Which Lie Did I Tell?

by William Goldman

  (indicating chairs)

  Shall we?

  (as they sit)

  A very sad day for us all, Ralph.

  CUT TO

  ECHO AND TRIP entering quietly; they sit across the large table from the men. We have never seen ECHO in her work costume before. A business suit, hair back. Older and wise.

  JUDGE HAMPTON

  This is bound to be painful, let’s make it brief.

  (beat)

  Jennifer doesn’t want you to see the children again.

  CUT TO

  CLIMBER. Holding himself in. Hard. He gestures for the old man to continue.

  JUDGE HAMPTON (CONT’D)

  Until they’re of age.

  CLIMBER

  Is that the next century or the one after that?

  JUDGE HAMPTON

  Let me finish, Ralph, please--you may visit them, of course--but you may never be with them alone. Someone the state appoints will be in attendance at all times.

  CLIMBER

  Even with your money, is this legal? I’m their father, I think. Unless Ms. Sinclair has other surprises in store.

  ECHO looks at him. Glass.

  JUDGE HAMPTON

  We think we can make it stick. All our legal experts say as much. But of course, a jury is hard to predict. In order to get there, of course you would have to sue. There would be a trial. Considering Jennifer’s family, I should think a famous one.

  (beat)

  Do you want to put the children through that?

  CUT TO

  CLIMBER. He sits there for a moment, all silent moderation. Then suddenly--

  CLIMBER

  (at TRIP--all he has left)

  I would never have followed you, you son of a bitch.

  ECHO

  (at CLIMBER--all she has left)

  You risked their lives--

  CUT TO

  THE ROOM. Just the sound of breathing.

  JUDGE HAMPTON

  That’s the crux of it, Ralph. Did you?

  CUT TO

  CLIMBER. CLOSE UP. Finally--

  CLIMBER

  Things … they got a little out of hand…

  (beat)

  Not what I intended.

  JUDGE HAMPTON

  You know our position, Ralph. You can sue, not see them, see them with someone else present.

  CLIMBER

  To protect them?

  ECHO

  Yes.

  He rises, nods, leaves.

  JIMMY

  (to ECHO--his first and only words)

  You’re killing him…

  (he goes off after his son as we)

  * * *

  I want to stop here for a while and talk about the movie.

  Half the movie, really. George Roy Hill once said that if you can’t tell your story in an hour fifty, you better be David Lean. I will go to my grave agreeing with that. George S. Kaufman once said, “Everything needs cutting.” I’m 100 percent for that, too. I cannot think of a flick over the last decade—including Shawshank Redemption, in which I put up with anything—that could not have been better with some, as they say, judicious cutting.

  I think what you’ve read would run about forty-five to fifty-five minutes. Dialogue scenes go quickly. Action scenes run long. The drowning sequence, for example, should take many minutes on film. You’ve got to know—at the start of it—that he’s going to rescue her. Then you’ve got to know—one-third in—that she’s going to rescue him. Then there has to come a moment—I did it with a long shot of the two of them and they are simply too far away for anything to happen—when you are meant to think, I know Climber’s not going to die, I know that because this is only the first part of the movie and he gets top billing—but how is he going to be saved? And, please, somebody do it. And then the rescue with her knifing through the water and him sinking and the distance getting closer but it’s still too rough, they’re too far apart—

  —and then he sinks under.

  Well, all those beats are written in there for a purpose. To thrill you. And also so the asshole director will get it. (Remember, this is the selling version.) Once Mr. Fox says, sure, here’s seventy-five mill, get some stars and make the movie—well, that version of the script doesn’t have to sell so hard.

  But you know what? I’d keep it in anyway so the female star, when she reads it, can think, hey, what a great scene for me. Love that drowning sequence.

  And you know what else? Male stars will hate the sequence. They’re happy as shit jumping through closed windows and showing how perfect they are—but being weak? Worse, being rescued? Worse yet, being rescued by the girl?

  Here’s what most male stars would do to that sequence, if they have the power. They would absolutely leave it in. They would be thrilled unto death to play the fucker—

  —with one teeny proviso. Don’t gag when I tell you what it is—

  —that the audience already knows Climber is a swimmer of at least Olympic calibre. And that Echo, poor sweet thing, has a lifetime terror of the water. Get it?

