Apocalypse Now Redux Page #35

ROXANNE:

Do you know why you can never step

into the same river twice?

WILLARD:

Yeah. Because it's always moving.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. ROXANNE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

Our VIEW starts CLOSE ON Roxanne's hands. She is holding

a long opium pipe. In the other hand she holds a long

tamper with some opium on the end. She handles it expertly

over a small lamp with open flame, heating it, then putting

the bead of opium into the pipe.

ROXANNE:

I used to prepare a pipe for my

husband. It was morphine he took

for the wounds he suffered in his

heart.

She looks over at Willard. They are both lying on her

bed, next to each other.

ROXANNE:

He would rage and he would cry, my

lost soldier. And I said to him,

"There are two of you, don't you

see? One that kills and one that

loves." And he said to me, "I don't

know whether I am animal or a god."

But you are both.

She offers him the pipe, he takes it and inhales the smoke

from the opium, gives it back to her. She smokes also.

ROXANNE:

You want more?

He shakes his head.

ROXANNE:

All that matters is that you are

alive. You are alive, Captain.

That's the truth.

She gets up from the bed, unties one of the strings of the

bed canopy, and takes off her robe, revealing her naked

body. She walks around the bed, untying the other strings.

She approaches him. He reaches up to her.

ROXANNE:

There are two of you, don't you

see? One that kills...and one

that loves.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. RIVER - PBR - DAY

Mist swells up around the river as the boat moves into an

obscure FOG. Willard is up front on the bow, trying to

see what's ahead. The Chief is at the helm.

ED. CLOSE SHOT - THE CHIEF

We catch a glimpse of him, even though we are in the fog,

he can't see a thing. Finally he shuts down the engine

and they coast.

CHIEF:

Can't see nothing. We're stopping.

Willard jumps up and moves to the Chief.

WILLARD:

You're not authorized to stop this

boat, Chief.

CHIEF:

I said I can't see a thing, Captain!

I'm stopping this boat! I ain't

risking no more lives!

WILLARD:

I'm in command here, goddamnit.

You'll do what I say!

CHIEF:

(to Chef)

You see anything, Chef?

Chef is at the back of the boat behind the M50. He searches

the banks.

CHEF:

Why don't they f***ing attack,

man?

ANGLE ON LANCE:

His head back, wailing eerily.

CHEF:

Watch it over there, Chief. Got a

stump.

CHIEF:

Lance, on the fifties.

ANGLE ON THE PBR

We catch glimpses through the moving FOG, all of the men

on the PBR, at their guns, searching the shoreline.

WILLARD (V.O.)

He was close. He was real close.

I couldn't see him yet, but I could

feel him, as if the boat were being

sucked up river and the water was

flowing back into the jungle.

Whatever was going to happen, it

wasn't going to be the way they

called it back in Nah Trang.

SUDDENLY the air is filled with arrows, an avalanche of

arrows in the sky. They come down clattering on the deck.

Chef opens fire.

WILLARD:

Arrows!

CHIEF:

Fire! Chef, open fire! Fire!

Lance! Fire!

ANOTHER ANGLE - ARROWS

Arrows everywhere, primitive spears flung expertly.

ANGEL ON LANCE:

In the front turret, arrows whiz around him. He turns,

smiles, picks one up, looks at it, breaks it in half.

ANGLE ON THE CHEF

Frightened, but almost heroic, firing his weapon and

shouting obscenities at the weird, dancing heathens

attacking him. Arrows fall harmlessly around him.

HIGH ANGLE - THE SKY

Thousands of arrows in the sky come clattering down on the

deck by the Chief.

ANGLE TO GO WITH WILLARD

Amazed...immediately he knows they're harmless, done more

to frighten than to injure. But still, he's never seen

anything like this in all his time in Vietnam, and he knows

in his gut that it is still another message from Kurtz.

He moves to Chef, tries to make him stop firing.

WILLARD:

Chef! Chef, it's okay! Quit

firing! They're just little arrows.

Cut it out! Quiet! Chief, tell

them to hold their fire! They're

just little sticks! They're trying

to scare us!

The Chief picks up his M16 and turns to Willard wildly.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes