, a brother
be photographed, He
has tender features-
He
who is very close to Anthony.
A. listening, smoking the bowls as they come
directions.
around, from both They are all feeling -very
nice. On the radio, Smokey Robinson's "Tracks of My Tears"
45
is playing, and as the two brothers dance, Francis, who
has a very high singing voice, though not as good as
Smokey's whom most people mistake for a woman he sings so
'tenderly, starts to sing with the radio:
People say I'm the life of the party
cause I tell a joke or two
Although I may be able to laugh loud and hardy
deep inside I'm blue
So take a good look at my face
You'll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer
It's easy to trace
The tracks of my Tears
I need you . . . Need you
Since you left me, if you've seen me with
another girl
Seeming like I'm having fun
although she may be cute
She's just a substitute
because you're the permanent one
So take a good look at my face
You'll see my smile looks out of place
Look a little bit closer
It's easy to trace the Tracks of My Tears
etc.
song, his brand of blues, the camera
As Francis sings
closes on him; in the backdrop, Buddha sits.
46
As he sings, the rest do not look at him sing,
they know he can sing, they've heard this song a hundred
times, they know it too. They lie where they are, look at
what they do, and deep inside, where it's blue, they listen.
The two brothers, on their feet, dance slowly, a
gestures with their hands about shoulder level, and
few
their feet moving in a tiny circle of tenderness,
The pipes continue to circulate, Francis even
interrupting his singing momentarily to smoke, hold, ex-
He is not performing, he is
hale, and then sing again.
just singing along. The smoking of the Hash naturally has
some relationship to the surrounding dream world of The
Forest, but isn*t really significant and like the singing,
is very casual , going almost unnoticed by the camera.
The song ends.
33. Camera dwells on Buddha at peace, another long
The camera moving to
afternoon in The Forest drifting by.
Adams who is very high, off by himself in a corner of the
temple. He is one of the whites, wandering through his
head, his low interior monologue . . . The monologues here
are done swiftly, voices following quickly on other voices.
Adams: {off) There's no entertainment out
here. There's no movies, no shows . . . no girls . . . I live
in a beautiful world .., where things don't make any dif-
ference. It will take them a long time to come where I am
at . . . maybe they think I'm crazy . . . but I'm not . . . I
have friends.
47
Camera moving from Adams to the ones he calls his
friends. To King, who is the biggest brother, very black,
with big white cotton picker*s nails. His large pink hand-
some tongue, as he says:
Adams: The King has a pink tongue es. He says
he eats a lot of chicken *.. there ain't no chicken here
.a. in the forest.
King's voice off following quickly on Adams@:
King: Cotton is easiest to pick, it's tall,
I could pick 600 pounds in a day.
Camera on Francis who's talking to Anthony,
b
Camera moving to King,
Francis: (voice off) There's nothing harder than
a hard Mexican, ain't that right man, Anthony says there
ain't nothing harder than a hard Mexican ..-
Another Voice: (off) How old are you Anthony?
Ageless,
A.
Francis: As old as water hunh?
All these voices are off.
Adams: Francis got soul . . . he got it in his
voice . . . he got it just all over the place.
(off - following quickly on Adams') Z:
Voice:
myself to sleep at night wondering what it's all about.
cry
Voice: Candy,
Voice: Is that what she calls herself.
Voice: No.
Voice: What she call herself then?
48
Voice: Louise.
Voice: Louise?
Her real name's Daisy filae.
Daisy Mae? Daisy Mae what?
Another voice: Daisy Mae Highway.
Shot of Manny chuckling, wearing sunglasses,
very skinny and nervous.
Manny: Louise . . . Almond Joy. (chuckling)
The rest picking it up, (chuckling) off:
Veronica . . . Big valley
Lili *.. Jazzfingers
Patsy Pinkbottoms
Irma Greasepit
Olive Oil
tit fades)
Camera to Adams examinging a photograph of his
girl at home, who is fat, his voice off:
I miss you baby .., I miss you so
much . . .
Hey man, put your woman away .-. we
Voice off:
got a long walk ahead of us.
Camera on A. who is smiling having just taken
part in the name game. Scratches his scar.
(off) I used to think he was crazy .*.
