Act One - And then the Demon spoke

Please! Dissect this, tell me what I did wrong and what I did right. Take it completely and change it into something I didn't think of. Help me expand this story beyond the novel. I hope you enjoy. 

Scene One:

 Black screen

Bendrix V.O

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

FADE IN:

­­­­INT – SOUTHSIDE COMMON – Rainy evening.

MAURICE BENDRIX sits at a chair, looking through a window. A type-writer is set near by behind him, resting on a desk. He sees HENRY MILES through the window and with little hesitation, gets up to retrieve his jacket and umbrella. As he enters the MAIN HALL we get a glimpse at the low standard of living within the complex. Many strangers are about their business with coats and hats placed wherever there is free space. We follow BENDRIX as he grabs a jacket, a hat, and an umbrella. He makes his way for the front door.

     CUT TO FRONT OF BUILDING

As BENDRIX exits, he closes the stained-glass door behind him and carefully walks down the damaged steps. As BENDRIX walks down the wet cobblestone street he notices he has grabbed someone elses umbrella as it is allowing the rain to leak down the back into his collar. It is at this moment he first sees HENRY. Rain drips stiff off of HENRY’S hat and runs down his civil servants overcoat. BENDRIX Begins.

BENDRIX

Henry! You are almost a stranger.

HENRY

(With affection) Bendrix…

BENDRIX

What are you up to Henry, in the rain?

HENRY

(Evasively) Oh, I just want a bit of air (A blast of wind and rain hits them. Henry saves his hat)

BENDRIX­­

How’s Sarah?

HENRY

Oh, she’s out for the evening somewhere

BENDRIX

A drink?

HENRY

Of course (as he begins to step along side Bendrix)

It’s a long time since we’ve seen you, Bendrix

BENDRIX

A long time

HENRY

Why, it must be (beat) more than a year

BENDRIX

June 1944

HENRY

As long as that (beat) well, well.

BENDRIX

Is she at the cinema?

HENRY

Oh no, she hardly ever goes.

BENDRIX

She used to.

INT: THE PONTEFRACT ARMS. 
Old Christmas decorations. A few customers and a barkeep, the land lady, set the scene. She eyes the customers with a look of contempt.

HENRY

(Searching for a place to hang his hat) Pretty.

BENDRIX

What will you have?

HENRY

I wouldn’t mind a whiskey.

BENDRIX

Nor would I, but you’ll have to make due with rum.

(They sit at a table and begin to finger their glasses. After a few moments of silence, HENRY drinks his rum quickly)

BENDRIX

Had a good Christmas?

HENRY

Very nice, very nice.

BENDRIX

At home?

HENRY

(HENRY gives BENDRIX a queer look)

Home? Yes, of course.

BENDRIX

And Sarah’s well?

HENRY

Yes.

BENDRIX

Have another rum?

HENRY

It’s my turn.

(HENRY gets up to order more drinks and BENDRIX gets up to go to the restroom. We follow BENDRIX. As BENDRIX takes a piss, he reads a couple of phrases written on the wall in front of him:

“Damn you, landlord, and your breasty wife” & “To all pimps and whores a merry syphilis and a happy gonorrhea”

As BENDRIX cleans up, he heads out into the bar again and finds HENRY back at their table. He immediately recites the two lines to HENRY)

HENRY

(In response to the bathroom phrases)

Jealousy’s an awful thing.

BENDRIX

You mean the bit about the breasty wife?

HENRY

Both of them. When you are miserable, you envy other people’s happiness.

BENDRIX

Are you miserable?

HENRY

Bendrix, I’m worried.

BENDRIX

Tell me

HENRY

I’m worried about Sarah, Bendrix

(The front door of the bar opens. We see the rain lashing, violently, outside. A man stumbles in and says “Wot cher, everybody”. No one responds.)

BENDRIX

Is she ill? I thought you said…

HENRY

No, not ill. I don’t think so.

