Cut of the teeth Final Draft

1. A Cut of the Teeth
by
Harvey Graham
harveyjgraham@btinternet.com
07923903762

2. SCENE 1: SERIES OF SHOTS
Smiles. Faces. We are introduced to a series of smiley,
happy people at night. CUs, they stare into the lens,
handheld with a small amount of natural camera shake. Why
are they smiling? Do they mean it? They are backlit by blue,
cold streetlamps. We silently cut to a CU of a shop window
mannequin, locked down-no camera movement, framed as if the
plastic body had a head, lit in contrasting warm and cold
temperatures. We slowly go back and forth between these two
images, each with a different face, a different mannequin.
In the background the 'Henry Plainview' theme, 3:10-4:13,
builds in suspense.
CUT.
A single fleeting frame. Two sharp eyes point into the lens,
onto the audience, ECU.
Instantly back to the sterile faces and plastic-mould
mannequins. The music builds, strings scream. More and more
faces, plastic and bone.
CUT.
The same frame. The same eyes. After a mannequin. They
twitch, he's not smiling. Lit in monochrome blood red.
CUT. MEAT. Raw bloody meat. A slab the size of your thigh,
lying on brown butcher's paper. This time the shot remains.
No colour temperature, neutral honest lighting, placing the
object's shadow underneath it, in the fleshy, animal
creases. Top lit like a shop counter, a bloody one at that.
The music crescendos.
TITLE CARD. 'A Cut of the Teeth'. Spliced over the image,
placed only over the centrally framed meat so that the white
font colour contrasts well in it's thin, caligraphic, style.
The title is hand drawn, scanned into a digital file as if
done so in celluloid. The text jitters slightly, shaking
around the frame a pixel or two. Small blinks of white grain
flash invariably across the image.
SCENE 2: INTERIOR.KITCHEN.MORNING
Tear. The brown butcher's paper is ripped slowly in half,
revealing the soggy mess of ligaments and sinew beneath.
RYAN is cooking. He sharpens his knife, his paintbrush,
ready to carve the canvas that was 'leg of lamb' into the
protein rich delicacy of his choosing. The lamb is dissected
under his careful blade, like a plastic surgeon's first
patient of the day.
Ryan's preparation is intricate, controlled. He simmers the
sauce to marinate, creates dressings of peppercorn, sesame
seed and sunflower oil.
FOCUS ON THE SHARPNESS OF THE BLADE
He slices the lamb then reaches for a serrated knife, using
it to saw through the thicker bone. Finished, he places the
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3. 2
knife back onto the tabletop, KNOCKING THE SHARPER PRECISION
BLADE OFF THE COUNTER.
The knife lands on his foot, leaving a deep, pink gash. He
pauses. Shock. He's lucky not to have lost toes.
BEAT.
Extreme LA CU onto his face, scrunched downwards in pain,
eyes slightly below the lens, yet distant.
His are the eyes of the fleeting cuts.
Back to the foot. The toes quickly recede in on themselves,
each joint snapping quickly backwards, tensing in pain,
accompanied by a screeching diegetic blade scraping
ceramics.
SCENE 3: INTERIOR.BEDROOM.LATER
Ryan leans against his bedpost. Over-ear headphones
isolating him from the world outside his own skull. They say
no man is an island.
White noise can just be made out over his heavy breathing.
His eyes open and close methodically, in time with the slow
rise and fall of his chest.
We take the opportunity to peer around his room; a biology
textbook, a worn fob of car keys, no phone- empty sockets.
Back to Ryan-
His breathing calmed, he slowly pulls the headphones off
with one hand, half opening his eyes.
SCENE 5: INTERIOR.CLASSROOM.MIDDAY
Three quarters front, medium of Ryan in a dusty classroom.
Two or three other students are visible, sat behind him,
just out of focus. The blinds are drawn, bulbs off, the only
light source coming from the video. An old nature
documentary, an archaic projection of life and death.
A lion chases an antelope across the undeveloped plains of
some distant country.
The bumbling British narrator drones on "...killing when
neccessary...".
We watch ONLY Ryan, until...
FLASH. CU of the poor quality projection. Predator roaring
at prey. THe audio is louder, more agressive. Distorted.
Ryan's reaction. Closer. He is surprised, compromised,
breathing heavily.
FLASH. Jaw crunches bone, the lion shreds the antelopes rear
legs.
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4. 3
CU, closer still. Ryan is obviously distressed. He leaves
the lesson, escaping to the toilet.
SCENE 5: INTERIOR.CORRIDOR.MIDDAY
Passing through the doorway, Ryan needs to catch his breath,
exercise what little self-control he has.
He pauses, instantly frozen in surprise.
CHARITY stands, rooted to the spot, staring at him. Dressed
in rich shades of red, she knows what she wants, and more
importantly, how to get it.
Ryan takes hold of himself and hurries away to a more
desolate santuary.
SCENE 6: INTERIOR.TOILET.AFTERNOON
He stands, unable to face himself in the mould-dotted
mirror. Head drooping, he searches for some degree of
serenity within the dirty drain. He clutches the sink as if
it's grounding him in reality.
FLASH. The lion again. Hunting. Killing. Feeding. He's
bombarded with these images again and again.
His knuckles whiten, tight on the sink-rim. He imagines
radio static. The calming frequency. It rises and falls in
his background. An attempt to regain agency. Then-
He looks up into the mirror, dumbstruck. What does he see in
there?
Her. Charity. Silently cut to- her standing in the corridor,
staring at him- into the lens, this time with a smile
painted on her lips.
He calms, slows his breathing. Searching his own face, his
own eyes, he whispers-
RYAN
Who is she?
SCENE 7: EXTERIOR.COLLEGE.AFTERNOON
Leaving the toilet he begins to walk back to lesson. A flood
of pupils push past him on their journey home. Ryan pauses
and they pass either side of him. He stares forwards,
towards the camera, towards her.
She stands opposite him, more students flowing past her. We
see no other faces.
They stare at each other like two stones breaking a river
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SCENE 8: INTERIOR.LIVINGROOM.EVENING
The two of them sit silently, side by side, on Ryan's small
living room sofa. The television is on, spraying the room in
painful plasma blues. A red lamp lies beside Ryan's head,
facing away from Charity, side lighting him in warmer tones,
splitting him in half.
Charity smiles, in control. He turns to look at her,
confused by the television. Why does she enjoy this? He
tries to empathise. His head rotates back forward, trying to
unpick her chosen program.
Sensing movement, she turns to look at him instead, watching
smugly, a voyeur ensuring her trap has been set. She turns
back to the television and queries-
CHARITY
(one, concise clause)
So what do you do?
Ryan turns back to her once again, pondering, pausing-
SCENE 9: INTERIOR.CAR.NIGHT
RYAN
(V.O.)
I drive, I enjoy driving. I enjoy
driving at night.
They drive. He drives. She, in the passenger seat, watches.
They're in a city at night, lit by the saturated neon shop
windows and advertisements, blurring into a continuous
stream of raw, watery colour. It has rained recently. The
wet floor acting as a dingy mirror to this world of primary
colours.
Air's 'Sex born poison' rises in the background, as she
twists the volume control. Very quiet.
RYAN
(cont'd V.O.)
I like to see all the different
people. So many faces. So many
masks.
Charity glances at Ryan's hands as he smoothly plays the
wheel into a curve of road before turning to look into his
face once again.
They continue talking, in voice-over- out of sync with the
footage, as if the conversation takes place more in the mind
than in person.
CHARITY
(cont'd V.O.)
So you're a voyeur. A creep. A
stalker.
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She smiles at her 'revalation', as self indulgent as a
pyschiatrist.
Ryan takes his time to answer, smiling coldy.
RYAN
(cont'd V.O.)
I like the nightlife
CHARITY
We should go somewhere.
SCENE 10: INTERIOR.UNDERGROUND.LATE
Charity leads Ryan, by hand, through the flashing, strobing
basement. EXTREME SLOW MOTION. The lights flash only once
every other second, giving the movement a stop motion,
unreal quality. The audio is distorted with a low pass
filter, Ryan is underwater, submerged, claustrophobic. An
animal without an exit.
The bass becomes pulse like, a heartbeat.
She stops pulling him, they stand still. She shouts
something at him he cannot hear. No one else is visible,
just them, and black. She walks away from him, leaving his
arms outstretched- confused.
He stares at her, conversing with a small group of two,
under the throbbing lights.
He stares. CU their mouths, talking. Ryan is lit top down,
shrouding his eyes in permanent darkness. The static noise
rises.
FLASH. The lion returns.
'Sex born poison' crescendos.
SCENE 11: INTERIOR.KITCHEN.EVENING
Ryan is cooking again. In times of distress, anger and fear
this is his solution. His coping mechanism. He seeks control
and order, only to find it in the minute precision of
biology and food preparation. Reading from a textbook-
RYAN
(V.O.)
The puffer or Fugu fish is a
Japanese delicacy. However, every
year there are between twenty and
fourty known cases of poisoning as
a direct result of the fish.
Dangerous parts of the animal
include the skin, the intestines,
the eyes, the kidneys, the ovaries
and the liver. If prepared with the
slightest wrong, the meal could be
the diner's-
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A knock at the door. This is unusual. Drawn from his focus
like a crab from it's shell he pauses.
CHARITY
(V.O.)
Doesn't your doorbell work?
RYAN
(V.O.)
Why are you here?
CHARITY
(V.O.)
I wanted to see you
JUMP CUT, she's in the kitchen.
She quickly moves into Ryan's domain, leaving her coat and
bags on the floor, sizing up the space- now hers to command.
CHARITY
You shouldn't leave it so quiet
everywhere. Don't you ever find it
creepy?
She moves for the radio, twisting the knobs with little
appreciation for the music until she can hear anything other
than static.
RYAN
No
CHARITY
What were you doing?
Ryan stands beside his worktop, still laden with knives and
bone.
SCENE 12: INTERIOR.LIVINGROOM.LATE
They sit, once again, on the worn sofa. Side by side. Still
spaced slightly apart. Staring forward. Comatose. Letting
the television do the talking so they don't have to. An
array of dirtied plates lie scattered around them. Hours of
work, hours of agonising to create this meal and have it
squandered on the settee. The vivid blue under lights them
in cold, sterile fashion. Ryan is still backlit with the
contrasting red lamp.
They sit silently like this for a long time. Until...
Charity reaches forward to the remote and changes the
channel. Fast flashing blues and reds light the living room.
She leans back into the cushion, turning to face Ryan and
shuffling closer to him along the sofa.
They sit. They stare. She reaches forward with her hand, to
touch his face, place her palm on his cheek. Her palm nears
and he flinches. She falls back. She continues trying to
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tame him, touch his visage- the centre of his being- under
her fingertips. He's nervous, a foal. She's unrelenting, a
storm. Like a pair of animals they play this game, back and
forth, moving closer, step by step, under the pulsing blue
lightening. Finally touching one another, she stands,
bringing him up with her, slowly.
SCENE 13: INTERIOR.HALLWAY.LATE
Hand in hand, they walk down the long straight corridor
leading to Ryan's bedroom. The televison blues and reds
cascade down the hall, fighting for wall space with a
vibrant life of their own.
FADE.
SCENE 14: INTERIOR.BEDROOM.MORNING
Ryan slowly opens his eyes. He sits up in bed. He turns to
her, Charity, faced away from him on her side. He pauses,
watching her movement, her slow breathing, any signs of
consciousness. His eyes wander down her figure and then back
up. He leans carefully down to place his hand on her neck-
not to harm- but to test the rigidity.
The morning air is thick with silence. Ryan closes his eyes,
relaxing into the power on his fingertips. His jaw slackens
and for the first time, a thin smile curls upwards around
the lips of his jowls.
CUT.
Charity CU, on her side eyes open. Whether her inaction is
out of fear or pleasure we do not know. She simply stares
away from him despite his pawing at her throat.
The morning alarm rings, carving a deep line through the
viscous quiet. Ryan withdraws his hands, taking care not to
bump or nudge her. As he leans back against the bed
satisfied, she begins to 'wake uo', splaying her arms in
almost comic theatricality.
RYAN
How did you sleep?
She is non responsive, simply standing and pulling more
clothes over her night-wear. She moves to the radio-alarm
and fumbles with it, trying to mute the sound but only
succeeding in turning the switch to FM; Roxy Music 'In every
dream home a heartache' plays quietly in the background.
Ryan's smile fades, streaming into blankness. He gets out of
bed to join her.
She sits by the dresser, fiddling with her 'makeup bag'. He
moves behind her and places his hands ominously on her
shoulders.
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RYAN
I've never understood why girls
wear makeup
Charity stands, turning towards him- removing his hands in
the process. He backs off slightly.
CHARITY
When I leave today I'm not coming
back
If his smile was wounded before, it's now six feet under.
CHARITY
There's a lot you've 'never
understood'- I thought you were
just lonely but you're not-
You're not like other people-and
that's not a good thing-
The diegetic audio of her speech fades, leaving just the
inaudible bass of her voice. Each line a new jab at his
character, a new knife in his back. Ryan's eyes are locked
on hers, but his mind is far away.
Eyes ECU. Each blink perusing a new part of her body. He
sees her for the first time, what she could become: her
thigh,
CUT. A roasting slab of meat.
Her fingers-
CUT. Nuts cracking at the joints.
Her eyeballs,
CUT. Fat sizzling.
The meaty meal lies in a greased tray, waiting in the oven.
CU. He looks down into the oven, into the lens. The waving
heat distorts his lower face. Could that be smile on his
lips? A deep, hungry smile? He slowly closes the oven door-
wiping the frame to black.
Beat.
Back in the bedroom. They stare at one another- pausing.
Ryan's eyes bloom, muscles that he didn't even know were
there contracting his face into a manic, contorted grin. A
grin of madness, a millesecond before-
'In every dream home a heartache' crescendos into
non-diegetic purity- the radio filter is lifted and: Bryan
Ferry: "But you blew my mind".
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EXTREME SLOW MOTION. 120 FPS. All diegetic noise is lost in
this blood frenzy. Disjointed images.
Charity's hand smashes into the wooden floorboards, bouncing
off them like a rag doll. Bass ripplies out on her hand's
impact, giving the action exagerated weight.
Negative blend-mode credits run over the footage. Seventies,
Tarantino-esque font.
The landline telephone flies through the air, the chord
taught and stretching.
Then Ryan, over Charity, roaring down in gloriously
agressive slow motion, receiver in hand, bringing it down
onto her forehead. Bass only of his vocal uproar.
CUT TO BLACK.
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