Beowulf
Page 23
94 EXT. KING BEOWULF’S CASTLE ARCH-BRIDGE
94
WEALTHOW runs with URSULA toward the opposite tower…
THE DRAGON snarls, barring its teeth…setting its wings to slow…it draws a bead on the two women…
BEOWULF cinches the chain around his wrist, pushes off, and jumps onto the dragon’s wing…he draws his dagger and stabs the creature’s webbed wing…suddenly he’s sliding down the wing, like Captain Blood cutting the sail of the ship.
The tear in its wing causes the Dragon to spiral out of control…looping Beowulf (and the chain) around its neck…creating a choke-chain LEASH!!
BLUE Rev. 2005-09-11 108.
THE DRAGON recovers from the spin, lurching Beowulf to an abrupt stop…inches above the pointed tip of a castle flag standard.
The creature seems to LAUGH, now climbing straight up…to the bridge…and the two fleeing women.
WEALTHOW sees the Dragon taking aim…she and Ursula cling to each other…both terrified!!
THE DRAGON rears back to spit…
BEOWULF swings on the chain as his body slaps against the dragon’s scaly breast-bone…
THE DRAGON SPEWS its deadly fire. The flame ROARS through its gullet causes the thin skin at the center of its neck to GLOW!!!
BEOWULF sees this…THE SOFT SPOT! Under the dragon’s neck!! Beowulf draws his dagger…
THE DEMON’S FIRE-BALL surges toward the bridge…
WEALTHOW AND URSULA dive out of the way, in the opposite direction…THE FIRE-BALL HITS THE BRIDGE…missing the women, but cutting off their escape…the flame singeing their gowns.
At that moment…
BEOWULF SLICES OPEN THE DRAGON’S THROAT…right at the SOFT SPOT! He looks inside the wound…just beyond the trachea, behind a transparent membrane…sits THE DRAGON’S BLACK HEART…it’s the exact same shape and size as a human heart, pumping the demon’s black blood!!!
BEOWULF thrusts his dagger at the heart…but the dragon vomits another stream of fire…
BEOWULF
(screams in pain)
AAAaahhh!!!!!
THE FIRE SEARS BEOWULF’S HAND and the dagger is belched out with the fire…
THE FIRE-BALL SPLATTERS in front of the fleeing women…
WEALTHOW AND URSULA ARE TRAPPED between two pillars of fire…there’s no way to escape!!
BLUE Rev. 2005-09-11 109.
THE DRAGON narrows its eyes, its mouth forming a malevolent smirk…moving in for the kill…
BEOWULF dangles helplessly from the chain…
THE TWO WOMEN hold each other tightly…
THE DRAGON cocks its head to spit, but…
COUGHS AND CHOKES…AND SPITTLES OUT a weak, limp flame…the bulk of demon’s hydrogen gas blowing though the wound in its neck.
THE DRAGON SCREAMS IN RAGE and STRIKES AT THE WOMEN…its jaws wide open, bearing its fangs…
THE WOMEN dive to the ground and squeeze against the inside wall…
THE DRAGON SNAPS…missing them…but taking a hug bite out of the stone railing behind them…
BEOWULF thrusts his charred hand into the dragon’s wound in a desperate attempt to grab the creatures heart…but it’s more than a foot out of reach…the chain wrapped around his wrist like a hand-cuff…he can’t reach any further.
THE WOMEN tuck against the wall…
THE DRAGON snaps at them again…
BEOWULF CRIES OUT in frustration.
BEOWULF (CONT’D)
NOOOOooo!!!!!
But then…
OLD WIGLAF (O.S.)
MY LORD!!!
BEOWULF sees…
95 EXT. KING BEOWULF’S CASTLE
95
OLD WIGLAF…riding up under the dragon, holding a charged bow, with a long dagger lashed to its arrow.
WIGLAF lets the arrow fly…a perfect shot, straight at the dragon’s wound…but…
BLUE Rev. 2005-09-11 110.
96 EXT. KING BEOWULF’S CASTLE ARCH-BRIDGE
96
THE DRAGON lurches violently toward the women…and THE ARROW is going to miss its mark. It arcs downward…falling short, but at the last second…
BEOWULF swings out his leg…allowing THE ARROW to plunge into his calf muscle…
BEOWULF SCREAMS from the pain, but quickly retracts his leg and retrieves the dagger…
Beowulf thrusts the dagger through the dragon’s wound! Slashing open the membrane, he STABS THE DAGGER AT THE DRAGON’S HEART!! But…
Unbelievably, BEOWULF’S REACH IS STILL SHORT…four inches short. He tugs desperately at the chain, stretching his arm and wrist to gain m ore length, but to no avail…
In a mad rage, THE DRAGON CHOMPS and bites at the stone wall…sending chunks of rock and stone flying…
WEALTHOW AND URSULA, terrified, cover their heads…one or two more dragon bites, and the wall will be gone…when suddenly…
A strange calm comes over Beowulf…he knows what he must do…he reaches the dagger under his chain-mail at his shoulder…and BEGINS CUTTING HIS ARM!!
The pain is excruciating, as Beowulf slices and hacks at his underarm…his blood seeping through the chain mesh.
OLD WIGLAF watches from below, unable to believe what he’s witnessing…
THE DRAGON CACKLES with glee…it rips another huge chunk of stone out of the wall…
WITH A FINAL CUT of the dagger…BEOWULF SEVERS HIS OWN ARM!! He drops A GOOD FIVE INCHES, his arm and torso held together by the chain-mail.
KING BEOWULF, now with an expression of serenity on his face like we have never seen, swings on his severed arm and thrusts the dagger into the dragon’s throat!!! But…
At that moment, a torrent of rocks and stone tumble down the dragons gullet…KNOCKING THE DAGGER OUT OF BEOWULF’S HAND!!!!!
BLUE Rev. 2005-09-11 111.
EVERYTHING SHIFTS INTO SLOW MOTION:
Beowulf screams in anguish…
BEOWULF
NNNNAAAAYYYYY!!!!!
THE DRAGON’S FANGS SNAP an inch above Wealthow’s head…the two women, now totally exposed…
THE DRAGON’S SHADOW looms over them…moving in for the kill!!
WEALTHOW AND URSULA look up in horror as the dragon’s mouth slowly descends…
OLD WIGLAF, aghast, looks away…
The air, or perhaps Beowulf’s head, is filled with the GOLDEN MAN’S LAUGHTER…something he said in the cave…
DRAGON (V.O.)
(echoing, ghostlike)
How will you hurt me, my father? Your fingers? Your teeth? YOUR BARE HANDS?
BEOWULF, in a super human, heroic effort…plunges is arm into the dragon’s wound…
THE DRAGON lets out A BELLOW OF PAIN AND FEAR…its yellow eye’s roll back in its head…as…
KING BEOWULF RIPS OUT THE DRAGON’S HEART…WITH HIS BAR HAND!!!
The dragon’s chin slams down on the remnants of the bridge, inches from the trembling women…it begins tumbling, wildly, out of control, down and down and down…the rocks and the sea fly up at us, in one long, nightmarish hurtle. Then, with a CRASH…
Beowulf and the Dragon SMASH into the rocks at the edge of the sea.
97 EXT. THE ROCKS
97
WAVES crash over them both, and when the waves retreat the Dragon has become the Golden Man once more. There’s an open wound extending from his neck down to his chest.
DRAGON-MAN
Father?
BLUE Rev. 2005-09-11 112.
Beowulf throws his good arm around his dead son’s head, cradling it.
KING BEOWULF
I’m sorry…
And another wave CRASHES over them. When it recedes, Beowulf is alone, mortally wounded, on the rocks. The Golden Man is gone…having been taken by the waves.
King Beowulf’s grey hair and face and beard are soaked by the waves, so it’s hard to tell if he’s crying or not. But he is.
We hear the CRUNCH of boots on pebbles, and Old Wiglaf comes into view…
OLD WIGLAF
I told you we were too old to be heroes. Let’s get you to a healer.
He struggles over to Beowulf and tries to help him, but Beowulf resists.
KING BEOWULF
No. Not this time, old friend.
OLD WIGLAF
You’re Beowulf. A little thing like this isn’t going to finish you off.
KING BEOWULF
No. I’m done.
(then, he seems to be hallucinating)
Do you hear her?
Wiglaf may not hear it…but we do. It’s a far off VOICE SINGING. A haunting song that seems to resonate throughout the land. The Siren Song.
OLD WIGLAF
I hear nothing…
KING BEOWULF
The song. It’s Grendel’s Mother -- my son’s mother -- my…
He stops, distracted by pain, and whether he was going to say “lover” or “mother” or “nemesis” we will never know…
BLUE Rev. 2005-09-11 113.
OLD WIGLAF
No, lord. Don’t say such things. You killed Grendel’s mother. When we were young. It’s in the saga…
Beowulf cuts him off with a painful yell…
KING BEOWULF
A LIE!! You know it was…a lie.
Wiglaf reveals nothing. His face stoic, his eyes enigmatic.
KING BEOWULF (CONT’D)
Too late for lies, Wiglaf. Too late--
And Beowulf is dead.
DISSOLVE TO:
98 EXT. SEA SIDE -- FUNERAL BOAT -- SUNSET
98
Beowulf’s body, looking like an old hero in his fur cape, rests on a pile of golden treasure…on a Viking ship…in full sail.
A scop, the young boy from the first scene, his voice a perfect treble, begins to sing…
BOY
(sings)
Across the whale road he came And made our land his hearth and home…
Four thanes dressed in their finest armor, cast the boat out to the icy sea.
Old Wiglaf stands on a rock out-crop. THE GOLD CROWN of Herot upon his head. Beowulf’s crown, and Hrothgar’s before him.
Wealthow and Ursula hold hands tightly, united by their grief.
Old Unferth, a broken man, stands holding on to Old Cain’s shoulder.
BOY (CONT’D)
(sings)
With glory and for good he died Protecting us from evil’s might And so his saga will be told Until the sun goes dark and cold…
BLUE Rev. 2005-09-11 114.
Beowulf’s funeral ship drifts toward a rocky outcrop, forming a natural arch. A cedar bonfire is burning on top.
As the boat passes under the arch, the embers are pushed over the side, creating a heart-stoppingly beautiful…
WATERFALL OF GLOWING EMBERS
…A beat, and the ship erupts in flame.
The setting sun, like a huge crimson eye on the horizon, frames the burning boat into a silhouette.
The boy’s song ends. And into the silence, Wiglaf speaks.
OLD WIGLAF
He…he was the bravest of us. The prince of all warriors. His name will live forever. He
Wiglaf breaks down.
WEALTHOW
His song…shall be sung forever…. As long as the Earth endures, his tales shall be told.
And the mourners turn back, heading towards the castle.
Beowulf’s ship is now out into the open sea, burning.
Wiglaf pauses. He seems to hear something, a distant KEENING…he looks out to sea.
The wordless keening becomes the SIREN SONG…of GRENDEL’S MOTHER!
She’s sitting on the prow of the burning boat. Beautiful, naked and perfect. In the flames…Grendel’s beautiful mother…untouched by time…kisses her lover goodbye.
The boat lists and begins to sink. And just before it goes down, she stands on the rising bow, and executes a perfect arching dive. And as the Age of Heroes comes to its end…the siren vanishes beneath the waves.
Wiglaf looks down…waves lap at his feet…when suddenly, The Golden Drinking Horn appears…washed up by the waves.
Wiglaf’s eyes widen as he cautiously lifts the horn out of the sand, then looks back out to the sea…
BLUE Rev. 2005-09-11 115.
And rising out of the water is Grendel’s Mother, golden and beautiful…with her long, exquisite finger, she beckons Wiglaf…
A strange look flickers across the old warrior’s eyes…a look we haven’t seen before…
And Wiglaf steps into the water…walking toward her…
Just as the last of the setting sun, for a moment, burns green as any emerald, and the darkness falls we…
FADE OUT:
Afterword
BY NEIL GAIMAN
I know that there is a relationship between a script and a film, but I also know that it’s not always the relationship that the viewing public imagines. It’s not the relationship between a play performed and a script, or even of a house and an architect’s plan. If anything it’s the relationship between a battle plan and a battle.
There are those who believe that the art form of Hollywood is movies. I believe this—except on my cynical days, when I believe that the art form of Hollywood is contracts, and that occasionally movies get made as an unavoidable part of the contract-making process.
When I was a young man I went out to Hollywood with a book, convinced that I was smarter and better and wiser than any other young man who had gone out to Hollywood and fallen afoul of the system, and I watched as my weeks turned into a rough assemblage of every Hollywood cliché you’ve ever heard of. “You’d have to be mad to want to do this,” I thought, and I went away again.
In his introduction to these scripts, Roger Avary is much too honest about the process of getting this script made. This is because Roger is a Holy Madman. When he dies, no matter what amazing things he does between now and then, they will mention in the obituaries that he concluded his short Oscar acceptance speech by saying, “I’m gonna go now ’cause I really got to take a pee.” And he did. He says it was because he really had to take a pee.
If you read these two scripts, and bits, and Roger’s introductions, you will learn an awful lot about the filmmaking process. You’ll read two different battle plans for two different battles.
In 1997 we sat down in Mexico (mosquitoes in clouds, and they would make it through the netting in the night and be flying around lazily, blood-gorged, in the morning) to write a low-budget, live-action film, to be shot on location somewhere cold. It would have been rough and ready and cheap: Gilliam’s Jabberwocky and Monty Python and the Holy Grail were our touchstones when we talked. Roger would have directed it. He grew a beard in order to look like a Viking when he directed, and to appear in crowd shots. He looks like a Viking when he has a beard, after all.
And then, eight years later, we found ourselves making a film in a soundstage and inside computers, with a huge budget, a dream cast, and a director in Bob Zemeckis who is so far from mad, so amiable and willing to collaborate, that it’s frankly suspicious.
If I tag along with Roger (who is a Holy Madman. Did I mention that already? They walk through battles unscathed. Roger would not go to Florida because of the giant methane bubble beneath the gulf of Mexico, and when I made him go to Florida with me he kept one eye out for tidal waves the entire time, which made Florida so much more interesting for me than it has ever been, before or since) we have adventures, and things become a lot more interesting. So I tag along with Roger. You would too.
Also, I get to write rude songs, although only part of one of them made it into the finished film. But you get two of them here. Which is reason enough for you to read this book, even if you aren’t interested in how films are made.
Appendix
SONGS
WE ARE BEOWULF’S ARMY
(to be sung like a rough and ready rugby song)
There were a dozen virgins,
All Friesians and Franks!
We took ’em for a boat-ride,
> and all we got were wanks!
OOohh,
We are Beowulf’s army,
we are mighty thanes,
we’ll steal your cattle,
and take your girls,
then we’ll do it all over again!
The prettiest of the virgins,
she was the fairest Swede!
I told her I’d an urgin’,
for where to spend my seed!
Singing we are Beowulf’s army,
we are mighty thanes,
we’ll steal your cattle,
and take your girls,
then we’ll do it all over again!
The oldest of the virgins,
she was a Vandal lass!
I showed my mighty weapon,
and she showed me her ass!
Singing we are Beowulf’s army,
we are mighty thanes,