PIERRE and the AMBIGUITIES – A Filmscript - 5. Part 5 – Proof Sheets

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[Part 5 – Proof Sheets – I: Akker’s Control]

INT. AKKER’S LIBRARY – MORNING

AKKER is sitting on a sofa, reading a newspaper. REDBURN enters in his traveling clothes. He sets a carpetbag down and closes the door behind him.

 

AKKER

(feigns disinterest)

Well, you’re back early.

 

REDBURN

I took the first ferry. Why? Did you miss me these last two weeks?

 

Akker drops his paper and stands. He saunters over to Redburn, then strolls behind him, close enough to whisper teasingly in his ear.

 

AKKER

Hard to tell; I had lots of company since

you left.

 

Akker returns to the sofa, sits and pats the seat next to him. Redburn removes his jacket and hat, then sits with his back in the far corner away from Akker. He props his thigh up on the seat to be open for the older man’s viewing pleasure.

 

REDBURN

Lots of ‘Young American Literary’ company?

 

AKKER

(lewd grin)

There are always those looking to be promoted by powerful friends like me. But remember, as quickly as I can make them, I can unmake them. You believe in loyalty, don’t you?

 

REDBURN

You know I do, but in another power too.

 

AKKER

(happier – gestures)

Speaking of literary matters, the proof sheets for Moby-Dick have been piling up from your printer. They’re over there.

 

Redburn stiffens his neck to look at the desk below the window. Three tall stacks of brown-paper-wrapped pages sit there still tied with twine.

 

AKKER (CONT’D)

You look tired. How was your stay at home?

 

REDBURN

I am tired. Sara’s visit was pleasant enough, although her father is a pseudo-religious blowhard. Do you think my work is obvious?

 

AKKER

(considers)

Well – to the initiated, or to the like-spirited, your work speaks plainly enough. However, to the masses I think they can read past all the clearly charged language you use to describe men-loving men without much thought. And you worked on your new book, didn’t you?

 

REDBURN

That obvious?

 

AKKER

Yes. You have the fit of exhaustion on you that you get when your mind carries itself far away from your flesh.

 

REDBURN

I worked on it a lot.

 

AKKER

Dear boy – I can see that – but remember, when you write, do not lock yourself away and starve for pleasures.

 

Akker’s hand begins to roam: first up Redburn’s ankle, then slowly up his calf and thigh.

 

AKKER (CONT’D)

If you think austerity of body produces better meat of merit, you are wrong.

 

His fingers now near Redburn’s crotch; the older man leans in.

 

AKKER (CONT’D)

Think of all those consumptive authors who only release upon the world the foulest-smelling philosophical flatulence.

 

He strokes tenderly, and is pleased to find a physical rejoinder in Redburn’s growing excitement and ragged breaths. He slowly comes in closer and closer to whisper right against the young man lips.

 

AKKER (CONT’D)

Remember what some convivial corpulence can do. Authors, like Mr. Dickens, have given subtle utterance in the fattest of forms.

 

He tries to kiss, but Redburn smiles and holds him back a moment.

 

REDBURN

Now look at your author – your Mr. Winthrop – for a sad contrast.

 

Redburn gently pushes Akker back as he gets to his knees and faces the man on the sofa cushions.

 

REDBURN (CONT’D)

Miserable man in a miserable room, pursuing the most miserable, and perhaps the loneliest pursuit of mankind’s folly: writing.

 

He slowly raises Akker’s arms and slips his hands around the man’s back. He kisses the nape of Akker’s neck.

 

AKKER

Do not worry; I am on your side.

 

Redburn continues to excite his mentor, and asks his question between kisses.

 

REDBURN

And my flesh, are you glad it has been brought back to you?

 

AKKER

(getting passionate)

As much as you owe your intellectual success to me, you owe your physical desires to my proudest possession of you.

 

Akker forces his kisses on Redburn’s mouth. The young man has to ask his question through stolen breaths.

 

REDBURN

But…do…you…love…me?

 

AKKER

(pauses)

Let me show you.

 

Akker turns Redburn, and his hands wrap around the young man’s waist. He undoes Redburn’s trousers while he kisses his ear. He pulls them down, then guides Redburn to settle face down on the sofa. Redburn’s chin and hands are on the armrest, his backside up in the air. Akker’s hands grip this area, and in another moment his face disappears behind it.

