In 2004, while isolated in college, I wrote a screenplay based on Kurt Vonnegut's "The Sirens of Titan." Seen here, for the first time, is an excerpt from that script, the prologue and Scene 1. Please enjoy this adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's famous novel:
Prologue
Black Screen, Text:
“Every
passing hour brings the Solar System
forty-three
thousand miles closer to
Globular
Cluster M13 in Hercules-
and
still there are some misfits who
insist
that there is no such thing as progress.”
-Ransom
K. Fern
FADE IN:
Exterior-Outer Space:
EARTH, like a magnificent marble in
space.
NARRATOR (off-screen): There
was a time, not too long ago, when mankind searched and searched for something
that would give their lives meaning. They searched for some hint, some clue of
a higher order in which they could find their purpose. After millennia of
searching the Earth for this higher order, this universal scheme, mankind found
only chaos and disorder. And man took the second law of thermodynamics as a
personal insult.
War and greed were facets of daily
life.
Suffering was rampant.
Gimcrack religions were big
business.
The Earth was dying, as mankind
exhausted its resources in their fruitless search for an elusive answer to the
questions they had been asking since the beginning of time.
PAN OVER SLOWLY:
To a vast and endless field of
stars.
NARRATOR: Mankind, ignorant of the
truths that lie within every human being, looked outward- pushed ever outward.
What mankind hoped to learn in this outward push was twofold: Who was actually
in charge of all creation, and just what was all creation all about
anyway?
The view advances forward, slowly at
first, accelerating until we see the stars passing by us in streaks.
NARRATOR: Mankind flung its advance
agents ever outward, ever outward.
We see three SPACE PROBES, with
solar panels and rockets and clusters of instruments. The probes cruise
silently across the emptiness of space.
NARRATOR: Eventually it flung them out
into space, into the vast, colorless, weightless sea of outwardness without
end. It flung them like stones.
The first probe is engulfed by a
SPIRAL OF LIGHT and FADES out of vision.
The other probes are similarly
swallowed by SPIRALS OF LIGHT and fade into the darkness.
NARRATOR: These unhappy agents of
man found what had already been found in abundance on Earth- a nightmare of
meaninglessness without end. The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness,
were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.
CUT TO:
Exterior-Outer Space-Mars:
Mars rises in the background, as a
private SPACE CRAFT that resembles something of a compromise between the Space
Shuttle and a fanciful Flash Gordon-era rocket ship, enters our view.
NARRATOR: Outwardness lost, at last,
its imagined attractions. Only inwardness remained to be explored.
The ship coasts through space. Its
rockets fire once, and then again as the ship adjusts its course.
The ship moves toward us, the
cockpit now plainly in view.
Through the cockpit we can see the
pilot- WINSTON NILES RUMFOORD, a well-dressed man who appears as if he could be
anywhere from 30 to 45. Rumfoord’s large canine, a bull mastiff named KAZAK, is
beside him in the cockpit, slobbering happily.
NARRATOR: Only the human soul
remained Terra Incognita.
Rumfoord’s ship is enveloped in a
SPIRAL OF IRIDESCENT LIGHT.
The spiral collapses on the ship,
which disappears in a flash of oily, spiraled luminescence.
NARRATOR: What were people like, in
those times, with their souls as yet unexplored?
As the ship fades from existence, a
great SPIRAL OF LIGHT illuminates the screen.
NARRATOR: The following is a true
story from the Nightmare Ages, falling roughly, give or take a few years,
between the Second World War and the Third Great Depression.
FADE TO:
The SUN, burning bright. A
LUMINESCENT SPIRAL streams out from the sun, intersecting MERCURY, VENUS,
EARTH, MARS, and passing through the ASTEROID BELT before it intersects JUPITER
AND SATURN…
When the SPIRAL intercepts Saturn’s
moon, TITAN, the moon GLOWS.
The Spiral continues, intersecting
with URANUS, NEPTUNE, PLUTO, a PASSING COMET, and finally spiraling off into
space.
As it spirals outward, we hear
RUMFOORD’S VOICE, echoing as though in an empty hall:
RUMFOORD (off-screen): Everything
that ever has been… always will be… Everything that ever will be… always has
been...
FADE OUT:
End of Prologue.
Act
1
Scene
1
FADE IN:
Black Screen, Text:
“I
guess somebody up there likes me.”
