Gattaca

FADE IN:

A white title appears on a black screen.

"As night-fall does not come at once, neither

does oppression...It is in such twilight that

we all must be aware of change in the air

- however slight - lest we become victims of

the darkness."

Justice William O. Douglas

The title fades off, replaced by a second title.

"I not only think that we will tamper with

Mother Nature, I think Mother wants us to."

William Gaylin

The second title fades off, leaving a dark screen.

The darkness gradually gives way to a dawning light.

We are confronted with sight of a barren, empty landscape. A

wide expanse of wasteland.

Suddenly, without warning, an elephant tusk falls from the sky

and crashes onto the parched ground. The earth-shuddering

impact causes the tusk to rebound once in slow motion before

finally settling to the desert floor in a cloud of dust.

The first tusk is quickly followed by a second, also dropping

from the heavens. It lands near the first. Another tusk

smashes to earth several yards away. Yet another comes crashing

into the foreground.

Finally the dust settles upon a graveyard of tusks.

DISSOLVE TO:

A BARREN, EMPTY LANDSCAPE

In another region of the wasteland, a forest of tree trunks

suddenly rains down from the sky. The trunks thump to the hard

ground, also rebounding in slow motion. Cleanly sawn,

branchless, palm-like trunks, they come to rest in the dust only

to be followed by a second cascade of lumber.

When the dust finally clears. the felled tree trunks lie in a

huge, log-jam in the desert.

DISSOLVE TO:

A BARREN, EMPTY LANDSCAPE

Next to descend from the sky, a torrent of firewood. One shower

after another, crashing to the plain. Enough chopped lumber to

fuel a thousand hearths.

DISSOLVE TO:

A BARREN, EMPTY LANDSCAPE

Joining the rest of the debris is a deluge of slate - sheets

of shale from a great unseen quarry in the sky come slamming to

earth. Some of the pieces shattering, some rebounding into the

air until the granite litters acres of landscape as far as the

eye can see.

TITLES ARE SPACED APPROPRIATELY THROUGHOUT THE PRECEDING

SEQUENCE. THE FINAL TITLE READS:

T H E N O T - T O O - D I S T A N T F U T U R E

The camera commences a long, slow pull-back from the pile of

elephant tusks. Gradually they are revealed as human

fingernails magnified many hundreds of times.

The tree trunks are mere hair follicles. The firewood,

whiskers. The slate, flakes of skin.

INT. INCINERATOR. EARLY MORNING.

A naked MAN, thirties, seen in profile, is crouched upon a metal

floor inside a small, brushed stainless steel tank, rubbing his

skin raw with a wire brush. JEROME MORROW.

Having completed his scrupulous ablutions, Jerome arches his

lean frame through the small, oval door of the metal room

with practised ease.

Securing the thick, fireproof windowed door behind himself, he

turns a switch to release gas into the vacated chamber. The gas

instantly ignites in what is now revealed to be a gleaming

modern stainless-steel custom-made incinerator.

We refocus on a MAGNIFIED CLOSE UP of his exfoliated flesh in

the incinerator as it blackens, curls and burns.

Jerone covers himself with a silk robe and steps into a pair of

backless slippers.

INT. EUGENE'S CONDOMINIUM. EARLY MORNING.

JEROME emerges from the incinerator room into a large, luxurious

loft-style condo containing a bizarre assortment of equipment -

arranged somewhat like a production line.

Long, scrupulously clean metal work benches are arranged along

one entire wall. Laid out on the benches in neat rows are

dozens of plastic bags - some filled, some unfilled. Instruments

on trays - various types of tweezers, scissors and other less

familiar utensils. Round, stainless steel containers filled

with hairs of differing lengths and other body matter.

JEROME approaches another man slumped over one of the benches.

EUGENE. He clutches an empty vodka bottle. He is snoring

lightly - sleeping off the night before. As JEROME gently

prises the bottle out of his hand, we are struck by the

similarity of Eugene's face to Jerome's.

Jerome pulls Eugene's chair back from the desk with surprising

ease. A wheelchair - a modern, ergonomic design. Jerome wheels

Eugene to a bedroom and, with some difficulty, hauls the larger

man onto the bed. Through his alcoholic fog, Eugene feebly co-

operates - his paralyzed legs a particular dead weight.

After covering Eugene with a blanket, Jerome enters a bathroom

containing a surgically-clean stainless steel basin, sink,

shower and toilet.

Beside the toilet stands a large, industrial-style stainless

steel refrigerator.

Donning protective gloves, Jerome opens the liquid-nitrogen

cooled refrigerator. A cloud of condensed water vapor billows

out. Revealed inside the fridge are racks of labelled jars and

silicon pouches - some containing a yellowish liquid, some a

deep, red liquid.

In front of one of the jars is a handwritten shopping list -

"TRUFFLES, CIGS, VODKA". Jerome smiles to himself as he

retrieves the note along with one of the jars. He checks the

jar's label. Satisfied with the date written there, he breaks

the seal and pours the contents into the clear, silicon pouch of

an IV-like device lying on the steel bathroom counter.

He seals the pouch and checks the apparatus by opening the valve

on its fine tube and squirting a small quantity of the liquid

into the nearby toilet bowl, as one would test a syringe. We

remain on Jerome's face as he reaches between his legs and

inserts the pouch.

Reopening the refrigerator, Jerome slides out a tray containing

neat rows of slim, fingertip-sized plastic sachets filled with a

deep, red-colored liquid. He removes his gloves, selects one of

the sachets and carefully adheres the sachet to the pad at the

end of his index finger. He prepares a second sachet for his

middle finger. Jerome then applies skin-colored cover-up makeup

to the sachets, blending them in with the color of his fingers.

JEROME, still dressed in his robe, climbs a large, spiral

staircase to the floor above.

INT. JEROME'S CONDOMINIUM. EARLY MORNING.

He emerges at the top of the staircase into a similarly large,

loft-stlye condominium. Through the floor to ceiling window

that opens onto a balcony we see that dawn is only just starting

to leak into the night sky.

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