Redburn moans loudly in pleasure, and as his eyes begin to flutter shut, he turns his face so his cheek is pressed on the armrest; Akker starts to make muffled, pleasurable SOUNDS too. These noises continue in the background and intensify as the sex progresses to the next step. Redburn closes his eyes and sees unwanted visions.

 

 

BEGIN ‘FIRST MEETING’ FLASHBACK:

 

■ Images of Redburn first spying Lepine at the party, then how they spoke to one another.

■ He sees Lepine’s standing on the porch of the Inn, then how they spoke to one another.

 

END ‘FIRST MEETING’ FLASHBACK.

        

 

Akker straightens up. He uses his hands to free himself from his trousers; he spits into his palm, and works that unseen behind Redburn. He grabs onto the young man’s waist, and enters him. Redburn moans and stiffens his spine slightly. Akker forces his lower back down as far it will go and holds the young man there. Redburn grips frantically onto the armrest as the older man establishes a rhythm. His eyes close tightly again.

 

 

BEGIN ‘TRIPLE KISS’ FLASHBACK:

 

■ Images of Redburn seeing Lepine squint up at him from the top of Slide Mountain.

■ Images of Pierre, Charlie and Glen circling and kissing on the summit.

■ Images of Redburn and Lepine lying together on that rock.

■ Images of Pierre kissing Glen – Glen’s face blends into Akker’s.

■ Images of the slow and loving rise of Redburn and Lepine to embrace and kiss.

 

END ‘TRIPLE KISS’ FLASHBACK.

 

 

Redburn opens his eyes like he’s in some immediate pain. He pants and makes a loud sound as he climaxes. Soon, Akker does the same, and slowly falls on Redburn’s back to tiredly kiss his ear.

 

FADE TO:

 

The SOUNDS from the next scene – Redburn looks straight ahead (at the viewer) and becomes lost in thoughts of his book again.

 

[Part 5 – II: Isabelle in the Barn; Lucy in Bed]

INT. BUTTERY OF THE ULVER’S FARM – EARLY MORNING

ISABELLE wears an apron and arranges the tin utensils on their hooks and shelves. PIERRE comes up behind her. He looks even more dreadful than he did at his breakfast with ‘Madam’ less than an hour ago.

 

PIERRE

(softly)

Isabelle

(to her startled turn)

I look rather strange, do I not, sweet Isabelle?

 

ISABELLE

Brother, blessèd! Speak to me – tell me – what has happened? Oh, the fault is mine – tell me, Pierre – what have you done?

 

He takes her to a bench below an open casement to the dairy barn, and they sit.

 

PIERRE

What do you think I have done?

 

ISABELLE

(stricken)

I think you revealed Isabelle to your mother.

 

He falls to his knees and takes her hands.

 

PIERRE

I have not revealed your secret, but I doubt that that sagacious woman knows not who you are.

 

ISABELLE

Then what is it, Pierre?

 

PIERRE

I have resolved a solution.

 

She caresses his cheek.

 

ISABELLE

Pierre, be careful with me. This mysterious and unexampled love between us makes me all the substance of clay in your hands. Be careful, but now tell me what it is.

 

PIERRE

You and I, tomorrow morning, will leave this place for good and go to the city. That is all.

 

ISABELLE

I….

 

Pierre stands abruptly; makes to go.

 

PIERRE

I must do…more…. But, let me go now that I may return in a few hours.

 

He walks towards the gate to the road. Isabelle rises and stumbles in a growing panic. She latches onto him around the waist, barely able to hold on.

 

ISABELLE

If my soul has cast the same dark shadow on you as it does me; if you have lost anything on account of me, then Isabelle is lost to Isabelle.

 

She collapses and sits at his feet. Pierre squats on his haunches.

 

PIERRE

Foolish girl. See! In the very act of letting loose of me, you reel and fall. I am here for you, Isabelle.

 

ISABELLE

But what have you lost for me? Tell me.

 

PIERRE

I have lost nothing that I needed, but thereby gained you.

 

He pulls her up to be standing in his arms.

 

PIERRE (CONT’D)

There’s one way – only one way; a way most pure. Listen. Brace yourself. Here, let me hold you now, and whisper it to you, Isabelle. See. I am holding you; you cannot fall.

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

And so Pierre held her trembling form. His mouth wet her ear; he whispered it. The girl moved not, and was done with all her tremblings. She turned eyes to his with the inexpressible strangeness of intense love. Over the face of Pierre shot a tremor of self-awareness.

 

They kiss. At first tenderly, then passionately.

 

REDBURN (CONT’D – V.O.)

He repeated burning kisses on her. He pressed her hard, and reciprocation rose by quick degrees to return the flaming heat. They would not let go – could not let go – of the awful and sweet pervasiveness each one beheld in the other.

 

FADE TO:

 

Aerial shots of Pierre running out of the buttery from the Ulver farm. He runs madly, out of control, and a swooping shot comes down to eyelevel as he begins to slow. Cut and transition to:

 

EXT/INT. LUCY’S HOUSE – TRACKING

PIERRE pauses and examines the quiet house from the outside. As the following voiceover begins, he strides up to the front door and does not even pause. He goes in and leaves the door standing open. Inside, he loudly thunders up the steps and heads for Lucy’s bedroom door.

 

REDBURN (CONT’D – V.O.)

By a certain charity of cruelty, Pierre at once resolved to announce to Lucy her fate.

 

PIERRE

(knocks)

Lucy, it’s I, Pierre. I must speak to you

this instant.

 

INT. LUCY’S ROOM

LUCY is in her bed, and as described in the following voice over.

 

REDBURN (CONT’D – V.O.)

She had not risen yet. Lucy at this sudden summons was struck with terror; she responded with immediate assent.

 

LUCY

Come.

 

Pierre enters in a horrible state, barely sees anything, but heads to her bedside. He again leaves the door open.

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

Lucy caught his pale determination and gave out a cry of gripping misery. She lifted herself shivering in bed, but without uttering a word. Pierre sat down on the bed, and his set eyes met her terrified aspect.

 

PIERRE

Decked in show, and pale of cheek, you are indeed fit for the altar; but not the one your heart dreamed of.

 

LUCY

Pierre!

 

PIERRE

It is the last cruelty of a dead father to make his son slay an innocent.

 

LUCY

Good Lord, Pierre….

 

PIERRE

I intend to marry another, Lucy:

another woman.

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

Swift madness mounted in the brain of Pierre. All the past seemed a dream; all the present, an unmatched horror; and all the future a futile nightmare. He lifted her, pulled her motionless form from the bed. A scream arose from within the girl in his clasp.

 

MARTHA, Lucy’s maid, enters at the door with an astonished look on her face.

 

MARTHA

My Lady!

 

Pierre tries to grapple with Lucy. The girl grows panicky.

 

LUCY

Wake me, Martha; drive the nightmare away….

 

Martha runs and pushes Pierre off of her mistress.

 

MARTHA

(to Pierre)

In God’s holy name, what can this be? How came you to be here!

 

LUCY

He has murdered me, Martha – but I fail to fall and die….

 

Martha looks for injuries. Pierre advances on them to explain.

 

LUCY (CONT’D)

Martha – drive it away – the monster! Monster!

 

As Lucy dissolves into tearful hysterics, with Martha simply trying to hold on, Pierre backs out of the room – slowly.

 

[Part 5 – III: Marriage; 4 AM Coach; Right/Wrong; Pamphlet]

 

BEGIN ‘HOROLOGICAL COZENING’ SERIES OF SHOTS:

During the following voiceovers and series of shots, the soft presence of HORSES’ HOOVES tell us all of these scenes are ‘happening’ during the coach ride. The dawn is continually getting brighter and brighter every time it is seen.

A) INT. PARLOR OF SADDLE MEADOWS INN – 4 AM

A pair of candles are lit on a desk by the pitch-black windows. Sounds of horses’ REINS and HOOVES can be heard outside. A slowly backing shot reveals a Judge standing behind the desk. In his hand is a bible; next to him is the yawning female Innkeeper. Before the desk stands Pierre and Isabelle. They are fully dressed in heavy black traveling clothes, and Pierre’s right hand is gripping Isabelle’s left.

 

JUDGE

Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?

 

PIERRE

I do.

 

Isabelle abashes. It’s as if she knows the gravity of the mistake he has just made.