Adams:
he was always taking pictures with that camera . . . really
he's very kind of smart and is good at it too . . . once he
49
told me when I asked him why he took allthcse pictures, he
said he'd never used his eyes before . . . he says this
wasteland is beautiful . . . that's what makes him crazy . . .
talking like that . . . those kind of people never seem to
get killed though . . . he got grazed below the eye . . . we
thought he was dead . . . somebody somewhere looks out for
him 0.. me I'd never used my ears before I came to the
forest . . . I'd like to write when I get out, I'd like to
write down what I hear. First I'd go back and get some
schooling and catch up on my spelling . . . there're a lot
of questions I have but they'll probably never get answered
. . . like how high is the sky, how many flies there are in
the world . . . how do they know people don't live in the
stars?
As Adams is wandering around in his head, camera
moves from A. to Jeremiah (called Rhah) who is strutting
up very confidently, his walk snake-like, all waves, un-
dulating. He looks older than the rest, his Origins seem
He speaks with a slight
obscure, probably from the South.
Southern twang. He's white.
arriving, standing above the relaxing group,
34. Rhah
over, a slight malicious smile on his face.
looking them
Francis looking up, smiling
What's happening Rhah?
pausing, fixing the whole circle in his
Rhah,
eye, settling on Buddha for his address, smiling:
50
Rhah: I'm what's happening and if you don't
dig me, Your shit is hanging in the wind, that gentleman,
is what say ..- Baaaaaa (he delivers this last like a
I
growl, a neigh, implying I am what I am).
Lerner, the only other white with Anthony and
Adams in the Temple, a Jewish looking boy from the City,
young and freaky with curly hair, thin (he was the boy at
the elevator in scene 3) looks back at &ah, his tongue
hanging out like an alcoholic grotesquerie.
And Baaaaaaaal back on you (delivers it
with all the contempt and venom he can, shaking his head,
a stuporific look in his eye, making a grotesquerie Out Of
what Rhah delivered with a certain style).
Rhah looking at Lerner hard with distaste.
Rhah: If you're going to do it, do it right.
(Rhah winds himself up and with a dramatic downsweep of his
fist, at the same time taking a step with his foot, de-
livers a huge convincing Baaaaaaaaaa! his head shaking,
staring wide-eyed at Lerner.)
The group laughing. aah
Draws himself up.
smiling and proud of himself.
Laughing dies.
Lerner looking at Shah with half-closed eyes.
I didn't like it.
Rhah coming right back,
You're a child. I
Screw yourself.
don't waste time talking to a child.
51
Lerner taking his head into his hands, shaking
his hair, pretending to weep:
I'm a child. I'm a child.
aah looking away in disgust. Shot of A. looking.
Francis to Lerner:
Wow man don't take it so bad,
Werner, raising his head:
Oh it doesn't bother me what Rhah says.
He can't even begin to bother me. see I know what he
YOU
is and (his eyes looking at phah, malicious and gleaming
like he was going out of his head too here in The Forest)
he's just a tangled up screwed up scared up little man ..*
getting old.
Pause. Shah his back to Lerner, getting annoyed,
turning back on him, suddenly serious:
And I'm
I'm little.
Dig it. I'm old.
scared, and I done the crimes of stealing and killing, 1
I been in the United States
been in the Foreign Legion.
I been to Africa, China, Vietnam and countries You
Army.
never heard, been a truck driver, a
I been a cook, I
picked cotton till
parachutist, an officer, a scout, I
Then I picked
there weren't no more cotton to be picked,
smoked more shit
rocks and sold those. I done my time. I
been busted four five
than you`ll smoke in a lifetime. I
times. Ask King (looking at King who is lying on his cl-
bows, his eyes closed, almost ready to crash) we been the
same way in life, we smoked our brains out together, we
52
=li-&ed the walls, we balled ourselves ask a King young
ma, ask him if in all the time we been together he ever
Once. (waving his finger) once saw me lose my cool . . .
Hever! Right King?
King, barely able to speak:
Yea, F?hah and me been the same way,
done the same things.
Rhah: (looking hard at Lerner, who is looking
at the floor, bored) And dig it baby I got silver stars,
bronze stars, Croix de guerres, all kinds of silver and
maybe a hundred and sixty stitches says I made the scene.
(Stopping) Whatch you got? (Shot A. looking up at
Rhah's face, forced to pay his respecgs, because Shah is
really telling the Truth) Rkrah going on, concluding, draw-
ing himself back up; more humorously:
So put it this way, if I want to
pretend I'm Superman, if want to let my hair grow
I I
will,
as long as Thor's, I will, and if anybody points his little
be in his shit so fast he'll think
pink finger at me, 1'11
speed was going out of style . . . he'll be hanging out there,
in the wind, wondering (Shah wagging his head) Who was
that. That was Rhah!
pause
Lerner, head bowed, saying: Whew.
Anthony has listened.
On the radio, which had temporarily broken down
during Rhah's appearance, starts up again, Manny playing
53
with it. As when Francis was singing, most of the brothers
have not seemed to listen to F&&I make his scene, They
hear but they don't look, as if their ears, eyes, and mind
were all separate senses.
Manny toying with the radio, gets it playing
again but some crazy station and Lili Marlene is being
sung by Marlene Dietrich, about ten seconds before Nanny,
slightly embarrassed behind his black shades, turns to
the soul station, saying:
that's some old time sides they're
WOW
throwing at us.
1s smoking like an old
F&ah has seated himself.
bull.
Outside, Camera moving to the
Commotion.
35.
windowless sunlight hole on the side of the temple (several
Shot
such holes around the walls, about 3 by 4 feet.)
Cries.
through this frame of some whites chasing around.
"Get the snake!" "Food!" etc.
Camera outside closer, shot of a large yellow
black and red snake, moving very fast over the ground,
The snake moves
fluttering white hands trying to catch it.
with great twists of its body, making you wonder how it can
Camera
move so fast. Knowing these hands are Death.
dwelling on this snake, moving at about five miles an
hour, sliding through, over, under, but unable to get Out
of the large circle the whites have made around it. We
54
almost sympathize with the poor snake, fighting wildly,
through the circle and they .are running
Suddenly it breaks
after it again. They cannot catch it, but the powerful
snake, making one mistake and unable to pick out Isaac,
the Indian, who is standing perfectly still watching,
slithers unknowingly through Isaac's spread silent legs.
We haven't seen Isaac yet. First shot of his
legs and the snake sliding through. His hand speeding
downandpinning it by the neck. Tilt up, medium shot, to
his face as he scoops it up. A grimace of pleasure on his
face, snake dangling by its neck, its tongue flickering
Sees it
helplessly. Lets it dangle,
Isaac hisses at it.
Wraps it around his
is non-poisonous. Stops hissing.
wrist; on the other wrist, coincidentally, he has a replica
of a snake done in silver, smaller, three or four coils
The snake crawls up his arm
wrapped around his wrist,
towards his neck. This scene with Isaac and the snake is
shot fairly fast, not too dramatically.
Long shot of Isaac and snake through the Temple's
Taking a
sunlight hole. A. focusing his telephoto lens-
picture. Freeze of picture.
Isaac seeing A. take the picture (close shot of
Isaac's eyes) a virile smile on his face, and wordlessly,
because it is his snake, walking out of the small throng
of whites who are around him, admiring the snake,
walking in his soft tread towards the temple, the snake
now wrapped around his neck (by now it should be obvious
55
that it is not poisonous) its tongue and head swaying over
Isaac's chest. On his bicep, Isaac has a small graceful
tatoo Born To Kill,
Long shot of him approaching Temple.
Francis: [off) Crazy people dig snakes, crazy
people.
A. Violence is like snakes.
We hear the snap of his shutter as he takes
another picture of Isaac approaching . . . very quick ,o,
Veq unexpected ,,., Click.
Quick freeze of snake's head swaying.
Side shot of Isaac moving, from the waist up.
The camera zooming out slowly on Isaac, till it
brings Francis and Anthony into view looking through the
sunlight hole at the moving Isaac.
He scares me man, he's
Francis: (off at first)
He plays his knife like she was
wild, crazy in the head.
a woman.
(taking another picture) He moves nice
A.
man 0.0 it's funny it's tender, it's soft ..O it's SO all
alone.
Nothing.
Shot out to front of what they see.
Isaac has already glided in around them, in the tiackdoor
of their Temple.
36. As the camera is focused out through the light
hole, there is a slight rustling behind them, the sound a
56
snake makes when it sways. Frontal
They turn swiftly.
shot of Isaac standing right behind them the snake wrapped
around his arm, its head swaying out in front of Francis.
Francis doesn't move, but his face muscles tighten and his
eyes dilate a little.
Francis: Don't fool with me man, don't fool
with me,
Isaac smiling. Behind him, still sprawled
around, the radio Flaying, are the brothers and Shah and
Lerner and Adams, but things are quieter and without look-
ing they listen.
Isaac
Anthony is also repulsed by the snake.
sees this. Smiling a bit, says slowly,
Isaac: You been staying a long time in the
shade Anthony. fixing to get a tan? . . . Like his
YOU
(nodding at Francis) or red like mine? (he smiles)
Isaac coiling the snake in the cup of his hand,
it up to A.
