분야
hwp Screenplay for a film by
JANE CAMPION
Producer
JAN CHAPMAN
Script editor
BILLY MACKINNON
Maori dialogue and translator
SELWYN MURU
(c) copyright:
Jan Chapman Productions Pty Ltd
2 Fairlight Street Leichhart 2040
NSW Australia
4th draft 1991
Developed with the assistance of
The Australian Film Commission
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Sc 1 Sc 1
ADA (VO - Scs 2 to 7)
The voice you hear is not my
speaking voice, but my minds
voice.
I have not spoken since I was
six years old. No one knows
why, not even me. My father
says it is a dark talent and
the day I take it into my head
to stop breathing will be my
last.
Today he married me to a man
Ive not yet met. Soon my
daughter and I shall join him
in his own country. My husband
said my muteness does not
bother him. He writes and hark
this: God loves dumb creatures,
so why not he!
Were good he had Gods patience
for silence affects everyone in
the end. The strange thing is I
dont think myself silent, that
is, because of my piano. I
shall miss it on the journey.
Sc 2 EXT SCOTTISH FIELD NEAR HOUSEDAY Sc 2
A woman in a dark crepe Victorian dress sits leaning against a tree,
her hands cover her face, around her neck she wears a writing pad. She
crosses a field with large bare trees, in the far background stands a
3 storey stone house.
Sc 3 INT SCOTTISH HOUSE CORRIDOR DAY Sc 3
A small girl roller skates down a dimly lit corridor. A parlour maid
looks down the hall where the girl has disappeared.
Sc 4 INT SCOTTISH HOUSE DRAWING ROOMDAY Sc 4
Three men wearing long grey aprons are fitting the packing for a
piano. On one of the mens arms is a tattoo of a whale in a wild sea.
Sc 5 EXT SCOTTISH HOUSE GROUNDS DAY Sc 5
The girl wearing her skates sits on a small black pony. An old man is
pulling it, but it wont move. (In the background, another aspect of
the grey stone house.)
Sc 6 INT SCOTTISH HOUSE FLORAS BEDROOM NIGHTSc 6
The woman lifts back the sheets from the bottom of the sleeping girls
bed. She is still wearing her skates. The woman cuts through the laces
and removes the boots. One disembodied skate rolls across the room.
Sc 7 INT SCOTTISH HOUSE DRAWING ROOMNIGHT Sc 7
The woman stands at a window lit by moonlight. Her skin appears
luminescently white. She touches the wooden window frame, the curtain,
the objects on the window sill, her mind abstracted, her hands
unconsciously performing a farewell. Turning from the window she moves
to a square piano crowded by packing boxes. In the dim light she
begins to play strongly. Her face strains, she is utterly involved,
unaware other own strange guttural sounds that form an eerie
accompaniment to the music.
An old maid in night-dress looks in. Abruptly the woman stops playing.
The emotion leaves her face, it whitens and seems solid like a wall.
CUT TO BLACK
Sc 8 EXT UNDERWATER BEACH DAY Sc 8
Under water a long boat passes overhead, its oars breaking the
surface.
Sc 9 EXT BEACH DAY Sc 9
Amidst a riotous sea a woman, ADA, is carried to shore on the
shoulders of five seamen. Her large Victorian skirt spreads across the
mens arms and backs, on her head a black bonnet, around her neck her
pad and pen. We should be forgiven if this woman seems a sacrificial
offering as the bay they carry her to is completely uninhabited. A
black sand backs on to an endless rise of dense native bush.
The breakers are chaotic, the men strain to keep their footing,
calling to each other.
SEAMEN
Hold still you smutt! Blast the
boat!
Look up! Look up!
Lay to! Lay to.
Up with it you buggerers, hold
hard!
Damn me wont you hold?!
Etc.
Two of the men are black, all are battered, tattooed and tough, some
are drunk.
Behind the woman is her daughter, a girl of ten in Scottish dress. She
too is carried on the shoulders of seamen.
ADA is placed on the sand. She looks down at her feet sinking into the
wet sand, then up at the huge confusion of fern and bush in front of
her. The sound of sea behind is thunderous.
Several of the seamen have formed a group and are pissing on the sand.
Her daughter is on all fours evidently being sick. But ADAs attention
is diverted to the seamen who are staggering through the waves with a
huge piano shaped box. They put it down as soon as they get to 5hore
but ADA makes gestures that they must immediately bring it to higher
safer ground. The piano placed to her satisfaction she hovers near it,
one hand in constant touch of it while her daughter grips her free
hand.
Sc 10 EXT BEACH DAY Sc 10
TWO SEAMEN finish carrying the last crate to shore. Trunks and boxes
including an open crate with hens are scattered carelessly along the
shore.
The SEAMEN gather together. After a discussion in which they look
between ADA and her child and their Coaster out on the sea, one of the
men approaches. Behind him the other men keep their eyes out to sea or
down on the sand. They dont want to be involved. The sight of the
women alone on this beach
