PIERRE and the AMBIGUITIES – A Filmscript - 3. Part 3 – Portraits Do Not Lie

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[Part 3 – Portraits Do Not Lie – I: Isabelle’s Scream]

EXT. SADDLE MEADOWS – NIGHT

The house has every window lit. There is a festive air as coachmen open carriage doors and help ladies down. The MUSIC of Isabelle’s theme enters softly, mixing with female LAUGHTER, but grows more forceful as the scene dissolves into the next one. ^[3]

 

INT. SADDLE MEADOWS STAIR HALL

The two-story space is lit, and the firearms and battle-damaged banners cast the ominous pall of the past onto the room. At the top landing, MARY and PIERRE stand in evening clothes with hands touching; Pierre’s making a fist over Mary’s extended arm. They glance at each other, nod heads, and separate. Mary descends the left staircase, Pierre the right. They perfectly match one another’s pace without looking. At the bottom they link up again and face the closed double doors to the great hall. They walk, Pierre feeling the weight of his heritage oppress him. As they near the portal, the doors open silently outwards for them.

 

INT. SADDLE MEADOWS GREAT HALL

This room, about thirty-foot square, is lavishly lit with lamps and candles; it is also filled with WOMEN. They sit in large groups of mixed ages around one of six quilting frames, and chat merrily. MARY and PIERRE stride slowly into the heart of the room. Pleasant nods are offered to several of the most distinguished women at the head of the groups. Suddenly, everything comes to a halt: the music ends abruptly; all working hands pause in mid- stitch; mother and son stop – a woman’s grief-laden SHRIEK comes from one corner of the room and confuses Pierre because it instantly echoes off of every other corner. It is a long-drawn, heartbroken, and unearthly scream. Movement catches everyone’s eye. ISABELLE BANFORD rises and stares at mother and son with ashen calm. The shots of her are a series of close-ups, cut with similar shots of the official portrait of Pierre’s father in the same room. Pierre is greatly affected to see this face – it is so similar to his father’s, only with darker features. He does not notice that his mother recognizes the face too, but grows hard against it. She knows it is her husband’s bastard child, somehow here, under her own roof. An older woman at her quilting frame stands and lays hands on Isabelle, breaking her staring enchantment with Pierre. Isabelle acts like she wants to run away, but is steadied by several women around her.

 

MARY

(no restraint)

Pierre!

 

PIERRE

What...?

 

He looks at her and is aghast to see barely controlled rage.

 

MARY

You are hurting me.

 

Dumbfounded, he looks down to see his fist crushing his mother’s hand. He lets loose like he’s holding fire.

 

[Part 3 – II: Isabelle’s Letter]

INT. SADDLE MEADOWS, PIERRE’S ROOM – NIGHT

PIERRE is alone, undressing. He is uneasy, and while undoing his tie pauses on his own anguished face in the mirror. He slowly picks up a candlestick, and walks to a small door. He opens it.

 

INT. PIERRE’S DRESSING ROOM

Chests and wardrobes line the long walls of this constricted space. PIERRE slowly walks over to the narrow end farthest from the window. He draws back a curtain and raises the light from his candle. There is another portrait of his father. He is only a few years older than Pierre, handsome, relaxed and sitting cross-legged on a chair. Pierre touches his own cheek, then that of his father. Pierre feels numb. He is startled by a RAP at his bedroom door.

 

INT. PIERRE’S ROOM

PIERRE goes cautiously to the door, candlestick still in his grip. He pauses with his ear against the wood.

 

PIERRE

Who’s there?

 

DATES (O.S.)

It is I – Dates, sir.

 

Pierre blinks, right himself and opens up. DATES extends a letter on a small silver tray.

 

DATES (CONT’D)

Young master, one of this evening’s guests requested I bring you this.

 

PIERRE

Are they all gone?

 

DATES

Yes, sir.

 

Pierre blinks at the letter.

 

PIERRE

What else did she say?

 

DATES

Only…only, sir, that you be presented with this when you are alone.

 

Pierre takes the letter and begins to close the door. Dates begins to move off, Pierre opens up again.

 

PIERRE

Dates?

 

DATES

Sir?

 

PIERRE

Does my mother know about this letter...?

 

DATES

No, sir. She does not.

 

PIERRE

Thank you, Dates.

 

The butler bows, looking somewhat emotional, and Pierre slowly closes the door. Pierre locks it, takes the letter to his desk and sets the candlestick down. He inspects the letter by raking the inscription across the glow from the flame. It says: ”Master Pierre Glendemming.” There is nothing on the back. In a moment of sensualism, Pierre holds the letter to his nose and smells it deeply. He rips it open and reads – Isabelle has a slight French accent.