 

EXT. FRONT OF SADDLE MEADOWS INN

Off on the horizon can be seen the first light of morning. On the roof of the coach is Pierre’s trunk and Isabelle’s guitar case. The shot descends in front of the vehicular, passing a sleepy driver’s face, and onto the restless heads and manes of the steeds. They stamp the ground and jingle their reins, anxious to run and asking the driver what the holdup is. During the following voiceover, Pierre and Isabelle exit the building and begin to go down the front steps. The Judge and Innkeeper follow and pause on the porch. Pierre opens the coach door and assists Isabelle with her heavy skirts and cape. Before he gets in, he takes a moment to scan the town he knows he will never see again. At the end, he touches the brim of his hat at the Judge and gets in.

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

All the profoundest things are attended by silence. Silence is that with which a pale bride precedes her ‘I do;’ silence too is the procession of clasped and newly wedded hands. Silence is the very voice of God.

 

JUDGE

(aside to Innkeeper)

Such a wedding party – why, it’s sadder than any funeral.

 

The whip cracks, and the coach takes off.

 

C) INT. COACH

Isabelle looks out her window, although she can see nothing. Pierre glances at her, and in his hand, he crumples some papers unconsciously.

 

PIERRE

Do not fear, Isabelle. My own dear cousin Glendemming Stanley, whom I love, will put us up in New York.

 

ISABELLE

But, what if your mother got to him already?

 

PIERRE

(swallows)

But, he loves me too. He would not

betray us.

 

ISABELLE

Not for name, dear, or money...?

 

Pierre is silent; looks out the window too.

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

His thoughts were very dark and wild like the forests through which they moved. Upon first entering the coach, he pressed his hand against the cushioned seat and met some crumpled sheets of paper, which he instinctively clutched onto. No word was spoken by the coach’s inmates after their initial exchange. Silence penetrated all things and bore it along with our young party through the woods to a faint dawn cracking the world from a distance, and quitting the home Pierre had only ever known.

 

Pierre glances and finds Isabelle nodding with her head resting against the window.

 

D) SERIES OF FLASHBACKS

As the voiceover continues, Pierre’s face looking out the window, clutching his papers, becomes lost in remembrance. Dawn breaks.

 

■ Pierre and Isabelle kissing passionately in the buttery of the Ulver’s farm. Pierre’s face comes away from his sister’s with burning lust. He whispers in her ear: ”You will have my father’s name.”

■ A single candle burns by Lucy’s bedside. She rolls in her sheets and sobs despondently: “How could you? Pierre, Pierre, Pierre – monster!”

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

‘I leave corpses wherever I go,’ groaned Pierre silently to himself. ‘Can my conduct be righteous? I seem threatened by a sin there may be no forgiveness of.’

 

Pierre strokes the cheek a sleeping Isabelle.

 

■ In the gloom of the early morning light, Mary Glendemming comes with a single candle in her hand towards the official portrait in the Great Hall of Saddle Meadows. She appears haggard and near a state of emotional breakdown.

 

MARY

You have cursed me, husband, with your offspring. They have dared to disgrace me before the world with open acknowledgment of your sin, of your crime – but, who pays the price?! Who...? – I do. But, husband, I still have the power of the law, and despite your love lying dead and powerless, my will reigns supreme. I have disowned Pierre, your son, so now let him give that penniless name to the bitch, for it will mean only your infamy, and no more.

 

She throws the candlestick at his face, where it extinguishes and falls to the floor in a slow-motion thud.

 

Pierre in the coach swallows hard. He crumples the paper and barely takes note of it.

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

Pierre thought his thought to its logical conclusion: ‘If there is no forgiveness for putting a wrong to right, then is there any love worthy of veneration?’

 

■ At the wedding, between the glow of the two candles, Pierre and Isabelle lean in to kiss after the ceremony. Their lips meet in slow-motion coldness, their eyes open on unspeakable and silent pain seen in the other.

 

Back in the coach, Pierre looks like he will be ill.

 

REDBURN (V.O.)

‘If there,’ thought he, ‘is only pain behind me, then there but looms only sin before me, and my path seems jostled on every side by a question: how can my conduct be right?’

 

E) INT. COACH

It’s much lighter now; Isabelle sleeps. Pierre brings the papers up to his vision. He smooths them and realizes it’s a pamphlet. He opens it up, holds it to the window and begins to read. Fade into:

F) INT. LECTURE HALL – DAY

A scholarly-looking PLONTINUS PLINLIMMON paces lightly before the lectern with his hands locked behind his back. The room is tiered with seats forming a semi-circle, and a pan of the audience shows it to be peopled with dreamy-eyed young men. They are universal in worn clothes, hungry looks, and no better place to go: Bohemian types. Pierre imagines himself there, standing at the back in his traveling clothes by the main aisle; he looks very tired and stressed.

