by Joel Coen
Mitch swings his rifle up at us.
He fires.
LARRY
Gasping awake in the motel room.
He looks around.
It is dawn.
Arthur sits on the edge of his bed in his underwear, staring slackjawed into space, vacant-eyed, drained.
Larry gazes around the room, waiting for things to fall into place.
Finally, blearily:
LARRY
Were we … out at the pool last night?
Arthur responds in a flat, empty voice:
ARTHUR
Yes. I’m sorry.
Larry blinks sleep away.
After a beat:
LARRY
It’s shabbas.
Another beat.
Arthur heaves a deep sigh.
ARTHUR
I’ll go drain my cyst.
RESTROOM
Day. A two-urinal, two-stall men’s room of old tile and yellowed fixtures.
We are low. One of the stall doors is closed. Under it we see the dress shoes and dress-pant cuffs of two young men standing inside.
We hear a long sucking inhale.
RONNIE NUDELL’S VOICE
Gimme that fucker.
A loudly projected echoing male voice:
VOICE
Ya’amod habrayshit.
SANCTUARY
Danny, seated in the front pew with his parents and sister and Uncle Arthur, rises and walks along the lip of the bema. His eyes are wide and red-rimmed.
The prelapped voice was his call to the Torah. All eyes in the congregation, which fills the large sanctuary, are on him.
In great echoing silence he walks to the steps on the right side of the bema and climbs.
The right-side lectern is surrounded by a gaggle of old Jewish men.
They busy themselves with the preparation of the pair of scrolls resting on the lectern, rolling them, pausing, rolling some more, muttering prayers, kissing the scrolls by means of their tsitsit. They pay Danny no attention.
Danny takes his place centered behind the lectern. His chin comes up to the bottom of the reading platform.
Men continue to mutter prayers around him. A pair of hands appears on his shoulders from behind. Danny looks down at the strange hands. They pull him back.
A foot drags a small riser out from under the lectern.
Hands push Danny up onto the riser.
We boom up on the Torah scrolls, still being busily rolled.
Beyond it, a sea of faces.
The yad – a molded tin pointer – is thrust into Danny’s hand. The non-pointing end has a red silken tassel.
Danny looks at the bouncing tassel. He looks at the little pointing finger, the business end of the yad.
Men mutter around him, each a different prayer. They dip and doven.
Danny watches as his own hand points the yad down at the scroll.
The scroll is a swarm of Hebrew letters. Danny squints.
One voice separates from the murmurs around him. It chants, insistently, in a sotto-voce falsetto:
VOICE
Vayidaber adonai al Moshe b’har Sinai laymor …
Danny stares at the end of the yad against the parchment scroll.
Someone’s hand enters and moves the yad to the correct spot in the text.
The prompting voice again:
… Vayidaber adonai al Moshe b’har Sinai laymor …
Danny looks up from the scrolls.
In the congregation Ronnie Nudell sits squished between his parents. He returns Danny’s red-rimmed slackjawed stare.
The insistent voice:
… Vayidaber adonai al Moshe b’har Sinai laymor …
Danny looks over.
From the surrounding scrum the prompter nods at him. He looks somewhat like Cantor Youssele Rosenblatt.
… Vayidaber adonai al Moshe b’har Sinai laymor …
Danny looks back down at the scroll. A hand enters to tap a pointing finger where the yad points.
… Vayidaber adonai al Moshe b’har Si –
Danny erupts:
DANNY
Vayidaber adonai al Moshe b’har Sinai laymor …
PROMPTER
Mm-hm.
Danny continues to boom out the Torah portion, tracking the yad along the line of text.
In the congregation, Larry and Judith watch. We hear Danny chanting fluently and Larry squeezes the hand Judith has laced through his arm.
Judith whispers:
JUDITH
I’m sorry that … things have been so hard for us …
LARRY
It’s okay.
JUDITH
Sy had so much respect for you, Larry.
He pats her hand.
A beat.
… He wrote letters to the tenure committee.
LATER
The congregation is loudly singing V’Zos Hatorah. Danny is now seated in a highbacked chair upstage on the bema.