  He doesn’t need help, he’s helping her get over her fear.

  That’s how insecure they are. And that’s how big they want us to think their dicks are. And if this all makes you sick, get out of the business. I have been dealing with it for thirty-five years.

  It gets no easier.

  The main reason I’ve stopped the screenplay at this point is to ask some questions, most importantly this: What do you think’s going to happen?

  Please do me a favor here—put the book down and decide what the answer would be for you. What would make you satisfied?

  Example: Do you think there’s any chance for Echo and Climber to forgive each other? And if you believe he can get back into her good graces, do you also believe he can get back into her heart?

  Shirley and Phoebes? Their family’s been ripped apart again and I think they have to think it’s their fault. Not only that, but their father is gone again. (Do you think those chaperoned visits are going to work out? I sure don’t. I don’t think that kind of thing can work out.)

  Trip? How is what he did going to affect his getting married? I think he did a rotten thing. But Echo must think differently. Do they get married? How does Climber take that? Do the kids fall apart? They have to hate him for taking their father away. And what happens when (or if) he moves into their mother’s life and bed?

  And finally Echo. Obviously she is still more than a little interested in Climber. If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t torment him the way she does, wouldn’t ask if he hated what he saw. But he put her beloved children in danger.

  Other questions: Is anybody going to get hurt? Who? Are you sure? Why do you think that? Is anybody going to die? Who? Are you sure? Why do you think that?

  I have answers for some of those questions.

  But not all. Not at this point anyway. And I have been continually surprised at what you’ve read. (I don’t want that to come off as mystical shit. It isn’t. But as I’ve told you, I don’t know what I’m doing, not in any logical way, I’m totally instinctive. I knew when I started that the kids had different lives with the different parents. I knew Climber would be found out. But I didn’t know, till the day I wrote the scene, that when he took them out on their first case the bodega was going to be robbed.

  I knew there could be a bodega if I needed it. I’ve seen lots of streets like that in the Village, one nationality taking over from another, but gradually.

  What I had no answer for was this question: How deeply would I need to bury old Climber? I knew he had to be separated from the kids. I knew Trip was going to be the suspicious person. But it was possible that Echo’s merely seeing them working at night, however safely, would be enough to enflame her.

  But as I started into the sequence, I think this fear came along—that if all Climber did was play the overly enthusiastic parent, taking his kids into his work life, and Echo found out and took the children away from him, so that he could only see them with
others around, it would be difficult to believe the Sinclairs, even with all their money, would be able to make that stick. But worse than that was—

  —we would just plain hate Echo. She was already running the risk of being a rich bitch, period. If she was a neurotically overprotective mother, I’d never be able to get her back for the audience.

  —so I used the bodega robbery. I felt I needed it. Climber had to take a legitimate fall—because with the addition of the robbery he does a terrible thing: he puts his children at risk.

  I think writing has always got to be an act of exploration.

  I want to share with you now, typos and all, exactly what my first note was for this story, back on January 16th, 1995.

  MOVIE IIDEA—AUDREY HEPBURN WHEN TWENTY IS IN TROUBLE AND SAVED BY BOGART AT 33 AND THEY FALL IN LOVE AND BOTH TERRIFIC AND HAVE KIDS BUT SHE IS RICH AND INTO CHARITY AND HE LIKES WHAT HE DOES DO THEY EVENTUALLY SPLIT—MAYBE SHE HAS REMARRIED RALPH BELLAMY OR SOMEONE

  ANYWAY, THE KICKER IS THEY HAD A GREAT KID, 17, AND HE LIVES IN THE MANSION DURING THE WEEK BUT GETS TO HOLIDAY WITH DAD WHO TAKES HIM OON CASES. THE KID I SERIOUS ABOUT IT

  SENIOR AT FANCY PREP SCHOOL—HOME WITH MOM DOING RICH STUFF AND WEEKENDS DOING CRIME. CAN ACT LIKE A JUNKIE OR ALL KINDS OF STUFF. CAN DISAPPEAR ON THE STREET.

