Nightwatching
(suspenseful cello music)
(slow cello music)
(mob shouting)
(man grunting)
(shouting)
- Blind him!
- Fornicator!
- Gouge out his eyes!
- Dauber!
- Scratch out his eyes!
(indistinct comments)
(crowd shouting)
(dog barking)
- Ah! I can't see!
I can't see!
F***!
Where's the light?
I'm blind. I'm blind!
I'm blind! Oh!
My eyes...
My eyes!
Open your eyes, you fool!
- Stop fooling!
(panting)
Stop your shouting!
- Who is shouting?!
- A blind man shouting!
A blind man shouting!
- Who will listen
to a blind man shouting?!
- Blinded.
Darkness.
Miles...
...and miles...
F***. And miles...
of... painted darkness.
Lit by spasms of light.
If you're lucky.
Open your eyes, you fool!
Miles and miles...
...and miles...
...of painted darkness.
(baby crying)
Emptiness.
Silence.
- Are you all right?
- Oh!
Oh! Oh, God!
(whimpering)
Was that only a nightmare?
Have l-l-I... Have I woken up?
I've been seeing the night.
I was watching the night.
I was looking...
into Darkness.
Darkness without ending.
I was watching Darkness.
I was...
watching... the night.
I was nightwatching.
- You were only dreaming.
- I am blind.
Do I at least look blind?
- You were having a nightmare.
- Can I, in fact, see...
you, Hendrickje? Hmm?
Red-blooded Hendrickje?
Ah?
You see, I know...
I know your blood is red.
Do I remember -
your eyes are blue?
I suspect your piss is yellow!
- Be quiet.
Let me get you
something to drink.
- How would you describe...
colour?
Hmm?
If you were blind?
Hendrickje...
describe the colour red to...
to a blind man.
- You just did.
It's the colour of blood.
- Red is thick to touch.
If you could not tell
what it was by its colour,
you could tell what it was
by its touch.
Red is touchable.
- And it's warm.
And when it grows cold,
it crusts over.
- What is yellow?
- The sun?
Yellow smells.
It's...
it's the smelling colour!
- Yellow is thinner than red.
It's more transparent.
Yellow moves.
Red is static
and becomes solid.
Yellow always moves.
Yellow could be...
a liquid.
New beer.
Urine.
Piss.
It doesn't smell so bad
to begin with.
(urinating)
Then it smells ugly.
- Get dressed.
We're all waiting for you.
(woman singing)
Ineke's pregnant.
- Again?
(laughter)
- You have milk in your beard.
- Why again?
I haven't got a proper beard.
- Because Claus is insatiable.
- Then you should grow a beard.
Successful men wear beards.
- Sanza,
pick up your doll.
- I want to be insatiable...
and wealthy.
(woman still singing)
- Then grow a proper beard.
- You are insatiable.
You could be wealthier.
(singing)
- Hendrickje, stop singing.
- Oh, no. Let her sing.
It's good for the baby.
- How would you know?
- Hendrickje, you're dripping
all over the floor.
- And what else
is good for my baby?
- Milk.
Gallons of fresh milk,
from a Friesian wet-nurse.
- Well, if Saskia's
not breastfeeding,
we shall have to have
Hendrickje breastfeeding.
- Rembrandt, don't be vulgar.
(laughter)
Poor girl isn't a woman yet.
Besides, I shall have
enough milk to make cheese.
(Rembrandt laughing)
- Saskia, don't be vulgar.
There are students present.
- Students are here to learn
and earn us money.
- You mustn't feed him yourself.
- Of course
I'm going to feed him myself.
Geertje, you're old-fashioned.
We are living
in the 17th century.
Women in the 17th century
are allowed to smoke, write,
correspond with Descartes,
wear spectacles,
insult the pope,
and breast-feed babies.
- If you can find a man to pay
for the first and poke you up
for the last.
- Geertje, that's enough.
- Geertje's not old-fashioned.
She wears breeches
between her legs
and garters below her knees.
- And how do you know that,
Hendrickje Stoffels?
- Because
she's a very observant girl.
Saskia,
what have you got there?
- My accounts...
"Contemporary women
are permitted to smoke, write...
(all):
Correspond with Descartes,wear spectacles, insult the pope,
and breast-feed babies."
- And conduct business
with men of substance.
- Oh, I'm a man of substance.
- Mm. Visscher has a list.
- Oh...
He has 12 officers interested.
- No, I'm not going to do it.
- Yes, you are.
At 60 guilders each.
- No, I'm not.
Anyway, that's too low a price.
- Yes, you are,
and it's 720 guilders.
- I'm not. I'm busy.
"Ecce Homo" till May.
"Washing of the Hands" till June.
"Saint Veronica" by August.
- You have
such devoted supporters.
- And then print editions
of the same.
- With golden angels.
I need to find a golden angel.
Ah-hah.
You are modelling Magdalene.
- There was no record
of her being pregnant.
Perhaps Hendrickje
can be an angel?
- Are you pregnant, Hendrickje?
- Angels should be innocent.
- What, even in the 17th century?
- But l-l-I am innocent.
(gunshots)
(cows lowing)
- Painting soldiers
will make me blind.
Blind and fingerless.
Both my father and my brother
by the Dutch artillery -
and not by being shot at,
but by shooting at!
- Rembrandt.
- And painting repetitious rows
of smiling part-time soldiers
is boring
and certainly bad for the eyes.
Not one of them's
though all of them claim
to have pulled
the King of Spain's f***ing beard!
- Here's our captain, Piers Hasselburg,
and our lieutenant,
Jean Egremont.
- Van Rijn.
They tell me
your father was a miller.
Well, so was mine.
We are people of the wind.
- That is always blowing
in contrary directions.
- Taking good advantage,
I am sure,
of where we sail.
- How we sail.
- And making sure
we can sail back.
- With profitable returns.
(chuckling)
- Oh!
I thank you, sir.
- Do not mention it, Madame.
I am a soldier,
but my father is - was -
a flower merchant in Paris.
But now, when Amsterdam
is not besieged by Spaniards,
my business interests, Madame,
are flowers.
- Mm... Miller,
flower-merchant, soldier.
You see
how the Republic goes downhill?
(laughter)
- But now,
we have an opportunity.
- An excuse for a grand
celebratory group portrait.
- This time, on the occasion
of the arrival in Amsterdam
of Mary Stuart,
daughter of the King of England.
- When monarchies are in trouble,
they send their females begging.
- The King of England
is in serious trouble
of losing his throne
to his parliament.
His daughter is here
in Amsterdam
trying to arrange loans.
- And to pawn
the Royal English jewels.
- Oh, sounds desperate.
- No, no. She understands,
and we understand,
that there are many
here in Amsterdam
who will, as likely as not,
help her out,
with considerable profit
to themselves, of course.
- Ourselves.
- And you?
How will that help you out?
- I am looking for a place
in the King of England's household
as a musician and a composer.
My cousin, Ruben's protege,
van Dyk, is at Westminster.
- Then the king had better win.
Hmm?
- So you are to be
the standard-bearer,
the carrier of the flag of Amsterdam.
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"Nightwatching" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 22 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/nightwatching_14817>.
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