His point-of-view: a tallised man of late middle age hoists the open scroll off the lectern and turns as he raises the Torah high to display it. The man is sweating. The heavy scrolls vibrate with his effort to keep them aloft. As the congregation continues to sing we hear him mutter:
MAN
Jesus Christ …
LATER
Danny stands at the lectern facing Rabbi Nachtner who holds out to him a small kiddush cup.
Although Rabbi Nachtner seems to be addressing Danny, he is projecting loudly.
NACHTNER
… taking your place as a member of our tribe. You will go and see Rabbi Marshak after the service. You will cele brate in a reception downstairs in Schanfield Hall. And then you will be a member of B’Nai Abraham and of the Nation of Israel. Danny Gopnik, the Sisterhood makes a gift to you of this kiddush cup so that you will remember this blessed day on the next shabbas and the next, and on every shabbas of a long and fruitful life, and, until that wonderful day when you stand under the chupa, we say …
CONGREGATION
Amen.
Danny, still red-eyed, tries to focus.
His point-of-view shows the kiddush cup large in the foreground, extended by the beaming rabbi.
His own hand rises into frame to grasp the cup.
The congregation starts Adon Olam.
A DOOR
Creaking open. The cut has snapped off the robust Adon Olam, leaving sepulchral quiet.
Danny, clutching his kiddush cup, hesitantly enters the dim study. Marshak’s elderly Eastern European gatekeeper closes the door behind him.
Marshak is an old man staring at him from behind a bare desktop. His look, eyes magnified by thick glasses, is impossible to read.
Danny creeps to the chair facing the desk. He gingerly sits on the squeaking leather upholstery, self-conscious under Marshak’s stare.
Marshak’s slow, regular, phlegmy mouth-breathing is the only sound in the room.
A long beat. The two stare at each other.
Marshak smacks his lips a couple of times, wetting surfaces in preparation for speach.
Another beat.
Finally:
MARSHAK
When the truth is found. To be lies.
He pauses. He clears his throat.
At length:
… And all the hope. Within you dies.
Another beat. Danny waits. Marshak stares.
He smacks his lips again. He thinks.
… Then what?
Danny doesn’t answer. It is unclear whether answer is expected.
Quiet.
Marshak clears his throat with a loud and thorough hawking.
The hawking abates. Marshak sniffs.
… Grace Slick. Marty Balin. Paul Kanta. Jorma … somethin’. These are the membas of the Airplane.
He nods a couple of times.
… Interesting.
He reaches up and slowly opens his desk drawer. He withdraws something. He lays it on the bare desk and pushes it across.
… Here.
It is Danny’s radio.
… Be a good boy.
LARRY’S OFFICE
Larry is at his desk, sorting through mail.
ARLEN FINKLE
(off)
Danny was magnificent.
Larry looks up: Arlen leans in his accustomed spot in the office doorway.
LARRY
Oh. Thank you, Arlen.
ARLEN FINKLE
Mazel tov. It was wonderful.
LARRY
Yes it was. Thank you.
ARLEN FINKLE
Such a time of nachas, Larry. He’s your youngest. You have to savor it.
LARRY
I do. I will.
ARLEN FINKLE
See you at the staff caf.
LARRY
Yes.
Arlen shoves off to go, but hesitates.
ARLEN FINKLE
I just … I shouldn’t tell you. I’m not telling you officially. The tenure candidates aren’t notified till Monday.
LARRY
… Yes?
Arlen nods.
ARLEN FINKLE
You’ll be very pleased.
Larry stares at him.
LARRY
Thank you, Arlen.
Arlen goes, calling without looking back:
ARLEN FINKLE
I didn’t say anything. Mazel tov.
HEBREW SCHOOL CORRIDOR
Distant thunder at the cut.
We are tracking behind Marshak’s tea lady as she shuffles down the hall, clutching a stack of papers.
LARRY’S OFFICE
Mail in front of him.
He opens an envelope: from “Ronald Meshbesher, Esq.”
In it is a letter headed: “Retainer Agreement.”
Underneath is an invoice. The amount: $3,000.
Arriving rain begins to patter at the window.
HEBREW SCHOOL CLASS
The teacher leads the class in drill.
Danny has a book tilted toward him on his desktop. It once again hides his radio, the earpiece of which is once again in his ear.