-Malachi
Constant
FADE IN:
Exterior- the Rumfoord Estate- day
On screen Text:
Newport,
Rhode Island, USA,
Earth,
Solar System, Milky Way
Outside the Rumfoord Estate, a CROWD
has gathered. An ATTRACTIVE FEMALE REPORTER is present with her CAMERAMAN.
REPORTER: The materializations, as
everyone knows, occur every 59 days when the Earth intersects with the
distorted spiral wave of Winston Niles Rumfoord and his dog, Kazak. Nine years
ago, despite, or perhaps, because of the unpredictable threat of Chrono-synclastic-infundibula,
and the subsequent grounding of all manned space flights in our solar system,
Mr. Rumfoord and his dog deliberately took off in his private space craft. Two
days out of Mars, his ship collided with a Chrono-synclastic-infundibulum. Mr.
Rumfoord and his dog- Kazak- now exist as a pulsating spiral wave phenomenon,
with their origin in the sun and their terminus in the star Betelgeuse. For all
intents and purposes, Mr. Rumfoord and his dog have become, as one reporter
coined it, "unstuck in time." The reports issued by Mrs. Beatrice
Rumfoord after each materialization indicate that Rumfoord now possesses a
unique insight into future events…
CUT TO:
Exterior-Field-Day:
A helicopter lands a good thirty
feet from a limousine.
We see a MAN (MALACHI CONSTANT) in
very expensive clothing, sunglasses, and an obviously fake beard, emerge from
the helicopter and run toward the awaiting Limousine.
CUT BACK TO:
Exterior-Rumfoord Estate (Iron
Door)-Day:
REPORTER: To date, no one has seen
Mr. Rumfoord materialize other than Mrs. Rumfoord and presumably her butler.
Only a single five-minute video of his dematerializing has been made public,
and that was quickly withdrawn from the eyes of the masses by Mrs. Rumfoord,
whose secretary has repeatedly stated that the materializations and her
husband’s literally phenomenal nature are highly personal, private affairs.
In the middle of the crowd, a few
plain-clothed men and women in sunglasses are moving about, spreading bits of
gossip about the materialization. As they meander through the mass of people,
excitements grows, until we hear the rumor they have spread.
MAN: He materialized in the woods!
WOMAN: He’s arrived early!
MAN: The woods! Let’s go!
The crowd flees in search of the man
and his dog, as a limousine pulls up to the 4.5 foot high iron door set in the
walls of the Estate. Above the strange door is a sign- Beware of Dog.
MALACHI CONSTANT, with dark
sunglasses and an obviously fake beard steps out. He is dressed like an
Edwardian dandy. He produces a key from his pocket, shows a piece of paper to
the POLICEMAN at the door.
The policeman nods, and the man
unlocks the iron door, ducks his head, and enters, shutting the door behind
him.
Beyond the iron door is an overgrown
garden with a path the width of a lawn mower leading to the mansion. The man
removes his glasses and false beard, and sets them to hang on the ivy-covered
walls.
He is MALACHI CONSTANT, richest man
in the world. He is attractive, with a light heavyweight build and dark, tan
skin. He has soft brown eyes underneath a strong brow. His head is full of
dark, thick hair. There is a coat of arms on his jacket, which says underneath,
in bold letters: “The Messenger Awaits.”
As he walks, we hear the voice of
BEATRICE RUMFOORD, as if reading from an invitation:
BEATRICE (voice-over): “Mr.
Constant: During my husband’s last materialization, he insisted that you be
present for the next one. I was unable to dissuade him from this, despite the
many obvious drawbacks. He insists that he knows you well, having met you on
Titan, which I am given to understand is a moon of Saturn.
“Oh, and Kazak bites, so do be
punctual.”
Malachi sees the skeleton of a large
dog, a mastiff, strung together with wires and wearing a spiked collar, chained
to the wall. There is an empty water bowl in front of the dog’s skeleton.
Malachi shrugs, looks at his
wristwatch, and walks along the path until he reaches a fountain.
The fountain is a forty-foot high
shaft, ringed with bowls that decrease in diameter from bottom to top, forming
a truncated cone. The lawn-mower path leads through the overgrown New England
jungle garden, and forks around the fountain, rejoining and continuing on to
the Victorian Mansion.
Malachi climbs the fountain.
