Awakenings
Writers: Steven Zaillian
Genres: Drama
AWAKENINGS
Scree nplay by
Steven 2ai11Ian
Based on t he Book by
Olive r Sac ks
OCTOBER 2, 1989
(BLUE)
REV .10/1 3/89
REV.1 0/16/ 89 (PINK)
REV.1 0/25/ 89 (YELLOW)
REV.1 1/6/8 9 (GREEN)
REV.1 1/10/ 89 (GOLDENROD
REV .11/1 4/89 (SALMON)
REV .11/1 6/89 (LAVENDER)
REV .11/2 2/89 (CHERRY)
REV .12/4 /89 (WHITE)
REV.1 2/5/8 9 (BLUE)
REV.1 2/12/ 89 (PINK)
REV .12/ 13/89 (YELLOW)
REV. 1,2/15/89 (GREEN)
1. A dusty deserted street - saloon, livery stable, sunset.
Only there is something unsettling about it all. The colors
are too muted and the angles not quite in perspective. Pulling
slowly back eventually reveals the edges of a narrow wooden
picture frame ...
INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT - 1930
Drifting away from the painting and slowly across a room.
Across Venetian blinds, open, letting in moonlight, across
intricate handmade wooden models, dime novels and comic books,
across the arm of a metronome gently slapping back and forth,
and settling finally on a small hand writing slowly and
deliberately, over and over, in synchronization, it seems, to
the rhythm of the metronome, the word, " L E O N A R D . "
2. INT. DINING ROOM - MORNING - 1930
The pendulum of a clock. An adult hand placing a bowl of
cereal on a table. Leonard, ten or eleven, waits a moment for
the adult to leave, grasps his spoon, and manipulates it from
bowl to mouth in time with the soft regular rhythm of the
clock.
3. EXT. STREET - NEW YORK - MORNING - 1930 3.
Schoolbooks slung over their shoulders, Leonard and another boy
his age, a classmate, move along a street.
All around them are "visual rhythms" - lines in the sidewalk,
the even placement of trees, the sunlight breaking through the
branches above them - and somewhere unseen, the rhythmic
pounding of an elevator train.
As they climb a fence, a pocket watch, Leonard's, falls to the
ground.
4.
4. INT. CLASSROOM - DAY - 1930
An adult hand chalking the words of a poem on a blackboard.
Children at desks dutifully transcribing the lesson.
All but one. Leonard. Whose hands are trembling slightly and
whose paper is blank. There is a noticeable lack of rhythms.
A cold silence. The broken watch rests on his desk.
The boy from the train, glancing at Leonard, begins gently
tapping the end of his pen against his desk. Leonard, "guided"
by the cadence of his friend's tapping, begins to write.
(o The teacher's hand at the blackboard hesitates. Distracted by 4.
the rhythmic noise, he traces it to the offender and silences
him with a look.
\ '
Without the rhythm, and without, apparently, inner natural
rhythms to replace it, Leonard's hand begins dragging the pen
across the paper, forming vague scrawl, each word less defined
than the last, until they begin melding together into what
resembles nothing so much as a child's rendering of ocean
waves.
The teacher resumes chalking on the board. The boy from the
train begins tapping his pen again, and, "guided" again by the
rhythm, Leonard is able to give definition to the "ocean
waves," to form recognizable letters.and words.
The teacher hesitates again and glares at the boy making the
irritating noise. The boy stops tapping and Leonard's writing
again becomes formless.
5.
5. INT. CLASSROOM.- LATER - DAY - 1930
The finished poem on the blackboard. The sounds of children at
play on the schoolyard. The teacher, alone in the classroom,
o at his desk grading the penmanship lesson.
He circles offending errors on the last page of the last
composition book. He scribbles a grade opposite the student's
name in a grade book. He notices the absence of a grade in
Leonard's column. .
Leonard's desk. The teacher locates the missing composition
book buried under textbooks. He takes it back to his own desk,
opens it, and stares curiously at the last lesson, the poem, or
rather Leonard's illegible representation of it.
He considers earlier lessons in the book. He begins to see in
the script a pattern of deterioration. He reaches the last
entry again and stares at the few recognizable words drowning
In "the waves."
<
6
6. INT. LEONARD'S BEDROOM - DAY - 1930 - WINTER
The painting on the wall. The intricate wooden models and dime
novels. The Venetian blinds, closed, shutting out sunlight.
Voices, barely audible, from somewhere else in the house:
BOY'S VOICE
When can I see him?
WOMAN'S VOICE
When he's well.
REV.12/15/89 (GREEN) Pg.3
6.C0NT. BOY'S VOICE 6.CONT,
When will he be well?
After a moment --
WOMAN'S VOICE
I don't know.
-- and the sound of a door closing.
A small twisted hand lifts a slat of the Venetian blinds
revealing the snow-patched street below. Leonard's friend,
crossing it, glances back . . . then disappears around a corner.
And the small gnarled hand lets the slat slide down,
extinguishing the single ray of light.
FADE TO BLACK
6A. EXT. BAINBRIDGE -HOSPITAL - THE. BRONX - DAY - 1970 . 6A
Tight on the face of a man (SAYER), late thirties, glasses,
staring up at the face of a building, imposing in its
institutional dullness.
6B. INT. LOBBY - BAINBRIDGE - DAY 6B.
A dim, sleepy cavern of a lobby. No one but a switchboard
operator thumbing through a magazine. Echoing footsteps reach
her station and she glances up and at the man from outside.
i
OPERATOR
Yes?
7. INT. ADMINISTRATION OFFICE - BAINBRIDGE - DAY
He seems uncomfortable. Perhaps it's the suit. Or the place.
Or the situation. Or the hard straight-backed chair he's in.
When he does finally speak, it's with great sincerity --
SAYER
When you say people ... you mean
living people, .
Behind an old oak desk, the hospital's Director glances over
to its Chief of Medicine, Dr. Kaufman, with a look that seems
to wonder, As opposed to what?
DIRECTOR
Living people, yes. Patients.
REV.12/15/89 (GREEN) Pg.4
7.C0NT. 7.
There's some mistake. And Sayer's chair begins to feel more *
uncomfortable. He tries to clear up the confusion -
*
SAYER
I ' m here for the research *
position . . . in your neurology *
lab.
DIRECTOR
Neurology lab?
He doesn't laugh at Sayer, just at the thought of it.
DIRECTOR
We have an x-ray room.
Sayer tries to share the Director's amusement with a good- *
natured smile, but doesn't really understand it. Kaufman seems *
to have less time for this, and in plain English, unadorned - *
KAUFMAN
- The-position-ds-Staff-^Neurologist. .
Sayer looks like a man who's just learned that everything he *
knows about the world is wrong. f
DIRECTOR
(pause)
A doctor ... doctor.
The Director refers to stapled sheets of paper in his hands,
Sayer's resume.
DIRECTOR
The Camel Institute. Tell me *
about that, anything with patients *
there? Or . . . *
SAYER
(burying it)
Earthworms.
The Director isn't sure he heard right.
DIRECTOR
Sorry? ,
>
SAYER
It was an immense project. "
I was trying to extract a decigram
of myelin from four tons of
earthworms.
REV.12/15/89 (GREEN) Pg.5
7.C0NT. DIRECTOR 7.
(pause)
Really.
SAYER
I was on it for five years.
I was the only one who really
believed in it. The rest of them
said it couldn't be done. t
KAUFMAN
It can't.
SAYER
Well, I know that now. I proved
it.
The director offers a slow tentative nod before consulting the
resume again.
DIRECTOR
Maybe before. At Saint Thomas.
(Sayer is already
shaking his head no)
All research. Earth - ?
SAYER
Pigs brains . . . they·re quite
similar to human brains.
DIRECTOR
(hopefully)
Are they?
SAYER
Oh, yes . . . three years.
As the Director retreats back to the resume, hoping against
hope of finding in it something germane, Sayer glances away to
a window. He wishes he were outside it. He has no business
being here. He should leave.
SAYER
Excuse me, I made a mistake coming
here. Clearly you're looking for
someone with more of a clinical
background.
He stands up to leave. Kaufman stands to see him out. But the *
director keeps searching the resume.
Q
REV.12/15/89 (GREEN) Pg.6
7.C0NT. SAYER . 7.
I've taken enough of your time.
You must have a hundred applicants
more suitable.
KAUFMAN
Thanks anyway.
DIRECTOR
Back in medical school ...
Kaufman shoots the Director a look that says, No, we're not
that desperate.
DIRECTOR
I mean, you couldn't have
graduated without some clinical
experience. .
Sayer hesitates. And eventually manages sort of a shrug and a
n od ., v'
DIRECTOR
Well, there we are, doctor.
Kaufman can't believe it, but is sent back a look that says,
We have no choice. The Director gets up out of his chair, and,
smiling broadly, extends his hand to Sayer. Which unsettles
Sayer. Which in turn unsettles the Director.
DIRECTOR
(not far from v
begging)
You do want the job, don't you?
Sayer isn't so sure. He thinks about it long and hard . . .
8. INT. CORRIDOR - BAINBRIDGE - DAY 8.
Moving along a corridor crowded "with patients, some ambulatory,
some in wheelchairs, "living people" living with profound
neurological disease.
ANTHONY O.S.
Spent much time in chronic
hospitals, doctor?
A patient approaches, and, passing Sayer and the orderly who's
escorting him (ANTHONY), offers -
FEMALE PATIENT 1
Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello . . .
REV.12/15/89 (GREEN) pg.7
8.C0NT. ANTHONY 8.
(to Sayer)
You'd remember.
SAYER
I guess not.
As they pass an old patient in a wheelchair -
ANTHONY
Hey, how you doing?
(calling to someone
down the hall)
Dr. Sullivan.
Staying on the old patient, he eventually manages, too late -
OLD PATIENT
Fn ...
ie
Down the hall in an alcove, Dr. Sullivan glances up long
sufferingly from-a.patient~with'.an .Ouij a-board who !.s mumbling, *
complaining, unintelligibly. Anthony and Sayer arrrive.
ANTHONY
Dr. Sullivan, this is Dr. Sayer;
' ': : ' ' -'.
There's a kind a "deadness" in Sullivan's eyes and voice; he's
been here too long.
SULLIVAN
Not the neurologist, that'd be
asking too much. You're not the
neurologist.
SAYER
I think I am.
Sayer extends his hand. Instead of shaking it -
SULLIVAN
Well, come on, Anthony, get him a
coat for Christ's sake.
- Sullivan thrusts his clipboard into Sayer's hand.
9. OMITTED 9.
10. INT. DAYROOM (A) - DAY 10.
A woman in a wheelchair uttering high-pitched screams (FEMALE
PATIENT 2 ) . Sayer in a lab coat trying to calm her.
REV.12/15/89 (GREEN) Pg.7
10.CONT. SAYER . 10.
