Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Quick.
We can't hold them back much longer.
Hurry.
- Come on!
- Get up!
Quick!
Faster!
Open the doors. Come on, quickly!
Just read them the sentence.
The sentence of the court
is that in two days hence
the perfumerjourneyman
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille
shall be bound to a wooden cross
with his face raised toward heaven.
with an iron rod
breaking the joints of his arms,
his shoulders,
his hips,
his legs.
to hang until dead
and all customary acts of mercy
are expressly forbidden
the executioner.
In 18th-century France,
there lived a man who was
one of the most gifted
and notorious personages
of his time.
His name was
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille,
and if his name has been
forgotten today, it is
for the reason that his ambition
was restricted to a domain
that leaves no trace in history:
To the fleeting realm of scent.
In the period of which we speak,
there reigned
in the cities a stench
barely conceivable to us
modern men and women.
Naturally, the stench
was foulest in Paris,
for Paris was
the largest city in Europe.
stench more profoundly repugnant
than in the city's fish market
Here we are.
I'll get another box.
It was here, then, on the most
putrid spot in the whole kingdom,
that Jean-Baptiste Grenouille
was born
on the 17th of July, 1738.
It was his mother's fifth birth.
She'd delivered them all here
under her fshstand,
and all had been stillbirths,
or semi- stillbirths,
You all right?
And the whole mess was shoveled
with the f/shguts into the river.
It would be
much the same today
but then,
Jean-Baptiste chose differently.
What's that noise?
- It's a baby.
- What's going on here?
It's a newborn.
Where's its mother?
She was just here.
She tried to kill it.
Her own child.
She tried to kill her baby!
There! There she is!
Stop! Stop where you are!
Murderer!
Thus, the frst sound
to escape Grenouille's lips
sent his mother to the gallows
and Jean-Baptiste,
by offcial order,
to the orphanage
of Madame Gaillard.
How many today?
Four. Well, three and a half.
As usual, more dead than alive.
Just take the money and sign.
Make room.
- Where?
- Move!
Go on, now.
Is it dead?
That's not staying in my bed.
- Let's throw it out, then.
- What if it screams?
Let's just kill it.
Harder! Push!
What are you doing?
For Mme Gaillard, Grenouille was a
source of income, like any other.
The children, however,
sensed at once
that there was something
different about him.
By the age of fve, Jean-Baptiste
still could not talk.
But he was born with a talent that
made him unique among mankind.
It was not that the other
children hated him,
they felt unnerved by him.
Increasingly he became aware that
his phenomenal sense of smell
was a gift that had been
given to him, and him alone.
When Jean-Baptiste
he soon found that everyday
language proved inadequate
for all the olfactory experiences
accumulating within himself.
Wood.
Warm wood.
Grass.
Wet grass.
Stones.
Warm stones.
Water.
Cold water.
Frog.
Wet stones.
Big, wet frog stones.
Something.
Something.
Something.
By 13, Mme Gaillard no longer
had room for Jean-Baptiste
and therefore
decided to sell him.
Come on.
Ten francs.
From his frst breath of the odor
enveloping this man...
Seven, and not one sou more.
...Grenouille knew that
his life in Grimal's tannery
would be worth precisely as much
as the work he could accomplish.
Unfortunately for Madame Gaillard,
the bargain was short-lived.
Life expectancy in the tannery
was a mere f/ve years
but Jean-Baptiste proved to be
as tough as a resilient bacterium.
He adjusted to his new fate
and became a paragon
of docility and diligence.
Slaved 15, 16 hours a day,
summer and winter.
Gradually he became aware
of a world beyond the tannery,
where a Utopia of unexplored
smells lay in store for him.
Grenouille!
Come with us. I'm taking you
to town for delivery.
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille
had triumphed.
He was alive
and at last he was
in his element.
He was not choosy.
He did not differentiate between
what are good smells from bad,
at least not yet
He was very greedy.
The goal was to possess everything
the world had to offer in odors.
His only condition being,
that they were new ones.
Thousands upon thousands of odors
formed an invisible gruel
which he dissected into its
Grenouille!
Come on!
Get your ass over here!
by next week. Can you do that?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- Yeah, come with me.
What is it called?
"Amor and Psyche", madame.
My latest creation.
May I try it?
If you'll allow me, mademoiselle.
Sheer heaven!
Monsieur Pelissier,
you are truly an artiste.
Please, take them.
I've got far too many.
What do you want?
Want to buy some?
Two for a sou.
Next time you run off like that,
I'll kill you!
That night, he could not sleep.
The intoxicating power of the
girl's scent made it clear to him
why he'd come to his own life
so tenaciously, so savagely.
The purpose of his miserable
existence had a higher destiny.
He would learn
how to preserve scent
lose such sublime beauty.
There were about a dozen
perfumers in Paris in those days.
One of them, the once- celebrated
Italian perfumer, Giuseppe Baldini,
had set up shop in the center of
the bridge called Pont au Change
on his arrival in Paris
To be sure, at one time in
his youth, Baldini had created
to which he owed his fortune.
But now Baldini was
out of touch, out of fashion,
and spent his days waiting for
customers that no longer came.
- Chnier! There you are!
- Monsieur Baldini.
Put on your wig.
Put on your wig!
You going out?
I wish to retire to my study
for a few hours
and do not want to be disturbed
under any circumstances.
Will you be creating a new
perfume, Monsieur Baldini?
Correct. For Count Verhamont.
He has asked for something like...
I think he said it was called
Amor and Psyche from that swindler
in the Rue Saint Andr des Arts.
Pelissier?
Pelissier, that's him.
Amor and Psyche!
Do you know it?
everywhere these days, monsieur.
In fact, I just
purchased you a sample.
In case you wanted to test it.
What on earth makes you think I'd
be interested in testing it?
You're right.
It's nothing special.
Actually
it's a very common scent.
I believe the head chord
contains lime oil.
Really? And the heart chord?
And civet in the base chord,
but, you know,
I cannot say for sure.
Well, I couldn't care less
what that bungler Pelissier
- slops into his perfumes.
- Naturally not, monsieur.
And I am thinking of creating
something for Count Verhamont
that will cause
a veritable sensation.
I'm sure it will,
Monsieur Baldini.
Take charge of the shop, Chnier,
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"Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/perfume:_the_story_of_a_murderer_15772>.
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