The door opens and the tea lady shuffles to the teacher. She hands him a sheet from off her stack.
The teacher puts on reading glasses and inspects it. As he reads, thunder crashes, closer.
LARRY’S OFFICE
He fingers the invoice.
Close on a printed detail, “Payable”, and, typed underneath: “Upon Receipt”.
Wind whips rain against the window.
HEBREW SCHOOL CLASS
The teacher taps the desktop for attention.
TEACHER
Chaverim, there’s a tornado warning from the weather service. Rabbi Marshak has decided to move us over to the basement of the shul …
Hubbub in the classrooom.
… Sheket. Sheket. We’re gonna form two lines. This is orderly. Hakol b’seder.
LARRY’S OFFICE
He stares down at his desktop.
Thunder.
He reaches up and scratches his nose, staring.
On the desk: a ledger sheet with a list of students’ names. Next to each name, a grade.
Larry drums his fingers.
He picks up a pencil.
He goes down to “Park, Clive”. Next to it is an F.
He waggles the pencil, eraser-end thumping the sheet.
He erases the “F”. He enters a “C”.
The pencil leaves frame. We hold on the new grade.
After a beat the hand re-enters to put a minus sign after the “C”.
The hand withdraws.
The phone jangles, harshly.
Larry looks at it, frozen.
He lets it ring a couple times.
He reaches for it. He hesitantly unprongs it.
LARRY
… Hello?
VOICE
Larry?
LARRY
… Yes?
VOICE
Hi, Len Shapiro.
LARRY
Oh. Hello, Dr. Shapiro.
DR. SHAPIRO
Listen, mazel tov on Danny.
LARRY
Yes, thank you.
DR. SHAPIRO
Listen, could you come in to discuss these X-ray results?
Larry sits frozen, phone to his ear.
… Hello?
LARRY
Yes?
DR. SHAPIRO
Larry, could you come in and discuss these X-ray results? Remember the X-rays we took?
LARRY
… We can’t discuss them on the phone?
Thunder. Pattering rain.
DR. SHAPIRO
I think we’d be more comfortable in person. Can you come in?
A beat.
LARRY
When?
DR. SHAPIRO
Now. Now is good. I’ve cleared some time now.
TALMUD TORAH PARKING LOT
It is overcast, dark, and extremely windy. The students mill about in flapping clothes, Danny with his radio earpiece still in place.
A teacher is fumbling with keys at the door to the shul.
Mark Sallerson shouts above the wind:
MARK SALLERSON
That fucking flag is gonna rip right off the flagpole!
CAR
We are looking at Larry through a windshield lashed by rain. He drives with hands clenched on the wheel. Wipers pump to keep up with the rain. The cars behind have their lights on. It has gotten quite dark.
Passing street lights rhythmically sweep Larry’s face, their light stippled and bent by the rain on the windows.
TALMUD TORAH PARKING LOT
Danny’s head bobs in time to the music. Wind whips his hair. We hear, very compressed, the beginning of “Somebody to Love”.
Danny spots a shaggy-haired youth among the milling students.
DANNY
Hey! Fagle!
Danny notices something past Fagle: a funnel cloud in the middle distance.
A growing rumble. The tornado is approaching.
At the first downbeat of its chorus the Jefferson Airplane song bumps up full.
We cut to black, and credits.
About the Authors
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen are the writer/directors of THE BIG LEBOWSKI, FARGO (for which they won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award) and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (for which they won Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Film Academy Awards).
also by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
BLOOD SIMPLE & RAISING ARIZONA
BARTON FINK & MILLERS CROSSING
THE HUDSUCKER PROXY
FARGO THE BIG LEBOWSKI
O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?
THE MAN WHO WASNT THERE
INTOLERABLE CRUELTY
THE LADYKILLERS
BURN AFTER READING
COLLECTED SCREENPLAYS 1
of related interest
THE MAKING OF JOEL & ETHAN COEN’S
The Big Lebowski
text by William Preston Robertson
edited by Tricia Cooke
Copyright
First published in 2009
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2009
All rights reserved
© Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, 2009
The right of Ethan Coen and Joel Coen to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publis
her’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–25533–7