Offering
A. hesitating a moment, putting the camera away,
looking at Isaac, takes the snake, not looking at it as
its wet living body winds through the fingers of his hands,
The snake
Isaac smiling. A. looking directly at him.
A look of comprehensix and re-
winding up Anthony's arm.
Isaac sees it,
laxation coming into his face.
Isaac: It's alive, isn't it?
nodding, taking the snake in his hands,
Anthony
passing him around his neck, his waist, beginning to feel
57
a tremendous joy in this living wet damp creature, his
fear of it disappearing. The snake responding P beginning
to calm down on Anthony'sbody. At this point, Isaac says:
Give it to me.
Anthony hesitating. Attracted by the power in
Isaac's eyes.
He gives the snake back. Isaac cups it in his
palm.
Isaac: (to Anthony) Come,
They go down together, down the three steps
which separate the raised floor around the inner wall of
Isaac leads Anthony
the Temple from the worshipping floor.
up to the Buddha,
As they walk, we pick up from the radio the
hollow voice of Sam Cooke again, singing "Let's Twist The
Night Away' -- almost a four o'clock in the afternoon
voice, at the dead end of the day, this accent on Twist,
Twist, Twisting the Night Away.
Isaac places the snake on
Buddha has many arms.
The
one of these arms. Anthony to his side watching.
snake, in the arms of this new almost golden object,
starts glistening and sliding wildly through its many arms*
Isaac drawing his long hunting knife with his right hand
from his left hip, his features dedicated, as a priest
before the blood-letting.
Isaac: (not looking at A.) We sacrifice.
Quickly he pins the snake's speeding head With
58
his left hand and without hesitating violently slices its
head off, a cruel look of brutality on his face.
With his left hand, Isaac whips the snake's
*im?iw head in the air, as if it were a scalp. His arm
is quivering. His head is down, the gesture not deing
that solemn, but more spontaneous, quick, contemporary,
the gesture has already faded, he pulls in his arm. Puts
the head to his lips. Drinks.
A. looking
Turns to A. Offers him the head.
at Isaac, powerfully attracted by the look of strength in
Drinks.
Isaac's eyes. Takes the snake head.
it goes down
Tastes the blood in his mouth.
strong. A smear of it on his lips making them corral-
Close shot of Isaac's
colored. Close shot of his lips.
wide strong mouth.
A shot, a single rifle shot is heard from out-
side.
Its echo dies.
They look at
Anthony and Isaac haven't moved.
Isaac's eyes alight with anticipation at the
each other.
Anthony's eyes completely
- rifle shot, the call of danger.
lost in Isaac's animal eyes, feeling a powerful attraction
to this almost human fire.
Shot of fire. Scene 1.
Anthony under-
close, of Isaac's face.
Shot,
standing the fire is in people and between them-
The other soldiers
The rifle shot is repeated.
59
are hurrying out of the temple now, not having been
alarmed by the first shot. The radio going with them.
Shot of Isaac and Anthony standing in front of
Buddha.
Solitary shot of the rifle that fired being
raised by an arm into the air. Resting in the sky, flat,
in Indian style. A cry is heard. (Explained later, the
cry is "Freedom" but in a strange language).
Dissolve
37. The screen is in blackness for several seconds.
Then a chant begins in the blackness, a Dionysl'an chant
or something similar.
What is the name of the father
What is the name of the son
What is the name of the father
What is the name of the son
. . . Dionysos Dionysos
God of Joy
God of Love
. . . Dionysos Dionysos Dionysos
(example taken from "Dionysos in
'69" off-Bdway play)
The chant is repetitive, accompanied by a tarn-
bourine, but in this repetitiveness, in this lack of desire
to search for new interpretations, there is a real feeling
for love, which is really a source without words.
60
The screen slowly comes to light and we see a
young tribe, maybe a dozen, dancing freely in the forest by
a stream. Perhaps they are the enemy, it is not made clear
yet. They are a mixture of young men and women and their
children, white and black. They dance hugging each other,
their long hair jumping, in all sorts of love contortions
that display their freedom. They are all in love with each
other, with And easy as it iS
forest.
their god, with the
to make fun or laugh at, this scene at first must be done
with the camera truly involved in their spirit of joy and
freedom.