 

PLINLIMMON

Few of us doubt, gentlemen, that human life is but a state of probation; which among other things that we mortals of Earth only have to do with things provisional. Accordingly is all our wisdom but of a provisional nature.

 

He pauses for effect, scanning faces for acknowledgment.

 

PLINLIMMON (CONT’D)

This preamble laid down, I begin. Gentlemen, what time of the clock be it now? Come tell me, that is not so hard a question, is it?

 

Several men pull out watches and say ”Half past ten;” one adds “In the morning.” Plinlimmon seems to take notice of Pierre, which startles Pierre.

 

PLINLIMMON (CONT’D)

Yes, gentlemen. And your timepieces more or less agree down to the minute what hour it be here in New York. Such are called ‘horological’ reckonings, and they are correct and useful – so we do not sup at three in the morning, and that we go to bed not at seven in the evening – but give that time to any vessel moored in this great city’s port and they will be lost. But, why?

 

He pauses again, and several young men stiffen spines and ask ”Why?” Pierre himself seems to want to know.

 

PLINLIMMON (CONT’D)

The answer is this: they sail via ‘chronometrical’ time. There is a great hill on the banks of the Thames at Greenwich, and upon which is a tower. The ships plying the gentle river water reckon a toll on their vessel’s clocks, or ‘chronometers,’ to a sacred and sacrosanct time; a holy sea-time that alters not with port, season, or what local meridians say via pocket watches. So too it seems to me that some men’s souls are set to evermore give out Heaven’s own Truth. For an artificial world like ours, the human soul is further removed from the blessed reckonings of the Universal Mind than is the farthest chronometer carried from London to China or Australia, and yet in some men, the time never falters. However, most men will always adjust their so-called intuition of right and wrong to the mere local standards and watchmakers’ brains of this Earth. Earthly wisdom is folly to God; so too – conversely – is heavenly wisdom but apparent caprice to mankind.

 

He begins his stroll to Pierre’s position.

 

PLINLIMMON (CONT’D)

This chronological conceit – against the flint-hard horological realities – by no means involves the laughable self-conceit of ludicrous actions taken in the main for ‘what is right;’ there is no justification for the wicked acts men perform.

 

Pierre becomes frightened by Plinlimmon’s unflinching stare locked onto him. While he finishes up, the lecturer comes straight up to Pierre and speaks solely to him.

 

PLINLIMMON (CONT’D)

I but lay down that what the best of mortal men do is daily practice and adjustment of the cosmic chronometer, and from which we are far removed. I present comfort to the earnest man, who, among his human frailties, is still painfully aware of the beauty of his immortal timepiece set to the unmovable moment the universe began. And to the vicious, I hold up that all cases sooner or later come to the same meet – downright vice is downright woe.

 

G) INT. COACH

Pierre finishes reading the last few words. He lets the pamphlet fall to the floor, and seems anemic and wan. Like a guilt-stricken criminal, he gazes at Isabelle’s sleeping form.

 

END OF ‘HOROLOGICAL COZENING’ SERIES OF SHOTS.

 

 

[Part 5 – IV: Dedication to Love]

INT. AKKER’S LIBRARY – NIGHT

All is dark and still. The door opens, and REDBURN enters carrying a lit lamp and dressed in his nightshirt. He goes to the desk. A shot over his shoulder shows him putting the lamp down, grabbing a penknife and cutting the twine off of the top stack of proof sheets. He pulls back the brown paper, and picks up the top page.

 

INSERT – TITLE PAGE:

 

THE WHALE

 

 

 

 

 

 

By

Guy Winthrop

 

FADE FROM INSERT – TITLE PAGE.

 

He flips it over and sets it on the desk. He crouches down to read the second page on top of the stack.

 

INSERT – AKKER DEDICATION:

 

IN TOKEN

 

 

OF MY ADMIRATION FOR HIS GUIDANCE,

 

This Book is Inscribed

 

TO

 

F E L I X A K K E R.

 

FADE FROM INSERT – AKKER DEDICATION.

 

He picks a pen, crosses out ‘GUIDANCE,’ pauses, then slowly writes ‘GENIUS.’ He crosses out ‘FELIX AKKER,’ and writes ‘RENSLOW LEPINE.’

 

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