 

ISABELLE (V.O.)

My dearest Pierre, I can imagine a sight of you standing by your window and reading this. You debated whether you should consign this missive to the flame of your fireplace, but I knew once you had seen me, you would not. This evening I know I shall be at Saddle Meadows, and if you see this letter of mine, then I know we will have shared a silent and mystical moment. For if not, I shall burn this worthless communiqué myself. I am thy sister, Isabelle. There is no easy way to put it, but I am sibling to thee, Pierre. I was born in France, and after my mother died, was brought near to here to be close to our father. You have many questions, so tomorrow evening come to me at the place I am staying – the Ulver’s farm. They will be out then and you and I can meet to fulfill a dream of mine. Do not leave me alone, beloved brother, for I am orphaned in this world. Isabelle Banford.

 

Pierre’s eyes drift up to the ceiling; he is about to cry. The letter falls. He grows determined, and strides back to the dressing room with his candle.

 

INT. PIERRE’S DRESSING ROOM

PIERRE holds up his flame to show us his own skeptical face; slowly that light stays in one place and the view shifts to the portrait he is staring at. The following voiceover starts while he contemplates this now ‘fallen angel’.

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

Sometimes in the mystical outer quiet of long country nights – when the hushed estate is blanketed by thick December snows, or banked ‘round by immovable August moonlight – Pierre stood guard within his own little closet and tented his arms on either side of the eerie light that mirrored disquiet from that young portrait of his father. In it, he saw himself: not perfect. In it, he allowed himself to be open to ineffable hints and ambiguities.

 

Pierre straightens and looks away. He is in anguish. While the voiceover continues, images of Pierre and the portrait are now cut with flashbacks: he and his mother descending the stairs; Isabelle’s scream; his mother saying he was hurting him.

 

REDBURN (CONT’D – V.O.)

So too the face of the girl haunted him. It appeared like an ideal Madonna passionately calling to an artist’s creative instincts: it baffled him. The terrors of that face were not those of a gorgon; did not repeal; did not hideously lurch out to smite him – but worse – the sadness there bewildered him. It used some form of alluring beauty whose nameless suffering drew him into her with a hopeless anguish totally foreign to Pierre’s intrinsic nature.

 

His hands fly up to grip the frame of the portrait.

 

PIERRE

Who are you! Are you the man my mother told me was saintly?! I see in her my own image – the image of a father I was told to regard as ideal – yet, you smirk; and yet this is your doing. Why deprive her of your glorious name and wealth? Oh, Father, I do not know thee.

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

The face would not leave him. In the likeness before his sight and mind’s eye he allowed a horrible sensibility to grip him. It challenged him down to his deepest moral being to summon private and individual feelings for her. One unknown, sad-eyed girl had unmanned him – but, what was one beautifully afflicted girl to him? She rose within his affections: those of conscience, of pity, or truth; and yes, the apex of wonders – of love. On all sides, the physical world of solid objects slid and displaced themselves from around his sight.

 

FLASHBACKS

Plague Pierre during the following voiceover: close-ups of his mother making him kiss her; of Lucy by the light of the window; and of Isabelle’s ashen face. The candle trembles in his grasp and makes his father seem to laugh at him.

 

REDBURN (CONT’D – V.O.)

He floated on an ether of visions, and with feet wide apart, and clenching fists against the wall, his eyes transfixed that portrait and mirror of a face in the living air between them. Slowly, a verse appeared from memory of two mutually absorbing forms in Paradise Lost.

 

PIERRE

(RECITES)

”Easier than air with air, if spirits embrace

Total they mix, union of pure with pure

Desiring; nor restrained conveyance need,

As flesh to mix with flesh, or soul with soul.” ^[4]

 

[Part 3 – III: A Stroll Around the Village]

EXT. GREYLOCK-ON-HUDSON’S RIVERWALK – MORNING

The Winthrop household and guests take a stroll to breakfast at the local Inn. Leading the way, MRS. WINTHROP chats busily with a sullen REV. GORANSON. Behind them, EMILY and SARA stroll contentedly arm in arm with leaned-in heads, confidences and quiet laughter. REDBURN trails, all alone.

 

REV. GORANSON

My dear Mrs. Winthrop, you must come visit us in Boston, for we have many more charming villages surrounding us than this.

 

MRS. WINTHROP

Well, be that as it may, the ‘De Vries Inn’ has the best old-style Dutch waffles – and I am confident that in Boston, I would not be able to find those.

 

The older folks continue to chat, and Emily glances back at her brother to roll her eyes. She pats Sara’s arm and comes back to walk with Redburn.