(he looks around)

Bendrix, I can’t talk here. Come home with me

BENDRIX

Will Sarah be back?

HENRY

I don’t expect so.

Bendrix pays for the drinks. Henry notices, attempts to pay, Bendrix insists, they leave for HENRY’S apartment on the North side of the commons.

When they arrive at the front door, HENRY reaches for a latchkey under the Queen Anne fanlight and opens up.

HENRY

(Slowly creeping inside)

Sarah…Sarah…

(They wait a few moments)

She’s out still. Come into the study.

As they head to his study, we get a glimpse of the apartment. When they enter his study, BENDRIX takes a long, envious, look around the room.

HENRY

A whiskey?

(BENDRIX nods)

BENDRIX

(As HENRY pours the whiskey)

What’s troubling you, Henry?

HENRY

Sarah,

(He looks up at BENDRIX, eyes red.)

Bendrix, I’m afraid.

BENDRIX

What is it you’re afaid of, Henry?

(HENRY moves to sit on a chair, he plops down hard.)

HENRY

(With digust)

Bendrix, I’ve always thought the worst things, the very worst, a man could do…

BENDRIX

You know you can trust me, Henry

HENRY

Take a look at this then,

(He holds out a letter to Bendrix)

Go on. Read it.

BENDRIX

(Whispering the letter, inaudibly)

I suggest the man you want to help should apply to a fellow called Savage, 159 Vigo street.

(More audible)

I don’t understand, Henry

HENRY

I wrote to this man and said that an acquaintance of mine had asked my advice about private detective agencies. Its terrible, Bendrix. He must have seen through the pretense.

BENDRIX

You really mean…?

HENRY

I haven’t done anything about it, but the letter sits on my desk reminding me…It seems so silly, doesn’t it, that I can’t trust her absolutely not to read it though she comes in here a dozen times a day. I don’t even put it away in a drawer. And yet I can’t trust…She’s out for a walk now,a walk, Bendrix

(Henry stood over a gas fire, drying off his left cuff.)

BENDRIX

I’m sorry

HENRY

You were always a special friend of hers, Bendrix. They always say, don’t they, that a husband is the last person really to know the kind of woman…I thought tonight, when I saw you on the common, that if I told you, and you laughed at me, I might be able to burn the letter.

(He sits down)

BENDRIX

It is not the sort of situation one laughs at, even if it is fantastic to think…

HENRY

Is it fantastic. You do think that I’m a fool, don’t you…?

(beat)

Of course, I can tell you think me a fool.

BENDRIX

Oh no, I don’t think you a fool, Henry.

HENRY

You mean, you really think its…possible?

BENDRIX

Of course its possible, Sarah’s human.

HENRY

(Indignantly)

And I always thought you were her friend,

BENDRIX
Of course, you know her so much better than I ever did.

HENRY

(Gloomily)

In some ways

BENDRIX

You asked me, Henry, if I thought you were a fool. I only said there was nothing foolish in the idea. I said nothing against Sarah.

HENRY

I know, Bendrix, I’m sorry. I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I wake up in the night wondering what to do about this wretched letter.

BENDRIX

Burn it.

HENRY

I wish I could.

BENDRIX

Or go and see Mr. Savage.

HENRY

But I can’t pretend to him that I’m not her Husband. Just think, Bendrix, in front of a desk in a chair all the other jealous husbands have sat in, telling the same story…

(beat)

Do you think there’s a waiting room, so that we see each other’s faces as we pass through?

BENDRIX

Why not let me go, Henry?

HENRY

You?

BENDRIX

Yes. I could pretend to be a jealous lover. Jealous lovers are more respectable, less ridiculous, than jealous husbands. They are supported by the weight of literature. Betrayed lovers are tragic, never comic. Think of Troilus. I shan’t lose my amour proper when I interview Mr. Savage.

HENRY

Would you really do that for me, Bendrix?

BENDRIX

Of course I would. Your sleeves burning, Henry.

HENRY

But this is fantastic! I don’t know what I’ve been thinking about. First to tell you and then to ask you – this. One can’t spy on ones wife through a friend – and that friend pretend to be her lover.

BENDRIX

Oh, it’s not done, but neither is adultery or theft or running away from the enemy’s fire. The not done things are done everyday, Henry. It’s part of modern life. I’ve done most of them myself.

HENRY

You’re a good chap, Bendrix. All I needed was a proper talk, to clear my head.

(He holds the letter to the gas flame)

BENDRIX

The name was Savage and the address is either 159 or 169 Vigo street.

HENRY

Forget it. Forget what I’ve told you. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve been getting bad headaches lately. I’ll see a doctor.

BENDRIX

(Hearing the door)

That was the door. Sarah’s come in.

HENRY

Oh, that will be the maid. She’s been to the pictures

BENDRIX

No, it was Sarah’s step.

HENRY

Sar-ah…Sar-ah

(We hear footsteps closing in. SARAH turns to face her husband)

ENTER SARAH

SARAH

Yes, Henry?

(She notices Bendrix)

You?

BENDRIX

It’s nice to see you. Been out for a walk?

SARAH

Yes.

BENDRIX

(Accusingly)

It’s a filthy night..

HENRY

You’re wet through, Sarah. One day you’ll catch your death of cold.

END OF SCENE

The idea finds you

The idea finds you.

          I find that, as with most of my work, I tend to display a lot of what is happening with me at the time within my writing. However, I suppose, the true secret with writing a script (or anything for that matter), and take this with a grain of salt, is that it comes from understanding and experience. And I don’t mean experience as a measure of time but, rather, as a handle of ones lucidity.

            Now in my experience, from scripts I’ve written for student film projects, the ideas tend to come from my hermeneutical interpretation of various aspects within literature & film theory. I believe this bit of information is important because now that I am a man beyond my initial college years, I read for my own pleasure. Recently, I completed reading (for a 3^rd time) The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, a beautifully written novel about the plights of love & hate & God, to put it as simple as possible. Reading this over, and perhaps, reading this over now that I am 25 years old, has given me a deeper understanding on the book and the messages it conveys. Whether it’s a simple sentence on a single page or 4-pages of back-and-forth rhetoric, I find myself inspired; not influenced.

           

This is where I want to begin.

            I have been writing a couple of different scripts for the last 5 years but those hit too close to home, on a personal level, to complete at this time. However, I do wish to complete those stories and one way that I believe will be beneficial in helping me complete those stories, is harnessing the inspired feelings I felt while reading The End of the Affair and applying it to not only a script, but this blog as well. With that I began writing my first page and immediately I hit a brick wall -- nay, I hit a freakin’ titanium steel alloy wall. The story was coming out and it is there but a script from nothing? A script based on nothing that I, personally, experienced. A script popping up into my mind the way a bubble floats and pops from one moment to the next. To be honest, I don’t understand the script but I understand the story.

            This is why I have decided to open up my attempt at a feature-length script (based on The End of the Affair) to any who wish to assist in my comprehension of this non-linear process. I will be posting new scenes and updated scenes on a monthly basis with the hopes that, in-between posts, the feedback I receive will directly influence the focus of the overall script. A great script is never written alone, it is written with a little help of some friends or a little help from your memories. For a script like this I have no memories I can go back to for advice; help from some friends, however? This is where you come in! With both positive and negative feedback I know we can make a script that is not just mine but a beautiful effort from a web of strangers.

            With that said, you can expect my first scene within the month and from that point on, on a bi-weekly to monthly basis. With each scene I post I will also add a set of questions regarding parts within the scene that I am unsure of or that I believe could be made better but, of course, your responses are not confined to these questions.

I hope to hear from anyone who is willing to help. I am excited, for this idea, if taken seriously, can be something beautiful.