I am aware of the fact the script seems rushed near the end. This is due to the fact that I dont want to submit a script longer than 8 pages. I will cut down the first 6 pages to equalize the 'reading pace'.
All opinions more than welcome.
http://www.workhorse.tv/GuillotinesV2-270506.dot
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version 2 of the script
short synopsis:
“Guillotines†is the story of a condemned childlike prince given a last chance of life at the price of the life of the very man who sets him free.
Set during the French revolution, this film questions the ethics of capital punishment and state violence through an economical and atmospheric mis-en-scene that pits the fervent revolutionary ideals of a professional jailor against the simple morality of the prince.
Both characters are trapped in a brutal situation in which their own sense of right cannot save them, and the inhuman reign-of-terror threatens them all.
“Guillotines†is the story of a condemned childlike prince given a last chance of life at the price of the life of the very man who sets him free.
Set during the French revolution, this film questions the ethics of capital punishment and state violence through an economical and atmospheric mis-en-scene that pits the fervent revolutionary ideals of a professional jailor against the simple morality of the prince.
Both characters are trapped in a brutal situation in which their own sense of right cannot save them, and the inhuman reign-of-terror threatens them all.
The Film
In a passage in Dostoyevsky’s ‘The Idiot’ Prince Myshckin is forced to respond to the claim of the humaneness of the guillotine. In a striking speech he describes how a man sentenced to death at the guillotine faces the worst torture of all though the foreknowledge of certain death.
In Guillotines this situation is urgently explored with a Prince, based very much on Myshckin, being transported to his execution during the French Revolution. This is a period piece but it is stripped of all the flamboyant trappings of the genre. Equally, this is a film set in past, but speaking to the issues of the present: conviction versus instinct, politics versus morality.
The story unfolds through a tight mis-en-scene in which a jailer is transporting a recently discovered Prince to his execution in a horse pulled jail-cart. For the jailer his life depends on getting the Prince to the guillotine in time for his execution. During this journey the driver becomes increasingly sympathetic to the Prince and when the jailer leaves briefly, he sets the Prince free. The Prince does not get far before he hears the Jailer threaten the life of the driver and the Prince is forced to make a stark moral choice between his own freedom and the life of his savior.
Characters
The JAILER is an intelligent and fervent revolutionary who expounds his views on science, progress and revolution to the Prince. However, over the course of the film his veneer of revolutionary rationality cracks in the knowledge of his own unforgiving situation and the quiet, morality of the Prince.
• An actor type for this role would be an actor with similar personality and visual traits to Ray Winstone.
The PRINCE is a kind and slightly eccentric aristocrat who had bought off and charmed a village of peasants to shelter him. He is a emotional, humble man who has a clear sense of right and wrong based on what he sees and feels. Over the course of the film his apparent weakness is shown to hide a devastating strength,
The CARRIAGE DRIVER is a common man, with silent sympathy for the prisoner. Like the Prince he is driven to his actions by simple (or naïve) notions of right and wrong.
In a passage in Dostoyevsky’s ‘The Idiot’ Prince Myshckin is forced to respond to the claim of the humaneness of the guillotine. In a striking speech he describes how a man sentenced to death at the guillotine faces the worst torture of all though the foreknowledge of certain death.
In Guillotines this situation is urgently explored with a Prince, based very much on Myshckin, being transported to his execution during the French Revolution. This is a period piece but it is stripped of all the flamboyant trappings of the genre. Equally, this is a film set in past, but speaking to the issues of the present: conviction versus instinct, politics versus morality.
The story unfolds through a tight mis-en-scene in which a jailer is transporting a recently discovered Prince to his execution in a horse pulled jail-cart. For the jailer his life depends on getting the Prince to the guillotine in time for his execution. During this journey the driver becomes increasingly sympathetic to the Prince and when the jailer leaves briefly, he sets the Prince free. The Prince does not get far before he hears the Jailer threaten the life of the driver and the Prince is forced to make a stark moral choice between his own freedom and the life of his savior.
Characters
The JAILER is an intelligent and fervent revolutionary who expounds his views on science, progress and revolution to the Prince. However, over the course of the film his veneer of revolutionary rationality cracks in the knowledge of his own unforgiving situation and the quiet, morality of the Prince.
• An actor type for this role would be an actor with similar personality and visual traits to Ray Winstone.
The PRINCE is a kind and slightly eccentric aristocrat who had bought off and charmed a village of peasants to shelter him. He is a emotional, humble man who has a clear sense of right and wrong based on what he sees and feels. Over the course of the film his apparent weakness is shown to hide a devastating strength,
The CARRIAGE DRIVER is a common man, with silent sympathy for the prisoner. Like the Prince he is driven to his actions by simple (or naïve) notions of right and wrong.
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steve hyde
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- Real name: Steve Hyde
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Thanks. What do you mean by "write next"?steve hyde wrote:It's very good. What are you going to write next?
Steve
Apart from 3 film shcool applications, the application for film funding, application for Masters/PhDs if I dont get accepted into film school, applications for jobs in production companies if I dont have money to go film school or do a Masters.....e.......etc......
Have to quit my day job soon, it is bringing me down
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steve hyde
- Senior member
- Posts: 2259
- Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2004 1:57 am
- Real name: Steve Hyde
- Location: Seattle
- Contact:
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steve hyde
- Senior member
- Posts: 2259
- Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2004 1:57 am
- Real name: Steve Hyde
- Location: Seattle
- Contact:
....I also suggest finding a copy of the short film "Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge" and then consider the ways that the film was adapted from Ambrose Bierce's short story:
http://eserver.org/fiction/occurrence-at-owl-creek.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056300/
The Owl Creek Bridge story has an interesting twist in its final moment. This makes for a very satisfying (yet grotesque) closure.
Steve
http://eserver.org/fiction/occurrence-at-owl-creek.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056300/
The Owl Creek Bridge story has an interesting twist in its final moment. This makes for a very satisfying (yet grotesque) closure.
Steve