Chinatown Page #2
- R
- Year:
- 1974
- 130 min
- 866,773 Views
MRS. MULWRAY
Money doesn't matter to me, Mr.
Gittes.
Gittes sighs.
GITTES:
Very well. We'll see what we can do.
already shimmering with heat. A drunk blows his nose with
his fingers into the fountain at the foot of the steps.
7.
Gittes, impeccably dressed, passes the drunk on the way up
the stairs.
INT. COUNCIL CHAMBERS
Former Mayor SAM BAGBY is speaking. Behind him is a huge
map, with overleafs and bold lettering: "PROPOSED ALTO VALLEJO
DAM AND RESERVOIR" Some of the councilmen are reading funny
papers and gossip columns while Bagby is speaking.
BAGBY:
-- Gentlemen, today you can walk out
that door, turn right, hop on a
streetcar and in twenty-five minutes
end up smack in the Pacific Ocean.
Now you can swim in it, you can fish
in it, you can sail in it -but you
can't drink it, you can't water your
lawns with it, you can't irrigate an
orange grove with it. Remember -we
live next door to the ocean but
we also live on the edge of the
desert. Los Angeles is a desert
community. Beneath this building,
beneath every street there's a desert.
Without water the dust will rise up
and cover us as though we'd never
existed!
(pausing, letting the
implication sink in)
CLOSE - GITTES
sitting next to some grubby farmers, bored. He yawns -- edges
away from one of the dirtier farmers.
BAGBY(O.S.)
(continuing)
The Alto Vallejo can save us from
that, and I respectfully suggest
that eight and a half million dollars
is a fair price to pay to keep the
desert from our streets -- and not
on top of them.
AUDIENCE - COUNCIL CHAMBERS
An amalgam of farmers, businessmen, and city employees have
been listening with keen interest. A couple of the farmers
applaud. Somebody shooshes them.
COUNCIL COMMITTEE
in a whispered conference.
8.
COUNCILMAN:
(acknowledging Bagby)
-- Mayor Bagby... let's hear from
the departments again -- I suppose
we better take Water and Power first.
Mr. Mulwray.
REACTION - GITTES
looking up with interest from his racing form.
MULWRAY:
walks to the huge map with overleafs. He is a slender man in
his sixties, who wears glasses and moves with surprising
fluidity. He turns to a smaller, younger man, and nods. The
man turns the overleaf on the map.
MULWRAY:
In case you've forgotten, gentlemen,
over five hundred lives were lost
when the Van der Lip Dam gave way -core
samples have shown that beneath
this bedrock is shale similar to the
permeable shale in the Van der Lip
disaster. It couldn't withstand
that kind of pressure there.
(referring to a new
overleaf)
Now you propose yet another dirt
banked terminus dam with slopes of
two and one half to one, one hundred
twelve feet high and a twelve thousand
acre water surface. Well, it won't
hold. I won't build it. It's that
simple -- I am not making that kind
gentlemen.
Mulwray leaves the overleaf board and sits down. Suddenly
there are some whoops and hollers from the rear of the
chambers and a red-faced FARMER drives in several scrawny,
bleating sheep. Naturally, they cause a commotion.
COUNCIL PRESIDENT
(shouting to farmer)
What in the hell do you think you're
doing?
(as the sheep bleat
down the aisles toward
the Council)
Get those goddam things out of here!
FARMER:
(right back)
Tell me where to take them!
(MORE)
9.
FARMER (CONT'D)
You don't have an answer for that so
quick, do you?
Bailiffs and sergeants-at-arms respond to the imprecations
of the Council and attempt to capture the sheep and the
farmers, having to restrain one who looks like he's going to
bodily attack Mulwray.
FARMER:
(through above, to
Mulwray)
-- You steal the water from the
valley, ruin the grazing, starve my
livestock -- who's paying you to do
that, .Mr. Mulwray, that's what I
want to know!
It's virtually empty. Sun blazes off it's ugly concrete banks.
Where the banks are earthen, they are parched and choked
with weeds.
After a moment, Mulwray's car pulls INTO VIEW on a flood
control road about fifteen feet above the riverbed. Mulwray
gets out of the car. Me looks around.
WITH GITTES:
holding a pair of binoculars, downstream and just above the
flood control road -- using some dried mustard weeds for
cover. he watches while Mulwray makes his way down to the
center of the riverbed. There Mulwray stops, tuns slowly,
appears to be looking at the bottom of the riverbed, or -at
nothing at all.
GITTES:
trains the binoculars on him. Sun glints off Mulwray's
glasses.
BELOW GITTES:
There's the SOUND of something like champagne corks popping.
Then a small Mexican boy atop a swayback horse rides it into
the riverbed, and into Gitte's view.
MULWRAY:
himself stops, stands still when he hears the sound. Power
lines and the sun are overhead, the trickle of brackish water
at his feet. He moves swiftly downstream in the direction
of the sound, toward Gittes.
10.
GITTES:
moves a little further back as Mulwray rounds the bend in
the river and comes face to face with the Mexican boy on the
muddy banks. Mulwray says something to the boy. The boy
doesn't answer at first. Mulwray points to the ground. The
boy gestures. Mulwray frowns. He kneels down in the mud and
stares at it. He seems to be concentrating on it. After a
moment, he rises, thanks the boy and heads swiftly back
upstream -- scrambling up the bank to his car. There he
reaches through the window and pulls out a roll of blueprints
or something like them - he spreads them on the hood of his
car and begins to scribble some notes, looking downstream
from time to time. The power lines overhead HUM. He stops,
listens to them -- then rolls up the plans and gets back in
the car. He drives off.
GITTES:
Hurries to get back to his car. He gets in and gets right
back out. The steamy leather burns him. He takes a towel
from the back seat and carefully places it on the front one.
He gets in and takes off.
Street lights go on.
MULWRAY:
pulls up, parks. Hurries out of the car, across the park
lawn and into the shade of some trees and buildings.
GITTES:
pulls up, moves across the park at a different angle, but in
the direction Mulwray had gone. He makes it through the trees
in time to see Mulwray scramble adroitly down the side of
the cliff to the beach below. Be seems in a hurry. Gittes
moves after him - having a little more difficulty negotiating
Gittes looks to his right - where the bay is a long, clear
crescent. He looks to his left - there's a promontory of
sorts. It's apparent Mulwray has gone that way. Gittes
hesitates, then moves in that direction -- but climbs along
the promontory in order to be above Mulwray.
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"Chinatown" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 22 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/chinatown_73>.
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