Sitting atop the highest of the
bowls, he takes in the VIEW OF THE RUMFOORD ESTATE.
We hear the BARKING and GROWLING of
a dog.
Constant looks at his watch again,
and skims down the fountain, running skittishly through the jungle garden to
the door of the main house.
When he reaches the door, an ancient
butler, EARL MONCRIEF, awaits him. Moncrief opens the door and leads Malachi
inside.
Interior-Rumfoord Estate-Foyer:
The floor is a mosaic, showing the
signs of the Zodiac around a bright, abstract sun.
WINSTON NILES RUMFOORD stands in the
center, the sun under his feet.
He extends his hand to Malachi,
smiling broadly.
Rumfoord appears older than last we
saw him, and yet ageless at the same time. He could be anywhere from 35 to 55.
They shake. A faint electric glow is
visible, emanating from Rumfoord’s hand.
RUMFOORD: Delighted, Mr. Constant.
So nice of you to come.
CONSTANT: My pleasure.
RUMFOORD: They tell me you are quite
possibly the luckiest man who ever lived.
CONSTANT: That might be putting it a
bit too strongly.
RUMFOORD: You can’t deny that you’ve
had fantastically good luck financially.
CONSTANT: No, I can’t deny that.
RUMFOORD: And to what do you
attribute this wonderful luck of yours?
CONSTANT: I don’t know, I guess
somebody up there likes me.
Constant gestures upward.
Rumfoord looks at the ceiling.
RUMFOORD: What a charming concept,
someone’s liking you up there.
(a
beat)
RUMFOORD: I can read your mind, you
know.
CONSTANT: Can you?
RUMFOORD: Easy as pie. You’re not a
bad sort, you know. Especially when you forget who you are.
He touches Constant’s shoulder. As
when they shook earlier, a faint glow emanates from his hand.
RUMFOORD: Oh, and if it’s really of
importance for you to feel superior to me at this point in our relationship, think
of this: you can reproduce, and I cannot.
Rumfoord gestures to Malachi,
leading the way through a hall.
He stops in front of a large oil
painting.
RUMFOORD: I know you appreciate art,
Mr. Constant.
The painting is of a little girl
dressed all in white, riding a white pony.
CONSTANT: Nice picture.
RUMFOORD: Wouldn’t it be too bad if
she fell into a mud puddle?
Constant smiles weakly.
RUMFOORD: My wife as a child.
He leads the way through the hall
once more, into a strange little room that is hardly bigger than a walk-in
closet, except that the ceiling is 22 feet high. Inside the room are two
wing-chairs. A wooden plank on the wall reads “Skip’s Museum.” On the shelves
are various articles- fossils and dried skeletons and the like- either found on
a beach or purchased in a gift shop. In one corner of the room is a complete
skeleton of an adult human male.
RUMFOORD: An architectural accident.
He looks at the ceiling.
CONSTANT: Pardon me?
RUMFOORD: This room, it was one of
the few things I wanted as a boy.
CONSTANT: Who’s Skip?
RUMFOORD: I am, or was. Childhood
nickname. Just in the family, of course.
Rumfoord sits down in a wing chair,
and Constant follows.
RUMFOORD: Angels can’t either, you
know.
CONSTANT: Can’t what?
RUMFOORD: Reproduce.
Rumfoord lights a cigarette, offers
one to Constant.
RUMFOORD: I’m sorry my wife couldn’t
come down to meet you. It’s me she’s avoiding.
CONSTANT: You?
RUMFOORD: She hasn’t seen me since
my first materialization. Once was enough.
CONSTANT: I’m sorry, I don’t
understand…
RUMFOORD: She didn’t like my
fortune-telling, what little I told her about the future. She doesn’t care to
hear any more.
(a
beat)
RUMFOORD: I’ll tell you Mr.
Constant, it’s a thankless job- telling people that it’s a hard, hard universe
they’re in.
CONSTANT: She said you’d told her to
invite me.
RUMFOORD: She got the message from
the butler. I dared her to invite you, otherwise she wouldn’t have done
it. You might want to keep that in mind: the only way to get her to do anything
is to tell her she hasn’t got the courage to do it. Of course, it’s hardly an
infallible technique. I could send her a message right now telling her she
didn’t have the courage to hear about the future, and she would send a message
back saying that I was right.
CONSTANT: You- you really can see
into the future?
RUMFOORD: In a punctual way of
speaking, yes. When I ran my space craft into that
chrono-synclastic-infundibulum, it suddenly dawned on me, as I was fading out
of corporeal existence, that everything that ever has been always will be, and
everything that ever will be always has been.
Rumfoord chuckles.
RUMFOORD: Knowing that takes the
glamour out of fortune-telling, makes it the simplest, most obvious thing
imaginable.
CONSTANT: You told your wife
everything that was going to happen to her?
RUMFOORD: Oh, not everything. She
wouldn’t let me tell her everything. What I did tell her spoiled her appetite
for more.
CONSTANT: I- I see.
RUMFOORD: I told her that you and
she would be married on Mars… Err, not married, but bred, like farm animals.
Constant clasps his hands together
tightly. He clears his throat several times, tries to whistle.
CONSTANT: So… Mars?
RUMFOORD: Yes, Mars. Of course, that
isn’t you ultimate destination, nor is Mercury.
CONSTANT: Mercury?
RUMFOORD: Your destination is Titan,
but you first visit Mars, then Mercury, then Earth again, and then Titan.
CONSTANT: Mr. Rumfoord, you gotta
realize, I mean, you do know everything, right? There ain’t been a space launch
since you wound up spiraling between timid and Timbuktu.
RUMFOORD: I am aware of that, Mr.
Constant. This is the so-called dark age of space. Nonetheless, I assure you,
your ultimate destination is Titan, just as my destination is to
materialize in this house every 59 days.
CONSTANT: Well, looks like the
messenger is finally going to be used.
RUMFOORD: What was that?
CONSTANT: My name, it means faithful
messenger. What’s the message?
RUMFOORD: I know nothing of any
message.
CONSTANT: I mean, what am I going to
go to all this trouble to get to Triton for?
RUMFOORD: Titan.
CONSTANT: Titan, Triton… why the
hell would I go there?
RUMFOORD: You do- I promise you.
CONSTANT: I’m not going.
RUMFOORD: Sorry to hear it.
CONSTANT: I’m supposed to do
something for you when I get there?
RUMFOORD: No.
CONSTANT: Then why are you sorry?
What’s it to you?
RUMFOORD: Nothing. I’m only sorry
for you. You’ll really be missing something.
CONSTANT: Like what?
RUMFOORD: For one thing, the most
pleasant climate imaginable.
CONSTANT: I have houses on two
islands and three continents. Why would I leave Earth for the climate?
RUMFOORD: There’s more to Titan than
just climate. The women are the most beautiful creatures between the sun and
Betelgeuse.
Constant opens his wallet, produces
a photograph of a stunningly beautiful woman.
CONSTANT: Anything like this?
RUMFOORD: No, no. Not exactly.
CONSTANT: Okay, climate, women, what
else?
RUMFOORD: Not much else- oh, art
objects, if you like art.
CONSTANT: I’ve got the biggest
private art collection in the country.
Constant opens his wallet again to
return the photograph, which he does, but there is a second picture in his
hand.
The picture has more depth than an
ordinary photograph- it is like a glass window into a shallow coral bay, with
three women- one white, one gold, one brown, beckoning to him. The beauty of
the three women compares to that of the earthly girl in the other picture as
the sun would compare to a lightning bug.
Constant stares, engrossed, at the
picture.
RUMFOORD: Keep it if you want, it’s
wallet-size.
(a
beat)
RUMFOORD: My wife will be there with
you, when you get to Titan, but she won’t interfere if you want to frolic about
with these young things. Your son will be there too, but he will be just as
broad-minded as Beatrice.
CONSTANT: Son?
RUMFOORD: Chrono- a Martian name.
Born on Mars, by you and Beatrice.
CONSTANT: Beatrice?
RUMFOORD: My wife.
By now, Rumfoord has become
transparent, and his voice has a tinny, far-off quality to it.
RUMFOORD: Things fly this way and
that, with or without messages. It’s a chaotic universe, and make no mistake,
for the universe is just being born. It’s the great becoming that makes the
light and the heat and the motion, and bangs you from hither to yon.
Predictions, predictions… is there anything else? Oh yes, this child of yours,
this boy named Chrono. He will pick up a little piece of metal on Mars, and he
will call it his good luck piece. Keep your eye on that good luck piece, Mr.
Constant. It’s terribly important.
Rumfoord is almost completely
transparent now. A crackling, electric glow engulfs his ghost-like visage as he
VANISHES completely.
From the top of a spiral stair case
outside the room comes BEATRICE’s VOICE, calling down to the butler.
BEATRICE (off-screen): Is it
all over now, Moncrief?
MONCRIEF: Yes, Ma’am. Mr. Rumfoord
is gone now.
BEATRICE: And that Mr. Constant?
CONSTANT: Yes, that Mr.
Constant is still here.
Constant makes himself visible to
her.
BEATRICE descends the stair-case.
She is a handsome woman in a long white dressing gown. Her high cheekbones and
deep black eyes make her somewhat reminiscent of an Indian Brave. Though she is
only in her thirties, she acts like an invalid- tottering, making her voice
like wind.
She greets Constant emptily.
BEATRICE: Oh, how do you do?
CONSTANT: How do you do?
BEATRICE: Mr. Constant, I can only
appeal to your gentlemanly instincts in asking you not to spread the story of
your encounter with my husband. I know how tempting it must be.
CONSTANT: Well, yeah, with this
story I could go public, pay the mortgages on the house, become internationally
famous, maybe even buy another Mustang.
BEATRICE: You’ll pardon me if I fail
to appreciate sarcasm and all the brilliant nuances of your no-doubt famous
wit, Mr. Constant. These visits of my husband’s, they make me ill.
CONSTANT: You don’t see him any
more, do you?
BEATRICE: I saw him the first time
he materialized. And that was enough to make me ill for the rest of my
days.
CONSTANT: I liked him very much.
BEATRICE: The insane, on occasion,
are not without their charms.
CONSTANT: Insane?
BEATRICE: As a man of this world,
Mr. Constant, wouldn’t you say that any man who made complicated and improbable
predictions about the future was mad?
CONSTANT: Is it really insane to
tell the man who owns the biggest spaceship ever built that he’s going into
space?
BEATRICE: You have a space ship, do
you?
CONSTANT: You’ve heard of the Whale,
by General Spacecraft?
BEATRICE: Yes.
CONSTANT: My company sold it to the
government. Considering the circumstances, I think they’d be delighted if
somebody were to buy it back from them for ten cents on the dollar.
BEATRICE: Much luck to you on your
expedition, then.
CONSTANT: Much luck to you on
yours.
Constant crosses the foyer, leaving
the estate.
CUT TO:
Exterior-Rumfoord Estate-Garden:
CONSTANT treads back through the
garden jungle, recovers his sunglasses and fake beard before letting himself
out the little iron door.
CUT TO:
Exterior- Rumfoord Estate- Day:
Outside the walls. The crowd is
back, and so is the limousine. Policemen have cleared a path toward the
vehicle, which CONSTANT takes. The crowd jeers at him, insults him.
WOMAN: Tell us about the future!
MAN: What did he say to you?
WOMAN: Rich bastards! We got a right
to know, too!
As Constant climbs safely inside the
Limo, and the sea of flesh closes behind him, the limousine begins to rock.
The crowd has begun to attack the
vehicle with all manner of weapons- hot dogs, soda cans, eggs.
The driver starts the engine, and
the limousine creeps through the crowd.
A WOMAN with two false teeth bangs
on Constant’s window, lets her teeth fall out of place, shrieks like a witch.
MAN: We got a right to know!
Constant sits back, dazed.
Rumfoord’s words echo in Constant’s head:
RUMFOORD (voice-over): Your
destination is Titan… Titan… Titan… But
first you visit Mars, then Mercury, then Earth again, and then Titan… Titan…
Titan…
CHAFFEUR: Excuse me, suh?
CONSTANT: Hmm?
CHAFFEUR: Are you alright, suh?
CONSTANT: I knew that nothing
would happen to me here, right now.
CHAFFEUR: So you must’ve got a…
guardian angel or something?
CONSTANT: Yeah, something like that.
The limousine finally clears the
crowd, and the chauffeur presses down on the accelerator, letting the car zoom
away.
CUT TO:
Exterior-Field-Evening:
The limousine makes its rendevouz
with the helicopter.
CONSTANT makes for the chopper,
climbs in. The chopper takes off, flying westward in the direction of the
setting sun.
FADE OUT:
End of Scene.