 

EMILY

You don’t look like you slept very well

last night.

 

REDBURN

I am finding my new book more than

I bargained for.

 

EMILY

What is it about?

 

REDBURN

(stalls)

Family obligations; love recognized;

love stunted.

 

EMILY

Will I be allowed to read thus so far?

 

REDBURN

(stalls – changes the subject)

Soon. Later. But it seems you steered

me wrong.

 

EMILY

How so?

 

REDBURN

Sara’s father is a bit more than ‘difficult,’ wouldn’t you say?

 

Emily latches onto his arm.

 

EMILY

One of the blessings of our American liberty is that we do not need to brush the child with the dishonors of the father.

 

REDBURN

You sound slightly naïve, Emily, on the nature of American ‘Christianity.’ But nonetheless, Sara is indeed a wonderful person.

 

EMILY

Yes, thank you for saying so.

(a bit overcome)

I want you to know her, for you will love

her as I do.

 

REDBURN

(grins)

Almost as you do, save for one thing.

 

EMILY

To that end, you must spend time with her.

 

REDBURN

Why?

 

EMILY

Appearances’ sake.

 

REDBURN

Emily, I—

 

EMILY

Don’t be peeved. Spend time with her – with us – so that you know society’s imperative does not have to be an impossibly uncomfortable one.

 

REDBURN

Again you speak of marriage.

 

EMILY

(laughs)

I do! Look, I appeal to you on the basis of being able to build a marriage on our own terms. Three people in a mutuality caring bond like the kind you witnessed and wrote of so eloquently about in Polynesia.

 

REDBURN

I’m not so sure it’s possible. There the whole societal structure is built on it. But here?

 

EMILY

Brother, you will have to get married. Either place, time, or dictates will decide. If you’re not in command of those, then others will control it for you; it’s as simple as that.

 

REDBURN

(laughs too)

I suppose you are suggesting a man has nothing to say about whom he marries?

 

EMILY

Next to nothing, brother. Men hardly ever have the marrying of themselves. No, there is but one old matchmaker in the whole wide world – Mrs. Juxtaposition – and she is notorious for her caprice.

 

REDBURN

Juxtaposition – meaning proximity – marries men? Happy accidents?

 

Emily bobbles her head at him, runs ahead and latches onto her partner’s arm like a schoolgirl in the play yard. Using Sara for support, she turns her head back to sing out at her brother.

 

EMILY

And so they do – men and women.

Just accept it!

 

The party arrives at the Inn. They chattily mount the steps, but Redburn’s attention is caught by the figure of a man leaning against the Inn’s porch railing. From his profile staring out on the Hudson River flowing by, it looks like RENSLOW LEPINE. Redburn goes up to him, and when sure, represses his smile as he leans on the railing next to Lepine. He too looks at the waters.

 

REDBURN

When did you get here?

 

LEPINE

Last night, in fact you may find a note from me upon your return home.

 

They face one another with matched, but shy grins.

 

REDBURN

And what may I find this note says?

 

LEPINE

(sighs playfully)

Well, I did write it a few hours ago – I cannot be expected to recite all of my correspondence verbatim…

(melting to Redburn’s slightly hurt look)

…But, I think you will find it says that I am staying at this Inn; that I am using an assumed name, James Hollingsworth; and that Mr. Hollingsworth is available for all and sundry private sightseeing expeditions conducted by local and famous American authors. Do you, perchance, know of any?

 

REDBURN

One, and he will be honored. And so it shall be, tomorrow this charming and handsome Mr. Hollingsworth will be this author’s guest at a private picnic on Slide Mountain’s majestic heights.

 

Both men look across the river and up the verdant flanks of the mountain just mentioned.

 

[Part 3 – IV: Miserable Breakfast with Ma-Ma]

 

BEGIN ‘PIERRE’S ABLUTIONS’ SERIES OF SHOTS:

The following voiceover starts after Pierre leaves the house.

A) EXT. PIERRE’S BEDROOM DOOR – DAWN

PIERRE comes out and closes the door again with studied quiet. He is holding his shoes, has a towel tossed over his shoulder, and peers down the corridor to see that no one has spotted him.

B ) INT. STAIR HALL

Pierre sneaks down, and exits the doubles doors as noiselessly as possible.

C) INT. PORTICO

He sits briefly on the steps to put on his shoes, rises fast, but is struck by the full glory of the morning and its BIRDSONG. He gazes at it peacefully from the railing.

D) EXT. SADDLE MEADOWS

A shot from several hundred feet away from the house shows Pierre running down the steps and then across the lawn towards the wood line.

E) EXT. SIDE OF STREAM

The young man strips naked and walks into the water, which comes up to about his waist. He sinks beneath it.

F) EXT. SURFACE OF THE WATER

Pierre’s head in close-up emerges from below. His face is haggard; he has had a sleepless night. The young man raises his arms, tilts his head up to the sky and slicks back his hair. He lets his body fall backwards into the flowing water, still holding his head.

G) EXT. HIGH SHOT OVER STREAM

Pierre floats, and as the shot twists in for a close-up of his face, he is anything but happy. This shot dissolves into:

H) EXT. LAWN

Hands propped behind his head, towel casually draped over his waist, he stares up at the blue sky and clouds.

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

Pierre’s sleepless night never seemed to end. He fought the image of that face with its torment and accusation by flying from it at first light. Down to the stream, down to it reflection, he sought to escape her thought. Pierre did not find interest in her. No, interest radiated from the girl and agitated his soul. For in there lurked a subtler secret. It was that the starry vault surcharges the heart only because we are greater miracles than all the stars of universal space. Our soul’s arch underfits the heavenly crypt to prevent it from falling in on us with unstable ambiguities.

 

I) EXT. SADDLE MEADOWS

Dressed again, Pierre drags his feet heading back to the house. The morning is much brighter now.

J) INT. GREAT HALL

Snapping himself out of his reverie, he pauses and slaps some color onto his cheeks. While doing this, his sight catches his father’s official portrait, and he scoffs at it. He strides up to the dining room door, puts his hand on the knob and pauses. He shakes himself like a dog before finally resolving that he must go in.

END ‘PIERRE’S ABLUTIONS’ SERIES OF SHOTS.

          

INT. SADDLE MEADOWS DINING ROOM – MORNING

DATES is at the sideboard arranging the morning repast. MARY is at her usual place at the table with an untouched plate of food before her and a book in her hand. PIERRE enters, Dates turns to him, and the young man – getting a glimpse of his mother – suddenly stops in his tracks.

 

PIERRE

Good morning, Ma-mah.

 

MARY

Pierre! Good gracious, are you ill?

 

She rises, intending to latch onto him, but he avoids that by going to the sideboard and clinking a plate. Dates stands aside, aghast.

 

PIERRE

I’m perfectly fine.

 

Pierre fills his plate without caring what he slops onto it. He’s stalling, waiting for his mother to sit again, but she just stands there.

 

MARY

That is all, Dates.

 

DATES

Madam.

 

Dates exits, and Pierre puts on a chatty tone as he dodges his mother and sits down. He pretends to be famished by snapping his napkin in her direction.

 

PIERRE

I have been down to the stream already this morning. No use of being in the country, if not willing to—

 

He turns. His mother is standing right by his side.

 

MARY

You and I, Pierre – Brother Pierre – are close, are we not? No secrets, correct?

 

PIERRE

I….

 

MARY

Stand.

 

MARY (CONT’D)

(after he does)

There is something on your mind, and I will not force a confession from your troubled brow, but I also will not leave it in your heart to fester.

 

She forces a hug onto him. Pierre grows more and more disgusted as her tone creeps into tender zones.

 

MARY (CONT’D)

You and I only have one another, my boy – only me for you, and you for me. Is that not so?

 

She kisses him, and her hand drifts to pull on his backside. Pierre is at the borderline of melting to her advance, or veering off into rage. She tries increasing the passion of her kissing – but slowly, Pierre pushes her back.

 

PIERRE

My heart may not be light, but it harbors no ill will either, though it’s not quite in unison with yours anymore.

 

MARY

Why do you speak that way to me...?

 

Pierre calmly sits and begins eating.

 

PIERRE

Can you, Mother, tell me the secret of

my name?

 

MARY

(confused)

Secret? What secret, your father had the choosing of it.

 

PIERRE

Yes, but why this name, particularly?

 

MARY

(grows incensed – knowing)

Your father spent many years in France when he was your age. He liked French things, Pierre, not I.

 

She steps right to his side again.

 

MARY (CONT’D)

You have secret information, and withholding your confidence from me may prove a fatal mistake.

 

PIERRE

(cavalier – waving his fork in the air)

I have nothing hidden from you, that you do not already hide from me.

 

Dates CLEARS his throat.

 

DATES

The Reverend Falsegrave, My Lady.

 

Mary instantly has presence of mind restored to her. She moves to the center of the room.

 

MARY

Yes, show him in.

(to Pierre)

I asked him here to discuss your upcoming nuptials with Lucy Tartan.

