Monday, June 16, 2008

Titanic Exclusive Screenplay (Part Three)

41 EXT. AFT WELL DECK / POOP DECK – DAY
JACK AND FABRIZIO burst through a door onto the aft well deck. TRACKINGWITH THEM as they run across the deck and up the steel stairs to the poopdeck. They get to the rail and Jack starts to yell and wave to the crowd onthe dock.
FABRIZIO
You know somebody?
JACK
Of course not. That's not the point.
(to the crowd)
Goodbye! Goodbye!! I'll miss you!
Grinning, Fabrixio joins in, adding his voice to the swell of voices,feeling the exhilaration of the moment.
FABRIZIO
Goodbye! I will never forget you!!
CUT TO:
42 OMITTED
43.EXT. SOUTHAMPTON DOCK – DAY
The crowd of cheering well-wishers waves heartily as a black wall of metalmoves past them. Impossibly tiny figues wave back from the ship's rails.
Titanic gathers speed.
CUT TO:
44 EXT. RIVER TEST – DAY
IN A LONG LENS SHOT the prow of Titanic FILLS FRAME behind the lead tug,which is dwarfed. The bow wave spreads before the mighty plow of theliner's hull as it moves down the River Test toward the English Channel.
CUT TO:
45 INT. THIRD CLASS BERTHING / G-DECK FORWARD – DAY
Jack and Fabrizio walk down a narrow corridor with doors lining both sideslike a college dorm. Total confusion as people argue over luggage inseveral languages, or wander in confusion in the labyrinth. They passemigrants studying the signs over the doors, and looking up the words inphrase books.
They find their berth. It is a modest cubicle, painted enamel white, withfour bunks. Exposed pipes overhead. The other two guys are already there.
OLAUS and BJORN GUNDERSEN.
Jack throws his kit on one open bunk, while Fabrizio takes the other.
BJORN
(in Swedish/ subtitled)
Where is Sven?
CUT TO:
46 INT. SUITE B-52-56 – DAY
By contrast, the so-called "Millionaire Suite" is in the Empire style, andcomprises two bedrooms, a bath, WC, wardrobe room, and a large sittingroom. In addition there is a private 50 foot promenade deck outside. A room service waiter pours champagne into a tulip glass of orange juiceand hands the Bucks Fizz to Rose. She is looking through her new paintings.There is a Monet of water lilies, a Degas of dancers, and a few abstractworks. They are all unknown paintings... lost works. Cal is out on the covered deck, which has potted trees and vines ontrellises, talking through the doorway to Rose in the sitting room.
CAL
Those mud puddles were certainly a waste of money.
ROSE
(looking at a cubist portrait)
You're wrong. They're fascinating. Like in a dream... there's truth withoutlogic. What's his name again... ?
(reading off the canvas)
Picasso.
CAL
(coming into the sitting room)
He'll never amount to a thing, trust me. At least they were cheap.
A porter wheels Cal's private safe (which we recognize) into the room on ahandtruck.
CAL
Put that in the wardrobe.
47 IN THE BEDROOM Rose enters with the large Degas of the dancers. She setsit on the dresser, near the canopy bed. Trudy is already in there, hangingup some of Rose's clothes.
TRUDY
It smells so brand new. Like they built it all just for us. I mean... justto think that tonight, when I crawl between the sheets, Iill be the first-- Cal appears in the doorway of the bedroom.
CAL
(looking at Rose)
And when I crawl between the sheets tonight, I'll still be the first.
TRUDY
(blushing at the innuendo)
S'cuse me, Miss.
She edges around Cal and makes a quick exit. Cal comes up behind Rose andputs his hands on her shoulders. An act of possession, not intimacy.
CAL
The first and only. Forever.
Rose's expression shows how bleak a prospect this is for her, now.
CUT TO:
48 EXT. CHERBOURG HARBOR, FRANCE - LATE DUSK
Titanic stands silhouetted against a purple post-sunset sky. She is lit uplike a floating palace, and her thousand portholes reflect in the calmharbor waters. The 150 foot tender Nomadic lies-to alongside, looking likea rowboat. The lights of a Cherbourg harbor complete the postcard image.
CUT TO:
49 INT. FIRST CLASS RECEPTION/ D-DECK
Entering the first class reception room from the tender are a number ofprominent passengers. A BROAD-SHOULDERED WOMAN in an enormous feathered hatcomes up the gangway, carrying a suitcase in each hand, a spindly porterrunning to catch up with her to take the bags.
