Testi Soundtracks :: S
Sunset Boulevard - The House On Sunset (Interior)
A table has been cleared for JOE in the main room. HE sits at the typewriter, the manuscript piled at his elbow , a pencil held between his teeth, scissors and a pot of paste at hand. NORMA is on the sofa signing photos to fans, with MAX in attendance.
JOE
I started work on the script
I hacked my way through the thicket
A maze of fragmented ramblings
by a soul in limbo
She hovered there like a hawk
afraid I'd damage her baby.
(JOE drops a page of manuscript into the waste-paper basket and NORMA reacts instantly.)
NORMA
What's that?
JOE
I thought we might cut away from the slave market...
NORMA
Cut away from me?
JOE
Norma, they don't want you in every scene.
NORMA
Of course they do. What else would they have come for? Put it back.
(HE sighs and retrieves the page. Presently, SHE leaves the room. Once she's gone, JOE drops the page back into the waste-paper basket and turns to the audience.)
JOE
I'd made my first big mistake
I'd put my foot in the quick sand
It wouldn't be a few days paste and scissors
This would take weeks.
The house was always so quiet
Just me and Max and that organ
No one phoned and nobody ever came
And there was only one kind of entertainment on hand.
Max, what's on this evening?
I hope it's not one of her weepy melodramas.
MAX
We'll be showing one of
Madame's enduring classics:
"The Ordeal Of Joan Of Arc"
JOE
Oh, God, we saw that last week.
MAX
A masterpiece can never fall
She is the greatest star of all.
(During this MAX has been busying himself, setting up a projector and lacing the reels. JOE wanders over to take his place on the sofa. Eventually, NORMA sweeps in, dressed to the nines and settles down next to JOE. MAX switches on the projector and the beam, radiates across the auditorium. For a while, the whirr of the projector; NORMA watches, entranced; while JOE, far more detached, lights himself a cigarette, the smoke drifting across the light-beam.)
NORMA
This was dawn
there were no rules,
we were so young.
Movies were born;
so many songs
yet to be sung.
So many roads
still unexplored;
we gave the world
new ways to dream.
Somehow we found
new ways to dream.
(SHE takes JOE's arm excitedly and points up at the screen, somewhere above the audience's heads.)
Joan of Arc:
look at my face,
isn't it strong?
There in the dark,
up on the screen,
where I belong.
We'll show them all
nothing has changed.
We'll give the world
new ways to dream
Everyone needs
new ways to dream
("WITH ONE LOOK" returns as under-scoring.
By now SHE's gripping on to JOE, who detaches himself gently and moves to the other end of the sofa, where HE turns to contemplate NORMA, who's still staring ecstatically at the screen.)
JOE
I didn't argue,
why hurt her?
You don't yell at the sleepwalker
or she could fall and break her neck.
She smelled of faded roses.
It made me sad to watch her
as she relived her glory.
Poor Norma,
so happy,
lost in her silver heaven.
(NORMA continues to watch, and JOE watches her.)
NORMA
Nothing has changed
We'll give the world
new ways to dream.
Everyone needs
new ways to dream.
(JOE is touched; HE reaches out and takes her hand.)
FADE TO BLACK
JOE
I started work on the script
I hacked my way through the thicket
A maze of fragmented ramblings
by a soul in limbo
She hovered there like a hawk
afraid I'd damage her baby.
(JOE drops a page of manuscript into the waste-paper basket and NORMA reacts instantly.)
NORMA
What's that?
JOE
I thought we might cut away from the slave market...
NORMA
Cut away from me?
JOE
Norma, they don't want you in every scene.
NORMA
Of course they do. What else would they have come for? Put it back.
(HE sighs and retrieves the page. Presently, SHE leaves the room. Once she's gone, JOE drops the page back into the waste-paper basket and turns to the audience.)
JOE
I'd made my first big mistake
I'd put my foot in the quick sand
It wouldn't be a few days paste and scissors
This would take weeks.
The house was always so quiet
Just me and Max and that organ
No one phoned and nobody ever came
And there was only one kind of entertainment on hand.
Max, what's on this evening?
I hope it's not one of her weepy melodramas.
MAX
We'll be showing one of
Madame's enduring classics:
"The Ordeal Of Joan Of Arc"
JOE
Oh, God, we saw that last week.
MAX
A masterpiece can never fall
She is the greatest star of all.
(During this MAX has been busying himself, setting up a projector and lacing the reels. JOE wanders over to take his place on the sofa. Eventually, NORMA sweeps in, dressed to the nines and settles down next to JOE. MAX switches on the projector and the beam, radiates across the auditorium. For a while, the whirr of the projector; NORMA watches, entranced; while JOE, far more detached, lights himself a cigarette, the smoke drifting across the light-beam.)
NORMA
This was dawn
there were no rules,
we were so young.
Movies were born;
so many songs
yet to be sung.
So many roads
still unexplored;
we gave the world
new ways to dream.
Somehow we found
new ways to dream.
(SHE takes JOE's arm excitedly and points up at the screen, somewhere above the audience's heads.)
Joan of Arc:
look at my face,
isn't it strong?
There in the dark,
up on the screen,
where I belong.
We'll show them all
nothing has changed.
We'll give the world
new ways to dream
Everyone needs
new ways to dream
("WITH ONE LOOK" returns as under-scoring.
By now SHE's gripping on to JOE, who detaches himself gently and moves to the other end of the sofa, where HE turns to contemplate NORMA, who's still staring ecstatically at the screen.)
JOE
I didn't argue,
why hurt her?
You don't yell at the sleepwalker
or she could fall and break her neck.
She smelled of faded roses.
It made me sad to watch her
as she relived her glory.
Poor Norma,
so happy,
lost in her silver heaven.
(NORMA continues to watch, and JOE watches her.)
NORMA
Nothing has changed
We'll give the world
new ways to dream.
Everyone needs
new ways to dream.
(JOE is touched; HE reaches out and takes her hand.)
FADE TO BLACK