 

Pierre’s mouth falls open as he mindlessly stands to greet their guest; he had forgotten all about Lucy. Enter REV. FALSEGRAVE.

 

REV. FALSEGRAVE

Good morning, Mrs. Glendemming; young Master Pierre.

 

MARY

Please be welcomed, and help yourself to our meager repast.

 

He does so, with suppressed relish, and mother and son act as if all is ‘normal.’

 

REV. FALSEGRAVE

(chipper)

It is a gloriously fine morning! I had a bracing stroll from the village, and will eat you out of house and home.

 

MARY

Pierre, pour the minister a cup of coffee.

 

He rises to do so reluctantly.

 

MARY (CONT’D)

I have asked you here, Reverend Falsegrave, to discuss a pressing matter—

 

PIERRE

(interrupting)

A matter that is still under discussion.

 

He goes to the coffee urn, effectively turning his back on his mother.

 

MARY

(suppressed anger – tries to laugh it off)

You forget yourself this morning, Pierre.

 

The minister feels the tension and slowly turns to see Pierre setting the man’s coffee cup on the table. He goes to sit there, halfway between the two fuming Glendemmings.

 

PIERRE

(glib)

On the contrary, Mother. I am as fit and fine as the learnèd doctor of divinity has just said of the morning.

(sits and leans to Falsegrave)

Come now, Minister, what new gossip of the village is there?

 

MARY

Yes, any news of engagements.

 

She snaps her napkin.

 

REV. FALSEGRAVE

Well, now, no – sorry to say.

 

MARY

I—

 

PIERRE

I have heard that Delly Ulver is being sent away. Is that right?

 

REV. FALSEGRAVE

(uncomfortable)

Yes.

 

Pierre glances at the heat coming off his mother’s face and begins eating again with false enjoyment.

 

PIERRE

What, dear Reverend, is the proper societal way to refer to ‘her case?’

 

REV. FALSEGRAVE

Well, she is ‘an unfortunate.’

 

PIERRE

She became pregnant by a married man, who, by the way, suffers no retributions, but she – the unfortunate – is sent away to have her baby, and then who knows what will happen to either? Unfortunate indeed.

 

MARY

You will forgive my imprudent son, Reverend. Some fit or other has possessed his good manners this morning.

 

PIERRE

But, Reverend Doctor Falsegrave, do tell – what becomes of such children? I mean, should society outcast them owing to a perceived ‘sin’ of their parents?

 

The minister looks uncomfortably to Mary, and then wistfully at his food.

 

REV. FALSEGRAVE

Perhaps there is another time….

 

MARY

No, do tell the boy what happens to a father’s infamy in such a situation, no matter who he may be.

 

PIERRE

The child should not be made to suffer, no matter who she may be.

 

MARY

Tell him, Minister, how a man is worse than a murderer – as he takes the respectability of his victim, as well as honor from his legitimate wife and children. If, in such a case, the rightful son hate the father, I can hardly blame him.

 

Pierre is incensed that she has just insulted his father.

 

MARY (CONT’D)

Your thoughts, Reverend?

 

He turns to Pierre with cold eyes.

 

REV. FALSEGRAVE

She deserves her status as pariah – both mother and child. For Holy Writ has it that the sins of the father shall be borne by his offspring down to the third generation.

 

PIERRE

How cruel.

 

MARY

Why? A disgrace is a disgrace.

 

PIERRE

Does ‘Holy Writ’ say that a legitimate son should shun a sister when both are full-grown?

 

Pierre has sussed out what he suspected – the minister knows all about it too. Falsegrave glances at Mary before continuing.

 

REV. FALSEGRAVE

This is an odd question you put. But, you must ask your own heart, Pierre.

 

PIERRE

I am asking the man of God. I know what is right, according to my heart at least. But Reverend Falsegrave, what I ask you to tell me is if Christ would shun his own sister?

 

REV. FALSEGRAVE

It depends.

 

PIERRE

Holy Writ says a child is obliged to honor both father and mother, even if the father is learned to be a seducer.

 

Mary pounds the table with both fists; she rises.

 

MARY

Pierre! You forget yourself and your station this morning!

 

Pierre slowly rises. He grins and lightly kisses his furious mother’s cheek.

 

PIERRE

Then I will withdraw. Have a good day, Reverend; Madam.

 

He exits and Mary slowly crumples back into her chair.

 

INT. PORTICO

All is peaceful and beautiful as the freshness of the day is framed like a landscape painting between the two columns. PIERRE stumbles out and grips the railing. He is near exhaustion and tears, but his head slowly rises and he casts a longing glance towards Slide Mountain rising mistily in the distance.

 

 

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