WOMAN
Well, I wasn't about to wait all day for you, sonny. Take 'em the rest ofthe way if you think you can manage.
OLD ROSE (V.O.)
At Cherbourg a woman came aboard named Margaret Brown, but we all calledher Molly. History would call her the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Her husbandhad struck gold someplace out west, and she was what mother called "newmoney".
At 45, MOLLY BROWN is a tough talking straightshooter who dresses in thefinery of her genteel peers but will never be one of them.
OLD ROSE (V.O.)
By the next afternoon we had made our final stop and we were steaming westfrom the coast of Ireland, with nothing out ahead of us but ocean...
CUT TO:
50 OMITTED 51 EXT. BOW – DAY
The ship glows with the warm creamy light of late afternoon. Jack andFabrizio stand right at the bow gripping the curving railing so familiarfrom images of the wreck. Jack leans over, looking down fifty feet to wherethe prow cuts the surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets ofwater.
CUT TO:
52 INT. / EXT. TITANIC - SERIES OF SCENES – DAY
ON THE BRIDGE, CAPTAIN SMITH turns from the binnacle to FIRST OFFICERWILLIAM MURDOCH.
CAPTAIN SMITH
Take her to sea Mister Murdoch. Let's stretch her legs.
Murdoch moves the engine telegraph lever to ALL AHEAD FULL.
53 NOW BEGINS a kind of musical/visual setpiece... an ode to the greatship. The music is rhythmic, surging forward, with a soaring melody thataddresses the majesty and optimism of the ship of dreams.
IN THE ENGINE ROOM the telegraph clangs and moves to "All Ahead Full". CHIEF ENGINEER BELL
All ahead full!
On the catwalk THOMAS ANDREWS, the shipbuilder, watches carefully as theengineers and greasers scramble to adjust valves. Towering above them arethe twin RECIPROCATING engines, four stories tall, their ten-foot-longconnecting rods surging up and down with the turning of the massivecrankshafts. The engines thunder like the footfalls of marching giants. 54 IN THE BOILER ROOMS the STOKERS chant a song as they hurl coal into theroaring furnaces. The "black gang" are covered with sweat and coal dust,their muscles working like part of the machinery as they toil in thehellish glow.
55 UNDERWATER the enormous bronze screws chop through the water, hurlingthe steamer forward and churning up a vortex of foam that lingers for milesbehind the juggernaut ship. Smoke pours from the funnels as--
56 The riven water flares higher at the bow as the ship's speeds builds.THE CAMERA SWEEPS UP the prow to find Jack, the wind streaming through hishair and--
57 Captain Smith steps out of the enclosed bridge onto the wing. He standswith his hands on the rail, looking every bit the storybook picture of aCaptain... a great patriarch of the sea.
FIRST OFFICER MURDOCH
Twenty one knots, sir!
SMITH
She's got a bone in her teeth now, eh, Mr. Murdoch.
Smith accepts a cup of tea from FIFTH OFFICER LOWE. He contentedly watchesthe white V of water hurled outward from the bows like an expression of hisown personal power. They are invulnerable, towering over the sea.
58 AT THE BOW Jack and Fabrizio lean far over, looking down.
In the glassy bow-wave two dolphins appear, under the water, running fastjust in front of the steel blade of the prow. They do it for the sheer joyand exultation of motion. Jack watches the dolphins and grins. They breach,jumping clear of the water and then dive back, crisscrossing in front ofthe bow, dancing ahead of the juggernaut.
FABRIZIO looks forward across the Atlantic, staring into the sunsparkles.
FABRIZIO
I can see the Statue of Liberty already.
(grinning at Jack)
Very small... of course.
THE CAMERA ARCS around them, until they are framed against the sea. NOW WE PULL BACK, across the forecastle deck. Rising, as we continue back,and the ships rolls endlessly forward underneath. Over the bridge wing,along the boat deck until her funnels come INTO FRAME besides us and marchpast like the pillars of heaven, one by one. We pull back and up, until weare looking down the funnels, and the people strolling on the decks andstanding at the rail become antlike.
And still we pull back until the great lady is seen whole in a gorgeousaerial portrait, black and severe in her majesty.
ISMAY (V.O.)
She is the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in allhistory...
