MARY (Gesturing and chuckling) No, No, I’m serious. You wanna walk by the river? We can - IKE (Interrupting) You know what time it is now? MARY What do you mean what time is it? IKE Well, if I don’t get at least sixteen hours, I’m a basket case. MARY (Sighing) Oh.Well, I’d like to hear about your book. I-I-and I’m-I really would, you know.I’m-I’m quite a good editor. IKE Yeah? MARY (Nodding her head) Uh-huh. Ike picks up the takeout bag. The sounds of ‘Someone to watch Over Me” begins again as Mary and Ike walk out of the luncheonette, deep in discussion. Their voices are heard as they leave; the camera stays focused on the almost empty coffee shop. IKE (Offscreen, walking out of the luncheonette) Well, my book is about decaying values. It’s about…See, the thing is, years ago, I wrote a short story about my mother called “the Castrating Zionist.” And, um, I wanna expand it into a novel. MARY (Offscreen) That’s good. IKE (Offscreen) You know, I could talk about my book all night. “Someone to Watch Over Me” is still playing as the film switches to the 59th street Bridge. It is almost dawn and the scene has a nearly perfect feel of light and beauty to it. Mary and Ike, their backs to the camera, are sitting on a bench looking over the water. Waffles is curled up at their feet. MARY (contentedly) Isn’t it beautiful, Ike? IKE Yeah, it’s really-really so pretty when the light starts to come up. MARY Oh, I know, I love it. IKE Boy - MARY Hm. IKE (Sighing) -this is really a great city. I don’t care what anybody says. It’s just so-really a knockout, you know? It’s- MARY (Interrupting, sighing) Yeah.I think I better head back.I have an appointment with Yale for lunch later on. IKE (Sighing too) Hm. They get up from the bench and walk away. The music stops.
And a moment is created on-screen, with all the whim and fancy of love, life, the women and the city, right music and the right words, the visual is created waiting to be relived, recreated, off the screen. The language of screenplay/script writing is so influential, that even the mundane little things seems whimsical, under the right vocabulary. And the addiction provides an instant set of colored glasses to see the world. An elevated point of view that makes the whole scenery, a playground. Becoming conscious of the intricate responses;
the loss of focus in the eyes following the loss of interest in a lecture, the prodding of the food, continued with the nodding of the head, while the girl keeps rambling on, a girl playing with her foot in the sand, while her ‘best friend’ is worried about her future, seems intricately scripted, and replayed.
The depth of the screenplay lies in its details. Details that run beyond the dialogues, and the chemistry of the actors. It lies in the Indian music in the background, while Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are getting comfortable with each other in the suburban New Jersey home (in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind)., lies in the right typography on the walls, that relate to the dialogues, in the movie Stardust memories or the juxtapose of a pop song about ‘California dreaming’ in a Hong Kong fast food restaurant, in the middle of the night (in Chungking express), elevates ordinary intimacy into a surreal one.
The continued foreplay between the moment becoming a surreal one and contributing harmonics through the colored glasses, throws out a sense surrealism in real life. An odd moment where you recognize things coming together, without being scripted, an involuntary engagement with an unknown surroundings, unfamiliar language but still there is harmony. Momentary sense of poetic pleasure that seems perfect., (with a fear of losing it when tried to share.)
The city offers many such moments. Odd and unexpected and, many. The most recent one brings back the stage set in Chunking express, a Chinese fast food place, at 1am and music that, was beyond any logical understanding but was absolutely perfect to create harmony, while we waited to get our ‘Veg roll’ and ‘extra spicy fried rice’. Poetic pleasure?