  MAYBE THIS WEEKEND HIS SISTER PHOEBE HAS TO COME ALONG. SHE IS REALLY GIFTED.

  FATHER MIGHT TEST KID, TELL ME WHERE THE LETTER OPENER IS OR ASKS QUESTIONS REQUIRING WATCHFULNESS AND KID IS GIFTED BUT MAYBE PHOEBE IS A GENIUS AT IT. MAYBE PHOEBE CAME HOME UNEXPECTEDLY FROM SCHOOL OR WHATEVER

  FATHER WO4RKS THE KID HARD—LOOK AT THIS ROOM, WHO DID IT

  KID LOVES BOTH PARENTS AND THEY ARE BOTH GOOD BUT NOT GOOD WITH EACH OTHER.,

  KID HATES HIS FANCY NAME—ELLIOT OR SPANGLER. WANTS TO BE BUCK OR FLASH. MAYBE FATHER WILL CALL HIM THAT WHEN HE EARNS IT

  WOULD IT BE PLEASING TO YOU

  That story had been in my head for four and a half years, till May 20th of 1999, when I wrote the scene of Climber rescuing Echo.

  You can see how much it has altered from the original notion.

  But the heart of the piece has remained the same.

  At least it has in my head. But, my God, the changes. The boy was seventeen. He was seventeen for a year or two until I realized that made my lovers too old, too much time would have to be covered in the story—and as I have told you, movies don’t do that well. If it’s ten years, you don’t need a lot of makeup and stuff. If it’s seventeen, you do.

  But that’s a minor change. Here are two big ones—this is supposed to be a romantic comedy, yes? Well, what happened to Echo? She’s all but disappeared.

  And the kids have exploded.

  I didn’t mean for that to happen, but when I hit the moment at the end of the scene when Climber is given tickets to take them to the Bartok concert—well, the three of them were just terrific together, I thought. So I went with them. Could not wait to get the three blabbing on.

  I know this—I have to get Echo back.

  And I believe this—I have to get the four of them back together. What I do not know at the moment is: Can I bring that off?

  I had no idea, when I started, that this story was going to fit into three acts. There is no proper number. A lot of mine seem to have five acts. (When I say “act” I mean a moment of power, a moment that in the theater would bring the curtain down to start an intermission.)

  Butch is really two acts. The first act, the Wild West part, ends with Butch yelling to the world, “The future’s all yours, ya lousy bicycles.” It is the end of their life as we and they have known it. The South American act starts when they get there, ends with their death. And in between, a brief New York interlude.

  Well, I’m writing along here in The Big A and it hits me that this was three. The first act in my head I decided was this: things going good.

  That’s up till the moment when he brings them home and Trip has the cryptic line about Climber’s secret for making the kids so unhappy. You can read that straight—Trip is fooled. But later, when you realize he was on to their charade, the line has irony.

  Anyway, here’s Act I—what I would have put on my wall.

  1) Kidnap/rescue

  2) Climber’s place

  3) Echo’s place

  4) Swimming

  5) Credit

  6) Jimmy ok’s

  7) Pizza—the big A

  8) Phoebes/sleep

  9) Home

  When I get to the stage of putting the movie on my wall, I pretty much have the movie in my head. I don’t mean I’m some weird memory automaton with the commas all in place. I mean that when I say kidnap/rescue I know he’s going to climb up, get in, get her out.

  That’s the spine of that scene.

  I was not remotely that far along on The Big A when I started because I knew I was not going to write the entire flick. The purpose of this exercise was not to do that, but to write enough of it so my experts would have the tools to come and expose me.

  An aside now (but I think this is about how writers’ minds work)—if you will go back to the original idea, printed above, there is something that will make little sense:

  KID HATES HIS FANCY NAME—ELLIOT OR SPANGLER.

  WANTS TO BE BUCK OR FLASH. MAYBE FATHER

  WILL CALL HIM THAT WHEN HE EARNS IT

  WOULD IT BE PLEASING TO YOU

  That’s Bruce.

  And somehow that’s got to get into the screenplay.

  Explanation. I came to New York City in ’53, with still a year to go in the Army. But my brother and I gave Johnny Kander a few dollars to share his really crappy dump on Eighty-fourth Street, for when we could get down on weekends. I was at the Pentagon, my brother at the Army Chemical Center in Maryland, Shangri-La for lovers of poison gas.

  Come ’54, and my hero days done, I return (hopefully) forever. I am dating a girl for a while and I want to be a writer and she has dated this guy before me who also wanted to be a writer and she thought we might like each other.

  We did.

  Bruce was tall and dark and a great smoker who looked like Jack Palance. I was the novelist, while Bruce, a native, wanted Broadway. He was a gifted lyricist.

  Also liked sports. Bruce was one of the four who watched the Podres World Series together, 1955, in a small room, two of us Dodger fans, two Yankees, and we would change positions, gum, everything to try and destroy the power of the enemies on the TV screen.

  One night Bruce and I are talking, probably in a bar, probably drunk, and I remember he made, softly, this incredible admission: “I always wanted to be called ‘Flash.’ ” No need to ask why. If you were a kid, how could you not want to be called Flash?

  Imagine that. Being legitimately called Flash.

  Well, I harassed him some about it over time, but I was also sure that somehow I had to use that.

  When he died (killed young in some stupid flying accident), I knew it even more. Not that we were best friends. Bruce was married and had a couple of kids and you couldn’t make much of a living writing lyrics, so, even though he hated it, he picked up and went Out There, wrote some westerns for the tube, then hit it very big indeed when he invented Mission: Impossible.

  His father was a famous New York City judge and I remember talking to Judge Geller once and he was all excited and I asked why and he said that two brilliant lawyers were going against each other in his courtroom on the following Monday and it was going to be so terrific. (You see? Everybody reveres talent.)

  I didn’t know, when I did the first act, where to put Shirley’s dream. There were places, but it would have meant stopping dead so I let it go. If I ever rewrite this, bet I’ll find a place next draft around.

  Do you know why I told you about Flash and the Judge? Because I wanted Act I to sink a little bit into your heads. Here it is again.

  1) Kidnap/rescue

  2) Climber’s place

  3) Echo’s place

  4) Swimming

&n
bsp; 5) Credit

  6) Jimmy ok’s

  7) Pizza—the Big A

  8) Phoebes/sleep

  9) Home

  I decided that the second act was this: things going bad. There is a harbinger when a strange tinted car goes by. Then Trip is at the Kabuki performance. Then the biggie when Echo confronts Climber and ends life as they have known it.

  Here’s what I had on my wall for what you’ve read of Act II:

  1) Kabuki news

  2) Joyce Theater

  3) Blind child

  4) The Foundation

  That’s where we are.

  Into the second act, the first four sequences done. Here is my problem at this point: What comes next?

  Understand, I can go anywhere. I can cut to Mount Everest ten years later and have Climber on his way to the summit. I can cut to the White House, where Echo is being given an honor for her selfless work for charity. I can cut to a graveyard and all you see are these words:

  Phoebe

  1992–2000

  I can cut to a hospital for the insane, with a lot of young people just staring with that awful look the crazed manage, and there is Shirley, lost and by the wind grieved. I can cut to Venice at midnight and here comes a gondola and there they are, Phoebes and Shirley, dressed as gondoliers, as Climber and Echo hold each other and smile at the kids, who smile at their parents, glorious familial contentment. I can cut to Trip in his Manhattan penthouse, terrified because we pull back and see Climber, pistol in hand, ready to fire and kill.

  I don’t want to go to those places a whole lot, but I can—because the story has come to a wrenching moment of change—Climber walking out, dying, as his father points out. The kids can no longer be in his life, not as they were, and I think it’s pretty clear he cherished their time together.

  Understand something—my story is in jeopardy at this moment, just as Butch was before the Superposse arrived. The fun-and-games robberies were done at that point. Just as the fun-and-games detective stuff is done at this point.

  This is what you could call a hinge moment.

  All movies are always in jeopardy all the time, that I hope we know. But there is a particular danger here, because a change has to come.