They're just pencils, pens.
He tries to prove it to her by removing one of them from the
pocket of his white coat. Screaming louder at the sight of it,
she tries to protect her face with her hands like a boxer being
beaten senseless.
v
11. INT. DAYROOM (B) - DAY 11.
A man in his sixties confronts Sayer with an announcement in a
loud commanding voice -
MALE PATIENT 1
X was born in I911f in
Kinasbridae, New York. I came
here in July of 1955. Prior to
July of 1955. I resided a£ the
Brooklyn Psychiatric Centerf
Brooklyn. New York. Prior to
thatP I was a person. And you.
sir.- i Who the* hell >are.*v.ou? .
12. INT. DAYROOM (C) - DAY 12.
Stepping around a wheelchair, Sayer finds in it an elderly
woman, nicely dressed, her hair done-up, a ribbon in it.
Glancing at the chart in his hand -
SAYER
Mrs. Cohen?
MRS. COHEN
He·s here?
She smiles, glances around. Sayer hesitates, uncertain who she
means.
SAYER
I 'm here.
(pause)
To examine you.
MRS. COHEN
Oh, no, I ' m leaving today. My
son's coming to take me home.
(6 Confused, Sayer tries to find a discharge form among the papers
on the clipboard. Unsuccessful, he excuses himself from her
and crosses the room to a nurse.
SAYER
Excuse me. Mrs. Cohen's son.
He's coming today?
NURSE 1
I wouldn't bet on it, he hasn't
for twenty years.
The nurse turns away. Sayer crosses slowly back to Mrs. Cohen,
trying to find the words to tell her. He doesn't have to; his
discomfort does it. Her hand slowly reaches up and pulls the
ribbon from her hair.
13. OMITTED .
v
14. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM/OFFICE- LATER - DAY
Silence. Institutional beige walls. Glass cabinets, locked,
containing medical instruments. A metal examination table with
leather straps.
Sayer alone at one of three old desks in the large room, still
unsettled from the experience with Mrs. Cohen. Eventually, he
gets up, crosses to a window and tries to open it.
It's jammed shut, painted shut perhaps, but finally gives way,
sliding up. He lets the air from outside wash over his face as
he stares out absently at children on an elementary school
playground beyond a debris-strewn field.
MISS COSTELLO O.S.
(a matter of fact)
It gets easier.
Sayer turns to the voice, to Miss Costello, the hospital's head
nurse, a veteran of this place, a woman who has seen it all.
She's standing in the doorway.
MISS COSTELLO
You don't think it will, but it
does.
A moment and she A urns and leaves.
t
14A. EXT. TENEMENT (LUCY'S) - ESTABLISH - DAY
15. INT. TENEMENT - NEW YORK.- DAY 1
The needle of a Victrola clawing at the endless music-less
inner bands of a 78 . . . .* .
Cold eggs and toast and prescription medicine on a kitchenette
table. A puddle of coffee on the floor. Ceramic shards, a
broken cup. .
An old woman on her knees, eyes closed, arms tangled in an
aluminum walker, limp and stiff at once somehow, like the limbs
of a discarded marionette. Beyond her, beyond a threshold, a
shuttered living room. Furniture from another era and the
clutter of a lifetime.
A shadowy figure in a wicker wheelchair near the Victrola.
Another old woman, with spindly limbs, profoundly afflicted and
preposterously still. The back of her head is flat and bald,
the result of lying supine upon it for much of several decades.
On her passive face rest round wire-rim glasses. Insane or
retarded and unaware of the dead woman, she mumbles, just
barely audibly, a melody.
SAYER'S VOICE
Can you hear me? .
16
16. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM/OFFICE - BAINBRIDGE - DAY
Distant music of children's laughter. Perhaps real, emanating
from outside; perhaps imagined, remembered, playing in a remote
region of the woman's damaged mind. Arrested of all movement,
she stares, transfixed, at the blades of a fan.
SAYER'S VOICE
Do you know where you are?
(nothing back)
Do you remember being brought
here?
(nothing back)
Do you know what has happened?
If she does, she gives no indication. No word or gesture. No
change of expression on her mask of a face. She is elsewhere
(or nowhere), cut adrift by her illness, living in a private
world (or hell).
SAYER'S VOICE
Can you hear me?
Sayer, wearing a white lab coat, tries to read her eyes.
Behind thick lenses, uncleaned for weeks or months, the eyes
are inscrutable. . ··
REV. 12/5/89 (BLUE) Pg.-lO
16.CONT. 16.
Sayer reaches to her face and carefully pulls the glasses from
it. He cleans them with a flap of his lab coat -- they are
loose, bent out of shape*-- and gently slides the temples back
over her ears.
He turns away from her and types at a manual Underwood. The
form in the machine, at the top, reads -- BAINBRIDGE HOSPITAL /
ADMISSIONS / CONSULTATION REQUEST / NEUROLOGY. Sayer types in
a lower section headed -- FINDINGS / DIAGNOSIS.
He turns back in his chair to find the woman doubled-over in
her wheelchair, one arm very close to the floor, the hand
clutching the glasses. She is not moving, but she has moved.
That, or she is dead.
Sayer rights her, takes the glasses from her hand and slips
them back onto her face. He studies her for a moment, and for
that moment remains as still, as entranced, as her.
He takes the glasses from her face again and sets them on the
floor. He waits. She doesn't retrieve them. He picks them up
and holds them out to her. She doesn't move to take them. He
lets go of them and she lunges forward, catching them the
instant before they hit the floor. Sayer just stares.
SAYER«S VOICE
Her name is Lucy Fishman . . .
r
16B. INT. CORRIDOR OUTSIDE EXAMINATION ROOM - LATE AFTERNOON 16B.
Dr. Kaufman, the hospital's Chief of Medicine, notices a number
of patients lined up in their wheelchairs as he passes them on
his way into Sayer's examination room -
SAYER'S VOICE
She was found by neighbors with *
her sister, several days after the ,
sister had died . . .
17. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - LATE AFTERNOON 17.
The same room as before. The same woman. All that has changed
is the light. It's late afternoon.
SAYER (CONT'D)
According to the neighbors, *
she's never set foot outside her *
apartment, has no other living *
relatives, and has always been the *
way she is now - without any *
comprehension or response. *
Kaufman tries to feign interest. He glances to the others 1
Sayer has summoned to the room -- two other doctors, Tyler and
Sullivan, and Miss Costello.
SAYER
And yet . . .
Without any warning whatsoever Sayer tosses a tennis ball at
her. Her hand suddenly jerks up out of her lap and catches it.
And stays there, stiff, still.
Sayer is delighted but the expression on Kaufman's face is that
of one who has long ago learned and tired of simple card
tricks. Dismissing the phenomenon --·
DR. KAUFMAN
A reflex.
SAYER
If she batted it away I might call
that a reflex. She doesn't bat it
away, she catches it.
DR. KAUFMAN
- It's still a reflex.
..·. : · ·' .· " .'
SAYER
I'm sorry, if you were right I'd
agree with you.
Kaufman, understandably, takes some offense at the comment.
Sayer, however, is unaware that he has caused any.
SAYER
It's as if . . . having lost all
will of her own on which to act,
she borrows the will of the ball.
Awkward silence. Eventually--
DR. TYLER
The "will of the ball?"
.
Sayer nods. Kaufman and the other doctors concur with glances
that the theory and theorist are absurd.
DR. SULLIVAN
Excuse me.
Sullivan has better things to do and leaves the room. So does
Tyler. Kaufman and Miss Costello remain.
DR. KAUFMAN . I
(hopefully)
You're trying to make a good
impression. That's it, isn't it?
You're still settling in.
Sayer isn't sure if he should agree or not. He does neither.
DR. KAUFMAN
Miss Costello, you'll see that Dr.
Saver's patients waiting out there
are rescheduled for tomorrow?
MISS COSTELLO
Yes, sir.
DR. KAUFMAN
Good night.
Sayer watches Kaufman leave. So does Miss Costello. Lucy,
looking less like a woman than a Diane Arbus photograph of one,
doesn't.
18. EXT. PARKING LOT - BAINBRIDGE - LATE AFTERNOON
C'\ Sayer climbs into his Toyota and, as he buckles his seat belt,
-*© recites in a mumble to himself --
SAYER
One . . . .
*
(he turns the key)
Two . . .
(puts on sunglasses)
Three . . .
(releases the brake)
Four . . .
(shifts out of
'park')
.
Five.
Just as he's depressing the accelerator, someone raps on his
window. He slams on the brakes. Miss Costello's face appears
at the window. Recovering, Sayer rolls it down.
SAYER
What'd I forget?
MISS COSTELLO
I just wanted to say to you I
preferred your explanation.
() It's unclear whether he knows what she's referring to.
r
MISS COSTELLO
And that I'll look after things
for you until you've "settled in."
Good night, doctor.
She leaves. He stares blankly out after her, then at his
dashboard. To it eventually, quietly --
SAYER
Thank you . . .
He glances to his rear view mirror and can see her walking away
toward her car. To the reflection --
SAYER
Thank you very much.
18A. EXT. SAMMY'S FISH GROTTO - ESTABLISH - NIGHT 18A.
19. INT. SAMMY'S GROTTO, CITY ISLAND, THE BRONX - NIGHT 19.
Sayer at a table eating dinner alone. He should've brought
along something to read. He glances at the little "Catch of
the Day" notice on his table for the tenth time, then absently
in at an eel in a fish tank, which seems to be peering back out
at him.
SIDNEY V.O.
I am not mad ... not mad . . .
20. EXT. SCHOOLYARD & BAINBRIDGE HOSPITAL - DAY 20.
A tether ball dangling from a rope, resting against a pole.
The chains of a swing. Pigeons scavenging scraps on the
asphalt of the elementary school playground, deserted.
·
SIDNEY V.O.
I know the difference between what
is real and what is not . . .
Beyond a chain-link fence, across the field, on the roof of one
of Bainbridge's brick buildings, peering down from the edge of
it, coat over his smock, hat on his head, an elderly man.
21. INT. SIDNEY'S DAYROOM - DAY 21.
Tight on the elderly man's face.
SIDNEY
The voice was real.
REV.12/12/89 (PINK) Pg.14
21.C0NT. 21.
Sayer nods in agreement though he is not altogether as certain
of tne claim. They are in a ward crowded with many patients
who are mad, obviously and irretrievably so.
SAYER
What did the voice say?
SIDNEY
"Mr. Titch, get your coat and hat,
go up to the roof and jump off."
SAYER
Did you recognize it as belonging
to a person? Or was it just a
voice?
Sidney considers Sayer suspiciously ... then smiles slyly. *
*
SIDNEY
You don't deny it was you. *
SAYER
*
Me?
Sayer is taken aback. As is Sidney. One of them, and Sidney
believes he knows which, is lying or crazy.
' ' · * SAYER ' .
I do deny it. It wasn't me.
It wasn't real.
(pause)
We've only just now met, sir. »
Sidney, suddenly completely disoriented, withdraws.
SIDNEY
If that's true . . . I'm in a
predicament.
22. INT. STAFF CAFETERIA - BAINBRIDGE - DAY 22.
Sayer in line with Drs. Tyler and Sullivan, both younger than *
himself. He seems distracted, Sayer, lost in the color of the
beets on his tray. Or a thought.
Like George telling Lenny again about the rabbits:
DR. SULLIVAN
*
We'd be high up - 40th, 50th
floor, nice midtown view - suite *
of offices, carpeted, good-looking *
receptionist - *
REV.12/12/89 (PINK) Pg.15
22.CONT. DR. TYLER 22
fp\ · Aquarium in the waiting room,
\_J) George. ,
DR. SULLIVAN
We could have all that ... but
we'd miss all this. We'd miss the
wards.
DR. TYLER
The smell of them.
DR. SULLIVAN
We'd miss this place -
(this cafeteria)
We'd miss this . . .
(the plate of mush as
it's set down onto
his tray)
Whatever this is. .
SAYER
Ye ....
s
Sayer glances up at them, having paid attention to nothing
they've said, and nods at some other thought.
. ' SAYER
Yes . . . ,'
He leaves his tray where he stands, and heads out of the
cafeteria. v
23. INT. SIDNEY'S DAYROOM - DAY 23.
Sayer back with Sidney.
SAYER
Did you see me when-1 "spoke?"
Sidney thinks about it, tries to remember, to summon back the
moment in question, to picture it exactly as it happened, or
didn't happen.
SIDNEY
No.
SAYER
You see me now though.
SIDNEY
Yes.
REV.12/12/89 (PINK) Pg.l5
23.CONT, (continuity only)
Sidney turns to a patient, an elderly woman in a wheelchair
beside him. Her state resembles that of Lucy's, that is, she
appears to have no awareness of Sidney, Sayer, or anything else
in her environment. It is only now, in fact, as Sidney spoons
soup into her mouth, careful not to spill any, that Sayer
notices her.
CONTINUED:
sr^ SAY ER
(y--\ I f it ha p pe n s ag a in , M r. Ti t ch , I
v_y w an ty ou to l oo k a ro u nd . If yo u
d on 't act u al l y se e me , i f yo u o n ly
h ea rm e, you c an be s u re th a t I ' m
n ot re a l, a nd y ou c an i g no re m e.
Sa ye r sm il es , pl ea se d w it h hi s so lu ti on .
SID NE Y
U nle ss you us e th e P .A. sy ste m.
S a ye r' s sm il e fa de s. Si d ne y is s ti ll i n a pr ed ic a me nt a nd
Sa ye r has n' t t he a nsw er .
2 4. INT . NUR SE S' ST AT ION - D AY 24
;
Sa ye r di al s th e ho sp it a l op er at or .
S AY E R
Mai nten ance, plea se.
W ai ti n g t o be co n ne ct e d, he n o ti c es a n ot h er " s ta t ue " ( BE R T) .
W ha t's un se t t l i n g a b ou t t h i s o n e, a pa r t f r om t he ma n ' s g h os t -
l ik e ap p e ar a n ce , i s th e an g le o f h i s w he e l ch a i r. I t ' s l i ke a n
P~ -\ ask e w p ai n ti n g, a s i f w ho e ve r w as wh e el in g i t s im p ly le t g o o f
\TS? the c h ai r and t h i s i s wh e r e i t a n d i t s c a r g o h a p p e n e d to c o m e
*to r est, faci n g th e wal l.
N ot wa nt i ng to l o se th e c al l , Sa y er mo ve s t o wa r d th e p at i en t ,
k ee p ing the r e c e i ve r t o h i s e a r . At f u l l e x t e n sion of th e
c or d , un f or t un at e ly , h e' s s t il l t wo pa ce s s h or t .R e ac hi n g b ac k
w it h the arm w it h th e ph o ne , he g ai n s d i st a n ce a nd tu r n s the
w he e lc ha i r q ui ck l y j us t a s h is c a ll co nn e ct s .
SA Y ER
Yes. Hi. I need a lock installed
on th e d oo r to th e E as t Win g roo f.
A b ig l oc k . T he s oo n e r t he
better.
( pa us e )
I'm sor ry, th is i s D r. Say er. .
(p au se )
I'm sorry, form . . .
H e s c ri b b le s a n um b e r o n t h e b a ck o f h is h an d an d h a n gs u p. He
wa nd e rs ov er to th e " st a tu e" ag a in .
S AY E R
H ow ar e y ou ?
No re s p on s e w h at s o ev e r . Sa y e r m a na g es h is p en i nt o t h e m a n 's
ha nd an d s ea r ch e s hi s p o ck et s f o r pa p er .
REV. 10/13/89 p. 17
He glances around. Sees an orderly reading a newspaper.
(P\ Borrows a section, returns with it, slides it under the pen and
waits. The man doesn't write. Doesn't move.
Sayer takes the pen back, returns it to his coat pocket,
hesitates, pulls it out again, holds it out . . . and lets it go.
The man, lightning quick, catches it.
25. INT. ANOT HE R DAYRO OM ( B) - L ATE R - DAY 2 5.
Another man rigid as stone (FRANK). This one peering up at a
television set with a horizontal hold problem.
Sayer drags a chair over, stands on it, adjusts the set,
corrects it, gets a picture . . . but the man's "attention"
slowly drifts away. Sayer "read justs" it, gets the jumping
horizontal lines again, and the man's vacant eyes return.
26. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - LATER - DAY . 26.
Another dayroom crowded with patients, one of which stands
before a table, absolutely motionless, on thin bird-like legs.
It is Lucy, the one who caught/the tennis ball. The movement
of nurses and other patients only accentuates her stillness.
Sayer considers her from all angles as one considers an
abstract art piece that baff les but in trigues. Unlike the
others, she's on her feet. A nd unlike the others, she seems,
to Sayer, to have been headed somewhere before turning to stone
again.
- ." »
He decides that her destination was the drinking fountain
across the room. And that it's the table, like a barrier, that
has arrested her progress. He moves the table.
In what appears to be slow motion, she takes a tiny step. And
another. And another before encountering and being "blocked"
by an empty wheelchair. She stops.
Sayer moves the wheelchair and all other obstacles out of her
path. She continues and eventually makes it halfway to the
fountain before mysteriously stopping again.
Sayer studies the puzzle ... there are no longer any barriers
in her way, but she's not moving. Defeated, he goes to the
fountain himself, fills a paper cup, and takes it to her.
Across the room, a man in a wheelchair, another "ghost"
(LEONARD), stares through eyes which seem more dead than alive.
"At" Sayer.
27. INT. FILE ROOM, BAINBRIDGE - DAY 27
o An admission form, yellowed and brittle with age --
BAINBRIDGE HOSPITAL / ADMISSIONS
STATE OF NEW YORK
A typed date / AUGUST 2, 1929. The admitting physician's name.
The patient's name. And age / 15. An identification number
and ward assignment number.
As Sayer pulls the folder and closes the drawer of one of
several filing cabinets lining the walls of a claustrophobic
room, Miss Costello slides open another, locates a particular
folder in it and in the folder another admitting form -- The
date / MAY 7, 1932. Names and numbers.
Another drawer. Sayer pulling another folder. Another
admission form ~ Date / DECEMBER 12, 1930. Age of the patient
/ 22.
28
28. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - LATER - DAY
The files spread out on a table. Sayer and Miss Costello
leafing through them. .
.
Sayer considers one's original admission forms. He scans
bodies of text and finds a diagnosis -- ATYPICAL SCHIZOPHRENIA.
He sets it aside and picks up another.
MISS COSTELLO
"Atypical Hysteria," this one.
Sayer nods to himself and keeps reading his. He eventually
finds in its text -- ATYPICAL RABIES. He flips to the end of
the file. "No change since last examination" it reads. He
turns the page. "No change, no therapy recommended." He turns
the page, the last entry. "No change." The date, "11/9/44."
SAYER
There must be more recent files we
missed somehow. "Part Twos" to
their medical histories.
(Miss Costello is
shaking head 'no.')
In some other filing cabinet
somewhere. . ..
MISS COSTELLO
NO.
o
REV. 10/13/89 p.19
29. EXT. PARKING LOT - BAINBRIDGE - EVENING 29.
(>~s, Sayer and Miss Costello walking to their cars.
SAYER
One would think that after a point
enough atypical somethings would
amount to a typical something.
But a typical "what?"
Miss Costello, no doubt, has less of an idea than Sayer what
the "what" could be.
MISS COSTELLO
, Doctor . . . would you like to g e t a
cup of coffee somewhere?
(pause)
Tea?
SAYER
Ah . . . normally I'd say yes . . .
only I've made other plans . . .
She nods quickly. She seems, strangely, relieved.
MISS COSTELLO
Some other time.
SAYER
Yes.
MISS COSTELLO
,
Good night.
SAYER
Good night.
They veer apart to their respective cars.
30. INT. SAMMY'S GROTTO, CITY ISLAND - NIGHT 30.
The tiny gree/i eyes in the head of the eel staring out at
refracted light and shadow. Sayer, alone at the same table as
before, finished with his meal.
i
WAITER
Tea, right? ·
/
·
SAYER
P e s . '...-·
lae
The waiter leaves. Sayer glances back into the fish tank at
the eel behind the rock, its rock, its home.
(RE V. 10 /1 6/ 89) Pin k _ p. 2 0
31. EXT. CITY ISLAND - LATER - NIGHT 31.
fpl
Sayer strolling down a dark side street. He reaches a snail
wooden house near the water and climbs three steps to the
porch. He gets the front door opened and bends to pick up mail
(including a few book parcels from antiquarian shops) just *
inside the threshold. *
32. OMITTED 32.
i
33. INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - DINING ROOM - LATER - NIGHT 33.
Tight on (Ernst Heckle) drawings of primitive life forms. *
Sayer, in his dining room, leafs through the old first edition, *
pleased it has arrived, intrigued by its pictures. The parcel *
paper lies beside it on the table. *
34. INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - LATER - NIGHT 34.
Fingers on the keys of a baby grand piano that seems out of
scale with Sayer's small living room. Wrapped in a robe, he
plays a melody.
fcuJ All around him lay packing boxes, some empty, many not. The
*^^ books are out at least - many of a medical nature, many others
on nature itself,, botany, many first editions - two and three
deep on shelves, on the floor, on tables, stacked on the couch -
and chairs almost like figures of people.t
35. INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - LATER - NIGHT 35.
A lamp, on, in the living room. Sayer asleep on the couch, an
open book and reading glasses resting on his chest.
His eyes blink open. Not at a noise. At a thought.
36. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - BAINBRIDGE - LATER - NIGHT 36.
A n i g h t ja n i to r w i th a p a i l -o n -w h e e l s a n d a m o p m o v e s p a s t
da r k e n e d o ffi c e s. H e p a u s e s a t o n e , th e fi l e r o o m , l i g h t u n d e r
i ts d o o r , a n d o p e n s i t. . -.. *
JANITOR
I'm sorry, doctor. I thought
someone left the lights on.
Q
REV.,12/5/89 (BLUE) Pg.2
36'.CONT. 36.
Glancing up from files strewn across the table, Sayer shares a
discovery with the janitor -
SAYER
They all survived encephalitis
years before they came here. In
the 1920' s .
He taps a finger at the files - the patients' medical histories
prior to admission - forms listing childhood diseases and
ailments. The janitor, having no idea of course what he means,
retreats with his pail and mop, closing the door.
36A. EXT. MEDICAL LIBRARY, NEW YORK - ESTABLISH - DAY 36A.
37. INT. MEDICAL LIBRARY, NEW YORK - DAY 37.
Sayer displays what he has written on the back of his hand to
*
an assistant librarian: NEJM 4-6-35.
SAYER
The New England Journal of
Medicine, April 6th, 1935. *
38. INT. MEDICAL LIBRARY - LATER - DAY . 38.
A microfilm machine. Sayer manipulating its levers and
eventually finding what he's after, an article titled:
ENCEPHALITIS LETHARGICA, TEN YEARS LATER.
Accompanying the text are grainy black and white photographs
taken in an old operating theatre. An anatomical skeleton, a
doctor in a white coat, subjects-- men, women and children
with haunting eyes.
39. EXT. RESIDENTIAL GARDEN, NEW YORK - DAY 39.
Close on the doctor from the photographs - ancient and ill.
OLD DOCTOR
(philosophically
detached)
Pus and pain, that's the final *
reward. Pus and pain and
obscurity.
He's in a small unkept rose garden. With Sayer. *
No te: To g et c lear anc e fr om t he N ew En gla nd Jo urn al of *
Medicine, we must indicate that it is a weekly publication, *
which is why the "6th" has been added. *
OLD DOCTOR .
I believe you when you say some
still live. But I can assure you
they're medically irrelevant. As
they were thirty years ago when I
fought to get my work published.
He smiles at a thought, at once wistful and bitter.
OLD DOCTOR
That's the problem with a unique
disease. Once it no longer rages,
I'm telling you, it becomes very
unfashionable. .
He buries his face into his mask, manages to get some deep
breaths into his lungs and shakes his head at Sayer.
OLD DOCTOR
What would I be without this
thing? A man with a1 shred of
dignity le_ft.
SAYER
Should I get your nurse?
OLD DOCTOR
God forbid, no.
He lights a cigarette, coughs and puts it out.
OLD DOCTOR
How many have you found there?
SAYER
Five. So far. I think there may
be more.
The old doctor nods. He has the torn look of someone reminded
of an unfaithful lover just when he'd managed to forget about
her. He wants and doesn't want to know how they're doing.
Finally --
OLD DOCTOR
How are they?
SAYER
As you described them. As they
were back then. As "insubstantial
as ghosts." Only I guess most of
them were children then.
OLD DOCTOR
Yes. Children who fell asleep.
o 40. INT. OLD DOCTOR'S STUDY - DAY 40
Boxes of ancient history have been dragged out of storage, the
emphysema-plagued doctor's post-encephalitic research, files
and photographs and cans of 16mm film.
OLD DOCTOR
Most died during the acute stage
of the illness, during a sleep so
deep they couldn't be roused. A
sleep that in most cases lasted
several months.
The doctors, in the dark, watch forty year old footage
projected onto a screen by a pre-World War II Bell & Howell -
a motionless man in a chair, his head thrust back, mouth gaping
open, arms suspended out from an emaciated torso as if from
invisible strings.
OLD DOCTOR
Those who survived, who awoke,
seemed fine, as though nothing had
happened. Years went by - five,
ten, fifteen - before anyone
suspected they were not well. .
They were not.
A doctor, this doctor decades younger, appears beside the
subject on the screen and lowers the man's arms.
OLD DOCTOR
I began to see them in the early
1930's - old people brought in by
their children, young people
brought in by their parents - all
of them complaining they weren't
"themselves" anymore. They'd
grown distant, aloof, anti-social,
they daydreamed at the dinner
table. I referred them to
psychiatrists.
The man on the screen disappears and is replaced by a seal-
shaped woman in whom a hundred strange diseases seem to reside.
They conspire against her, torment and harass her, force her to
perform incessant and meaningless actions with her hands, to
paw her chin, to flutter, to adjust glasses that aren't there.
REV.12/5/89 (BLUE) Pg.24
40.CONT. DOCTOR 40
0<
ID
Before long they were being
referred back to me. They could
no longer dress themselves or feed
themselves. They could no longer
speak in most cases. Families
went mad. People who were
normal, were now . . . *
(searches for the
word)
. . . elsewhere ...
The woman on the screen is replaced by a young man, a teenager,
who seems composed less of flesh than wax, a wax figure with
real eyes.
SAYER
What must it be like to be them?
On the screen, the young man's eyes, entranced, gaze upward as
if trying hard to remember something. Or trying hard to forget
it.
SAYER
What are they thinking? .
OLD DOCTOR
0 They're not. The virus didn't :
spare the higher faculties.
SAYER
(hopefully)
We know that for a fact.
OLD DOCTOR
Yes.
SAYER
Bec use . . .
a
4
Sayer waits for the old doctor to tell him the reasons, the
data, to support the merciful truth. But he doesn't seem to
possess it any more than Sayer does. Long silence before:
OLD DOCTOR
Because the alternative is
unthinkable.
40A. INT. DAYROOM (C) - DAY ' 40A.
The hand of a stone-like woman catches the tennis ball while
the rest of her remains absolutely still. Sayer gestures to
Anthony, Okay, and the orderly wheels her out of the crowded
room.
4OB. INT. WARD 5 DAYROOM - DAY · 4OB
The hand of an otherwise still-life man snaps to catch the
ball. Sayer nods to an orderly who wheels him out past younger
patients, Ward 5's residents.
i
40C. INT. CORRIDOR - DAY 40C
The ball glances off the face of a nan who turns in his
wheelchair and glares at Sayer.
SAYER
Sorry. .
41
41. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - LATER - DAY
Sayer has assembled them all, the fourteen or fifteen he has
decided are post-encephalitics, and wanders among them like a
naturalist in a garden of stone.
He lifts an arm of one particularly remote male patient. It
remains suspended, doll-like.
He tries to follow the trajectory of another's gaze. It leads
only to blank space.
He considers another who appears "deeply involved" in some
minute and curious activity with his twisted hands, a kind of
tearing, shredding motion.
. v
Across the room, paying no attention to Sayer, are Sidney and
Lolly. He's gently brushing her hair.
Sayer manages a pen into the hand of another woman and she
"draws" a kind a kind of circular shape that spirals in on
itself until it reaches a "vanishing point" in the center.
42. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - LATER - DAY 42.
The results of standard perception tests scotch-taped to a wall
of the examination room.
Sayer and Miss Costello, like visitors to a museum, consider
each for a moment before moving onto the next.
Printed in the left column of each are a circle, square,
triangle and daisy. In the right are the post-encephalitics'
failed "attempts" to copy them.
REV. 10/13/83 p.26
Sayer keeps coming back to one in particular. Unlike the
others which, if you use your imagination, vaguely correspond
somewhat positionally to the pre-printed shapes, this one bears
no resemblance. This patient has instead scrawled over the
shapes, seemingly violently.
Miss Costello joins Sayer and ponders it along with him.
Eventually, as if to excuse it and its maker--
MISS COSTELLO
It's different.
SAYER
Quite. It's quite bad.
Sayer keeps studying it.
SAYER
(more to himself)
Did he fail to understand? Or was
he unwilling to fail?
He isn't really asking her to answer, which is fine with her
since she doubts equally both hypotheses.
SAYER
Could he be saying, "I can't draw
a triangle, don't make me"?
(before she can
respond:)
Could it be willfully bad?
She doesn't say it but it's clear she thinks Sayer is reading
far too much into the "badness" of the patient's scrawl. To
himself -
SAYER
Which one is this?
He leans closer to see the typed name . . .
43. INT. LEONARD'S WARD - DAY 43.
The painting of the Western town from the prologue - saloon,
livery stable, sunset. Below it, in his wheelchair, Leonard.
His face is unlined and passive, like a mask. His body is
still, like the dead.
SAYER'S VOICE >| v
Does he ever speak to you?
Leonard's mother, a woman of seventy or so, is combing her
son's hair, being careful to get the part straight.
REV. 10/13/89 p.27
MRS. LOWE
Of course not. Not in words.
SAYER
He speaks to you in other ways.
How do you mean?
MRS. LOWE i
You don't have children.
SAYER
No. ,
MRS. LOWE
If you did you'd know.
Finished with his hair, she wheels him from the sleeping ward *
and into the -
43A. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - CONTINUOUS - DAY 43A
Sayer, trailing after Mrs. Lowe and her sonr becomes
momentarily distracted by Lucy, the most recently arrived post-
encephalitic, the one he tried unsuccessfully to coax to the
drinking fountain. She is there again, "stuck" at the same
point, angled toward the fountain but unable to reach it.
Sayer brings her a cup of water and rejoins Mrs. Lowe. -
SAYER
I'd like to examine him again-if
that's all right with you.
MRS. LOWE ,
He did well.
SAYER
In a sense.
MRS. LOWE
He's very clever. Aren't you,
Leonard. .
Sayer shows her the perception test "drawing** Leonard made.
SAYER
Does this mean anything to you?
MRS. LOWE .
(more to Leonard) ;·
It's very good. '·
.
She glances back to Sayer who nods uncertainly. She recognizes.
the look on his face; she's seen it before on the faces of more
doctors than she cares to remember. ' f
REV. 10/13/89 p.28
MRS. LOWE
(becoming impatient
with him)
Well it's abstract, isn't it.
Sayer can't bring himself to agree with her.
MRS. LOWE
That's the problem with all you
doctors, you have no imagination.
Everything has to be real to you.
No longer having any use for him, she pointedly ignores him.
*
Taking the hint, Sayer's wanders off, past Lucy, looking like a
statue, holding the paper cup he brought her.
43B. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING (MRS. LOWE'S) - ESTABLISH - NIGHT 43B.
44. INT. MRS. LOWE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 44
The door opens from the inside revealing Sayer in street
clothes. Judging from the look on Mrs. Lowe's face, he has
arrived unannounced.
SAYER .
I want to know more about him.
44A. INT. MRS. LOWE'S APARTMENT - LEONARD'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 44A.
An old photograph. A sixth grade class picture from 1930?,
Moving slowly across the young faces to Leonard, eleven, at the
end of a row.
MRS. LOWE 0.8.
Something was wrong, they said,
with his hands. He couldn't write
anymore, he couldn't do the work,
I should take him out of school,
they said. He was eleven.
They're in Leonard's old bedroom, Sayer and Mrs. Lowe. Except
for the Western painting that's missing, nothing has changed in
it in thirty years.
CONTINUED:
REV. 10/13/89 p.28A
MRS. LOWE
He slowly got worse. He'd be
talking, suddenly he'd come to a
stop. After a few seconds he'd
finish what he was saying like
nothing happened, but these
standstills got longer. Sometimes
he'd call to me and I'd come in
and find him at his desk in a
trance. An hour, two hours. Then
he'd be okay again.
CONTINUED:
Sayer glances around the room. It's been preserved, like a
shrine.
MRS. LOWE
One day I came hone from work and
found him in his bed, his arm like
this, reaching.
(pause)
"What do you want, Leonard?"
She pictures the moment in her mind, and waits, it seems, for
the young Leonard to speak, to tell her what it is he wants.
Finally she lowers her arm and shrugs.
MR.S LOWE
He never spoke again. It was like
he'd disappeared. I took him to
Bainbridge later that year.
November fourteenth, 1937.
He was twenty.
Sayer glances away from her to the room itself again.
SAYER
What'd he do with himself, Mrs.
Lowe, those nine years he stayed
in this room?
She smiles to herself, proudly it seems.
MRS. LOWE
He read. y
45. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - BAINBRIDGE - DAY 45
Leonard's face in shadow. Wires emerging from his scalp. A
sluggish EEG pattern.
A blinding flash from a strobe.suddenly lights up the room.
The pupils of Leonard's eyes shrink, but his EEG remains
stuporously slow.
45A. EXT. RESEARCH LAB, NEW YORK - ESTABLISH - DAY 45A.
46. INT. RESEARCH LAB - DAY 46
A monkey flipping switches on a panel built into a laboratory
room, searching for a sequence.
In an observation booth, years of collected data - charts and
graphs, EEG's and notes.
There, Dr. Mann, a contemporary of Sayer's, stares at Sayer Ay
curiously. Eventually he manages --
MANN
When you say you're working with
people, you don't mean living
people. (
SAYER
Living people, yes. Patients.
Mann just stares. He's a scientist, they both are, and the
idea of Sayer working with living people, rather than expired
ones laid out on the pathology table, is inconceivable to him.
MANN
(fearing the answer)
Where?
SAYER
It's in The Bronx. It's a poor
private chronic hospital called
M ou nt --
MANN
(appalled)
Oh, Malcolm, Malcolm, come back,
come on. You're a benchman,
you're no clinician, why would you
lower yourself?
Sayer hasn't an answer for him. »·
SAYER
How's Hank?
MANN
How's Hank? He's great, he's
brilliant, look at him.
Sayer glances away to Hank the monkey, watches him. Mann
studies Sayer, chagrined and incredulous.
MANN
A physician? You?
He slaps him angrily across the shoulders with some papers.
The monkey completes a complex sequence which opens a chamber
revealing an electric train. The animal jumps and hoots with
wild glee. Sayer reaches out and presses the button on the
stop watch dangling from Mann's neck.
SAYER
Subtract two seconds off his
time.
47. OMITTED 47
48. INT. RESEARCH LAB - LATER - DAY 48
Rats in cages, wired up, manipulating elaborate series of
ladders and pulleys, traversing catwalks, or ratwalks, leading
to glucose rewards.
While Mann, with something less than great enthusiasm,
considers an EEG Sayer has brought, his monkey drags toys over
to Sayer and tries to engage him in play. One of the toys is
an Ouija Board.
MANN
(to, Sayer)
Don't look at me like that. It's
for his alphabet lessons.
(to the monkey)
We're busy, Hank, go play
solitaire.
The monkey obediently goes off in search of a deck of cards.
Gesturing at patterns on the EEG --
MANN
Asleep. First stage normal.
Second a little dull. Normal
RM...
E
He shrugs, lays out a second EEG, and gestures at patterns on
it --
MANN
Awake. Slightly erratic. No more
so than a lot of people walking
the streets of New York.
(shrugs again)
I give up, what's wrong with him?
SAYER
You have them backwards. This is
him awake . . .
(points to one EEG;
then the other)
This is him asleep.
.-," - . ^ ·
Mann thinks Sayer is kidding. He isn't.
MANN
This is him awake? This is him
asleep?
Sayer nods. Mann tries, without success, to make some sort of
sense out of that.
MANN
What are you saying? When he's
awake, what, he's dreaming?
SAYER
When there's any brain activity at
all, which is infrequent, yes.
Dreaming or hallucinating.
MANN
And when he's asleep . . . ?
SAYER
When he's asleep he manages to
create a kind of reality. What we
might call reality.
MANN
That's what you think these say?
SAYER
1 don't know.
Mann studies the "waking" EEC He points to its one and only
large electrical peak. ;
MANN
What's this peak? Strobe?
SAYER
No. This is the strobe.
Sayer indicates a flat section of the pattern where there is
scribbled in pencil a small "s."
SAYER
This . . .
, (the large peak,
marked with an "L") /
. . . is me saying his name to him.
Mann stares rather dumbly at Sayer. Then at Hank the monkey on
the floor dealing solitaire.
49. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY 49
Tight on Leonard. Something blurs past him but his eyes don't
follow it. Pulling back, the object blurs by again from the
other direction.
Tight on Sayer. The thing blurs past his face. His eyes don't
follow it either. Pulling back, it blurs again.
REV. 10.13/89 p.33
A circle of patients in wheelchairs. The post-encephalitics
reunited. "Waking" just long enough to catch and release the
object, a small beach ball.
Leonard and Sayer, on opposite sides of the circle, ignoring
the ball and the other patients. He's reached a dead end,
Sayer, right where he began, his only "accomplishment,"
this, ball-catching patients.
50. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY 50.
Sayer alone in the examination room, tired, at its window
staring blankly out.
His perspective: The empty lot below littered with abandoned
couches, refrigerators, rusting automobile carcasses.
And beyond the lot, the elementary school playground. Laughing
children on swings and slides. Jumping rope. Batting tether
balls. Playing hopscotch.
Moving slowly in on one of the hopscotch games. On a girl
tossing a bean bag into a square. Jumping over it and into the
next square. Turning and jumping back. Balancing on one foot.
Retrieving the bean bag and tossing it down again. Into the
next square of the tile pattern chalked on the asphalt.
51. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY 51.
From above, patients in wheelchairs dot the black and white
checkerboard linoleum-tile floor like chess pieces. The
pattern is regular to a point but then breaks up -- is
interrupted by an area of solid white, where a wall once stood
-- before being restored. It forms a kind of narrow "sea," the
white area, on either side of which lies "land."
At floor level Sayer and Miss Costello, on their hands and
knees, are "blacking in" the missing tiles with shoe polish,
"bridging" the gap between the two checkerboards. The retarded
patients around them ignore them. The ward nurses pretend to. '
Completing the pattern Sayer glances across the room to
Leonard. He seems to be "watching." His mother, nearby, idly
thumbing through a magazine as she brings Leonard up to date on
neighborhood news, isn't.
·t, .
Sayer crosses to Lucy. Lifts her gently out of her chair.
Points her in the direction of the drinking fountain.
She begins to move. To step slowly over each tile. She
reaches the "bridge" and hesitates. Then crosses it.
REV. 10/13/89 p.34
Sayer doesn't know whether to applaud or cry. He does neither,
burying his emotions behind a professional mask instead, and
watches as Lucy, "delivered" to the other side, free now, lets
the regularity of the pattern guide her toward the fountain.
She nears it. She is almost there. Then she is. there. But
doesn't drink. Doesn't stop. She continues past it . . .
To a window, the window bevond the drinking fountain which
Sayer hadn't noticed before, had no reason to notice, had no
need to notice, with a broken pane allowing a view to the
outside.
She stares out at the traffic below, in hopes no doubt of
figuring out where she is.
And Sayer's eyes, behind which exhilaration and horror rise up,
shift from her to Miss Costello, and then to Leonard, in whose
mask of a face Sayer thinks he sees a faint glimmer.
These people are alive inside.
52
52. INT. DAYROOM (B) - DAY
A soap opera on a portable black and white TV in a narrow
passageway of a nurses' station. Beyond.it, beyond a glass
partition, a crowded idle dayroom.
Miss Costello crosses into and out of view and reappears
moments later next to the TV. She switches it off and turns to
face the three RNs who were watching it. In their defense --
V
NURSE
The patients have all been given
their morning medication.
MISS COSTELLO
Good. Dr. Sayer was hoping you'd
have some free time.
She hands a book to the nurse who spoke (MARGARET), a first
edition worn /rom many readings. Margaret glances from it to
the other nurses and back to Miss Costello.
53. INT. DAYROOM (B) - LATER - DAY 53
The nurse holds the book like it's something quite foreign to
her. She finds the beginning of the first chapter, clears her
throat, and reads --
MARGARET
"Call me . . . Ish-ma-el . . .
She glances up at her audience: three blank-faced post- ,55
encephalitics. Miss Costello, who is nearby, nods to her to
continue. She clears her throat again, and, feeling like a
fool, reads --
MARGARET
"Some years ago, never mind how
long precisely, having little or
no money in my purse, and nothing
particular to interest me on
shore, I thought I would sail
about a little and see the watery
part of the world . . . "
Miss Costello leaves.
54
54. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY
Leonard's head locked on his shoulders at an improbable angle
that forces his entranced gaze upward to a point well above
Sayer.
SAYER
Can you hear me, Leonard? I want
to hear you speak your name. :
. -
Sayer waits . . . but Leonard remains mute.
55. INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - MORNING " 55
Tight on Sayer pulling record albums from his extensive
classical collection.
56. INT. DAYROOM (D) - DAY 56
An.old box-style phonograph. The kind whose top is also a
detachable speaker.
An orderly, Fernando, dusts it off, rigs it, takes the record
Miss Costello holds out to him, gets it spinning, and sets the
needle down.
Opera music. For the "enjoyment" of two more post-
encephalitics. The eyes of one narrow slightly, almost
imperceptibly. -.
-
i
57. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY 57
The keys of Sayer's old manual Underwood typewriter. And
Leonard's claw of a hand hanging over them like one of those
unmanageable penny arcade cranes.
REV. 10/2/85
SAYER 57
L . . . Leonard . . . L . . .
Leonard's hand remains still, suspended above the keys, for
what seems an eternity.
58. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY 58.
Under Miss Costello's supervision, maintenance men remove the
gratings from the windows and washhthe panes.
INT.- DAYROOM (D) - DAY 59.
59.
30's jazz music. The orderly from before with "his" two post-
encephalitics. Each has a tray of cafeteria food, but only one
is eating, and mechanically at that. <
FERNANDO
. . . not just any music, it has to
be the right, music for them. Jazz
does nothing for Bert. Only Rose.
(pause)
It's like they're only moved by
music that moves them. I'm that
'*''-
w ay .
SAYER
(intrigued)
Yes, so am I. >
The moment Fernando takes the record off, Rose stops eating,
stops moving. The orderly puts on Mozart and waits. Neither
patient moves.
FERNANDO
I haven't found anything that
moves Bert yet.
59A. INT. CORRIDOR - DAY ' 59A.
A " no r ma l" pa t ie nt wi t h m ul t ip le sc l er os is h as ma na g ed to
inte rcep t S ayer on hi s w ay some wher e el se, his ar ms f ull wit h
an 8mm camera and tripod and screen.
j MS WOMAN
I don't interest you like those
other people, those ones with that
disease.
SAYER
That's not true.
REV. 10/2/89
MS WOMAN
I wish I had something like that.
SSmething that would interest you
instead of this stupid boring MS.
60. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY 6
Leonard in his wheelchair, absolutely motionless. Sayer behind
the lens of the 8mm camera on the tripod. Drs. Tyler and
Sullivan, at the doorway, watch with some amusement.
60A. INT. DAYROOM (A) - DAY 60A
Miss Costello wheels the man who shreds invisible things to a
window and places a piece of toast from a tray into his hands.
He tears at it, the crumbs sailing out onto a landing, and a
flock of pigeons swoops up.
61. INT. DAYROOM (C) - DAY 61
Three post-encephalitics with cards in their hands and the best
poker faces you ever saw. :
MARGARET
They'll sit there all day like
that if I let them. I have to
play the first card.
>
Sayer watches her pull a card from one of their hands and place
it on the table. All three "wake" and begin throwing down
cards, one after another.
SAYER
Is it a real game I wonder?
MARGARET
If it is, I don't know it. Maybe
it's three different games.
SAYER
(delighted)
Yes.
62
62. OMITTED ,
63. INT. CORRIDOR / DAYROOM (B) - DAY 6
Sayer moving past "normal" patients lined up in the hall like
planes on tarmac. Suddenly, from a dayroom, booms the opening
bass line of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady."
(WHITE) REV. 12/4/89 P. 38
63.CONT. .. .. ,, . ,, « 63.
Sa ye r pe er s cu ri ou sl y i nt o th e ro om . B er t is ea ti ng a nd
An tho ny is g rin nin g. He see s S aye r i n t he d oor way an d s ends
him a s elf -sa tis fied th umb s-u p s ign.
64. INT . DAY ROOM (C) - DAY 64.
Mi ss C os te ll o si tt in g wi t h a po st -e nc ep ha li ti c m an . (F RA NK )
M IS S COS TE LLO
Ther e's so met hin g el se tha t
r eaches th em.
She t ouc he s the m an' s ha nd, h old s it , a nd hi s he ad sl owl y tu rns
to fa ce her.
M ISS CO STE LLO
Human cont act.
Sh e pu ll s hi m ge nt ly t o h is if ee t an d wa lk s wi t h hi m a fe w
steps. .
M IS S CO ST EL LO
H e ca n' t wa lk w it ho ut m e . I f I
let go - ;
(to the patient)
I won't let go of you' -
(to Sayer)
- if I let go , he 'll fa ll. H e'll
wa lk wit h me an ywh ere .
They wa lk a f ew more st eps an d t ears be gin to fo rm i n M iss
Coste llo's eyes .
M IS S CO ST EL LO
It's like the ball . . . only it's
my wi ll he's bo rro win g.
Sa ye r, to o, is m ov ed. But a s he wa tch es M iss C ost el lo an d her
p at ie nt w al k aw ay , hi s e xp re ss io n ch an ge s; s om e th in g sh e ha s
sa id o r do ne h as s tr uc k a c ho rd , or u nl oc ke d a d oo r:
Close on their hands . . .
65. OM IT TE D - 65.
66. IN T. BAI NBRI DGE - NIG HT 66.
-
Em pt y cor ri dor . E cho in g f oo ts tep s.
67. IN T. LEO NARD 'S WAR D - NI GHT 67.
Le o na r d . T uc k ed i n b u t " a wa k e. " St a r in g a t th e ce i li n g .
REV. 10/13/89 p.39
SAYER O.S.
Leonard?
68. INT. LEONARD'S WARD - LATER - NIGHT 68.
In a far corner of the darkened ward, in a pool of lamp light,
two silhouetted figures. Sayer and Leonard. Sleeping patients
all around them.
Sayer carefully, awkwardly, places his hand on Leonard's.
After a moment, the contact brings the useless appendage "to
life." As it slowly turns over and grasps the doctor's hand, a
glimmer of life seems to appear in Leonard's eyes as well.
Sayer, unfamiliar, it seems, with the feeling the contact
produces in him, nonetheless places his other hand on Leonard's
other. Soon it too turns and holds onto Sayer's.
The doctor draws both of Leonard's hands toward him and sets
them down on the pointer of an Ouija Board.
SAYER
I'll begin moving the pointer
toward the "L." For "Leonard."
Once I feel you beginning to move
it, I'll stop and you'll take .
over. Do you understand?
Leonard, of course, cannot say whether he does or not. The
look on his face is "thoughtful." The look on Sayer's, hopeful
and foolish.
SAYER
I'm beginning . . .
The pointer begins to slowly move past stars and moons.
Judging from Sayer's expression he begins to feel Leonard's
movement of it and, presumably, stops his own.
SAYER
Yes, good . . .
The pointer moves across the letters, but passes the "L"
without stopping. It stops on the "R."
SAYER
No. No, I didn't make myself
clear. My fault. I . . . .
The pointer begins moving again, "interrupting" Sayer. It
passes the "L" again, reaches the "I" and stops.
..
SAYER ' ".,
No. No, I . . . . .
REV. 10/13/89 p.40
But the pointer is moving again. It stops on the "L."
SAYER
Yes. Yes. That's what I meant. .
"L." Good. Now the "E."
It begins moving again. But not to the "E." To the nK," where
it hesitates briefly before moving again.
SAYER
(realizing, to
himself)
. . . you're spelling something
el e . . .
s
Keeping one hand on the moving pointer, Sayer fumbles a pen
from his shirt pocket and scribbles on his lab coat what
Leonard has and is continuing to "write":
RILKESPA
69. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - NIGHT
Sayer alone in the examining room, standing over his desk. The
lab coat is on it. And on it is scrawled:
RILKESPANTHERILKE
He has to study it only a moment before he sees the meaning of
it; he quickly scratches out the last four letters,and adds a
slash between the "S" and the "P," so that it reads:
R I L K E s/p A N T H E R BmBJUP*
69A. EXT. PUBLIC LIBRARY. - ESTABLISH - DAY 69
70. INT. PUBLIC LIBRARY - DAY ' 7
A card catalogue. Cards flipping by, stopping on one that
.reads:
831 R Rilke, Rainer Maria
German poet and fiction>fwriter;
1875-1926; Collected Poems
tr. fr. German by --
71. INT. PUBLIC LIBRARY - LATER - DAY . ., 7
Moving slowly in on Sayer at one of the library tables with a V .
book. , ·..
REV. 10/13/89 p."
(continuity onxy;
SAYER'S VOICE
"His gaze from staring through the
bars has grown so weary that it
can take in nothing more . . .
INT. LEONARD'S WARD - DAY
72. 72.
Moving slowly into the Western painting.
SAYER'S VOICE
"For him it is as though there
were a thousand bars, and behind
the thousand bars, no world . . .
72A. EXT. BRONX ZOO - DAY 72A.
Moving in on a panther, limbs weakened, spirit broken, slowly
pacing back and forth before the bars of a small cage.
SAYER V.O.
"As he paces in cramped circles,
over and over, his powerful
strides are like a ritual dance
around a center where a great will
stands paralyzed . . .
Moving slowly away from Sayer watching, moving high above him;
the place is virtually deserted.
73. INT. LEONARD'S WARD - DAY 73.
Moving slowly in on Leonard as, in bed, flannel pajamas, as his
mother diapers him for the night.
SAYER V.O.
"At times the curtains of the eye
lift without a sound . . .
Moving slowly< in on Sayer, unseen in a doorway, staring at
Leonard, at the look of contentment on his face. Or is it a
look of impotent rage?
SAYER V.O.
". . . and a shape enters, '.slips
thr ough the tightened silence of
the shoulders, reaches the heart
and dies .i." . ...
FADE TO BLACK . '''.'
REV. 10/13/89 p.41A
(continuity only)
73A. EXT. AUDITORIUM - NEW YORK - AFTERNOON 73A.
Professional and professorial types filing in past a placard,
an enlargement of an article from the Journal of Neurochemistry
titled: LEVADOPA IN THE TREATMENT OF PARKINSONISM. Below it:
A DISCUSSION WITH MARTIN S. THOMAS, PH.D.
There's excitement (and jealousy) in the air.
74. INT. AUDITORIUM - AFTERNOON 74
An anatomical skeleton dangling from a metal stand.
NEUROCHEMIST
There's an ordinary medicine with
which we are all familiar. An
everyday medicine of stubbed toes
and bunions and boils.
A man at a podium in a modern version of the 1920's basement
operating theatre.
·
,
NEUROCHEMIST
And then there is another kind.
A medicine that holds out to the
afflicted the promise of restored
life.
He glances to a point above his listeners, and an overhead
projector splashes a diagram of molecular structure (and the
silhouette of a raised hand) onto a screen. The neurochemist
traces the shadow to its maker in the audience.
SAYER
Thank you. Yes. Yes, I'm very
much interested in your work with
this drug. I'm curious if . . .
NEUROCHEMIST
Doctor ...?
SAYER
(pause)
Sayer. I'm curious if you . . .
NEUROCHEMIST
After I'm through, Dr. Sayer. If
you wouldn't mind.
Sayer glances around the auditorium. Everyone's looking at
him. He grasps the offending hand and holds it in his lap with
the other.
75. INT. AUDITORIUM LOBBY - LATER - AFTERNOON 75,
Refreshments on tables. Sayer, uncomfortable in his suit,
wandering around the crowded room with a glass of wine. He
approaches its hub of activity, the neurochemist surrounded by
several impressed colleagues, but can't manage to get close
enough to speak with him.
76. INT. MEN'S ROOM, AUDITORIUM - LATER - AFTERNOON 7
The neurochemist walks in and crosses to the urinals. A moment
later, he hears the door opening, and footsteps, and then
nothing, until --
SAYER O.S.
Do you think it's possible that
simple Parkinsonian tremor taken
to its furthest extreme could
appear as no tremor at all?
When no one answers, the chemist glances over his shoulder.
Sayer is there, quite alone, looking at him.
NEUROCHEMIST
Are you speaking to me?
Sayer is. And really wants to know the answer. The chemist
zips up and moves to the sinks to wash his hands.
SAYER
If jail the compulsions in the
Parkinson's patient were somehow
.
accelerated -
(demonstrating what
he means)
- the hands, the shaking, the
tics, the head bobbing, the
quickening speech -
(he's become a mass »
of tics and
accelerated speech)
- might they not cave in on
themselves and, in effect, turn
the person into stone?
He comes to a abrupt stop, his eyes transfixed like a post-
encephalitic's, staring. The chemist slowly dries his hands
with a paper towel.
NEUROCHEMIST
Dr. Sayer, yes?
(Sayer nods)
I'm a chemist, doctor. I leave it
to you guys to do the damage.
He drops the paper towel into the trash and leaves
77. EXT. PARKING LOT - BAINBRIDGE - MORNING 77
Emerging from his car with some papers, Dr. Kaufman is ambushed
by Sayer. ..
REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW) Pg.
77.CONT. SAYER 77.
Did you have a chance to look at
any of the -.
KAUFMAN
Freud believed in miracles.
Prescribing cocaine like it was
candy . . .
Sayer has to hurry to keep up with his supervisor as he heads
toward the hospital.
KAUFMAN
We all believed in the "miracle"
of Cortisone until our patients
went psychotic on it. Now it's
L-Dopa.
He hands over the papers - xeroxed articles from medical
journals and newspapers which Sayer gave him to read - and
keeps going, Sayer straggling a few steps back.
SAYER
With all due respect, I think it's
rather too soon to say that.
:
KAUFMAN
With all due "respect," it's
rather way too soon. Let the
chemists do the damage.
The gap between them widens as Sayer slows. He expected this
sort of reaction from Kaufman, but had hoped for another.
Kaufman disappears into the building.
77A. INT. KAUFMAN'S OFFICE - LATER - MORNING 77A
The stack of papers drops onto Kaufman's desk. The one on top
reads, NEW DRUG LETS SHAKING PALSY PATIENTS EAT JELL-O.
SAYER
Did you read the case - the
husband who came home to find his
wife singing. She hadn't felt
like singing in years.
Kaufman, on the phone, glances to Sayer long-sufferingly, lets
him wait while he finishes with his call, and eventually sets
down the receiver.
REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW) Pg.
77A.CONT. KAUFMAN 77A.
I read them all. Soberly. All
thirty cases had mild Parkinson's.
Your Parkies - if that's what they
are - haven't moved for decades.
You know better than to make a
leap like that, you want to
believe there's a connection, that
doesn't mean there is one.
SAYER
What I believe, what I know, is
that these people are alive
inside.
KAUFMAN
How do you know? Because they
catch tennis balls?
SAYER
I know it.
Sayer doesn't elaborate, but his tone is resolute. And it has
the intended effect on Kaufman, causing him to consider the
possibility that Sayer could, somehow, know it as a fact.
KAUFMAN
r..iiJi! And what if this drug were to
kill them?
SAYER -
(right back) >
And what if this drug were to
cure them?
Somewhere behind Kaufman's eyes Sayer can see, he thinks, a
change, or reminiscence, long ago, long buried, of things he
once believed or wanted to believe.
KAUFMAN
How many did you think I ' d let you
put on it?
SAYER
All of them ... some of them ...
one of them . . .
KAUFMAN
One. With the family's consent.
Signed.
Sayer tries to hide his elation and turns to leave before
Kaufman changes his mind.
REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW) Pg.46
77A.CONT. KAUFMAN 77A.
Sayer -
Sayer turns. He was almost to the door. He had almost made *
it out.
KAUFMAN
That "immense" project of yours.
The myelin? The worms? When that
failed, what was the reaction of
your lab supervisor? ·
Sayer thinks about lying, but senses Kaufman knows the answer *
already and just wants to hear him say it. So he does:
SAYER
He asked me to leave. .
Kaufman nods like, Just checking. And -
KAUFMAN .
Good luck.
Sayer leaves.
78. INT. MRS. LOWE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 78.
:
A standard consent form and pen on a kitchenette table. Two
coffee cups. One used tea bag.
SAYER
People with ordinary Parkinson's
Disease sometimes complain that
they've "lost their grace . . . "
(he picks up a cup
with a shaking hand)
They have to think about the
things we just do . . .
(with great "trouble"
he sets it down)
It has to do with a chemical in
the midbrain, or rather the lack
of it, called dopamine. L-Dopa
replenishes this dopamine, making
it possible for these patients
to move more naturally.
He picks up the cup again, gracefully, and sets it down.
MRS. LOWE
Leonard has Parkinson's Disease?
Q
REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW)
78.CONT. SAYER
No. No, his symptoms ... are
like Parkinsons ... and then again
they're not.
She doesn't understand what he means; there's no reason why she
should.
MRS. LOWE
(pause)
Then what will this medicine dp.
for him?
SAYER
I don't know what it'll do for
him, if anything.
MRS. LOWE
What do you think it will do?
SAYER
I don't know.
MRS. LOWE
What db< you hope it will do?
REV. 10/13/89 p.47
SAYER
I hope it'll bring him back from
wherever he is.
(O MRS. LOWE
To what?
SAYER
To the world.
MRS. LOWE
(pause)
What's here for him after all
these years? '
SAYER
You are here.
She ponders that and the enormity of the whole situation, all
the while staring at the consent form.
79
79. INT. PHARMACY, BAINBRIDGE - DAY
The hospital pharmacy, a subterranean structure built into the
basement, cluttered from floor to ceiling with medicines.
Ray, the pharmacist, dips into a bag of powder. He spoons some
out onto a scale and looks to Sayer to tell him the dosage.
SAYER
I have no idea. What do you say
we ease into it with ... what, » .
fifty milligrams?
Ray begins to measure five milligrams.
SAYER
Let's say a hundred.
Ray shrugs; it's okay with him. He knifes at the powder,
removing all but 100 milligrams.
80. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY 80
Leonard, sphinx-like in his wheelchair, his mother by his side.
Sayer, stirring the L-Dopa into a paper cup of orange juice.
Miss Costello, in the doorway, watching. Sayer hands the glass
to Mrs. Lowe. v
(NOTE: Consult w/Sacks on this; may need the contents of a ' *
capsule emptied into the cup) - '-'
RSV. 10/13/89 p.48
SAYER
Leonard? Your mother's going to
give you some juice. There's
medicine in it which is why it may
taste more bitter than usual.
Sayer glances to Mrs. Lowe. It's as if they've rehearsed it
all. She holds the glass to her son's lips and gradually
drains the liquid down his throat.
Nothing immediately happens, of course, but they all, with the
exception of Leonard, look as if they expect it to. Mrs. Lowe
hands the empty glass back to Sayer.
And they all wait.
81. INT. THE PHARMACY, LATER - DAY 81.
Ray measuring out another 100 milligram dose.
RAY
Maybe the acid in the orange juice,
neutralized it.
SAYER
Or maybe it's not enough.
. * ·
^··,-N . Ray tosses Sayer a look that says, "don't push it." Sayer
\0 " n od s . · ."'· "
SAYER
I'll try it in milk.
82. INT. LEONARD'S WARD - NIGHT 82.
An empty milk glass on a night table. "
Leonard, in his wheelchair, in pajamas, still and silent under *
the painting of the boat.
His mother, Sayer and Miss Costello watch and wait while around *
them nurses atid orderlies hoist other patients into bed.
83. INT. THE PHARMACY - DAY 83.
Ray scrapes powder from the scale into a pharmaceutical funnel
which takes it down onto a miniature glass dish. Handing the
dis h to Say er -- ;
RAY
Five hundred milligrams.
REV. 10/13/89 p.49
84. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY 84.
Another empty milk glass. Leonard, stoic, or so it seems, in
his wheelchair. His mother and Sayer and Miss Costello waiting
for a movement, a change of expression, a sign of any kind that
something is happening inside him. But there's nothing . . .
85. INT. BAINBRIDGE - NIGHT 85.
A corridor. Mrs. Lowe is leaving. Sayer is with her, seeing *
her to the door.
SAYER
I'll call if there's any change.
MRS. LOWE
Yes.
Neither really knows what else to say except for good night.
She leaves.
86. INT. LEONARD'S WARD - NIGHT 86.
Sayer and Miss Costello lift Leonard out of his wheelchair and
into his bed.
MISS COSTELLO
I'm going home too. If you need
me . · *
SAYER
Yes, I'll call.
They nod "good night" atT each other and Miss Costello leaves.
Sayer slumps into Leonard's wheelchair. lAnd waits.
87. INT. THE PHARMACY - NIGHT 87.
Ray has gonejhome, too. Sayer, alone in the pharmacy, measures
out 1000 milligrams, ten times the original dose.
88. INT. LEONARD'S WARD - NIGHT 88.
Sayer at Leonard's bedside, holding the glass to Leonard's
lips, draining the liquid into him, all of it.
89. INT. LEONARD'S WARD - LATER - NIGHT . 8
Sayer asleep in the wheelchair. He stirs. Wakes. And takes a
moment to remind himself where he is. And why. His eyes
narrow, uncomprehending.
Leonard's bed is empty.
9
90. INT. DAYROOM - LATER - NIGHT
A claw of a hand dragging a crayon across a sheet of paper.
Tight on Sayer, framed in a doorway, as still and silent and
entranced as a post-encephalitic.
His perspective of the dayroom -- deserted except for a figure,
a patient, Leonard, hunched over the table.
As Sayer crosses toward him, Leonard's head slowly rises.
Sayer sits opposite him and they consider each other in silence
for several moments.
Leonard struggles to speak, to form words. They come out in a
halting cadence, flat, without inflection, and are only barely .
recognizable as words: .
LEONARD
It's quiet.
SAYER
It's late. Everyone's asleep·>
LEONARD
I'm not asleep?
SAYER
No. You're awake.
Though he nods, it's unclear whether Leonard realizes how
significant that is. Sayer gestures at the piece of paper
beneath Leonard's hands.
SAYER
May I?
Sayer draws the paper across the table. It's covered with what
seems imponderable hieroglyphic-like scrawl. But there is
order in the chaos. Letters. Leonard's name.
LEONARD
Me.
91. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAWN 91
Alone in the room, Leonard moves slowly around it, feeling
things: the smoothness of the cabinet glass/ the warmth thrown
by a desk lamp, water from the cooler splashing onto his hand.
SAYER O.S.
Leonard?
Leonard turns to Sayer's voice with an expression of child-like ,
wonder on his face.
SAYER
Your mother is here.
She appears in the doorway of the room. She's done her hair,
her face, she's put on a nice dress, yet she remains unprepared
for this reunion. She can do nothing but stare at her "infant
son" who is now, "suddenly," a man.
As he slowly crosses toward her, she is struck by the fact she
must look u£ in order to meet his eyes. He reaches her.
Reaches out to her. And she embraces him.
92. INT. CORRIDOR - MORNING .92.
:
A corridor crowded with patients in wheelchairs with nowhere to
go and nothing much to do.
MISS COSTELLO
My name is Elizabeth. It's a »
pleasure to meet you.
Leonard, standing, reaches for her hand and struggles to
pronounce her name correctly. Fighting to keep from crying in
front of him, Miss Costello glances to Sayer and Mrs. Lowe.
93.
9.3. INT. ANOTHER CORRIDOR - MORNING
Miss Costello, flanked by Sayer and Mrs. Lowe, watches as
Leonard extends his hand to the "card playing nurse."
MARGARET
How do you do, sir? My name is
Margaret.
LEONARD
Margaret.
o 94. INT. ANOTHER CORRIDOR - MORNING 9
Margaret has joined the "tour, group" and introduces Leonard to
the "music orderly." They shake hands.
LEONARD
Fernando. How are you?
FERNANDO
Great, man. How're you?
LEONARD
Great, too.
9
95. INT. THE PHARMACY - MORNING
Fernando is along for the ride and watches Leonard shaking Ray
the pharmacist's hand.
RAY
How do you do, Mr. Lowe?
LEONARD
!
Good, sir.
95
95A. INT. CAFETERIA KITCHEN -MORNING
The cooks and kitchen workers around Leonard and his entourage,
shaking his hand.
>. .
96. INT. STAFF CAFETERIA - LATER - DAY 9
A tray of truly awful cafeteria food. The group, minus Sayer
and Miss Costello, watches Leonard dip a fork into some mush-
like concoction and manipulate it, with difficulty, to and into
his mouth. He seems amazed by its flavor.
LEONARD
It's delicious.
FERNANDO
I wouldn't go that far, Len.
Sayer and Miss Costello, at another table, glance over to the
others who are all laughing. Sayer smiles.
MISS COSTELLO
I don't think I could deal with
losing 3D years of my life. I
can't even imagine it.
REV. 10/13/89 p.53
Sayer's smile fades. The possibility that Leonard might not
have realized the extent of the passage of time had not, until
this moment, occurred to him. He stares blankly at Miss
Costello.
MISS COSTELLO
He does realize it, doesn't he?
Sayer nods uncertainly.
SAYER
He must.
97.
97. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - LATER - DAY
(NOTE: CONSULT SACKS ON THIS SCENE:)
Sayer demonstrates a clapping motion. Leonard repeats it more
slowly but with decent motor control.
SAYER
Splendid.
Sayer makes a note. They are alone in the examination room
which, like most of the hospital, has little in it to indicate
that it is not the 1930's.
SAYER
Can I see you walk the length of
the room? *
Leonard walks slowly across the room past the perception tests
and notes and Polaroids cluttering the wall. Coming back, he
pauses. He's looking at a picture of himself taped there.
Sayer watches him slowly reach his hands to his face to feel
his features. He stares at the photograph of himself, trying
to comprehend that which cannot be comprehended.
He's not younjg anymore.
98.
98. OMITTED
99. INT. LEONARD'S WARD - NIGHT 99.
Sayer and Mrs. Lowe at Leonard's bedside.
RE V. 10 /1 3/ 89 p .54
L EO N AR D
I ' m af r ai d to cl os e m y ey e s . . . If
(y\ I close my eyes . . .
He hesitates, as if saying it may make the fear more real.
SAYER
. . . you'll sleep. And when you
wake up in the morning, it will be
the next morning. I promise.
Sayer's smile tries to assure them both that it will happen
just that way. He excuses himself, leaving Leonard with his
mother, joins Miss Costello by the door and glances back. Mrs.
Lowe is stroking Leonard's head as she hums a lullaby.
100. INT. ROOM ADJACENT TO EXAMINATION ROOM - MORNING 100.
Sayer comes in with some books, sets them on Miss Costello's
desk and crosses to a closet.
SAYER
I didn't sleep, did you?
MISS COSTELLO
Does it look like it? .
Sayer hangs up his jacket and slips into a lab coat.
SAYER
Do you know if Leonard's awake?
v
She smiles and points toward the adjoining examination room.
101. INT. THE EXAMINATION ROOM - MORNING 101.
Showered and shaved and groomed and bright-eyed, Leonard sits
listening to his own heartbeat with Sayer's stethoscope.
Coming in --
i SAYER
Good morning.
LEONARD
Good morning. .
His speech is still rather flat, halting.,
SAYER
Been waiting for me long?
LEONARD
Yes.
REV. 10/13/89 p.55
Sayer smiles. He hands Leonard the books. History books. An
almanac.
SAYER
Some things have happened while
you've been away. I thought you'd
be interested.
Leonard opens one carefully, reverently, and begins reading
from it to himself.
SAYER
You don't have to read them now,
Leonard. They're yours. At your
leisure.
Leonard closes the book but holds onto it and the others like
they're gold.
LEONARD
I used to read quite a lot.
.
Before.
SAYER i
Yes, I know. .
LEONARD
Thank you for these.
i .
Sayer nods that he's welcome.
SAYER
Have you thought about what you'd
like to do today?
LEONARD
Everything.
SAYER
(smiles)
I'm not sure I can arrange that.
LEONARD
Try.
Sayer smiles again. For a man who just yesterday learned he
has been cheated out of the greater"- part of his life, Leonard
seems to have recovered extraordinarily.
SAYER
Let's approach it this way. What . ".
x do you think you'd like to do .
1J first? ..·
REV. 10/13/89 p.55A
(continuity only)
LEONARD
I'd like to go outside.
101A. EXT. BAINBRIDGE HOSPITAL - DAY 101A
Sayer and Leonard emerge from the hospital and move under trees
along a path toward the parking lot. At a point, the doctor
realizes his patient is no longer at his side; he's several
steps back, feeling the sunshine on his skin.
102. EXT. PARKING LOT, BAINBRIDGE - MORNING 102
(p\
Though it is only a Toyota, its dashboard, to Leonard,
resembles something out of Jules Verne. He allows Sayer to
buckle his seatbelt for him and watches with fascination as
Sayer performs the "complex" preparatory sequence necessary,
apparently, to make the car go.
The car pulls away. Above, framed in a second story window of
one of the buildings, stands a lone figure looking out --
Leonard's mother.
103. INT. SAYER'S CAR - MOVING - MORNING 103
Tight on the radio. Sayer switches it on. To Leonard's
amazement, classical music fills the interior
and CONTINUES OVER:
104. EXT. THE BRONX - MOVING SHOTS - MORNING 104
Billboards advertising color televisions and electric shavers.
Buses which have grown over the decades to a behemoth scale.
"Ultra-modern" housing projects and gas stations.
"Futuristic" cars.
Leonard cannot imagine a more enthralling re-introduction to
the world and stares at it all with wonder. Everywhere he
looks there is something "extraordinary."
LEONARD
What a wonderful place The Bronx
has become.
The music CONTINUES OVER:
'' ' *
105. INT/EXT. NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDENS - DAY 105
A rose. ,
Leonard puts his face close to it to appreciate its fragrance.
He touches its petals gently, explores them, and is quietly
astonished by the tactile sensation.
Sayer watches. He, too, can appreciate wonders of the real
world, especially those of a botanical nature, but not with, the
purity or intensity Leonard can.
Pulling back reveals them in the middle of a vast garden of
countless thousands of roses.
106. INT. SAYER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY 106
Leonard turns the radio dial from the classical station to
another playing a very different kind of music, and listens to
it bemused but intrigued. It's John Lennon singing "A DAY IN
THE LIFE"
and it CONTINUES OVER:
107. EXT. PARK - THE BRONX - LATER - DAY 107
Children playing flag-football on an expanse of grass. Dogs
running around, nannies with prams, lovers.
A disk, a frisbee, falls at Leonard's feet. He retrieves it
but has no idea what it is or what to do with it. Sayer
demonstrates the wrist action with an invisible one. Leonard
doesn't get it. Sayer takes it from him and flings it
pathetically not halfway back to its owners.
The music CONTINUES OVER:
108. EXT. STREET CORNER JOINT - THE BRONX - LATER - DAY 108.
Leonard watches with interest a Carvel ice cream machine. He
and Sayer are handed cones and Leonard's attention moves to a
girl wearing an unbelievably short skirt.
Her boyfriend stares at Leonard. Sayer tries to pull his
charge's attention elsewhere. Leonard, finally, glances away,
up, to a sound overhead.
The music CONTINUES OVER:
109
109. EXT. KENNEDY AIRPORT - DAY
A 747 roaring down a runway. At the edge of it, it lifts off
and thunders over Sayer and Leonard and the parked Toyota.
Exhilerated, Leonard waves.
The music CONTINUES OVER:
110. OMITTED 110
111. EXT. THE BRONX / CITY ISLAND - DAY 111
An expressway. The Toyota traveling at "astounding" speed,
passing a sign that reads CITY ISLAND.
R!V. 10/13/89 p.58
Boats and fish markets and lush vegetation. Paradise compared
to the Bronx. The Toyota turns down a side road near the water t
and into the driveway of Sayer's small wooden house.
w '.·. . '
And the mus ic ends.
112. INT. SAYER'S KITCHEN / DINING ROOM - DAY 112.
Tea bags steeping in a pot on a cluttered kitchen counter.
Sayer, exhausted from the day, hunts in vain through packing
boxes on the floor for crackers, cookies, something he can
offer his guest.
He keeps glancing in at Leonard, who's wandering around the
dining room, navigating around packing boxes, to browse at the
spines of books. Noticing Sayer watching -
LEONARD
You just moved here.
SAYER
Yeah. Well, five years ago. ,
Sayer shrugs, disappears into the kitchen a moment . . . before ;
peeking back in to see what Leonard is looking at now: a small i
framed photograph of a boy with a toy sailboat and a forlorn
expression posed in front of a curtain; the boat obviously a
photography studio prop.
LEONARD
Your son?
SAYER
Me, actually.
' ,," t
LEONARD
(looking closely at '
the photograph)
You seem uncomfortable.
SAYER
I probably was.
Sayer disappears into the kitchen again. And a moment later
.
glances back in around the door frame at Leonard who has moved
over to an old sideboard on which several pairs of glasses are
neatly arranged. ·
/·
SAYER
Each has a specific purpose.
REV. 10/13/89 p.59
As Leonard considers each pair of glasses ...
SAYER
Those are my normal interior
glasses. And spare pair. Those,
I wear outside. Two pairs, in