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BurntChurch The Opera Screenplay (4)
EXT DAY: CITY STREET: Bernard's hair and beard have grown out to manes befitting a Moses, and they have turned nearly white. His singed, filthy rags are so voluminnously tattered that they appear to trail like tattered wings behind him. He resembles a bleached dead crow or seagull, but his mad, bleeding eyes are alight with intelligence. He sings from his back, broken and unable to rise. The camera pans slowly back. Bernard is lying on a city street. Well dressed men and women studiously ignore him as they pass. Bernard:The things that I saw they burned out my eyes I lost the will to live and the strength to die EXT DAY BY LAKE: Bernard and a beautiful woman, clothed in flowing white tattered robes which trail behind them like wings, slowly turns their heads to gaze out over the lake. Floating close to shore is an angel, dead, like a seagull trapped in an oil spill. So many gone EXT DAY BRILLIANT GREEN HILL: Bernard,in his pre-fall angelic state, kneels, head down before a white cross marking a grave the brave and the pure I think that we won I never was sure EXT DAY:HELICOPTER OVER JUNGLE: In slow motion we watch over the shoulders of paratroopers, as they leap out over the vietnamese jungle. But the view flickers and we are simultaneously watching angels hurl themselves into the sun Now castaway here with a shipwrecked head after we Slaughtered our enemies strangers and friends ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE: Nazis goosestep to music, snapping their heads in time as they pass Hitler. Dirty, warlike, determined looking angels, fly from a crack in a ruined mountain. We died at our own hands mended our wounds Buried ourselves in deep ancient sacred tombs EXT SPACE: STARRY BACKDROP: A large group of angels have somehow manuevered a moon to fall crashing down upon a planet. One of them turns abruptly to the camera. It is Bernard, side by side with the beautiful one, singing madly: Bernard:I guess I oughta know the closest thing to pure evil you ever touched Was yourself and no one else and you liked it You liked it so much... The moon destroys the planet in slow motion, but reality flickers and we see archival shots of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Cherynoble EXT NIGHT:THE CITY STREETS OF EARTH: Bernard is again the filthy fallen angel, urine stained and mad, he furiously walks along a street singing to himself like a schizophrenic, then slouches angrily against a wall and sits down. Well dressed legs pass in front of him. The streets of this planet they choke me like ghouls I wake up drowning in stinking fetid pools Left sad behind stranded but a detour for the well dressed unconscious fools The camera draws back as he continues to sing madly to himself. He is dying, alone. The world begins to spin. But unbeknownst to him he is being sorrowfully observed by the human version of the beautiful angel So many gone the brave and the True I think that we won now I don't know about you Now castaway here with a shipwrecked head after we Slaughtered our enemies strangers and friends Death descends on Bernard. A giant shadowy figure stands above him, as the life ebbs from him. Reality flickers and he is on an alien battlefield. In the background, angels slaughter each other and are devoured by vermin. Reality flickers and he is dying in a vietnamese jungle. Reality flickers and he is overdosing in the crashpad. He is back in the alley. An ambulance has appeared and paramedics are hurredly trying to save his life. All the while he is observed by the beautiful guardian angel. As the ambulance pulls away, flashers and siren blaring, we cut to INT AMBULANCE: Closeup on Bernard's ruined face. We hear his thoughts: Bernard:I think probably sexual obsession. I would think that I did the alcohol and drugs because I was obsessed with sex. The angel is sitting over Bernard and touches his brow. Scene Fifteen: Hospital Emergency Room INT DAY HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM: Bernard lies forgotten on a gurney off to the side of a chaotic emergency room. His angel hovers by the ceiling.He is attached to life support. A ghostly frontier preacher appears by his bedside, looks down and speaks. Burroughs:Narcotics have been systematically scapegoated and demonized. As a matter of fact, I'm feeling a bit sick right now... He leans over and asks Bernard kindly... Burroughs:Are you holding? The camera swings around till it is looking down on Bernards ruined face. It begins to recede, higher and higher. The heartbeat monitor indicates that Bernard has died. But before the camera leaves the room, we hover at ceiling level with the two angels, the beautiful white female angel, and the hideous black crow William Burroughs angel...Beauty touches the beast and he begins to shrink and shrivel. Just before he disappears we hear: Burroughs:God bless you my son, may you go to heaven. Scene Fifteen: Entitled/Cape Hatteras EXT LATE AFTERNOON BEACH: Bernard sits, slumped in a canvas lounge chair, amidst the dunes of an overcast beach. He wears sunglasses and shorts. Summer is over, and the tourists have deserted this particular vacation spot. The beach is wide and empty. The camera angle moves and we see some weathered vacation houses in the background. We notice that Bernard is surrounded by a few items; a pack of cigarettes, an unread book, a bottle of water, a folded towel. He has shaved and cut his hair. He looks like a man who has barely survived a terrible ordeal. In the background we see Sophia, the angel, the girl in the bar, the dancer from the swamp, exiting one of the houses. Entitled Summer's come and gone Broke down and tired True blue I was lost in a dream Sophia approaches across the sand, kneels next to Bernard and takes his hand. We can almost make out sand people, slowly undulating beneath them. Knew a simple song Been gone too long to want it If I could believe CLOSE UP: BERNARD FLOATING:Bernard sings up at us floating on his back. The camera pulls back slowly till we realize that he is floating on his back in the middle of a threatening ocean, with no land in sight. Alone With nothing else around I know that I could belong with noone With everyone Entitled to Love EXT DAY BEACH: Bernards eyes open. He is lying on his back on the lounge chair, but the sun has come out and he squints painfully. Sophia bends over him. She has woken him up to bring him an icy drink. He struggles to an upright position and takes the drink, lighting a cigarette. Sun is burnin' on World is turnin' round Your smile I would like to believe They stand and walk down the beach. They turn to each other and it is as if Bernard has seen her for the first time. A large wave rushes up the sand and engulfs them and they hold on to each other, ignoring it, clinging. My happiness Lost it with my brokenhearted If I could believe EXT NIGHT DUNES: They make love under an impossibly starry sky, the dunes flicker in and out of existance and they are water, they are clusters of stars, they are naked humans under the great umbrella of inky heaven. Finally they hold each other and watch the moon rise. Alone With nothing else around I know that I could belong with noone With everyone Entitled to Love EXT DAWN DUNES; Bernard opens his eyes. He is alone and it is dawn. Thunder cracks, and he stands up and begins to walk resolutely towards the camera down the beach. The scene shifts and he is walking down a country road, down a runway as a jet takes off behind him, down the middle of a crowded city street, through huge industrial steel mills and docks, fields of wheat, enormous junkyards, down hallways of office buildings, down railroad tracks, mineshafts, through deserts, jungles, ice fields, mountainsides. He follows telephone poles across absolutely empty landscapes. He walks into, and out of sunrises and sunsets. Finally, he falls to his knees before us and sings: You can't turn my love around me When I believe it Behind him the sun rises again and again. Flowers grow from the dry packed earth. We pan around behind his head and he is kneeling before Sophia. The moon rises behind her again and again. Scene Sixteen: Entitled Tag/ Forest Stream and Waterfall EXT DAY SHADY STREAM: Bernard opens his eyes. He gazes up and sees leafy branches passing slowly over head. We hear water. He is lying in the bottom of an old battered canoe. An ancient man is paddling gently. He is dressed partially in the style of the aborigenal americans. We watch the canoe from the shore gliding peacefully. Naked childeren play by the side of the stream and gaze shyly as it passes. The paddler glances down and says: Faulkner: The basis for all things is to be afraid. The sound of water begins to sound disturbingly like the roar of falls. | 