The hair
Some are blondes, some black haired.
long; the players young and contemporary looking and above
to preserve the spirit of the scene, they must move
all,
well, in some sort of time to the tambourine, throwing
their bodies into it. Ideally, they are naked, and some
But barring that, they wear fiasy
of them body painted.
threads, hand made, of beautiful colors,
primitive tribal
A few wear colorful head-
exposing their handsome bodies.
bands, all of them some kind of ornament -- bracelets,
beads, native jewels, clasps, etc. The colored tribesmen
do not exactly wear the same clothes, as I think they would
look sort of silly. Their threads suit them and nobody
else and there is no need,to establish any equality/
similarity as far as clothes go, saying that Freedom has
If they're not naked, then let them
no respect for clothes.
What they
look beautiful with their own motif in mind,
61
want to be is left up to them, In his mind, the writer
forms the image of the black panther -- a sort of ineradic-
able wariness at the root of their Freedom, unlike the
White who when he loses his mind, really proceeds to lose
it, and to embrace the new. Whether the blacks actually
dance is left up to them. They could be sentinels in the
woods, they could be on the stream watching the others do
their dance.
38, Camera paning up slope from the tribe into the.
Long shot
woods. Their singing carrying with the camera.
of soldiers moving slowly in single file through the woods,
in the same combination of clothes as at the Temple, carry-
ing rifles, small knapsacks on their backs, hatless.
Having cautiously,
Camera zooming slowly into the point man, who is
Bunny, the youngest one, set out to prove he's as good as
any man, his features assuming a distorted hardness.
Camera now encompassing Lee who is second in the file,
He is small
carrying a map in his hand, a young sergeant.
with a heavily repaired face indicated by the seam of scar
tissue running from his ear along his jaw to his chin. He
wears a red bandanna around his neck.
Bunny still in the camera's eye, turning back
Lee gives him
to Lee as he hears the sound of the music.
a tight look, squinting; he frequently squints, nervously
assuring himself of which part of his face is really his.
62
Comes up on Bunny. Puts binoculars over his
eyes. Do not know what he sees. Brings binoculars down.
Looks at his map. Is puzzled. around.
Squints. Turns
Motions to the men with his arm to sweep out downslope,
slowly. Finger to his lips to indicate silence, although
the men know what they are doing anyway and can hardly see
his gestures.
Frontal shot
The men disappearing in the forest.
of them inching down the slope to the stream. Then side
There are
view of them approaching. Music growing louder.
no sentinels around, oddly.
They approach the stream and quietly crouch down
behind rocks, trees, dead logs. Take off their knapsacks.
What they see at first does not really excite them, they
are much too wary and as a group have up to now functioned
as soldiers.
Shot of A's face. A. moving up further, very
interested. They have been watching for a while and Un-
Francis and
controllably, they start inching further up.
They pass
another brother joining A. from different sides.
Anthony, putting his rifle and
each other a puzzled look.
knapsack down, taking his camera out and shooting the
tribesmen.
Others.
Shots of Adams, Lerner.
Shot of Lee, his tight body on the ground, his
39.
binoculars to his eyes , propped on his elbows looking.
63
Puts the binoculars down. Picks his rifle up, puts it to
his shoulder, his eye squinting, medium to close shot, he
is an expert marksman, his legs loosely spread and the
stock of his rifle deeply imbedded in the shoulder, the
rifle slightly twisted inward, his rear elbow coming up
off the ground as he sights in; for a little man, he
shoots high off the body, very confident, very precise.
Camera dwells on him as he is about to shoot.
But he hears footsteps behind him. Takes his eye from the
stock, squinting, not looking around. The footsteps
getting closer. On the feet
Shot of the feet next to Lee,
are moccasins, they are Isaac's, Lee looking up at Isaac,
who has a small French submachine gun cradled in his arms,
and is looking down at the stream bed. Isaac giving Lee
a look and proceeding down to the stream, his action fore-
stalling a massacre. Lee with hate in his eye, staring at
Isaac's back. He squints.
40, As Isaac walks down to the stream in the Openl
The tambourine stops.
a female in the tribe sees him.
Shot of one of the tribe's blacks
They stop dancing.
standing up from where he was watching and warily looking
at Lsaac, Proud, but
who walks on down to the stream.
He stops a little
puzzled for the first time in his life.
dis tame away.
The leader of the small roving tribe, no older
than his early thirties calls to him.
64
(Making with his hand
Peace and Joy1
a small sincere gesture, something like this: 9x1 the word
Peace, showing the back of his hand, Joy: the front of
his hand, |