CUT TO:
59 INT. PALM COURT RESTAURANT – DAY
CLOSE ON J. BRUCE ISMAY, Managing Director of White Star Line. ISMAY
...and our master shipbuilder, Mr. Andrews here, designed her from the keelplates up.
He indicates a handsome 39 year old Irish gentlemen to his right, THOMASANDREWS, of Harland and Wolf Shipbuilders.
WIDER, showing the group assembled for lunch the next day. Ismay seatedwith Cal, Rose, Ruth, Molly Brown and Thomas Andrews in the Palm Court, abeautiful sunny spot enclosed by high arched windows.
ANDREWS
(disliking the attention)
Well, I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mr. Ismay's. Heenvisioned a steamer so grand in scale, and so luxurious in itsappointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here sheis...
(he slaps the table)
...willed into solid reality.
MOLLY
Why're ships always bein' called "she"? Is it because men think half thewomen around have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?
(they all laugh)
Just another example of the men settin' the rules their way. The waiter arrives to take orders. Rose lights a cigarette.
RUTH
You know I don't like that, Rose.
CAL
She knows.
Cal takes the cigarette from her and stubs it out.
CAL
(to the waiter)
We'll both have the lamb. Rare, with a little mint sauce.
(to Rose, after the waiter moves away)
You like lamb, don't you sweetpea?
Molly is watching the dynamic between Rose, Cal and Ruth.
MOLLY
So, you gonna cut her meat for her too there, Cal?
(turning to Ismay)
Hey, who came up with the name Titanic? You, Bruce?
ISMAY
Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size. And size means stability,luxury... and safety--
ROSE
Do you know of Dr. Freud? His ideas about the male preoccupation with sizemight be of particular interest to you, Mr. Ismay.
Andrews chockes on his breadstick, suppressing laughter.
RUTH
My God, Rose, what's gotten into--
ROSE
Excuse me.
She stalks away.
RUTH
(mortified)
I do apologize.
MOLLY
She's a pistol, Cal. You sure you can handle her?
CAL
(tense but feigning unconcern)
Well, I may have to start minding what she reads from now on.
CUT TO:
60 EXT. POOP DECK / AFTER DECKS – DAY
Jack sits on a bench in the sun. Titanic's wake spreads out behind him tothe horizon. He has his knees pulled up, supporting a leather boundsketching pad, his only valuable possession. With conte crayon he drawsrapidly, using sure strokes. An emigrant from Manchester named CARTMELL hashis 3 year old daughter CORA standing on the lower rung of the rail.
She isleaned back against his beer barrel of a stomach, watching the seagulls.
THE SKETCH captures them perfectly, with a great sense of the humanity ofthe moment. Jack is good. Really good. Fabrizio looks over Jack's shoulder.
He nods appreciatively.
TOMMY RYAN, a scowling young Irish emigrant, watches as a crewmember comesby, walking three small dogs around the deck. One of them, a BLACK FRENCHBULLDOG, is among the ugliest creatures on the planet.
TOMMY
That's typical. First class dogs come down here to take a shit. Jack looks up from his sketch.
JACK
That's so we know where we rank in the scheme of things.
TOMMY
Like we could forget.
Jack glances across the well deck. At the aft railing of B deck promenadestands ROSE, in a long yellow dress and white gloves.
CLOSE ON JACK, unable to take his eyes off of her. They are across fromeach other, about 60 feet apart, with the well deck like a valley betweenthem. She on her promontory, he on his much lower one. She stares down atthe water.
He watches her unpin her elaborate hat and take it off. She looks at thefrilly absurd thing, then tosses it over the rail. It sails far down to thewater and is carried away, astern. A spot of yellow in the vast ocean. Heis riveted by her. She looks like a figure in a romantic novel, sad andisolated.
Fabrizio taps Tommy and they both look at Jack gazin at Rose. Fabrizio andTommy grin at each other.
Rose turns suddenly and looks right at Jack. He is caught staring, but hedoesn't look away. She does, but then looks back. Their eyes meet acrossthe space of the well deck, across the gulf between worlds.
Jack sees a man (Cal) come up behind her and take her arm. She jerks herarm away. They argue in pantomime. She storms away, and he goes after her,disappearing along the A-deck promenade. Jack stares after her.
TOMMY
Forget it, boyo. You'd as like have angels fly out o' yer arse as get nextto the likes o' her.
CUT TO:
To be continued…

No comments: