Jaws Page #18

BRODY:

You're at the Institute full time?

Or do you have a job?

HOOPER:

(a nerve has been

touched)

It is a job. I'm not fooling around

like some amateur. It's my life!

BRODY:

We gotta get back soon...

WIDE ON THE "FASCINATIN' RHYTHM" AS IT SWINGS AROUND

The two men looking very small and vulnerable in the open

sea, the low-hanging mist obscuring their visibility in the

night.

CLOSE ON BRODY:

He hears something, his eyes widen. It is the "bump-thump"

of something scraping the hull.

BRODY:

Hey!

Hooper looks up and cuts the wheel hard, as the same time

dropping the engines into neutral, and then reverse. The

sudden change throws Brody to his knees.

BRODY:

What the hell?

ANGLE FROM HOOPER'S BOAT: GARDNER'S BOAT "FLICKA" AWASH AND

FLOATING DEAD IN THE SEA

It's what they've just run into -- flooded to the gunwales,

loose debris floating around, a tangle of lines and gear

looking like floating garbage in the cockpit. Hooper's light

sweeps across it.

BRODY:

That's Ben Gardner's boat! It's the

Flicka! Ben? Ben!

Hooper cuts his engines and drifts in; he scampers out to

the bow of his boat and makes a line fast to the Flicka.

INSIDE THE COCKPIT OF HOOPER'S BOAT

The electronic display is showing increased activity, but

only Brody, who is clinging to a support for dear life, can

see the blips and hear the chatter. Hooper is leaning out to

look at the Flicka.

THE TWO BOATS:

Hooper is examining the Flicka, tying a towline to it.

INSERT HIS POINT OF VIEW

The light picks its way across the ruined boat. The rail

where a cleat once was is broadly scarred down to the raw

timber, and the heady cleat has been torn bodily out of the

hull, ripped out screws and all.

HOOPER'S BOAT

Something he has seen moves Hooper.

BRODY:

What happened?

HOOPER:

I want to check something. Hold my

feet.

He sticks his head over the side, into the black water.

BRODY:

Don't they have lifejackets or

something? An extra boat?

HOOPER:

(surfacing)

They must've hit something.

INSERT, ELECTRONICS DISPLAY

Blip, chatter, blip, chatter.

BRODY AND HOOPER

Hooper moves to get a better look, the boat rocks in the

swell and from his movement, Brody clutches the rail in a

death-grip.

Hooper goes below decks, getting into his wet suit, buckling

on a weighted belt, holding a mask and hot flashlight.

HOOPER:

He didn't have a dinghy aboard. I'm

going down to take a look at his

hull.

BRODY:

Why don't we just tow it in?

HOOPER:

(hyperventilating)

We will. There's something I've got

to find out.

BRODY:

Be careful, for chrissake.

Hooper takes a last few breaths, orients himself, takes a

long, hard look at the quiet, open ocean, and falls into the

sea.

CLOSE ON BRODY:

He is studying the surface, trying to follow Hooper's

movements. Brody is forcing himself to stay at the edge of

the boat by sheer willpower and grim determination. Brody is

fascinated by the sea like a bird facing a cobra. He is very

much alone. He grasps a flashlight or boathook as a fragile

defense against the unknown.

PAST BRODY'S BACK TO THE ELECTRONICS

Beep, chatter, blip.

UNDERWATER SEQUENCE - HOOPER

Hooper descends in a froth of bubbles. Warily he turns a

full circle with his hotlight. At first we see nothing out

of place about the Flicka except that it is lying so low in

the water. But as Hooper travels the bottom looking for

damage, he comes across a jagged hole two-thirds of the way

forward.

The hole is about the size of a basketball, and the wood

around it has been bashed and splintered. Hooper explores

the hole with his hands, then takes the knife from its sheath

and begins to dig at something. Whatever it is comes free in

his hand. As he studies his find, his light wanders upward,

pointing directly into the dark hole. Hooper looks up...

CLOSE - HOLE

Ben Gardner's dead face stares out through the hole in the

Flicka, eyes and mouth gaping in frozen horror, his skin

pinched like a prune.

CLOSE - HOOPER

bumps his head in trying to get away, seems to yell through

escaping bubbles. We hear the gasping shout as a bubbling

roar in the ears. His mask fills with water as he flails for

the surface. Miscalculating, he bumps into the hull of his

own boat, shocked, dismayed, his system jangling with

adrenaline shock, his hands open, and the object he pried

loose from the hull drifts down and out, falling into the

eternity of the ocean bottom. He finally bursts through the

surface.

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